The language to read and to write
I let myself indulge in reading blogs tonight when I was planning to do some work. In order to make myself feel a bit less guilty, I read blogs in three languages – Japanese, Chinese and English. Japanese blogs take me the longest time to read, and I need my electronic dictionary as well. English ones still ok and Chinese ones still the fastest.
Afterwards, I want to write something down of what I just read, but the language in my mind get me a bit confused. I found that if read an article in Japanese, then it’s difficult to explain and even write it down in English or Chinese. The language structures are different. I suppose the grammar of Chinese and English are more similar than to Japanese. Also the ways of saying something sometimes make no senses if is translated directly into another language. I can understand the meanings, but translate them into another language is another stories.
As you may have realised, what I wrote above doesn’t make too much senses. I guess I need to off to bed now. Let’s see which languages will appear in my dream.
bobo Said,
December 31, 2005 @ 3:19 pm
a lot of people mastering over 2 languages would be in the position of being your mate. There’re clearly cultural differences between languages. The most proper translation of one particular difficult sentence, I believe, does exists but is tangled partly in the background of the language and that’s why we need good translators to tease it out. For a higher level of bilingal studies, there is a Uni degree called comparative literature. eg, translating an ancient chinese poem into english while preserving its origionality as much as possible. people who can manage that include 钱钟书，徐志摩etc their language ability is beyond any doubt. I think for a japanese counterpart, 鲁迅is quite good. he contributed a lot to the introduction of japanese literature into china and vice versa. Medicine, apparently, is too difficult for him.