Don’t panic! I’m a translator!
January 26, 2008
Broody=Bloody
Wohkka=Vodka
juise=juice
wokka=vodka
ram=rum
jin=gin
orenji=orange
spesial=special
Eigg=Egg
No Drugs!
January 25, 2008
Wow! I got so excited when I saw this link for a site called bringsome.com on 100*shiki.
It’s a site for people who want hard-to-obtain international goods and people who can provide them. They can post ads and find each other. Sort of like Craigslist meets merchant trading.
I got excited because if there’s one thing I can’t find in Japan, it’s aged cheddar cheese. So, this was my first search of course.
It brought me to this page from someone in Prague that says:
Cheese, flowerbulbs
And more on demand. No drugs!
Looks like my next search is out.
My Quest for Productivity is Folding…
January 22, 2008
…paper! Hahahahahaa *ahem*
PocketMod is a fantastic little online program designed to create a modified Hipster PDA; it prints a customizable sheet which you cut and fold into a small book of To Do lists, basic lines, or even sheet music. Today begins my trial of this wonderful tool.
As I was cutting and folding this little cutie at my desk, one of the more excitable math teachers came up behind me and exclaimed “What are you doing?!” making me nearly jump out of my skin.
He said “So foreign countries know how to do it right too, huh?” He then told me that the teachers had been making the kids do that for years, folding a little book to make a calendar and To Do lists out of a single sheet of paper. They use it when they go on the annual school trip.
The newest innovations in America trumped by years of Japanese efficiency and productivity practices. Again.
The Case of the Mysterious MiniDisc…
January 20, 2008
Solved! By Ask Metafilter! Hurray!
Take that antiquated Sharp MD-MT90 and Sound Blaster External USB Sound System! (The secret was in the headphone jack.)
Last week in pictures
January 18, 2008
One day in Akihabara…
Another in Niigata…
Haruki and Jay
January 18, 2008
At the age of 29, a bar owner attended a baseball game and suddenly decided he could become a writer. He became one of Japan’s most famous contemporary authors. He is Haruki Murakami.
I was writing and writing every day, then when that darkness came, I was ready to enter it. It took time before that, to reach that stage. You can’t do that by starting to write today and then tomorrow entering that kind of world. You have to endure and labor every day.
A Harvard professor of Japanese translated the majority of Murakami’s works, including the gory and violent. He is Jay Rubin.
When you translate, you do not just passively absorb what’s on the original page, you get actively involved in imagining every detail the author put in there – every sight, sound, smell, touch and taste – and in finding the right words for them in your own language. It may be possible to translate technical documents passively and mechanically, but not literature. And the kind of active involvement required in the translation of literature takes time. You stay with the text far longer – probably longer than the author ever did. In the case of a blood-soaked scene, this can mean a lot of excruciating days at the computer.
Interesting insight into the task of fiction translation and more unfortunate reasons to expand my already bloated library.
Good thing I have Library Thing!
