[LANGRAGE] The "overuse" of quotation "marks"

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Philondra
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[LANGRAGE] The "overuse" of quotation "marks"

Post by Philondra » 25 Dec 2008, 16:12

Whenever I do a J --> E translation, my work is checked by a Japanese speaker to ensure that the translation is accurate with respect to the original. The problem is that Japanese checkers often introduce errors that no native speaker would make, or errors that only stupid native speakers would make.

One of these is the overuse of quotation marks, a phenomenon that is clearly not limited to non-native English speakers. Since Japanese does not have capitalization, the Japanese equivalent of quotation marks are often used to denote a proper noun if any confusion might otherwise result. Therefore, it is very hard to explain to Japanese people why it's not wrong that I omit quotation marks and capitalize the English.

In looking for a good source to explain to my Japanese colleagues why it irks me when Japanese speakers put the quotation makrs back in, I found this lovely website of a like-minded individual. S/he posts photographs of unnecessary quotation makrs along with a snarky comment or two about what the photo *actually* means. This site has proven to be awesome in terms of stress relief, but sometimes a picture comes up that defies all reason. Here you go -- I cannot hotlink the picture, but you can click on the 2nd link to take a look:

http://quotation-marks.blogspot.com/

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_-dk1axrNmqU/S ... eAlarm.jpg

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