Natsume Soseki, the great Meiji-era writer and scholar, famously said that ¡°I love you¡± should be translated into Japanese as ¡°Tsuki ga kirei desu ne?¡± (¡°The moon is beautiful, isn¡¯t it?¡°). Soseki, a masterful novelist and poet, was making a point: The directness of Western declarations of love would sound stilted, if not ridiculous, to a Japanese reader.
As a translator of Soseki¡¯s work into English, I can attest that sometimes to convey the true meaning of a word or phrase it should be approached not directly but by means of a completely different formulation in a foreign language. But for the most part, translation ¡ª even literary translation ¡ª is painstaking work that strives for literal accuracy even above cultural nuance. In many ways it is more of a science than an art.
It should come as little surprise then that one of the jobs at risk of complete replacement by artificial intelligence is that of translators. It¡¯s already a wonder to behold how easily you can now effect very good translations into any language you want. I am going to admit my bias: I think it¡¯s a completely wonderful development. I regret indeed that these things were not available many years ago.
With your current subscription plan you can comment on stories. However, before writing your first comment, please create a display name in the Profile section of your subscriber account page.