Natsume Soseki, the great Meiji-era writer and scholar, famously said that “I love you” should be translated into Japanese as “Tsuki ga kirei desu ne?” ("The moon is beautiful, isn't it?"). Soseki, a masterful novelist and poet, was making a point: The directness of Western declarations of love would sound stilted, if not ridiculous, to a Japanese reader.

As a translator of Soseki’s work into English, I can attest that sometimes to convey the true meaning of a word or phrase it should be approached not directly but by means of a completely different formulation in a foreign language. But for the most part, translation — even literary translation — is painstaking work that strives for literal accuracy even above cultural nuance. In many ways it is more of a science than an art.

It should come as little surprise then that one of the jobs at risk of complete replacement by artificial intelligence is that of translators. It’s already a wonder to behold how easily you can now effect very good translations into any language you want. I am going to admit my bias: I think it’s a completely wonderful development. I regret indeed that these things were not available many years ago.

© The Japan Times