Edward Seidensticker

 "if the translation is better than the original, the translator is doing something that is none of his business to do." This section of the reading struck out to me the most, especially after having done my first translation. When translating Korokke, I always thought to myself how I could improve on the story by adding more descriptive phrases as to further improve on the imagery that I could give the readers. That went to the extent of adding things that weren't remotely in the original text. Now, after having to analyze the translation, I know better to stick as close to the original text as possible and only adding/altering whenever necessary, without deviating from the original. Even then, when translating Amrita, it was hard for me not to add any extra phrases that weren't so necessary just for the sake of better visualization. I think it has to be a constant reminder that to translate is to simply give the original author the same voice in a different language. This also goes hand in hand with the part I read with wanting to correct the author's mistakes and flaws. Evidently, in hindsight, it's easy to point out mistakes or where improvements can be made. But to do that is to not acknowledge that the flaws are those of the original author, and to constantly improve on those without approval from the author is to essentially steal their story and make it your own.

I also was intrigued when he talked about that specific sentence in Shakespeare, where most of the Japanese translations used twice as many words and disrupted the rhythm. To me, the rhythm is simply being able to visualize the story in a way that is the same as the visualization when the original is read. To have to go down to the specifics of similar sentence length and word count is on a whole other level to me, which I might have been doing subconsciously when translating, but now I will consciously start to look at how exactly the author writes their sentences and try to follow suit in that as to create a similar rhythm to the author's text in terms of the physical writing.

- Afiq Amjad