Eight Ways to Say You Comments

I definitely agree with Hirano-san when she says she will approach the piece of work differently when translating an academic piece versus a literature piece in the way that she will, with the author’s permission, expand on the academic translation so that readers of the translation will better understand the material but when it comes to literature and stories of the like, it is a must to strive to remain true to both the essence and style of the original writer to try to convey what they are trying to say. 

Reading about Hirano-san’s experience with translating through cross-cultural boundaries really opened my mind to just how difficult it would be to try to write a sentence that will still stay true to the original copy but will be understood by the foreign audience with the translation especially when it concerns Japanese words/cultural settings that people outside of Japan would not be familiar with. When she translated juku, or cram school, for The Friends, she included a couple sentences-long explanation on what juku is or Western readers would have no idea what cram school would be as we don’t really have any intense preparatory after schools that American students attend. Personally, I don’t know if I would have included that long of an explanation but I wonder what else you could do to convey the meaning of juku. The other thing she mentioned was the difficulty of translating humor that is relevant to Japanese culture or figures that people outside of Japanese wouldn’t get. She mentions that sometimes, the jokes would get completely deleted because it just wouldn’t work in English and she would have to make a new joke that English readers would understand but still keep the same vibe. I find that pretty difficult to do as some jokes just wouldn’t really work the same if you tried to make one in another language. Going to the topic of there being eight ways of saying you in Japanese, because there is so many different ways, casual, gender usages, respectfulness, status, etc. I wonder if translators can somehow convey them in their English translations in a way where readers can differentiate between the tones and situation of the speaking. I also wonder if there are instances where they completely change the main idea or topic of a certain conversation or scene that would better fit a non-Japanese audience’s culture and understanding.

 

Connie