Charles Terry brought up an interesting point where he says "translations are like women: if they are faithful, they are not beautiful; if they are beautiful, they are not faithful."Although a bit misogynist, I can definitely see where they were going with this. A pointer Terry brought up is that Japanese and English speakers do not say the same thing under similar circumstances which I agree with simply because they are two separate languages. Understanding this when translating and taking liberties to omit or clarify is an important yet difficult balance to maintain. When speaking in Japanese, I find often that I can't simply think of what I want to say in English and translate it over to Japanese in my head. It's crucial to remember important details of Japanese where for example, the word "no" tend to be avoided. I also find that Japanese sentences can be quite a bit longer than English sentences so knowing where to break up sentences to create shorter English ones to maintain clarity and focus is also where we can say the translation becomes less faithful but more beautiful.
Lynne Riggs on translating essays or magazine articles hit a lot of the points we came across in class as well as when I was translating it alone. First was the title which is definitely very long in Japanese articles whereas English articles usually start with something short and eye catching. It was interesting to learn that Japanese thesis or topic sentences may come at the end (or may not even be stated at all) when in English essays, that is usually the first thing said after providing some context. This is something to definitely keep that in mind next time I have to write in Japanese.
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