earticle

영어

The study introduces an overview on the awareness of Japanese tourists regardingChinese characters used in tourist guidebooks translated from Korean into Japanese. Japanese tourists experience difficulty in pronouncing, and possibly, understandingthe exact meaning of the Chinese characters used for names of people, cultural assetsand other terms describing cultural aspects in tourist guidebooks translated intoJapanese. Unlike Chinese characters used in Korean language, Chinese charactersin Japanese language are often read and understood with different pronunciations. Japanese tourists answered that they would appreciate the use of Katakanatransliterations along with Chinese characters in said texts, in order to avoidconfusion and improve readability. If translations are limited by space within touristguidebooks, using Katakana instead of Chinese characters could be a bold alternativethat would enhance readability for all Japanese age groups. Such matter should alsobe considered when translating public institution websites, since a lot of foreignersgather information about Korea using the internet in this era. And as this could betheir first step towards knowing Korea, names and terms containing culturalelements should be transliterated carefully and accurately following a consistent,purpose oriented method for positive reader　response.