Overall, I really liked the translation choices of Cathy Hirano. I felt that she made very good points about omission and rephrasing certain sections in order to be truly understandable and relatable to the other audience. I have found that when I talk about my host family in Japan to my American friends, I usually mention how the daughter often went to cram school (juku) and even that concept was usually unknown. Then, I found myself in the situation of having to almost over-explain what a cram school is just like how Hirano mentions in her article. I thought that her translation - and brief explanation - of juku within her story was a very good choice that I wouldn't think twice about if I read a book containing a similar section.
It was also very interesting to read Hirano's perspective of altering the word choices of the story for the sake of understandability. Some people might disagree with her sentiment for the sake of staying true to the original text, but I honestly really appreciate that change. For me, the point of a translated text is not to read 1 to 1 translated words from the original language, but to understand the nuances that come with the language and culture that I might not understand. I think when I start on my own translations I would like to do so with this in mind.
Hirano also mentions various manuals being incomprehensible because of the translation method. I wonder if it would be a worthwhile endeavor to have specialized translators for this reason. I can only imagine the confusion it would resolve.
Tori Raiken
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