Hibbett and Nathan

Nathan mentioned how misreading just one syllable or one letter in Japanese could make a huge difference in meanings and it was very interesting because I’ve never thought about this issue. It does not happen that often in English, however, when I thought about Japanese, many words that sound or look similar and there are even words that look the same but have different meanings depending on the context. Especially if the reader is not Japanese, there might be some confusion or misunderstandings due to similar words such as “Kowani” and “Kouni” as he mentioned. I also thought that it is very interesting that the Japanese have kana and katakana, which are different characters but conveys the exact same meanings but creates different tones, and that they don’t have any equivalence in English. I agreed when Hibbets mentioned distinguishing kana and katakana using Italics since that is the only way to create similar nuances in English. Furthermore, I agree with Hibbets that titles are always difficult to translate because titles in Japanese tend to have no subjects so when literally translating into English, the title will be naturally longer and less concise. He gave an example of “Manji” and I was surprised that how much research and effort the translator has to put in just to understand and find the best way of translating the title. The title is very important in any book because that provides the first impression of the story to the readers so it makes sense but this made me realize again how tough it is to be a translator. 

Mitsy