Literary Translation VS Technical Translation 翻訳の種類

Japanese follows English.　英語の後に日本語が続きます。

A friend of mine, Sachiko, works for a foreign financial firm as a translator. She once told me, also a translator, that she liked reading novels, but had never considered translating novels. She has translated only technical documents for more than 20 years.

Some think that literary translation and technical translation are after all both translation and the same, but this isn't true. They are more different than people think from the following perspectives:

1. Fee
I only know about Japan, but at least in the country, it's very difficult to be financially independent by translating only novels and movies (i.e., adding subtitles) because translators of this kind first have to work for senior translators for a small fee, i.e., work as apprentices.

2. How to get jobs
Technical translators can relatively easily get jobs through agents or by working as in-house translators for companies as long as they have knowledge in the area.

3. Subject matter expert
Literary translation is a kind of art. It requires a deep understanding of the world of the author and special skills to describe it in the translator's language and for that, the translated product is no longer only the author's but also the translator's product. The subject matter of literary translation is the author's view of the world while that of technical translation is IT, law, accounting or other technical matter.

Sachiko and I both like reading novels, but aren't interested in translating them or reading translated ones because we don't want someone other than the author to stand between him/her and us. The problem, however, is we don't know what to do with novels written in languages other than English or Japanese....

幸子さんは金融系の会社で長年翻訳をしている。ある日、同じく翻訳を生業とする私にこう言った。「小説読むのは好きだけど、翻訳しようなんて思ったことは一度もない」

皆さんの中には文芸翻訳もビジネス翻訳も同じでしょ、という人もいらっしゃると思いますがそうではない、というのが今日の話です。

1. お金
日本のことしか知らないが、小説や映画の翻訳だけして食っていくのは難しい。先ずは偉い人について見習いするからね。

2. 仕事の取り方
ビジネス系だと、専門知識があれば、エージェントを通したり、社内翻訳で働けば比較的仕事は入りやすい。

3. 専門分野
文芸翻訳はある種芸術。訳者は著者の世界観を理解して訳さなければならない。だから訳本は、著者だけではなく訳者の作品ともいえる。つまり、文芸翻訳の専門分野は著者の世界観。ビジネス翻訳の専門分野はITとか法律会計。

幸子さんも私も小説読むのは大好きだが、小説を翻訳することには興味ないし、翻訳本を読むのも嫌。だって著者と自分の間に誰かが入るの嫌でしょ。でもそんなこと言ってると日本語と英語の本以外読めないのである。困った｡｡｡