Hi, I just wanted to stop by to say that your last post on translation was really good, and I applaud you for writing it. Though I do speak a native language that isn't English, I don't know what it's like not to share a native language with my family. It must be very difficult and frustrating. Also maybe this is just me, but I feel like a lot of people who only speak one language (maybe especially if that language is English) just don't understand that translation is imperfect by nature. (1/2)
And while that doesn’t mean translation shouldn’t be allowed, the insistence on trying to “perfectly” translate something can be almost offensive. Anyway. I just wanted to say thank you for putting this into words, and I hope you’re doing well!! (2/2)
referring to this post!
thank you so much for taking the time to read and consider it! :D it’s a topic I’m really passionate about, so I’m glad to know that there are people who find it interesting and valuable. 💛
I focused a lot on the negative aspects of having a different native language than my family because I was trying to make a point about translation and racial politics, but I want to say that it also comes with a lot of good too! I wouldn’t give it up, in spite of it all.
I agree! I think it’s often hard to conceptualize just how imprecise and difficult translation can be if you haven’t done it yourself--my mom used to constantly ask me to help her translate things or read over her english, and would often be like, “but english is so easy for you!” or “don’t take it so seriously! why can’t you just do it?” when I would hesitate or refuse. but recently, she tried her own hand at translating an article from chinese to english and had me sit with her for like 4 hours editing it, and then she was like ah. I see. this is actually very difficult isn’t it. and i was like YES MOTHER!! IT IS!!!!! and my mom is trilingual ahahaha.
this might be an american thing, but the literary analysis that we’re taught in school is pretty much never applied to works in translation. we focus a lot on choosing “good” words and how a sentence can change meaning with the shifting of punctuation or a single word choice--it’s really hard to use these techniques on works in translation if you’ve never had to deal with it before: after all, what use is a close reading if you can’t read the text? what use is analyzing a word choice if you don’t know what the words are to begin with? and the sort of exacting dissection that I feel like we did a lot of in high school etc. is pretty much impossible to do on a translation, unless you’re doing an analysis on the translator’s work in relation to the source text specifically.
English is also a language that doesn’t like to live in ambiguity. When you’re reading an english sentence, you don’t often need much context to understand what is being said. mandarin chinese is very different: the same phrase can completely change meaning and implication in different contexts. like, 吃饭了 can be both “[subject] has eaten” or “it’s time to eat” :’D or you know, any of these other meanings (that’s not entirely fair of me though, since in a lot of those examples, it’s being used as part of a phrase as opposed to a clause by itself but you know my point stands). in writing classes, we’re taught to eliminate ambiguity as much as possible (every argument regarding the oxford comma, WHICH I DO HAVE STRONG FEELINGS ABOUT!! the oxford comma does NOT always reduce ambiguity! but that’s a Digression--incidentally, chinese has a punctuation mark specifically for separating things in lists, so you know. get rekt oxford comma)--anyways, the point is, I understand why english speakers might be more prone to seeking out “exact” translations, since that’s how our language works by nature, but it does sometimes unfortunately result in, you know, what we’re talking about.
WELL I just meant to thank you for your comment and thoughts, but instead I rambled about something else entirely. the REAL point is: thank you. 💛 i hope this off-topic reply finds you well!!
