I was thinking about the meaning of translating Japanese sentences into English. Because we can write philosophical texts in Japanese, if not in English. People often say that Japanese is ambiguous, but there is nothing too ambiguous to be communicated in a literal way.
So, what is the issue?
Why should we dare to translate Japanese into English?
It is said that the difference between Japanese and English is that subject and object are either undifferentiated or separated. Of course, Japanese is subject-object undifferentiated, and English is subject-object separated.
This all-too-famous point may also be found in individual words. For example, Japanese“MINNA（みんな)” can be translated into English as “everyone”. While in Japanese “MINNA“ means the whole of all people together, in English it means the total of "every (each) " and "one (one person) ".
As you can see, English makes a clear line between subject and object, whereas Japanese does not. However, even if we were to list all such comparatively simple facts, we would not be able to see the meaning of translating a Japanese sentence into English.
What is essential is what the difference in the degree of delineation between Japanese and English does to our thinking through the translation of a Japanese sentence into English.
Then, we need to think about what translation is. Simply put, translation is the process of taking an object that has been expressed in one form and expressing it in a different form. In other words, translation is the process of reforming a Japanese expression into an English grammatical form to express the Japanese content in English.
If we look at the translation process in this way, the process of translating a Japanese expression with a low degree of subject-object separation into an English grammatical form with a high degree of subject-object separation means reconstructing a state in which the subject and object are not yet separated into a state in which they are separated.
More simply put, we Japanese speakers are made aware of our own attitude of not separating subject and object for the first time by applying the English grammatical form, for example, when we apply the English grammatical form of "everyone (every person)" to the Japanese translation of "MINNA”.
That is, we find in the expression "MINNA" a subject-object relationship unique to Japanese that we had never suspected before, just as a reaction to the use of English expressions.
Translation is a self-reflection through
contact with different expressions. But it is limited by the language system of
the target language.
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