since I talked about how we went to the library for a project work research orientation I spose I should also mention a little bit about what I've decided to do my project on.
I felt a lot better about it after talking to Ari-sensei last week. I was thinking the project had to be actually researching something, you know, like "the economic policies of the Taisho era" or something like that. but it turns out that, according to Ari-sensei, the majority of students just come in with something along the lines of "I want to read this book in Japanese." and then find something sort of similar to present about at the end.
so! my topic's not entirely hammered out yet, but I've decided to do something about translation. if possible, I would love to be able to write about, I guess you could call it "theories of subtitle translation"...? some of the issues would be common to regular translation, but what I really want to examine for example (in the case of Japanese to English), is the balance between conveying Japanese culture and making things understandable to someone coming from an American cultural background. How best to translate certain expressions, pop culture references, things like that. do you translate them literally and let the viewer fend for themselves? add some sort of explanatory note? change the reference into one from American culture that has a similar meaning?
Questions like that are really interesting to me.
Oh, and-- wonderful news about my advisor, too! I had just assumed that the project advisor would be the same as our regular advisor (i.e. Ari-sensei for me). but then the other day Otake-sensei came up to me before class asking about when we should schedule my weekly project work meeting, and I got really confused, until I realized that my project advisor wouldn't necessarily be Ari-sensei. and then I got kind of worried that it might be Otake-sensei. which wouldn't be bad, it's not as if I dislike her--it's just that I've had very little interaction with her, and she's known to be one of the stricter sensei at IUC.
but then the other day they posted the assignments, and I have Senda-sensei! YAAAAYYY!!!!
everybody is really jealous of me! ^_^ (especially Jason, who has "Kawasaki-sensei" as an advisor--someone that none of us have ever heard of, or have any recollection of ever seeing. lol)
so, all in all, i'm getting really excited about this whole project thing!
;-D
The adventures of a former North Carolinian and recovering Yalie, loose in Japan for the first time.
this week was actually really fun, because on Thursday we went on a field trip! well, sort of anyway. at any rate, it meant no class. of course--as is invariably the case--"no class" does not equal "sleep in," as we had to meet at the Motomachi/Chukagai station at 9:15 (normally the time I leave to go to school).
first we went to the 文学館 (Literature...Museum? yet another addition to the list of words I understand the meaning of, but only in Japanese). Which was...meh. They had exhibits about different authors, showing their drafts, or early editions of their work, stuff like that. It was ok.
we stopped in Chinatown for lunch, and that was REALLY yum. also, i discovered both a niku-man place that sells veggie-man too, AND a street of restaurants with meals actually under $10. whee! now i just have to remember how to get there.... which is more of a problem than it sounds, because Chinatown is crazy confusing. it's stuck right in the middle of Yokohama, but once you enter the gate, the streets get all windy, and all go off in different directions from the streets outside. so i invariably get lost, and wind up in the complete opposite direction from where i thought i was heading.
After lunch, we went to...the LIBRARY! hehe. which is a lot more fun than it sounds. the Yokohama central library is enormous. we went to get us all library cards made, and for sort of a research orientation for our project work. i found a lot of good books--and i discovered the library's amazing magazine selection. they have several different Japanese trade magazines about publishing and editorial, which was sooooo cool to find. i'm definitely going to start checking those out. but best of all, they also get Publisher's Weekly! so now i can start reading it again! (i had been debating buying myself an online subscripton, despite the expense, but now i don't have to!)
so, all in all it was a really fun day. although, as field trips always do, it turned out to be actually longer than a regular school day.