Monday, September 23, 2024

Monday 9/23 Comments - Samantha M

I think it is interesting how the author touched on the differences between what is 'good writing' in English versus in Japanese. It sort of highlights how the expectations of the Japanese reader can be vastly different from those of an English reader, and equally underscores that there is an underlying cultural gap in when translating from one language to another. I feel there is a running theme in a lot our readings where the message is some variation of avoiding translating word for word to accommodate the English reader and their assumed inherent knowledge while preserving the tone of the original work. I like the first example the author gives of this where she tries to add more context here and there to help flesh out the readers understanding of what juku without putting footnotes or brackets that might 'distract' from the reading. I think that an argument against sort of English-afying/Americanizing a translation is that sometimes it feels as though it goes too far, loosing a lot of the nuance in the original.

"Whereas in English we stress clarity, in Japanese subtlety is preferred."

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