To follow up on the “whether to add things in translation or hew to the original” post over here, here are a few quick things from links I’ve been meaning to address here.

First, Matt Treyvaud’s translation of Mori Ōgai’s 翻訳について (Hon’yaku ni tsuite; “On translation”):

The sweets that Nora eats I translated makuron マクロン. Write rather amedama 飴玉, I was told. Advice like this simply boggles the mind. Tins of almond macaroons have been shipped here in great number so that you may buy them at Aokido whenever you please. Reflect, if you will, on the difference in situation between a woman of the West eating a macaroon and a child of Japan eating an amedama. I recall one scene in a novel by someone-or-other wherein two female university students in Paris’s Latin Quarter munch on macaroons as they trade stories of heartbreak. To switch those macaroons for amedama, of all things—well, it would certainly be comical. The gist of such teachings is that items should appear in translation as appropriately chosen items unique to Japan, but as for myself, I strive to avoid things unique to Japan, the better to produce an extraordinary effect. Furthermore, we only consider here cases where there is an appropriate corresponding item. When uniquely Japanese and inappropriate items appear, the results are quite unbearable.

(Adamu of Mutantfrog Travelogue posted this entry in response to that Neojaponisme piece. Also interesting, especially the comment discussion there.)

Second is “Translator of the universal and the local,” a Japan Times interview with Meguro Jō, who has translated plays by Martin McDonagh (see also her blog):

How do you decide how “foreign” to make your translations?

Obviously there are cultural gaps, but I prefer to retain some unfamiliar things rather than ignore them or change them into something familiar for Japanese. I don’t think it’s right to rework foreign plays as if they were as natural and smooth as plays written in Japanese. We should keep some “foreignness.” Getting the balance right is quite sensitive and difficult. English four-letter words, such as f**k—which McDonagh includes a lot—must be translated case by case. Sometimes, I translate them to keep the rhythm, but sometimes I think it is better to cut them.

And third, there are of course cases where you can’t stick closely to the form of the original at all, so you have to get more creative if you want to get the same point across in your target language. I wrote about these so-called untranslatable terms a while ago.