Featured Translating into Japanese

True, truly true.

 

If only I'd thought of that!

 

Know kidding!

 

Another Japanese nuance I had to learn about was the two different words for "because." There is the word kara (から; roll the "r" kind of like in Spanish), and then node (ので, pron. noh deh).

The difference is subtle, and I had not thought much about it before beginning translating. The second one, node, is more specific. In other words, kara may be used when there is a general result, but use node when the result is specific. So you might use kara to say, "I'm saved because God loves me," but node to say, "I'm saved because Christ died for my sins."

Clear as mud?

 

Since the TR and Byz include the Pericope Adulterae in John 7:53–8:11, we of course included it. However, there is an odd note in v. 6: "But Jesus stooped down, and with his finger wrote on the ground, as though he heard them not."

Notice that the KJV has the whole last phrase in italics. So we had to decide whether to include it. Scrivener's TR has it of course, but then it was back edited from the KJV: μὴ προσποιούμενος. However, the Byzantine Textform (2005) of Robinson and Pierpont has this Greek phrase, but Hodges & Farstad's Majority Text 1st ed. does not. (My 2nd ed. is at home.)

So should we include it? If so, how should it be translated? μὴ is a negative, and προσποιούμενος is a present participle. So it could be translated, "not pretending." Very odd! However, another meaning for the verb is "noticing." So it can be taken as Jesus was simply not noticing the accusers on purpose.

We ended up with 聞いていないふりをして, or "pretending not to hear." I feel this is a good rendering, true to the Byz./TR. This begs the question, though, of why the KJV has it in italics.

Normally I believe a translator should choose his original language text, and then translate it. Textual criticism is a bog for the translator, in my opinion, and the translator can get bogged down there. (See what I did there? ) However, sometimes the translator is forced into checking out the evidence in spite of himself.

 

Well, I wouldn't call it a "total paraphrase." There definitely was Greek support for what they wrote. My problem is that, as we all know, the KJV puts in italics words that are added to the text to make the meaning clear. However, in this case there was Greek meaning not far from what the KJV translated. So why did they put it in italics when there was no need to? That's my view and I'm sticking to it.

 

So I've been corresponding with a scholar friend, and learned that the italics in the last phrase of John 8:6 in the KJV indicate a textual variant. However, it had enough support that the KJV kept it in the translation; the Byz. Textform has it as I think I mentioned.

A similar case is 1 John 2:23, where the 2nd half of the verse is in italics indicating a textual variant. However, the Byz. Textform does not include this variant in the text.

 

I keep meaning to get back to this thread, but have been extremely busy, what with commencement week, pre-class assignments for a class I'm going to take, etc.

However! Over the summer I'm teaching Greek 101, mostly by Zoom, to a Japanese man who plans to go back to Japan as a missionary, so is going to our seminary. This has brought back some more memories about translating into Japanese.

Now, English has a passive voice so that it is relatively easy to translate the Greek passive into English. Many languages have no passive voice, making it hard to find the right rendering. Fortunately, Japanese also has a passive, but it is quite different than either Greek or English.

In David Alan Black's second chapter, he describes the Greek verb system to help the student get on course before even learning any Greek verbs. So I worked with my student to think through the Japanese passive form, something he had never done before! In translation, understanding the verb system of the target language is vital.

So, what makes the Japanese passive different? For one thing, it can add a negative tone to a sentence. I can say, 私は彼に行かれた。 To translate this literally, you come up with, "I was gone (departed) by him," which makes little sense in English. However, in Japanese the meaning is not passive, but has a negative nuance, even though the form is passive. So, we might translate the Japanese sentence very colloquially as, "He just up and left me!" However, that level of colloquial wording doesn't work for a Bible translation, which Japanese people expect to be literary and respectful.

Another Japanese usage of the passive form is honorific. So I might say, キリストは行かれた。 This does not mean, "Christ left me, unfortunately," but "Respectfully, Christ left." So besides the usual meaning of the Japanese passive form, which equates to the Greek meaning, we have two more meanings not in the Greek or English. Context determines which usage a given verb is.

 

Slight correction: Arigato gozaimasu.

The answer, どういたしまして。or, Doh itashimashite.

Or, as I teach it in my "5 Minute Japanese Lesson," say "Don't touch my mustache" fast with a guttural voice.