code (A) to in other code (B).As he says, we have to convey the meanings correctly.  However, I wonder if we can do

it or not.  There are many obstacle elements which make translating difficult.  What

are they and how should we improve these problems?

Basically, language and culture are related deeply to each other.  If the culture

is different, of course, senses or common knowledge of people are also different.  Then

it also affects languages.  The first obstacle element is the cultural difference.  For

example, first of all, there are differences in subjects.  In English, the word which

represents the first person is only gIh.  No matter if its children or adults, men or

women, everyone calls themselves gIh.  On the other hand, in Japan, there are many

words which represent gIh.  For example, gwatashih, gbokuh, goreh,goirah, gwashih, gwatakushih, hwagahaih, gsesshah, gchinh .  It is changed by the personfs age, sex or

social place.  In addition, it is also changed case by case who the person is taking with.  

We can say the same thing in@the second person.  English has only gyouh while

Japanese has ganatah, gkimih,gomaeh, gkisamah, gsonatah, gsochih and so on.  In short,

person takes part of showing what age, sex or social place the person is in Japanese.  

On the other hand, person takes the part of showing only which the first or second

person is in English. The part of each person is different between Japanese and English.  

There is another difference in subject.  English sentences always have a subject while

it is often cut in Japanese sentences.  The reason why Japanese do not need subject is

that, in the most cases, everyone can guess what the subject of the sentence is by seeing

the verb.  For example, if one says gAshita iki masuh, the most Japanese usually guess

the subject of this sentence is gwatashi (I)h. Japanese verb is usually for the subject of

person.  Things which are already known by people are not needed to say in Japanese

sentences.  Saying them, it seems unnatural.  While, in English, everything can be a

subject so the verb is not for only person so we have to state the subject.  Therefore, we

can say the part of the verb is also different between Japanese and English.  Secondly,

everything is stated plainly in English while Japanese are not so.  As a Japanese

feature of character, people seldom say onefs real mind, so to say, gHonne to Tatemaeh. If

one wants to say something, English speaker say it frankly.  On the other hand,

Japanese say it indirectly hoping partner to notice one want to say.  When these two

languages are translated to each other, maybe English speaker cannot understand what

one wants to say, and Japanese feel uncomfortable to be said something directly by

English speaker.  Thirdly, the sense of the time is different.  There are many tenses in

English; the perfect tense or the progressive tense and so on.  On the other hand,

Japanese has only three tenses, past, present and future.  Fourthly, to the point of the

sound, how to express the voices of animals are different between English and Japanese  

As a one of the example, the bark of dogs is gbowwowh in English while gwannwannh in

Japanese.

The next obstacle is the words.  I mean that to understand the real meanings of

each word are very difficult.  When we want to know what the word of the other

language means, we usually use the dictionary.  I think, dictionary itself is a problem.

Let me show an example.  If I want to know what gtakeh means and consult English-

Japanese dictionary, it put so many examples of similar words.  There are 35 Japanese

words which were put on the page of gtakeh.  Only seeing these words, we are

reasonably confused.  It is because, as a result of that, we could not understand what

gtakeh means.  In addition, when I want to know what I should say gkanngaeruh in

English and consult Japanese- English dictionary, then the page put many examples.

For example, gthinkh, gconsiderh, reflecth, gcontemplateh and so on.  However, I could

not understand which is the nearest word to I want to say.  In short, dictionary shows

not the meanings of the words but only similar words.  It causes misunderstanding or

misuse of words.  If there are similar meanings between some two words, it is not

mean that these two words have completely the same meaning.  However, unless the

dictionary keeps this style, we cannot notice this fact. As a result of that,

misunderstanding goes on. Therefore, we cannot understand wordfs real meanings

forever.  To avoid this situation, dictionaries style should be changed its style. A

dictionary should tell us not the example of similar words but the meanings of the

words.    There is another problem which is related to word.  These days, there are so

many denizen words or katakana-go so to say eJapanese Englishf in Japan.  They are

often used among the world of the mass media, business or even in ordinary life.

However, the meanings of these words are not clear.  Probably, the most people, even

people who often use these words, cannot say what the words mean correctly.  This fact

is often shown by the street investigation of some TV programs.  Then I wonder if these

words have correct meanings or not.  They do not have the clear meanings, I think.  

We can say these words are different from English.  It is shown by the fact that the

most of English speaker cannot understand what they mean.  They are often confused

because, in the most case, it has near pronunciation and meaning to English, but the

way of using is a little bit different to English.  You know, once a word comes into other

culture, the word tend to be changed applying to the new culture.  As a result of that,

the word changes its meaning.  I think eJapanese Englishf were made by that way.

Therefore eJapanese Englishf became peculiar words which do not have clear meanings

and cannot be understand by both Japanese and English.  What are they?  

Nevertheless, eJapanese English eare flooded in the Japanese society.  We have to

consider how we should solve this problem.

As I showed, there are many differences or problems.  Then how they affect

literature?  Some people feel a bit uncomfortable they read translated literature.  The

words and sentences seem unnatural.  First of all, as I said, the number of vocabulary

of subject is different.  It is very big point in literature.  For example, there is a

famous work gWagahai wa neko de aruh written by Souseki Natsume. The first

sentence of this book is the same as this title, and it is popular because of this particular

phrase.  Then, if you are going to translate this sentence into English, how do you

translate?  Probably, everyone does gI am a cath.  There is no other way to do.  

However then if you are going to translate this gI am a cath into Japanese, something

strange happens.  No one can translate gI am a cath as gwagahai wa neko de aruh.  

Usually, everyone translate it as gwatashi wa neko desu.h  This result means that the

shades of Japanese subjectfs meanings cannot be conveyed correctly although it is one of

the important element of the Japanese literature. Moreover, subject represents the

personfs age, sex or social places, so we can find out how is the person like without any

comments of it in Japanese, but we cannot distinguish these feature of the person in

English without comments.  In addition, to express subtle differences of honorific

words which also show about the person is difficult in English.  Secondly, the

differences of tense cause some problems.  In Japan, there are only three tenses.  On

the other hand, English has many tenses.  Then, if English speaker translate Japanese

sentences into English, they may be confused.  It is because the most of the Japanese

sentences are written by the present tense or the past form.  These Japanese tense

include some English tense; for example, the past perfect tense is included in the past

form in Japanese.  Distinguish and translating correctly is some hard activity for

them.  In addition, most of Japanese sentences finish with g-tah or g-ruh while English

sentences finish with various words.  These differences may ruin the dramafs or

poetryfs beautiful lines although it is important elements in theses activities.  Thirdly,

Japanese has various letters; hiragana, katakana and kanji. Each letter has each image

and using these images is one of the techniques of Japanese literature. For example, the

image of hiragana is soft, plain or worm.  Katakana seems something automatic or

cold.  We feel kanji is something hard or difficult. On the other hand, English has only

alphabet.  For these reasons, I think translating literature perfectly is impossible.  If

a work is translated, it is no longer his/her work.  It is because the value of literature is

not only in the story it self, but also in the technique of using words.  How do writers

express things, the beautiful phrase writer creates is the important thing of literature.    

Who can translate them?  Actually, there are many books in the world which are not

translated because it is impossible to do so well, I heard.

In conclusion, like above, there are many factors which make translating difficult.  

Nevertheless, it is sure that the need of translation will increase more in future as

globalization goes on.  Then I think the most important thing which improves present

translation problems is that admitting to the fact that English and Japanese are

different from each other.  We tend to think things based on our culture or moral or

commonsense, and then we see the thing which is not applies to them strange or bad

thing.  We have to stop this way of thinking.  Thus we have to change our mind and

make effort to understand other culture and language.  I hope people of other culture