翻訳の苦労は文芸作品でも同じ

太宰治の『女生徒』や川上弘美の『センセイの鞄』も訳されているAllison Markin PowellさんがJapan TimesのBook Review欄で紹介されていました。１１月に中村文則の『去年の冬、きみと別れ』を“Last Winter We Parted”として英訳されています。上記の動画は小川洋子を訳したStephen Snyderへの聞き役をPowellさん務めています。

Fuminori writes noir, but not as we know it
Only show author if their role is equal to author
BY IAIN MALONEY
SPECIAL TO THE JAPAN TIMES

Powellさんが語る英語へ翻訳することの難しさはおなじみのものでした。文構造が違うこと、日本語は主語が省略されること、言葉の繰り返しを日本語は気にしないが、英語では工夫しないといけないことなど。

Crafting words with Osamu Dazai’s translator
Only show author if their role is equal to author
BY IAIN MALONEY
SPECIAL TO THE JAPAN TIMES

We’re all familiar with the concept of untranslatable words and ideas and I ask Powell if there are any specific difficulties with translating Japanese to English?
“Yes,” she says with a laugh. “The syntax is so different that it’s almost impossible to do a literal translation. The ideas that we express at the end of a sentence, Japanese will put at the beginning. You’re getting the information in a different order. When I’m translating it into English I have to decide what’s the most important part of this sentence, is it the information or is it the way that you’re getting it? That’s fun. I heard another translator describe his process as trying to recreate the way that he felt when he read the original and I aspire to that.”

“Then there’s the subject. In Japanese dialogue, who is speaking is often implied but not expressed. Another translator from Japanese said he was working with the author and he got who was speaking wrong. That happens to me, too. It’s embarrassing, but really, how are you supposed to know? Maybe the Japanese always know when they’re reading it but that’s a challenge. And there’s a lot of repetition. In English we vary the way we say things, we vary our use of nouns and verbs, we use synonyms but in Japanese you’ll find the same phrase repeated and I don’t think that works well in English. I think as a translator the most important skill you have is being able to write well in the target language. Obviously a facility with the source language is important but it’s not as important as being able to produce a finished product that reads well.”

最後に一番重要なこととしてI think as a translator the most important skill you have is being able to write well in the target language.と語っています。これもよくいわれることですね。。。（苦笑）