Carpenter Comments - Evan

I really agree with the idea of translating the spirit or atmosphere of a work rather than simply translating its sentences. Language is, after all, just a tool for expressing our thoughts and emotions to one another—and every language does this differently. In the same way that we try to translate our thoughts directly into Japanese, rather than first putting them into English and then into Japanese, we should approach literary translation by first understanding the intended meaning.

Every writer has a specific thought or feeling they want to express, and with the right language skills, anyone can communicate that in another language. Therefore, it should be possible to recreate the same meaning and emotion across languages if the translator fully grasps the original intent. However, while this is true in theory, in practice it can be extremely difficult—sometimes only the original author, or a translator working closely with them, can truly capture that same inner expression.