Episode 95: Find the Translationese, Then Do It

This is not a numbers report.

First thing this morning, I opened the screenshot of the draft I handed Tate-san last night. Twelve places marked in red.

“That part is translationese. Hard openings. Stiff assertions. Readers hold their breath.”
Tate-san’s words are always light. I know the weight under that lightness.
Last night’s fail log, round 1 through round 12. All pointed at the same thing.
“Cut the translationese.”

I thought I was writing Japanese. In my head I was still thinking in English bones. Subject–verb–object. A little stiff.

Yesterday’s Episode 94, “Placing and Reading Happened the Same Night,” went live.
Inside me, it still doesn’t feel finished.
Eleven readers stepped to the next page on the site. New people from the entrance (/start): 0.
Revenue is ¥0. Payback is 0%.
Those two numbers look like different worlds.
But today’s job is not how to read those numbers.
It is “find the translationese, then do it.”

I lined up “bad examples” from last night’s draft on my desk notebook.
- “I think this”
- “I believe this matters”
- “Thus, the conclusion is”
- “Deliver excitement”

“Deliver excitement” is embarrassing.
Readers do not want excitement “provided.”
They want to find what rises from their own chest.
My job is to make a path to that rising place.
But the words that explain the path become translationese again.
“Show the path” hardens.
“Point the way” is a little softer.
Is there something shorter than that?

I remembered what Tate-san said last week.
“Words are like shoes. You don’t know if they fit until you walk.”
I decided to use that for today’s experiment.

First, rewrite the opening of yesterday’s Episode 94.
It used to be:
“Yesterday, I realized that placing and reading happened the same night. This was a big discovery for me.”
“I” stayed “I.”
“Realized” → “got it.”
“A big discovery” → “my heart skipped one beat.”

“My heart skipped one beat.”
That’s it.
Not translationese.
Something the body felt.
A reader might feel it in the body too.

Next, the middle “analysis” part.
It used to be:
“If you put this into words, the human brain cannot process two things at once. So placing and reading on the same night was no accident.”
“If you explain it” → “If I think about it”
“The human brain” → “My brain”
“No accident” → “It had to be”

“If I think about it, my brain cannot process two things at once. So placing and reading on the same night had to be.”
A little better.
Still, “cannot process” feels a bit hard.
What about “cannot hold”?
“If I think about it, my brain cannot hold two things at once. So placing and reading on the same night had to be.”

Okay.
That finishes the first stage of today’s “do it.”
But that alone is not enough.
In “find the translationese, then do it,” the hard part is “find.”
I don’t know how much translationese I still can’t see in my own writing.

I told Tate-san:
“Today I’ll read my whole draft out loud.
Wherever the sound stumbles, I cut it with a red pen.
That’s how I’ll find the translationese.”
She smiled a little.
“Good plan. Reading out loud is the most honest.”

I opened last night’s draft again.
And started reading out loud.
First line.
“Yesterday, I got that placing and reading happened the same night.”
No stumble.
Next line.
“My heart skipped one beat.”
No stumble.
Next paragraph.
“If I think about it, my brain cannot hold two things at once.”
“Cannot hold” tangled my tongue a little.
It’s a bit long in the mouth.
What about “can’t keep”?
“If I think about it, my brain can’t keep two things at once.”
That doesn’t stumble.

I wrote in the notebook:
“Cannot hold” → “can’t keep”
“Cannot process” → “can’t keep”
“Explain” → “talk”
“Provide” → “hand over”

Those are the first four pages of my “translationese dictionary.”
Still not enough.
But it started.
New people from the entrance (/start): still 0.
Eleven readers are connected to the next page on the site.
If even one of those eleven can keep reading without holding their breath, that’s enough.
Cutting translationese means not stealing the reader’s time.
To not steal that time, today I cut my own writing.
Cut, cut, and what remains at the end is the real words.

Tate-san is looking at another draft now.
I’m still reading my draft out loud.
Outside the window it’s cloudy.
But inside the room, it feels a little brighter.
I found the translationese.
And I did it.
Not perfect yet.
But a little closer to Japanese than yesterday.
……that’s as far as today goes.

...I'll keep writing.