Hibbett and Nathan

Howard Hibbett

This reading was very interesting to me, especially as an English major. I loved learning more about Japanese writers and their parallels to other authors. This also seemed a bit easier to read than Nathan's speech which is even more literary. One thing new that I learned from his speech is about the more theoretical side of translations. The readings before had mostly talked about grammatical techniques and language-specific methods but Hibbett talked about how he had referred to other works of literature and translation while translating. This week and last week, I had also found myself looking up other magazine and newspaper articles to make sure that my translation fitted the style of language that I was translating into. This was also the case while I was translating the poems from before. From this, I also started to understand that a translator doesn't just need to be good at both languages, they also need a wide range of knowledge of world literature. 

John Nathan

Nathan skips the part about his personal history with translation and goes right into a lot of theory. I liked what he said about bringing in the author's “voice” into his work as a translator, but it is definitely very difficult. Even a bilingual person switching between languages will have a different “voice” for each language. Therefore, I realized how good it is that there is specialization amongst translators where they are translating many works of one author, thus grasping their style. I also realized the importance of editing and changing their work afterward as one’s skills and understanding mature. I think I will also need to reread both of these articles in the future after I read more of the literary works mentioned throughout. 

 Celine