Interview with a Translator: Edogawa, Language 2

Kate: As your editor, I could not check your translation against the original. Other than raising questions about the plot and various characters, I focused on the rare occasions when I felt the text needed to clarify pronouns, eliminate passive voice, and rewrite dangling modifiers. I notice these specific issues in other translations that I own. Why do these problems seem so common in English translations of Japanese texts? What is the gap here between Japanese grammar and English grammar?

Eugene: English has SVO word order and Japanese is SOV (like German). But the real difference is that it is grammatical in Japanese to drop the subject and even the object when it is understood in context (no need for anaphora). As a result, much of Japanese is OV or just V. Add to this the sociolinguistics of indirectness, and the result is that Japanese favors what translates into English as the passive voice.

The translator has to backfill the missing elements to form grammatical English. Tracking down antecedents can be one of the hardest things about translating Japanese. Once you end up with grammatical English, the direct translation is often in the passive voice and really should be rewritten. But because the translator already knows the “meaning,” the surface-level grammar can “disappear.”

That’s why a translation needs a rigorous line edit before it gets a copy edit, even if the translation is 100 percent accurate.

Kate: The book has multiple loose ends, which did not escape your notice. As a writer yourself, how do you handle a book that you enjoy but has noticeable gaps. Is translation your primary concern? Are the plot holes ever an issue?

Eugene: The translator’s job is to best communicate what the author wrote or the best estimation of what the author wanted to say based on the text. While it may be helpful to add parentheticals to clarify what is in the text, it’s not the translator’s job to add information to the narrative that wasn’t there to begin with. If there’s a plot hole, the translator’s job is to translate the plot hole.

Especially at this point, having read only two of the novels in the middle of the Boy Detectives Club series, I don’t want to make any assumptions about authorial intent or get ahead of myself.

Of course, when it comes to adaptations and overseas localization, the “integrity” of the original work is up for grabs. The NHK anime of the Twelve Kingdoms squashed two storylines together and invented a male character out of whole cloth. The English dub of Detective Conan renamed the entire cast. But as long as the copyright holder agrees, well, let marketing lead the way. Though I disapprove of such modifications.

Granted, I prefer Blade Runner with the “original” voiceover that Ridley Scott loathed and removed in his director’s cut. Then again, I’ve yet to see a director’s cut that improved on the theatrical release. I guess sometimes the “suits” and the marketers know what they’re talking about.

Kate: Referring back to tone, the translation of Fumi Yoshinaga’s Ōoku: The Inner Chambers uses (at least in the early volumes) old-fashioned “thee” and “thou” verbiage. I have to admit, it kind of puts me off (I prefer her contemporary works). Is this a common translation approach—does Japanese have an equivalent to King James’ English? Do translators try to match it? Should they?

Eugene: The Ōoku was the rarefied women’s quarters of Edo Castle so this might be an attempt to reflect the hierarchal language of the court. To be sure, the language of the time was as distinct as Elizabethan English is from modern English, so this could also be an attempt to reflect that historical distance and the peculiarities of that social class.

My sociolinguistic stance is that historical characters should sound like they sounded to their contemporaries. NHK historical dramas split the difference, using certain terms and conjugations that are associated with “historical” Japanese, but not so much that the dialogue is rendered incomprehensible. A similar middle ground is what BBC and Hollywood historical dramas use: “Shakespeare with the hard stuff removed.”

Though as in the case cited above, simply getting the terms of address right—finding the right analogues for the honorifics—should often suffice. The dialogue can only withstand so much complexity. 

 Kate: In the past I’ve asked you what you would like to see translated. In general, what do you think DOES get translated? Do the choices reflect translators’ preferences? Their readers’ demands? The ease of translation? Length of text? What is popular in the moment? What seems most likely to transfer between cultures? How does a publisher decide?! 

Eugene: Educated guesses here.

What gets translated is whatever publishers think will sell and whatever they can afford to license. Or what they love. I’m referring to popular fiction as opposed to literary fiction, which exists in a different realm. In the latter case, the reputations of the author and translator will figure into the calculations, as do their professional and academic relationships, such as that between Van C. Gessel and Endo Shusaku.

Clouds Above the Hill, Ryotaro Shiba’s massive retelling of the Russo-Japanese War (think of it as Japan’s War and Peace) was translated into English at the expense of his publisher, who hired three translators to tackle the sixteen-hundred pages. This was a labor of love for the publisher, as I doubt the English translation will ever break even (though Shiba is a bestselling author in Japan).

Right now, the light novel is ascendant, in no small part because of the manga and anime tie-ins. Publishers are going to lean toward titles and authors and genres that are getting good press and good ratings. When GKids or Crunchyroll announce a bunch of licenses, publishers will be looking at all the marketing possibilities for those titles. I’m sure a lot of product packaging goes on too.

Makoto Shinkai does the novelizations for his own films. GKids has already acquired the North American rights for Weathering with You (the film). Yen Press published Your Name (the novel) so odds are they will get Weathering with You as well. I assume that publishers like Yen Press have stables of translators they work with, and that a translator who has worked with an author will keep working with that author.

Frankly, I have no real idea. I mean, Yen Press is co-owned by Kadokawa Corporation and Hachette Book Group, so they’ve got all kinds of access and very deep pockets. I’d love to get the low-down on how they leverage that access. But I don’t know, except that, at the end of the day, they still have to turn a profit.

 Kate: Thanks so much for the interview! It will be exciting to discover with The Bronze Devil what Kogoro Akechi and Yoshio Kobayashi do next!!