Re: Need help choosing a novel to read

From: necoandjeff (spam_at_schrepfer.com)
Date: 01/13/05 

Date: Thu, 13 Jan 2005 11:29:07 GMT

Chris Kern wrote:
> On Thu, 13 Jan 2005 09:24:57 -0000, "Paul Blay"
> <ranma@saotome.demon.co.uk> posted the following:
>
>> "Chris Kern" wrote ...
>>> "Paul Blay" <ranma@saotome.demon.co.uk> posted the following:
>>>
>>>> Hmm, yes but it's not the vocabulary that's the "wrong sort of
>>>> odd".
>>>>
>>>> It's more like this (paraphrasing) ...
>>>>
>>>> Me : So what do you think of it?
>>>> Japanese teacher : The Japanese is rather odd.
>>>
>>> Do you have more specifics on exactly how it's "odd"?
>>
>> Not at all - but she was pretty determined that it was.
>
> This still sounds suspicious to me -- the example you gave sounds like
> it wasn't written by a native speaker or something, but is she really
> saying that the entire text of all 5 volumes of Harry Potter sounds
> "odd"? Are you *sure* this isn't one of those "This gaijin is gettin'
> pretty uppity thinkin' he can read beyond the textbook" or something
> like that?

I think Japanese translated from novels, and particularly the furikae in
television shows, etc. is necessarily odd. It would take an amount of poetic
license and rewriting that most translators are not willing to make to
transform an English novel or script into natural sounding Japanese.

Jeff