A translator was a job that I wanted to be.
When I was a child, I read a lot of fantasy books. I used to visit the library every weekend and borrow books one after another.
Especially, fantastic stories gave me strong impressions because each world in the books was very different from the reality.
There are various fantastic animals such as dragons, griffins, and chimeras. People can use magic power, communicate with statues, and even make a deal with devils.
Of course, there are a lot of difficulties through these stories. The characters suffer from injuries and experience sorrows. They feel pain wherever they live.
Even troubles seemed exciting in fantasy world. All the lives there looks shining because they always try to do their best.
In contrast, I was really tired of my daily life.
School was boring. Studying seemed meaningless. So did living.
While I was in the classroom, every minute, every second became like a torture. To escape from the reality, I spent almost all the free time reading.
To live I read, to read I lived.
Reading was the only purpose of my life. There’s no knowing if I could have survived in this hopeless world if it had not been for books.
I don’t know since when, but I started to live my own story. I got my own purpose. I got a job. It’s not a translator.
I read less books than before as I’m busy living in the reality. My life is no longer boring.
How come I think so?
The books.
They take me to another place and encourage me to face the reality.
Most of the books I read were from the U.S or the U.K, which means that they were originally written in English.
I got interested in the sounds of the English words. I read them in katakana words, so I didn’t know how to pronounce them exactly. But, the names of characters or magic spells sounded enough interesting for me to study English hard.
When I was a university student, I made some English translation. At first, I tried it just for fun only to find that it was very difficult. The story was so long. My English reading ability was not as high as now.
Difficult, but possible. I continued to reading in English.
Without limit, language skills are developing. Now I am confident about my English.
There’s no perfect translation. Just passion is.
When some English information turns into Japanese, something changes more or less. Translators try to save the original meaning, as well as to create another, new work.
Sometimes I imagine that I work as a translator. Day to day, translating foreign fantasy books for children.
It may be more suitable than my present job. When it comes to translating sentences to sentences, hearing disability would be less obstacle.
I’ve chosen a challenging way never to regret. It’s my story.