"A Live Dog" and "Notes from Interlingual Hell" (Racky)

 When I was reading "A Live Dog," one part of the text got my attention because it was a really interesting statement. In the text, he said, "Translations are like women: if they are faithful, they are not beautiful; if they are beautiful, they are not faithful."  After this sentence, he even said, "It might be added that translations, like women, must avoid sounding ridiculous if they are to succeed. " I am not really sure why he is being sexist; however, he made important points about how the writing style is different between Japanese and English. 1) Avoiding unnecessary phrases is critical in order to write concise sentences. 2) Repetition is often used in Japan because the sentence sounds better, but it is less appreciated in English writing. Besides these parts, he stated the most difficult part of translating from Japanese to English, is that the expression is different between Japanese and English even in the same circumstances. This is why literal translation is preferred, but one needs to pay attention to meaning.  

Riggs describes the importance of metaphors in Japanese and English texts. If metaphors are specifically related to Japanese culture, then direct translation is not favorable in order to convey the true meaning to English readers. In this case, a reference needs to be posted to avoid the reader's confusion. Structure of the sentence is also different between Japanese and English. Japanese text often has a topic sentence at the bottom and an explanation or context at the top; however, this type of writing style is not preferred in the English writing situation. In English writing, the topic sentence is on the top, and the explanation is on the bottom. However, this is a very difficult case to arrange the order of the sentence from Japanese style to English style because it might not make sense in English writing style. Sometimes author puts the sentence order by order for some reason, and the translator should not change the order. This difference in writing style causes some trouble in translation.