Response to the Terry and Riggs Readings - Grace

 Response to the Terry and Riggs Readings

    Both readings highlight common challenges that translators of Japanese works must face and how these problems may be dealt with. The first reading, a series of notes by translator Charles Terry, brings up several of these challenges that threaten the balance of producing a faithful, but stylistic, flowing translation. Terry uses a particular phrase to describe his problem with what he deems as 'faithful' (accurate) translations: "It has been said that translations are like women: if they are faithful, they are not beautiful; if they are beautiful, they are not faithful" (Terry 16). This phrase is not only misogynistic, but it isn't wholly correct when put into the scope of translating a work from Japanese to English. For example, one challenge that Terry addresses is the distant relationship between the English and Japanese languages. As a result of this distance, common words and phrases in Japanese, such as 'itadakimasu,' have no English equivalent, making translation a meticulous balancing act of accuracy and comprehensibility. Terry chooses to omit phrases such as 'itadakimasu,' however there are solutions to such phrases. For example, as an avid manga reader, such words and phrases are often still translated into their designated English equivalents, such as 'itadakimasu' becoming 'thanks for the meal!' I understand that this may sound awkward in some cases, such as when the atmosphere is more gloomy, but I do believe that silence is not always the answer to this particular problem. Terry does however provide translators with some helpful solutions to common translation issues, such as dealing with long sentences in Japanese. With his example passage from Musashi, he illustrates how complex Japanese prose can become, citing one sentence in particular that extended to over 4 lines in the text. He then combed through the text, citing what to keep and what to omit, using the habits of English readers as a basis for his decisions. I found this to be very helpful for my own translations. He also discusses the amount of indirectness present in Japanese texts, which we have pointed out previously in class, such as with the use of the word muzukashi instead of ie. So, while I did not appreciate Terry's pompous, misogynistic attitude, he did provide a few helpful pointers that I found to be important to consider when translating.

    The second reading, written by Lynne Riggs, is a very light-hearted, humorous piece that lacks the arrogance of the previous article. Riggs, while providing fewer pointers on translating from Japanese to English, does provide helpful information on how to structure an English translation of a Japanese essay or journal article. For example, I was not aware before reading this article that the topic sentences or thesis statements in Japanese essays and some articles come towards the end of a paragraph or even at the end of the entire piece. This is very fascinating and most definitely something that I will keep in the back of my mind when translating the upcoming texts for this class. She also notes the importance of selecting a title that is eye-catching and easily digestible for English readers. She also points out that occasionally the editor changes the title completely, so the translator might not even have to come up with a suitable title. This is very interesting!

    Overall, both readings provided helpful pointers to consider when translating a text from Japanese to English, that extend from the distance between the two languages, to the differences in textual organization in Japanese essays in comparison to English ones.