Today's megatask involves translating a novel into your native tongue. Since I only speak Japanese and English, we'll be translating a novel from Japanese into English. So as you read along, feel free to mentally plug in your source language where you see the word 'Japanese' and your target language where you see the word 'English'.
Before we get into the nuts and bolts of this, let's clear up a few things. The first one: 'translating' involves written documents, and 'interpreting' refers to transmitting spoken word information between individuals speaking different languages. If you say you're 'interpreting a novel' you'll sound like a college kid in a crummy English lit class.
Another thing: most translation involves translating _INTO_ your native language. Of course it's possible to translate into your second language, but you have to be really proficient to sound natural, fluent, and intelligent in a second language. Unless you are near-native in that second language, it would cost more to edit your stylistic mistakes than to just have it translated by a native speaker of the target language.
Okay, with all that out of the way, here goes: the first thing you have to do is to set aside a free afternoon and study Japanese for three or four years. Any afternoon will do, but a Sunday is best. And I know what you're thinking, because I thought the same thing: 'No! I'm really smart! I will be able to learn it in one year!'
Or three months, or one month, or whatever, because you use Rosetta Stone, or work for the CIA, etc. The three-year minimum relates to our goal of translating a novel, not to your proficiency in learning a language. Intensive language courses are great, and they will make you an awesome speaker. But that's not our goal here, is it?
Contrary to popular belief, you don't have to be super-proficient in your source language to be a translator. You really just need to cover two basic points: know about 5,000 words, and have a good understanding of grammar. If, like me, you chose Japanese as your source language, you must now take a ten-minute break to punch yourself in the genitals, because you are obviously a masochist. You've just made things much, much harder for yourself because you've brought kanji into the equation.
The 5,000 word thing is arbitrary, but there's a reason for it. Most novels contain anywhere from 20,000 to 100,000+ words, and I don't have enough time or motivation to look every up every single word. Do you? Trust me, unless you are a superstar in Japanese, you will spent a LOT of time looking up words, but it'll be much easier if you're not looking up sou and desu every time you see them.
And why the big focus on grammar? You've got to be able to coherently assemble all those fancy words you translated. If you can't manage that, you might as well give up, because your translation either won't make sense or will be wholly inaccurate. And I know, you can look up grammar just as easily as you can look up words, but if you don't know basic grammar, you'll be spending a lot more time looking things up than you'll want to be. This is a novel we're talking about, not a newspaper article.
Okay, with all your studying out of the way, you're ready for phase two: picking a novel to translate. I chose Murakami Haruki's Pinball, 1973. I chose this author because he's popular and I really admire his work. I chose this specific book because it is incredibly hard to find an English copy for less than $400. To me, it's important to choose a book you haven't yet read in English, so you aren't influenced by the other translator's word choices and decisions. That doesn't mean you shouldn't pick a book that has an English translation, in fact, when you're finished, reading that version can be a good way to gauge your abilities.
One more thing to note, something I probably should've mentioned before you spent three years studying: you won't be able to sell this translation. You would need the permission of the original author and probably the original publisher. Not impossible to get, but you wouldn't be reading this article to begin with if you were already neck-deep in that whole scene.
So you've picked your book, now you have to get your book. While I flew to Japan and bought a few copies of the source material in a Japanese bookstore, you may find a 1500 dollar plane ticket impractical and instead choose to buy the book using some iteration of amazon.com or some other internet bookstore. And that's fine, nobody will think less of you for your half-assed approach to book procurement.
And now you've got your book and you're ready to get cracking, in fact you've already got it open and you're translating word for word starting from the very first page. HOLD ON! At least let me tell you about my method, because it might help you. You're welcome to ignore my advice if you think it's dumb.
Some rules I set for myself:
1. Read over one page, highlighting all the difficult words.
2. Using a notebook or a digital file, make a list of all these difficult words.
3. Look them up, and record the applicable definitions.
4. Translate each sentence on that page, underlining passages you are unsure of.
5. Do a set number of pages each day (1 to 3 pages might be best).
A few things to think about: translating too much at one time will burn you out, so try to spend less than an hour on this project each day. Even if it takes a few months, that's okay. This is a good way to spend time studying without going to a class, so stretching out the effort will extend the amount of time you spend mentally processing the material, which is a huge benefit.
Now, you will likely come across words and phrases that boggle the hell out of you. Your trusty dictionary won't know the answer. Never fear, we're children of the future and going to the *shudder* library is not something we resort to unless we're bleeding or desperate. No, there are other things we do before we do that.
If your dictionary fails, check wikipedia.org. Often you will find a page for your term in the source language and you can just click on 'English' in the left-hand column to find out what's going on. And sometimes this doesn't work. In which case, we resort to Google. If your thing is a noun, do an image search. If this yields garbage, pick a random page utilizing the troubling term and translate the paragraph it's in for context.
Hmm...and sometimes, that just won't do it, either. So now is an important time for reflection and reassessment. CHECK THE SPELLING (for Japanese, check your strokes; oftentimes hours of my frustration were brought about by two very similar-looking kanji). Try searching for part of your term, as this might bring up the correct term. Also, ask yourself if it seems like a dated term, a nonsense word, or the author's personal slang. One more thing to consider is the possibility of a typo in the original text, though it's far more likely to be a mistake in your methodology than the author and a team of trained editors allowing a glaring error to slip through.
As for the actual translating, you should make at least two drafts. Your first draft might be Japanese-English, that nonsensical garble that comes about when you translate Japanese word-for-word into a language it was never intended to be reconciled with, but your rewrite of this should sound like native English. You're a native speaker, this is where you have the liberty to change and rearrange things in the interest of making them sound good.
This is where people get tripped up, they say, 'The source text is gospel! I don't have the right to interfere with the intentions of the author!' To which I'd reply that in the source text the author doesn't sound like a retarded monkey. Not sounding like a retarded monkey trumps some creative phrasing. Consider a short example from Hear the Wind Sing, when the protagonist is having a discussion with his girlfriend:
'God appears in various forms' is what it says, but don't you think 'God works in mysterious ways' is more natural-sounding?
A question you must ask yourself is, if I were saying this in English, how would I say it? And that's going to be a better translation than a word-for-word find-and-replace of the original.
After spending weeks and weeks producing your translation of your novel, you will finish, and then you may wonder what to do next. If you feel like you did a pretty awesome job and liked the process, you may want to get into freelance translation. Working in your underwear, drinking beer, charging what you want, it's a good lifestyle if you've got the right attitude. Proz.com and Translation Cafe are great places to get more info about this.
So far, I've translated two novels using the method above. Each one took about three months, but it's interesting to look back at the first pages I translated and the last pages, and actually be able to see improvement. I suspect you will feel the same way, too. And when you're finished, you may want to print up and bind your work.
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