Sam Bett / Japanese-to-English Translator. Donald Keene: a life dedicated to Japanese literature. the difficulty in translating the various variations of 'I' from Japanese into English

Sam Bett

Sam Bett / Japanese-to-English Translator - Direct Talk


NHK
https://www3.nhk.or.jp › Shows › Video › Direct Talk



Dec 19, 2024 — Sam Bett has translated books by Kawakami Mieko and other popular contemporary Japanese authors. He talks about Japanese literature's popularity ...



Donald Keene: a life dedicated to Japanese literature


NHK
https://www3.nhk.or.jp › nhkworld › news › backstories


Feb 28, 2019 — Celebrated academic and translator Donald Keene died of heart failure on February 24th in Tokyo. He was 96.

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Japanese Literature

Scott Spencer  · 

An interesting look at the difficulty in translating the various variations of 'I' from Japanese into English, but not mentioned is the perhaps equally challenging dilemma caused by the linguistic transfusion of 'you', which is relevant since the very first word in Japanese of THE CITY AND ITS UNCERTAIN WALLS is きみ ('kimi', or 'you'), often used -- as is the case here by our first-person narrator -- when addressing someone you are particularly close to, a friend or a lover, and this shorthand-sense of ongoing familiarity (if not intimacy) is ultimately, narratively sacrificed in the novel's English translation by the fact that we English speakers are simply stuck with 'you', that purely functional (and exceedingly, emotionally bland) substitution.

theconversation.com

Haruki Murakami and the challenge of translating Japanese’s many words for “I”