Quote:
Originally Posted by cyth
You're saying everyone should simplify their English--there is no other way to read you. From my past experiences, however, language sophistication depends on dialogue characterization, the editor, and user feedback. In one group I noticed the editor using sophisticated English, even technical terms and such, simply because the dialogue allowed it and because our audience expressed that they like sophisticated language. And nothing beats positive feedback. So basically your suggestion is out of place for amateur translations.
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Technical language is fine, when it's in place. What I was trying to say is that culture-specific terms is something to be careful about.
So: Consider whether your choice of words might be specific to your culture. I'm using "culture" in a rather broad sense here, I really mean mostly anything (more or less) unique to organisation(s) in your country.
It's hard to strike a line, it's just that some concepts don't translate well. My impression is that the Japanese school system doesn't translate very well to the US one, so there's no meaning in pretending it does.
@Heibi: Yes of course if the 8th year of school is called 8th grade, then it's called 8th grade. I'm saying that, in the Japanese school system the 8th year of school is not called 8th grade, but 2nd middle, and that shouldn't be translated into 8th grade.
My point remains, don't attempt to translate between cultures or other organisational systems that don't translate well into each other. It just makes for confusion.
Unrelated, typing "sense" above reminded me of something else:
The word センス (sensu) does not translate to
sense, it means "taste" as in "poor taste in clothing".
I've seen that poor translation way too many times. Maybe it's part of that unfortunate trend that "if the subtitles don't read engrishy they must be poorly done", that some seem to subscribe to.
Edit: Should also quickly respond to
getfresh.
I'm all for re-introducing notes for terms that don't translate well, at least the first couple times they appear in a given series.
However, I'm also for not making overly wapanese subtitles, if you can get all the required meaning through without using a Japanese word, then by all means translate it straight away! It's much easier to read subtitles if you don't need to do a mental dictionary look-up, or move your eyes to a note at the top of the screen.
Note: Keikaku means plan.