Eight Ways to Say You - Micah Chan

    Reading "Eight Ways to Say You" gave me great insight into the many challenges that translators face. Cathy Hirano gave many great examples of these challenges. One that stuck out to me, was the translation of jokes. She gave an example of how in the original Japanese text of a book, a character referenced "Tokugawa Ieyasu," a well-known historical figure in Japan. This was the punchline of a joke, but when translated to English, readers would not find it funny due to Ieyasu not being well-known amongst English readers. As a result, Hirano switched out Ieyasu with Buddha, a more well-known figure. Though they are different in many ways, the switch provided the same humorous effect. This example opened my eyes to how difficult translating jokes could be and how much power a translator can have.

    Another nuance that Hirano highlighted was the use of the word "you" in English vs. Japanese. In English, it is very commonly used, but in Japanese, it is only used in certain contexts and can imply a wide variety of things depending on the version of "you" being used. Hirano made a reference to how a character used the "kimi" , a condescending way to say "you", which prompted an angry reaction. But when translated to English, the angry reaction would seem unwarranted as it doesn't appear that anything wrong was said. To me this really highlighted how big of an impact small details can have on a story and understanding the nuances of every word in Japanese when translating.