"8 Ways to Say You: The Challenges of Translation" Reading Review- Jane

Cathy Hirano discussed a couple of points regarding the difficulties of translation throughout her article. She brings up that translation is not as simple as translating word for word into the desired language due to the underlying cultural assumptions that would not make sense to the new audience. In a lot of cases, the translator has to include extra content to help the reader understand a singular word in the context that it is read in the original language. I think this is interesting because I realize in some cases, when reading subtitles for Japanese shows, some words are changed into something much further from the original word that makes a little more sense in English. However, in my opinion, it still is not as in depth as I would like it to be for it to make more sense in English. At the same time, because it is a subtitle, the words that a translator can use are vary limited as it usually has to keep up with the person speaking. In this case, it is clear that translators are limited in their opportunity to explain culturally assumed texts.

In addition to cultural assumptions, the Japanese language is generally more subtle, emotional and less direct compared to the English language. Because of this, she stated that translating from enlgih to Japanese comes off as rude and over direct; on the other hand, when translating Japanese to English, the word sound emotional and almost childish. This also adds to the difficulties of translating because most languages are reflective of culture. In Japan, being vague and less direct when speaking is more socially acceptable, whereas in English, overly explaining things is avoided and most people get straight to the point. 

Because of the above mentioned challenges, Hirano admitted that it is difficult to bring the emotions that the original text has into the translated text. Humor, for example, is usually culturally specific or a play on words that would be hard to convey when translated. A great example is homophones. I know in Japanese, there are some homophones that can form a sentence that are considered " old man jokes." However, when translated directly to English, it would not make any sense. I notice in these cases, most writers put the equivalent of it in English. Unfortunately, when this route is taken, the joke is no longer the same and not true to the text. Cases like these make translation difficult and it is interesting getting to see how different translators approach problems like that. In the case of Hirano, she stated that she used her imagination and considered the context to help translate the humorous conversations that otherwise would bot make sense if directly translated.