Seidensticker said that, “You have to make constant choices.” He continues by saying there are many possibilities to choose from, but each possibility is “inadequate when it comes to translation between English and Japanese.” To me, this sounds like a trade-off. Should I sacrifice humor for a longer sentence so the reader understands better? Or should I make a shorter sentence but sacrifice details in the original? It is up to the authors to decide what is best, and this is often a hard decision, as Seidensticker said, “no solution is ideal.” This problem is especially prominent in the context of translating Shakespeare. The renowned British playwright uses Old English and phrases that I don’t see can be translated into Japanese with their full meaning.
Another interesting thing Seidensticker said, during the “Questions and Answers” section, is about using intuition, and intuition can be trained. I wonder what he means by training intuition. He continues by saying, “you can point out to a translator instances of what seem to you a want of feeling, and that comes perhaps near the matter at hand.” I was a bit puzzled by what he is trying to say in this quote, but after some thinking, I think he means that through repetitive feedback from the editor at places where it feels unnatural, the author will eventually develop a sense of intuition, which is interesting.
-Allen Tian
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