Terry and Rigg Commentary

Terry:

Terry discusses how difficult it is to translate faithfully because the way Japanese writers write is very different from the accepted standards of good English writing. For example, Japanese writings tend to be really repetitive, include many rhetorical questions, and state the obvious. Because Englishiwriting emphasizes concision, it is up to the translator to decide whether they should keep the Japanese-style writing or completely omit what would be considered 'bad English'. When I translate, I like to keep the passages more concise, even if that means I'm not translating faithfully. I do that when I feel like the extra writing will not add much value to the translation and the understanding of the passage. 

Besides the content of this Terry's essay, I also want to point out the way Terry started the essay with the discussion of women. I do not think labeling women as either "faithful" or "beautiful" is in any way appropriate and relevant to what he is trying to express in the rest of the essay. 

Riggs:
Riggs talked about the two ways translators approach translating: 1) translating sentence by sentence as you go without knowing the ending of the book 2) translating after reading and fully understanding the entire book. I feel like it is better to translate after understanding the text fully especially when translating from Japanese to English. It is already difficult to translate accurately because Japanese and English are very heterogeneous. So important parts of the story may get lost during translation when you don't know the story before you start translating. For homogenous languages, however, I don't think it'll matter as much which method the translator uses. 

Sophia