Saturday, June 4, 2016

About Dialect in Chinese and Korean versions of "Yesterday"

I have recently had a chance to talk with Ziyi Xu and Hui Quan from the University of Tokyo. Both do research on Murakami and they have kindly checked the use of dialogue (or more precisely the lack thereof) in the mainland Chinese and Korean versions of the story "Yesterday." 





In the mainland version (published in 2015 by 上海译文出版社) the story was translated by Zhu Jiarong. According to Ziyi Xu, no dialect was used to differentiate Kitaru's speech from Tanimura's. Kitaru is only made to speak in a more colloquial register. Ziyi Xu said that his lines sounded more like "he was from the countryside, rougher."  


The Korean version (2014) was translated by Yang Ŏk-Kwan. According to Hui Quan, the translation apparently shows no trace of dialect either in the lyrics in the beginning or in the dialogue. 



Thank you, Ziyu Xu and Hui Quan, for your help! 



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