After reading a Chinese translation of a Japanese light novel, a 22-year-old man from Taoyuan County, surnamed Wu, went on his blog to criticize the allegedly poor translation, reprehending it by saying that “anyone who reads this translation will go insane,” and telling the translator to give up his vocation immediately. After being informed of the situation, the translator, surnamed Huang, decided to take Wu to court. Wu was unable to read aloud from the original Japanese book during the hearing when the prosecutor asked him to do so, so the prosecutor said that he was not proficient enough in Japanese to ascertain whether the translation was accurate. On May 9, Wu was brought up on libel charges.
According to the prosecutor’s investigation, Wu purchased the second installment of The Hentai Prince and the Stony Cat, translated by Huang and published by Sharp Point Publishing. After reading the book, Wu went on a blogging Web site three times to post ill-intended comments that were highly critical of the translation for its alleged plethora of mistakes, saying that “the indiscriminate translation lacks any sense of unity,” and asking whether it was “translated using Google Translate.”
During the prosecutor’s investigation, Wu admitted that he had gone online to criticize the translation, claiming to have reached an intermediate reading level after studying Japanese for five years, and going on to point out 122 alleged mistakes in the translation, which caused him to feel dissatisfied with the experience of reading the book and subsequently go online to post the comments.
Photo: Yu Jui-jen, Liberty Times
照片:自由時報記者余瑞仁
(Liberty Times, Translated by Kyle Jeffcoat)
桃園縣二十二歲吳姓男子去年購買一本日本翻譯小說,閱讀後卻在部落格網站批評譯者亂翻譯,指摘「看那翻譯你絕對會瘋掉!」、「翻譯回家吃自己算了」等,黃姓譯者獲悉後提告,檢方當庭要吳男閱讀小說的日文原版,他卻無法朗讀。檢方認為,吳男的日文程度顯然無法判斷翻譯內容是否正確,五月九日將吳男依加重誹謗罪嫌起訴。
檢方調查,吳男去年四月間購買尖端出版社出版,黃姓譯者翻譯的日本小說《變態王子與不笑貓二》,閱讀後三度上網進入部落格網站,發表文章批評翻譯內容錯誤一堆,貼文指摘「亂翻沒有整體感就算了」、「是不是用Google翻譯的?」等非善意文章。
Photo: Liao Chen-hui, Liberty Times
照片:自由時報記者廖振輝
檢察官調查時,吳坦承上網批評這本小說的翻譯錯誤問題,表示自己接觸日文有五年時間,有一般的聽說讀寫程度,直指翻譯內容有一百二十二個錯誤,翻譯品質差,造成他閱讀的不愉快,才上網發表這些文章。
(自由時報記者余瑞仁、羅正明)
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