When you become bilingual in a language, you learn a lot about how your own brain works, such as what actually goes on inside your head when, say, you learn a new vocabulary word. Every act of learning involves a physical change in your brain, the creation of a new synapse from one cell to another, and sometimes it seems you can feel this at work in your head. The “mystery of translation” is another thing that’s fascinating to me, considering the work we’ve done bringing Japan’s PC dating-sim games out in English over the past decade. Translating from one language to another takes place deep inside your brain, on a level below your conscious thought, like a process in a computer running in the background. When we translate our games, we’re often faced with difficult questions that involve cultural or linguistic constructions that don’t exist in English. For example, what’s the best way to translate lines by a character speaking extremely polite Japanese, or a female tomboy-type character who’s using male speech even though she’s a girl? What linguistic elements can’t be brought over into English and are best left out of the final translation, if the goal is to most accurately reflect the spirit of the original? What other ways might there be to translate that strange Japanese Internet meme yukkuri shite ite ne besides “Take it easy”? It’s always fun to explore the differences between the two languages and come up with the best translation.
Take it easy? Please make yourself at home? Please take your time and go slowly? It all depends on the context.
