One subject I write about a lot is the way learning a foreign language helps you to understand your own brain better. Currently we’re working on the long-delayed Moero Downhill Night Blaze, the third and final eroge about Initial D-style mountain racing (the one with actual racing in it). This title was delayed because the company that made the game had the bad fortune to be based in Sendai, in northern Japan. which was heavily damaged in last year’s earthquakes, forcing us to find a new programmer to port the game (happily no one at the company was hurt). As I go through the game files, finishing up the final few lines that need translating, I’m amazed at the way the actual act of translation doesn’t seem to be managed by my conscious brain at all, but somewhere deeper. I mentally place a word or sentence that I want to translate into a special place in my mind and — ding! — a few seconds later I have the translation I need, just like cooking something in the microwave. Any translation from one language to another must match the feel of the original line, of course, and my brain seems quite adept at judging whether the “voice” (including formality or lack of it, feminine or masculine intonations etc) of the translated line matches the original, all without conscious thought by me. We plan on getting the third Moero game out soon, and we hope you’ll consider preordering it, or perhaps picking up the specially-priced set of the first two games while we finish the third game.
I’m fascinated by “the mystery of translation” in my brain.
