Charles and Riggs commentary

Until I read these writings, I never realized that how unique Japanese-style writing is and how difficult it is to translate to English. For instance, Charles mentions “the argument begins with an assertion, continues with a rhetorical question, proceeds with the reasons for the assertion, and concludes with a repetition of the assertion” and I never thought that this is unique and so different from English until I read this. Since I am used to the Japanese way of writing and I like it, I think that it is unfortunate how the Japanese ways of expressing things get lost during the translation process. However, at the same time, as Riggs mentioned, translation does not have to be a literal translation of Japanese as long as it delivers the correct meanings. Since I started taking this class, I noticed that I tend to translate literally rather than translate the meaning and adjusting to English. In other words, I believe that I am more of a faithful writer than a beautiful writer, using phrases from Charles’s readings. Therefore, I learned a lot from Riggs’s writing where he provides advice on translation. Especially the restructuring of the text part was very useful because I tend to follow the structure of Japanese sentences, which sounds awkward in English sentences. Moreover, I agreed with the metaphors part because I also felt that metaphors in Japanese texts are often very hard to understand for foreign people since they are cultural-specific, so we often need to clarify what the metaphor means. 

 

Mitsy