Monday, November 11, 2024

Copeland and Hibbet Comments - Maya

 If I were to start with commenting on Copeland's article, I would say that it pains me too see that there is not perfect translation of voices. Japanese language contains many different kinds of voices and tones that the English language can not convey, which has been a great challenge for me as well. Although there could be a similar tone, just like how Copeland translated Hakoiri Musume, it is quite difficult to catch or even convey the tone of the narrator to the readers. However, as I was reading this article, it made me realize that the translator must make a choice on who to satisfy; the reader, the editor, the translator themselves or the author. It is true that some translations may satisfy more than one subject, but no matter what, the translator will not be 100% satisfied, and the readers will never know the turmoil of the translator (unless they read their articles like we do). Aside from that, I thought that the translator also puts their trust on the readers, that they would taste similar feelings as the translator while reading what the translator has taken the liberty to alter the original work (or naturalized, as Hibbet has said) for them just like how Hibbet did in Seven Japanese tales. Lastly, I just wanted to say that "my works always loose something in the original" is such a nice and melancholic sentence; it show the sadness of a translator who is adamant to create their work.

No comments:

Post a Comment

12/2 Ryu

  I found it fascinating to dive into the intricacies of translating Japanese into English, particularly the challenges posed by wordplay, s...