Thoughts on " In Interlingual Hell" and "A Live Dog."

 I thought the two ways that a professional translates from Japanese to English were interesting. I have to say I would much rather translate the second way, which is to read to the end to understand everything I don’t know. This way, I’m equipped with more context, and then I can go back and translate sentence by sentence. Also, I was surprised that translators do a very rough first draft that doesn’t have great transitions or has incomplete details. I thought translators would work chapter by chapter, with fewer drafts but each taking longer.

When talking about giving the translation a title, I really liked how the Japanese title, “nihon seiji no tokushitsu to tenkai,” was changed to “Postwar Japanese Politics at a Turning Point.” It is not a direct translation, but it is much more intriguing (especially by using the word “postwar”), and I can see this book selling a lot more. Then the author talked about reconstructing the opening paragraph. I think the opening paragraph of a book is supposed to hook the reader into the story and give a glimpse of the content of the book, so I agree that the translation should rewrite the opening paragraph. With these two points, I realized that not only does the translation have to be accurate, but it also has to sell. Thus, having an intriguing title and captivating opening paragraph is crucial, even if it is not in the original.

I thought the quote, “the live Dog better than the dead Lion,” had a point. Sometimes the Japanese text is really difficult to translate to English authentically, so the translator has to change the structure or rephrase sentences. The translation may not be authentic to the original, but at least the reader can understand the story. When I first started translating in this class, I tried my best to be authentic to the original by keeping the order in which words were written and not adding things not said. But considering that the English translation is targeted toward mostly Western audiences who don’t have a background in Japanese language or culture, it may be best to reinterpret over being overly authentic.

-Allen