1. To what extent do you think language shapes ones perception of the world? Have you had any experiences in which you felt that your unique linguistic upbringing made you see or experience something differently from others?
2. How do you think the unique structural characteristics of Japanese are related to the way in which the language is used?
3. Do you think that there is any instance in which fundamental differences between languages may or should be kept in translation? Or would doing so simply produce a foreign-sounding if not incomprehensible text in the target language?
1. For me I think language does shape the way how I look at the world. My mother tongue is Chinese and sometimes when I translate Japanese I tend to use my Chinese instinct to think through it first and then translate into English. This helps me to see the difference between cultures and potentially find connections between them.
ReplyDelete2. Japanese sentences generally are longer since comma are more frequently used. This enables one Japanese sentence to be deep and complex in meanings.
3. I think it depends on what kind of book it is. For books about ancient Japanese stories in order to reflect social status it may be appropriate to keep all the keigo. But if in a book that keigo isn't that critical for the book's content then it is probably ok to take some of them out to make the translation smoother.