Lukman's Blog

Book: Idiom Bahasa Jepang

Posted on: 2007-08-21

Idiom can jazz our language style, and some complicated things can be easily expressed by using correct idiom. Like other languages, Japanese language also has many interesting idioms to be known. This book is a good start for that purpose. The topic is divided according to human body parts, because this book emphasizes on idioms which are constructed from that parts. The book is well organized and example sentences is well given. An interesting book for those who want to add some spices to his/her Japanese language.

What I read is the Indonesian translated one, published by Kesaint Blanc. Since this is a translation, I assume that it has the same contents as the original book. But, whether it is a mistake or not, the original title of this book suggested that it should have a wider topic than just a mere idioms.

What I want to heavily criticize from this Indonesian-translated-book is the usage of Indonesian language inside. Despite of being reprinted for 14 times (since 1990 to 2002), the book contains too many serious errors in Indonesian language and it seems the publisher or author does not realize it at all. It may not be that serious if the book talked about Advanced Mathematic for the Expert, but this book is talking about linguistic, where both Japanese and Indonesian language should be put on honorable place.

When the chapter of a body-part begin, an explanation regarding to that body-part will be given, and I must say that this part is the worst. I will give an example from p.39:

"Di Jepang bibir bukan hal yang sensual; orang tidak mengabadikan bibir Marilyn Monroe maupun Andy Warhol. Kepekaan itu kini mulai menjadi perhatian banyak orang, agak keterlaluan memang kalau mempertanyakan peranan bibir dalam kebiasaan bercinta. Dengan perhitungan seperti itu barangkali, maka sedikit idiom yang memfokuskan kepada bibir. Apapun alasannya, para pelacur di Jepang juga tidak biasa melakukan begitu."

Even the native Indonesian will not understand what on the hell is this paragraph trying to explain. The connection between sentences, the choice of word, and the punctuation are really horrible. This is certainly not a technical misprint, and this is happen almost in all chapter introduction. Minor mistranslations in example sentences, such as "kubi o kiru" (p.58) was mistranslated as "Kepala putus", "muzukashii mondai ni mina wa atama o kakaeta" (p.6) was mistranslated as "Semua masalah sulit sudah dipecahkan", etc., should not be underestimated too.

I believe that this condition happened not because the translator didn't understand Indonesian language, rather it is because the author didn't carefully re-check and read the sentences back. I saw that the translator seems to translate from English to Indonesian directly sentence by sentence, not meaning by meaning, which make the paragraph became stiff and monotone. Since this is a linguistic book, a revision in the term of language should be considered as priority.

Nevertheless, readers who already has enough Japanese vocabulary and grammar skill can enjoy the benefit of this book by looking at the example sentences. Unfortunately, the explanation in Indonesian language should be skipped for good.

Book Name: Idiom Bahasa Jepang
Original Title: Body Language (?)
Writer: Jeffrey G. Garisson
Illustrator: Taro Higuchi
Translator (to Indonesian Language): N**** R****
Language: Indonesian
Price: Rp 12,800