12/02 Readings -Jaxon

 "On the Different Methods of Translating" is really hard for me to read due to all the long paragraphs and sentence structures, and after reading, I think I couldn't grasp all the important ideas mentioned in the fragment. I think throughout the semester, all the readings mentioned that in order to make a good translation, because of the difference of the languages, some sacrifice must be made, and if we try to make a translation be as close to its original as its original but at the same time make it sounds natural in the language we are producing is not possible. Also, as translators, we need to have some knowledge about how well the reader of the book might know about the culture or other background of the original work. For example, I think Japan is quite well-known in America, but most people's knowledge is limited to some common foods you can find in America and other popular cultures.

I have read similar articles like "You Are What You Speak" from one of my writing classes related to language and thinking. In the class, we also talked about how language can shape our ways of thinking, and we also mentioned the example of GuuguYimithirr. I did a presentation about Chinese in that class, demonstrating how Chinese affects my learning in English. I went to school in a normal city in China where English is not well taught, and I learned the concept of "tense" in my first year of middle school. The article also mentioned the presence of tense is weak in Chinese, and moreover, we don't have any verb transformations in the language, which makes my sense of tense and transformation very bad when I try to speak English or any other language like Japanese that has tense and verb transformation. As for the Japanese, I always speculated that the existence of Keigo and Kenchougo makes people in Japan have a clear conscience of levels in society. 

I really enjoy reading all the materials throughout the semester. They definitely helped me have a better understanding of translation in general.