Seidensticker talks about many interesting points of translation. One that stood out to me is the disposition of dark and light, where dark means the Chinese characters and light means the Japanese kana. I too had the same reaction as Seidensticker; I never thought of the beauty of the balance between Chinese characters and Japanese kana. It was also interesting to know about pure Japanese since it was normal for me to think that Japanese always consists of Chinese characters.
Another interesting point is the nuance of girl and woman. For me, it was easy to tell why Shimamura was angry; I felt that it was the vagueness in Japanese that I appreciate. Another phrase I appreciate is the expression Shiru hito zo shiru. I've never thought of an English translation for the phrase, but the one Seindensticker mentions flow very naturally. The Japanese phrase also poses two ways of translation: either translate shiru literally as one meaning or as rendering it as two meanings.
I also liked how Seidensticker says that there is no rule in translation. I also liked how he agreed with the quote "It is possible to train someone to be a critic but not to be a novelist." These moments remind me of how machine learning can translate terms from one language to another. It always makes me wonder how the machine is implemented to translate.
Iris
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