e-ShortNews

We have been publishing the English version of Short News for almost six years, for the benefit of our friendship members and also for our website. This great deed has been made possible by the PR Committee’s enthusiasm to spread the nongovernmental UNESCO movement beyond national boundaries, and the volunteer spirit of those willing to help promote UNESCO activities for international understanding.

In fact, publishing the English version involves a lot of hard work. When it’s just reading the articles written in Japanese, slight amount of ambiguity or lack of explanation can be overlooked so long as we skim through it. However, if we try overlooking the ambiguities when we translate an article into English, it can easily lead to mistranslation. So the translators invariably spend a lot of time trying to find the best words to articulate what is being said in the original text.

When we are getting nowhere with our translations, we ask our longtime volunteer proofreaders, Mr. Cochrane and Mr. York, for their most precious advice. As a result we sometimes share our joy by e-mail saying, “It is now much easier to understand than the original Japanese article!”

The staff consists of five translators and two people doing the layout of the pages, all who are too busy working day and night even to get together once a year.

At the editorial meeting someone said, “Why not introduce the staff of the English version with their photos?” Another said animatedly, “Let’s have a party so that we can take a photo together with all of us!” I really wish we could.

(M. Miyamoto)