amour, amor, amore, something, something, something and fish eggs.

I want Amour Trilingue.

But that is beside the point.

I find it impossible to read theory without a pen. There are so many thoughts that come to mind and connections to be made. There are also words and themes that are quite difficult to comprehend at first read.

There are two theories that have intrigued me.

One: translation that separates language and culture.

Two: things that are not translatable.

My feeling is that language and culture cannot be separated. I also believe that there are some things that cannot be translated.

In Language and Words, there is a passage that represents the idea that language and culture cannot be separated. [This is an we didn’t have to read…yet?] “We will never grasp the spirit of the foreign language if we first translate each word into our tongue and then associated it with is conceptual affinity in the language—which does not always correspond to the concepts of the source language” (Theories-Schopenhauer, 33). There are just times when one has to think in the foreign language. And in order to do that, they must know a bit about the culture. I supposed I feel strongly about this because there are a lot of things in Japanese that cannot be translated. For instance, the word ‘えんりょう’literally translates to extreme politeness in English. But it’s a cultural thing as well. Someone who is ‘えんりょう‘　is someone who goes out of their way for other people, or often holds back their feelings in order to please other people. Often my Japanese friends will tell me えんりょうなくで。。。which means ‘don’t worry about being so extremely polite. However, even as I write this, I know that I am not fully explaining the idea behind enryou. It’s just something that I accept in the Japanese language and culture．Perhaps someone can give me an instance where it is ok. But even with Spanish in America and the multiple cognates, it is impossible to completely learn the language without learning about the culture and being able to use it properly without knowing the culture.

We’ve also seen in many of our readings, such as Nabokov or Suh, that in order to understand translations of older pieces, one should know the historical background of the source text. Translating those pieces and then trying to understand them would be impossible without the cultural references and knowledge.

I think I am glad that culture and language cannot be separated in my mind. I feel that it would take away so much from the learner. However, I also see why learning a language is not as popular as I would think. One has to put in a lot of time and effort and has to, at times, let go of their home culture, which can be scary for people’s identities, and transfer their energy to another ‘culture’. Do they feel a sense of betrayal to the home culture? I’ve talked with Shiloh about having a different personality in different languages. I don’t mind it, but I can see why people would be uncomfortable with the idea or actual time in which they ‘switch cultures’. What do you all think?

As we’ve read “The answer to the question, “can one translate a poem?” is of course no” (Theories: Bonnefoy, 187). Poems are probably the number one thing that just cannot be translated. And I’m speaking separate from the theory that you needd the culture. Which I think might be contradicting myself. Because if I stand by my above argument, then nothing can ever be translated…..

Okay. Nothing can ever be accurately translated. But the definition of accurate is a fine line. The word love can be translated into any culture without culture backgr…..actually no. It holds weight in different languages/cultures, that cannot ‘accurately’ represent the word. Especially in English now, where ‘I love you, ya, u and luv u’ are all synonymous.

This is upsetting me.

So I will continue it later. But I want responses!!! what am I trying to get across......かなあああああ。