“Commuove vedere uomini di mezza età, quegli stessi che durante I’anno non mangiano mai dolci, comparare una torta da portare ai propri familiari.”
「普段[ふだん]ケーキに縁[えん]がなさそうなおじさん達[たち]がそれ(N.B. ケーキ)を家族[かぞく]に買[か]って帰[かえ]る様子[ようす]などを見[み]ていると、心[こころ]が暖[あたた]まる」
アレッサンドロ･G･ジェレヴィーニ+よしもとばなな(2002)『イタリアンばなな』日本放送出版協会(pp. i, 118-119).
I read a book entitled “Italian Banana” written by Banana Yoshimoto, a Japanese novelist and Alessandro G. Gerevini, her Italian translator. Yoshimoto wrote a short essay about Christmas and Gerevini translated it into Italian. One of the sentences Yoshimoto wrote there was something like “(In Christmas season) I feel warmth when I see middle aged men who are not usually related to cakes buying a Christmas cake for their family.”
Gerevini commented that he had to insert some explanation about “men” in the sentence because Italian men like to eat sweets. Japanese men, on the contrary, not everyone, but the majority of them do not eat sweets – this might not be really accurate these days, but at least, there is a stereotypical image that men drink but do not eat sweets in Japan. Gerevini says if he translated the sentence more or less literally, Italian people would think “Why? Why are men unrelated to sweets?” so he added a phrase something like “ men who do not eat sweets all year around” in his Italian translation.
翻訳[ほんやく]って難[むずか]しいですね。 Translation is tricky (and interesting)!