Alex DeRosa - Comments on Carpenter

 I found the process of transalting words like doki doki and waku waku to be very interesting. I’ve always wondered how best to translate these, since Japanese uses far more onomatopoeia than English does. 

At my Japanese Immersion Summer Camp, we would have “今日のオノマトペ” as part of our morning announcements. Every day a counselor would do charades to act out a Japanese onomatopoeia, like キラキラ or キュンキュン. The counselors weren’t allowed to speak any English, so it was impossible to provide a direct translation. However, after they acted it out my friends and I would discuss and take our best guesses. It was always difficult to arrive at a singular one-word translation, so I definitely understand the difficulty when it comes to translating these words in literature and other media. 

I agree with Carpenter in that I view translation very much as an art form. So much thought goes into each active choice made by the translator, just as a painter puts thought into every stroke.