Riggs and Terry Reading Comments- Carly

 So far in this class, we have discussed what makes a good translation. And if the answer comes down to complete accuracy or readability. Both the articles about Charles Terry and Lynne Riggs showed why the topic continues to remain controversial amongst translators. When translating myself, there have not been many times when I have omitted something that was in the original text. I mainly have tried to reword the sentence so that it becomes something that is easily understood in English. However, I think, after reading Terry's reason on why certain things should be omitted, I think made me better understand why that option should be explored as well while translating. I think what stuck out to me is how he explained not to translate in a way that would be "offensive" to English readers, and to translate in a writing style that is considered "good writing" in English. I didn't realize that some commonly used writing elements like rhetorical are not as common in English writing. It is something that can take you out of the story and make you think, "why is the author talking that?" Another point mentioned in both the articles was breaking down sentences fully in order to get the true meaning. In Japanese, it is easy to miss something when translating due to the tendency for there to be long sentences. So really thinking about the best way to break up sentences or express a certain meaning in English was helpful advice. 

I'm writing this blog post after turning in my translation of the magazine article, but it addressed some of the thoughts I was having while translating. Something I noticed was that I did not need to know much information about the person being interviewed in order to translate it. Typically, I'm used to reading magazine articles that heavily focus on the interviewees' personality, mannerisms. Most magazine articles that I have read are written in a way that makes you feel like you were actually in the room interviewing the person yourself. Because of this, so I thought the suggestion of always having an introduction paragraph to the interview was important. In other articles we have read, the translators mention knowing the contents of a story in full detail before translating. I think doing research on the interviewee before translating in similar in a way, and with be beneficial for the final translation.