12/2 reading - Rachel

 Although the Schleiermacher's article was challenging to read, the concept of moving the reader towards the translator or moving the author towards the translator is interesting. It's something that we often discuss in class of whether to keep the tone of the original text consistent with the translated work or to reapply the cultural context into the translated language's culture. Though he is comparing German and Latin, it is definitely applicable, if not even more challenging when translating between English and Japanese since the grammar structure, culture, history, etc. are completely different. It is often a struggle of which approach to take, but through our translation exercises and discussions in class, I personally am often gravitating towards adapting the context towards the culture and language of the target audience. For example, for my final project, there are a lot of Japanese-specific lingo and cultural references. Although I considered keeping it and simply translating it with more description, I found that substituting it with an English or American alternative works better in maintaining the humor and liveliness to the text. I think this is what Schleiermacher means when he says it is important for the translator to not only understand the language but also the history and culture behind the words they are translating. However, I do understand the author's concern for the second approach's risk of the original nuances getting lost in translation. 

In Deutscher's article, I liked how he described how people's mother tongue habitually obliges us to think about certain factors rather than allowing us to think. Learning French as my third language, having gender as the core of sentence and grammatical structures was something very new to me as an English and Japanese speaker. Similar to how Mark Twain described the gender system of German, I too thought that it was absurd that every object is seen as a man or a woman. As someone that isn't fluent in a language with a gender system, I thought the example of the German v. Spanish attitudes towards certain objects that have reversed genders was funny. Also,  I didn't know the existence of Guugu Yimithirr-style languages that use cardinal directions. I can't imagine using cardinal directions to describe space, especially since I'm so directionally challenged to the point where even Google Maps is challenging for me.