Re: Translationese (was Re: Turkish "ki" and Basque "zein")

Marc Adler wrote:

Peter T. Daniels wrote:

I've read a couple of novels by Shusaku Endo in English, and the
translations don't have any flavor of translationese.

Ironically, I think you're less likely to encounter translationese in
novels translated from Japanese than, say, French, because English and
Japanese are just so different. There's no way the translator could
unconsciously let a Japanese phrasing slip into the English, because it
would be so glaringly obvious. When translating novels from French or
other languages similar English, on the other hand, the translator has
to watch out not to let French locutions slip as-is into the translated
English, because it would be so easy to do.

Walter Benjamin, quoted in a book I just copyedited, recommended
adhering to the syntax of the original. I noted that he'd obviously
never tried translating from Japanese. The author drew a smiley-face.
--
Peter T. Daniels grammatim@xxxxxxx
.

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