Eight Ways to Say You - Matt

 One of the first points that Hirano brings up within "Eight Ways to Say You" is the difficulty of walking between the line of direct translation and changing up the words a little to try and capture the meaning. This can be a difficult obstacle for any translator because you want to be able to capture the meaning of the text that the author has, without taking too much control over the words such that it becomes something that would not have come from the author. One of the methods that she uses is consulting the author about it. She brings up her example of her translating Kazumi Yumoto's book The Spring Tone in which she had used the word "jersey", and she had assumed she was talking about a sweater. But in actuality, after consulting Yumoto, she mean a sweat suit or track suit, and not a sweater at all. This is why it is important for the translators to ask questions even for little things to make sure that they are portraying the correct meaning.

Another interesting part that Hirano Talks about is the culture specific words that can cause a problem. In the book, The Friends, there is a joke where Kiyama blurts out the name of Tokugawa Ieyasu, a famous figure in Japanese history, whom happens to have round and smooth head. Using this in the english translation would prove meaningless since an english reader would not have the knowledge to know about this joke. So instead, they came to the conclusion of using Buddha instead so that they are able to keep the connotation of the Japanese cultural reference, but attaching it to something more known to a different audience so they could still laugh at the joke, and maintain the meaning as much as possible. 

It is interesting to see how much work is put into even the smallest of translations because of how important is can be to the overall meaning and context of the situation at hand. It seems that one of the best ways to try and keep the meaning between translations is going back to the author and seeing if they agree with the translation. There definitely is room for the translator to be creative, but there can sometimes be places that are super important to have the correct translation for the readers to fully understad.