Quote:
Originally Posted by Claies
Personally, I'd rather have "tsundere" untranslated. As of the past year or two, it has entered almost as far into Japanese anime culture as moe and kawaii, and with due time even the lightest anime audience should probably know the word.
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I've been watching anime for about 6 years now and I didn't know
tsundere until I heard someone use it in reference to Manabi Straight a few months ago, at which point I had to get my dictionary out. I do know it now though!
I suspect that most non-otaku know little more than "-san", and although they will of course know "karaoke" they wouldn't recognise the word if it was said by a Japanese person. As for
moe, when even Abe Yoshitoshi has to ask what it means (and eventually concludes that it means "a person with a moustache") then I don't think we can assume anything about an English speaking audience's knowledge of it, and afk rendering it as "turn on" is unlikely to help people's general level of understanding ("hot" would actually be much better, both in spirit and etymology, although still not capturing the whole thing.)
Anyway, my position is that English subtitles should be in English. It really bugs me when I see words like "oneesan" in subtitle. Of course I know what oneesan means, but I also have ears and can hear it being said, I don't need it written down for me. However, people I pass my fansubs on to typically don't know what such words mean, they need all the words subtitled and they need them to be in English, not romaji. The only time I would leave a word in Japanese is when it's something like a technical term that is customarily kept in Japanese. For instance, "ippon" in a Judo anime. There is certainly no need to leave words like "kawaii" untranslated. People who know what it means will hear it being said anyway, those who don't will expect it to be translated for them. Some words are a challenge to translate of course, "moe" being an example, however this is largely because it doesn't have a fixed meaning in Japanese, but rather a constellation of meanings. I don't think
tsundere is difficult to translate though (but I wouldn't translate it as "bipolar"...)