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[GSR]

Hey GAF, I'm in the middle of studying Japanese right now. As part of our final project for the semester, we're each writing a brief paper and preparing a presentation about some aspect of Japanese culture and/or language. Since translation has always been a very interesting subject to me, I decided to look into literature in translation, both in terms of western works translated to Japanese, and Japanese works translated to English and other languages. It's a fairly informal paper (no need to exhaustively cite), so I'm hoping to get more of a big-picture view of things.

If it's not too much trouble, I've got a couple questions for any gaffers who have lived in or are living in Japan:

• How popular is Western literature in Japan? How about other works, like games and movies?
• Are there a large number of translators of Western works, or is it a comparatively small field? Are there any particularly famous translators?
• If you've read any works in English and Japanese, what sort of changes did you notice between the two versions? (This is a pretty open question - just answer in any way you like.)
• This is a bit more of a long shot, but are there any interviews or articles on Japanese-English translation that come to mind? English-language articles would be preferred (I've only been studying Japanese for two years or so), but I can give Japanese ones a look as well.

 

[alekth]

I don't have much knowledge on the subject, but maybe you can dig out some interviews with Murakami since he's translated a lot of English literature (he's the only famous translator I know of). An interesting aspect might be the translation of his own works into English, since the couple that I have aren't translated/rewritten in English by himself.

The only Western book I've read translated into Japanese is The Three Musketeers (though I haven't read much of it in English). The translation was awfully bland (and there were some actual mistakes compared with the original).

 

[shira]

Is there a word for weeaboo in Japanese - not just 外人?

 

[Lord Ghirahim]

Is there a word for weeaboo in Japanese - not just 外人?

「日本オタクの外人」

 

[GSR]

I don't have much knowledge on the subject, but maybe you can dig out some interviews with Murakami since he's translated a lot of English literature (he's the only famous translator I know of). An interesting aspect might be the translation of his own works into English, since the couple that I have aren't translated/rewritten in English by himself.

The only Western book I've read translated into Japanese is The Three Musketeers (though I haven't read much of it in English). The translation was awfully bland (and there were some actual mistakes compared with the original).

I'll definitely look into Murakami some more - I actually recently read an interview with one of the translators of 1Q84, but it completely slipped my mind that he himself translates a lot of works into Japanese. Thanks for the tidbit on Three Musketeers as well - it might be interesting to track down a few 'poor' translations into Japanese.

Is there a word for weeaboo in Japanese - not just 外人?

Harsh, bro.

 

[shira]

Harsh, bro.

I didn't mean to imply you. Sorry for OT question

 

[GSR]

I didn't mean to imply you. Sorry for OT question

Nah, don't worry about it, it's my bad for assuming.

I thought I'd bump this now that it's a reasonable hour in Japan.