Translating a Reconstructive-Memory Paragraph
A student translating an 85-word paragraph for the English-to-Japanese section produces a literal draft. The source reads: 'Many people assume that memory works like a camera, storing events intact. This is not to say that we never forget; rather, what we recall is reconstructed each time we retrieve it. Because the process is reconstructive, two witnesses to the same accident may sincerely report different details, and neither need be lying.' The student's draft renders 'This is not to say that...' as 「これは言うことではない」 and translates 'neither need be lying' as 「どちらも嘘をつく必要はない」. The draft also translates 'it' in 'retrieve it' as 「それ」 without a clear referent. The section is scored for contextual meaning, not word-for-word correspondence; the rubric awards points for correctly conveying the contrast between 'not... rather' and for natural Japanese.
1. Produce a polished Japanese translation of the paragraph. Then explain how you handled 'This is not to say that...' and 'neither need be lying.'
Read the worked answer
Model translation: 「多くの人は、記憶とはカメラのように出来事をそのまま保存するものだと考えている。だからといって、私たちが決して忘れないというわけではない。むしろ、思い出すたびに、想起される内容は再構成されるのである。この過程が再構成的であるために、同じ事故の目撃者二人が、誠実に異なる細部を報告することはあり得るし、どちらも嘘をついているとは限らない。」
'This is not to say that...' is not 「これは言うことではない」; that is a word-for-word rendering of the deictic 'this' and misses the idiomatic function. The phrase rejects an inference from the previous sentence: 'that does not mean that...'. Japanese needs 「だからといって…というわけではない」 to keep the link to the camera assumption. 'Neither need be lying' is not 「嘘をつく必要はない」 ('they have no need to lie'), which changes the meaning. 'Need' here is epistemic: it is not necessary that either is lying. 「どちらも嘘をついているとは限らない」 preserves that. 'Retrieve it' refers to the event/memory, not a free-standing 'it'; Japanese can omit the object or use 「それを思い出すたびに」 with the referent recoverable from context.
2. The student asks why 'rather' cannot be translated as 「むしろ」 in every context. Explain its function here and give one alternative if the contrast were weaker.
Read the worked answer
Here 'rather' corrects a possible misreading: the previous sentence denies that memory is camera-like in the sense of never forgetting, and 'rather' introduces the true account, reconstruction at retrieval. 「むしろ」 works because it marks replacement of one characterization by a better one. But 'rather' is not always contrastive in that strong sense. In 'It was rather cold,' it means 'quite'; in 'rather than' it marks substitution. The exam tests the discourse function, not a dictionary gloss. If the contrast were weaker, Japanese could use 「むしろ」 still, or 「と言うより」 when reformulating a word, or 「それどころか」 when the second clause is a stronger negative development. The choice depends on whether the second clause replaces, corrects, or escalates the first. In this paragraph, replacement is the right relation: not 'we never forget' but 'we reconstruct at retrieval.'