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08-09-2011, 10:39 AM
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 I was not able to find a used copy of the book.  Your Japanese proficiency shall be in direct proportion
to your true interest in the Japanese Mind. 
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08-09-2011, 11:18 AM
I've been lurking without posting, finding helpful hints and such, but I did want to let you know I made it through and didn't give up!
 And almost six months sooner than I expected!
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08-29-2011, 12:00 AM
I thought I was done with this thread until this happened: out of the blue, a total stranger dropped into my mailbox the first few chapters from the authorized Spanish translation.
 Naturally, I'm deliriously happy to have this to compare with my efforts (and strangely pleased that I didn't have it sooner so that I stuck with the Japanese version to the end), but while it's very gratifying to see that I actually did a pretty good job after all, it's raised some questions I had not anticipated at all. I found one sentence that I know the Spanish translator just plain got wrong, combining descriptions of two different characters as if they were one person. That was my first surprise, since this was more than a simple typo. Remember when I asked about this passage (see above for the whole thing)? Quote:
But the Spanish translation says: "The boy said he would be rich one day, and then we would see, but Chapek cut him off, saying, "And what are you going to do with the money? Money can only buy things. What you really want is to own [the word used has a connotation of control] a person's heart, right? But that can't be bought with money." Now that's very different.  But it makes much more sense in the context of why the guy felt this story was an example of how odd Chapek was. So...did the translator just make this up? Did he or she go back to the author and ask for some clarification that a Japanese reader wouldn't need? Or, having read that, is it more apparent how the Japanese implies all that or says it somewhere that I'm blind to?The other funny thing is that like me, this translator apparently also read that horrible sentence with the 42/46 as "he had not been afraid," rather than it being a dreadful experience, and doesn't even mention the 7 years. Although the Spanish version makes sense, I'm still going with your reasoning on this one. Maybe my most annoying find so far is that while I spent a ridiculous amount of time finding out that インドジシュスカー通 was Jindřišská Street, the Spanish translator just threw up his/her hands and skipped over it altogether! But all this makes me wonder about the process of doing a professional translation. How do they decide what they can/should completely rewrite or skip (yeah, I know that's an entire forum's worth of Q&A.  In this entire post, there's probably only one question that might have an answer)? How much communication is there between the translator and the original author to inform such decisions? While my ability to translate the Spanish is 10,000x better than Japanese, the examples in this post make me feel that I still have to look at what the Spanish says with caution or I might lose what the Japanese said, like playing telephone.
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08-29-2011, 02:37 AM
Could you provide the corresponding Spanish, please? And is it possible that you are not seeing some written Japanese where it is there?
I've recently done some JA->EN literary translation, where I've learned that sometimes the translator has to add something that doesn't exist in the original to make it either work in the target language or fill in some cultural context, so I'm curious if that's what's going on. My wife is a native Spanish speaker (and I can read Spanish handily), so I might be able to provide some insight. Maaaaybe. It could be the translator just adding stuff for some reason or another (fill in whitespace if the Japanese is much longer than the Spanish or something). It is probably just some gap-filling. お金じゃ買えない literally means "can't buy [it] with money."
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08-29-2011, 03:42 AM
Quote:
 ::sigh:: This was before I rigged up my little handy-dandy place-marker strip, because I kept getting lost on the page, and I guess I really got lost in that section, because お金 kept appearing so many times. So that pretty much solves that one. Sorry for wasting your time on that. I don't know why I didn't go back to look at the book first, instead of just going back to check what I'd transcribed. Thanks, you guys never cease to amaze me.
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09-07-2011, 08:34 AM
Since you said you were curious from your own projects, I thought I'd throw these up here so you can get an idea of some of the things I've encountered (that weren't because of my leaping over long sentences at a single bound
). だが彼の生徒達は次々に......まるでつかれたように自殺 をはじめ、生き残った子供達も極端な暴力的性向に変化 してゆく。 However, one after another, several of his students committed suicide, and those who did not, became extremely violent. Pero poco a poco sus alumnos fueron suicidándose uno tras otro como empujados por algo, y los que sobrevivieron se convirtieron en agresores sexuales extraordinariamente violentos. (But little by little his students were committing suicide one after another as if compelled by something, and those who survived became extremely violent sex offenders) So...not only do I not see anything in the Japanese about being pushed or compelled, but where did that bit about them being sex offenders come from? On top of that, I think these are junior high students or younger that he's talking about.でも右油危機あたりから景気が後退し、掌を返したよう に出て行けなんていわれはじめた。ああ、こういうもん かなあと思ったな。 Then the oil crisis and recession came and my attitude quickly changed when they began to tell us to leave. 'Ah, was this what I had wished for?' I thought. Pero cuando hubo la crisis del petróleo, la economia se resintió y nos empezaron a decir que nos marcharamos. Entonces me di cuenta de cómo estaban realmente la cosas. (But when the oil crisis came, the economy suffered and they began to tell us to leave. Then I realized how things really were.) He's talking about how the Turkish guest workers were treated in Germany in the 70s. There's not much difference here, but the Japanese sentiment seems more regretful (assuming that's what it says), while the Spanish seems more cynical. Or it could just be that I'm missing the nuances in both languages! 敬虔なモスレムですね。 You're a pious Muslim, is that correct? Usted es un hombre muy religioso, ?verdad? I just wonder why they'd leave out the religion of a "very religious man"? That he's a Muslim is evident later on the page, so they weren't trying to hide it, and it's plainly stated in the Japanese. しかもミランはチャペックの命を狙っていた。テンマが 警官に見つかったのも、ミランの行動をチャペックが察 知し、警察に身辺警護を依頼していたかららしい。 Moreover, Milan was after Chapek's life. Evidently Chapek had sensed this from Milan's behavior, and with Tenma's being discovered by the police, he had requested police bodyguards. Además, Milan estaba pensando en matar a Capek. Si la policía había encontrado a Tenma era porque Capek estaba vigilando los movimientos de Milan y había pedido que le ofrecieran protección. (Also, Milan was planning to kill Chapek. If the police had found Tenma, it was because Chapek was watching Milan's movements and had asked for protection.) As I read the Japanese, I think it's saying that Chapek got nervous from the vibes he was getting from Milan, and with the added threat of Tenma being discovered lurking around the area too, Chapek got himself some bodyguards. But the Spanish is saying that Tenma was discovered because Chapek already had police bodyguards hanging about. So are these different, or have I got the Japanese all wrong (as usual!)?
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10-09-2011, 07:04 PM
She's baaack....
 I wish I could trust the Spanish version to be correct, but I've found so many errors (especially with dates and numbers ) and stuff they just ignored or glossed over that I can't just defer to it without knowing why they're right, and I know I certainly can't trust myself to be right. Help, please. 母親は彼女を生み、妹を死なせたことで心に傷を負い、 いつも彼女を妹と比べた。ヴィエラはヴィエラで、自分 が妹を、母のお腹の中で殺したんじゃないか、それで母 親は自分をきらってるんじゃないかって不安な少女時代 を送った。 I thought this was saying that the mother was traumatized by losing one of her twins and took it out on the surviving twin, but the Spanish says all the child's guilt was self-inflicted (and ignores the 心に傷). Which is it? Did her mother hate her and compare her, or did she just think her mother hated her, and she was comparing herself? わたしは猛烈に反論したが、実はスティーブが一作だけ 、連中の初期のストーリーをぱくったっていい出したん です。 Did Kellerman admit to plagiarizing or did he just quit because he felt burned by being publicly accused? ...,アルコールは嗜まず,... From a general description of a character. The Spanish makes it sound like he was a drunkard ("he knew no limits with alcohol"), but from various places I've looked online it sounds to me like it means he either simply had a taste for alcohol or he was a connoisseur (but then why isn't it 嗜む or 嗜み?). I can't figure out what まず means, except for "first" and that doesn't seem to apply in that phrase. Finally this passage: なぜなら彼らは、それぞれ真実を話してくれたと信じる からだ。 ただ、コホウト氏の話の中に、わたしはある手がかりを 見つけたような気がする。双子の母親をおぼえていると 名乗り出る人がこうも少ないのは、もしかしたら過去に 隠蔽したい何かがあるのではなく、現在黙しておきたい 秘密があるためなのかもしれない。 My trans: Because each of them believes they spoke the truth. Nevertheless, I have a feeling there is a clue to be found in Mr. Kohout's story. If few people have come forward who remember the twins' mother, maybe it's not because they want to conceal something from the past, but rather, their silence is to maintain a secret of the present. Spanish trans: Because I think all those interviewed told me the truth. I will only say that I think I have found a new thread in Kohott's words. If there were so few people willing to come forward to say that they had known her, maybe it was because they had something to hide in their past and preferred to keep those secrets safe under the veil of silence. Although it's a minor difference between whether he's saying they believe they told the truth (implying he thinks they might unwittingly be wrong) or whether he believes their stories are true, I think it's an important one here, and I just can't work out which it is. Also, it's very important to the story whether people are still hiding something that happened in the past, or they're hiding something that's still ongoing. Thanks in advance to anyone who can help me here!
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10-10-2011, 01:57 AM
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って ＝ と思って Quote:
Please remember that Japanese is a highly contextual language and without context, it is often impossible to know who is the subject for which verb. Quote:
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The rest of your TL is awesome. Your Japanese proficiency shall be in direct proportion
to your true interest in the Japanese Mind.
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10-10-2011, 05:18 AM
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"But her mother's mind was wounded when she gave birth to one child at the expense of the other, and she would always compare her to her younger sister. Viera is Viera, but she was an insecure young girl, living her life with a mother who hated her as if she'd killed her sister in the womb herself." If I changed that to "living her life thinking that her mother hated her and feeling as if..." would that work, or have I taken too many liberties with what's there? 心に傷 refers to her mother and not Viera? And the idea that she was responsible for her twin's death is Viera's and not her mother's? In other words, Viera apparently got the idea that her mother hated her for her sister's death from the fact that her mother always compared her to her unborn sister? Quote:
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I must have figured that out before, because I'd originally had "didn't care for alcohol," and when the other translation made me second guess myself, everything I found this time around supported the wrong conclusions. >.< I might have trusted myself a little more there if I hadn't just discovered a place where I said 20 instead of 200,000 people (and I bet you can guess what I transcribed wrong!)...Quote:
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10-10-2011, 07:45 AM
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Quote:
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Mom blames herself and Viera blames herself. Your Japanese proficiency shall be in direct proportion
to your true interest in the Japanese Mind.
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