I thought the analogy Seidensticker used of a translator as a counterfeiter was really interesting. It describes an issue I've come across even in the small translations we've done so far, where I translate a sentence as literally as I can, it makes grammatical sense, but I still have this urge to rephrase it to something that sounds more natural. I guess then the translator has to decide whether it sounds unnatural enough to pull the reader out of the text and needs to be changed, or if it is more important to retain the original phrasing as much as possible.
I was also struck by Seidensticker's intense attention to detail, particularly in regards to gender in translation. He mentions the phrase shiru hito zo shiru, and the various ways it could be translated: using "who knows knows" vs. "he who knows knows". The second phrase sounds more natural and correct in English, but it brings in specificity to gender that was not present before. I'm curious about the consensus among translators on introducing pronouns when translating Japanese to English, especially in a case like this where it is only required for grammatical reasons and not provided in context.
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