Thread: kamae problem
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Old 07-25-2011, 09:24 AM   #89
Chris Li
 
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Re: kamae problem

Quote:
Peter A Goldsbury wrote: View Post
On the other hand, there are no grounds for believing that 六-- means anything related to internal training. Of course, it might do, in the way that phrases from the "歌 have been construed as a code for such training. The consequence is that a translator who does not understand IT is judged incapable of translating 六-- correctly (i.e., in accordance with what the IT believers think that Ueshiba really meant). I do not believe that this is correct. If it were correct, and if you generalize the hypothesis, it would render the practice of translation largely impossible.
Translators generally specialize in particular fields for that very reason - you can't translate something that you don't understand well. The more specialized the topic is the more important that becomes.

If I'm translating a medical text, it is important that I can actually understand what the text is saying, or else it's pretty easy to run into problems with the translated text. That's why you often see medical translation done by people who are actually medical doctors.

Then you have to consider whether or not the translators have altered the text for (often quite reasonable) reasons of their own. Take the Takemusu Edition of Budo translation - the translation is clearly altered, with "ki energy" substituted for "strength".

Best,

Chris

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