10/13 Reading Comments

When I was reading "A Live Dog", the passage that talked about the difference in standards when it comes to certain literary techniques between English and Japanese, I found to be quite relatable. In the translation homeworks that we have completed so far, there were instances where I thought the Japanese text to be quite repetitive and a one-to-one translation would almost appear to mock the English reader. Of course in an English text, the reader still has to be reminded occasionally who the subject is within a paragraph. However, Japanese seems to be capable of both completely omitting the subject at times from entire sections, and including the subject in every sentence of entire sections without seeming unnatural. I also thought it was an interesting point to omit certain details in Japanese-to-English translations that English readers wouldn't bother reading; Specific societal/cultural details might be too difficult to follow or simply of no interest to an English reader. When reading "In Interlingual Hell", I found the section talking about translating titles to be quite insightful. I should've read this before translating the magazine article but, I thought it was a good point how titles need not be a literal translation and rather can draw on the content of the article for inspiration instead. A good title should be one that entices readers into the text which is not often achievable when translating literally.