2013-04-13, 19:40 | Link #341 | |
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If you translate "My father..." into "My father just died", you're already drastically altering the meaning of the sentence. You've solidified the sentence to explicitly state the father's condition. The omitting business does have some meaningful nuances. For ease of discussion, let's limit this to an almost established fact case. Person in question talking about his/her father's condition omits the actual condition. Adding in "just died" removes the hesitancy to talk about the matter. Spoken person has now explicitly stated the condition. Inevitably, this is going to have to touch on culture. English you won't see many lines left blank, yes? Japanese inversely so likes to leave things vague. While vague, the context clues typically narrow down the likely answers to a few probable answers. For a personal take, I think leaving blanks is fine in subs. English: I don't like that very much. Japanese: That's a little.... (それはあまり。。) Leaving original word order intact is asking for disaster, but letting people guess what a character is thinking is fine. Unless the situation is completely unintelligible otherwise, I prefer not forcing my interpretation of these "blanks" on readers. Watch a few anime, and the implied answers become for the most part easily deductible. This is a small after note picking, but even if the need to add "die" arises, English too often strays away from blatant "died" in respectful conversation. Euphemisms like "has already passed on/has already gone" take its place. TLDR: 100% literal is generally a bad idea, but being liberal has its limits too. |
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2013-04-14, 02:07 | Link #342 | |
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A better example than the "my father died" example would be when a character tells another character "saki ni!" and runs off. Literally, that would be "Before you!", but a better English equivalent would be something like "I'm off now!". I just watched episode 2 of Gargantia, noticed in the subs that what was literally said as "there are small fleets and big fleets", was subtitled as "there are fleets of various sizes". I find that this is just as acceptable as the literal translation because the spirit and meaning of the dialogue is not lost or changed. |
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2013-04-22, 12:37 | Link #344 | |
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Surely this would come out as "My father..." and then leaving it hanging for dramatic effect? That's done quite often in English too, especially dramas (repetition happens a lot too - adds to the tension). Obviously it's hard to tell without the translation. Am I correct in thinking the audio was probably just "Shinda" or equivalent (apologies for awful romanisation)? If so, yeah, the extra context is needed, but if he just goes "Oto-san..." *burst into tears* - that's when you'd leave off the qualifying part of the statement. |
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2013-04-23, 00:19 | Link #345 |
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It's not a mistake if it is correctly translated. It's a mistake to change something to what it might mean if the sentence were actually completed - but not. If the sentence trails off and doesn't finish you don't complete it just because you think you know what it probably should be.
When the girl/boy is wailing "Oto-san wa..." "Oto-san wa...", after he/she knows their father died, you don't add the died part.(especially when it isn't spoken) It's called drama. It's a common and poor editing mistake to add the "died" part. It's like changing the title of a Japanese anime that is already in English because you don't like it.
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2013-04-23, 02:12 | Link #346 | |
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Anyway, no, keeping it literal is stupid, if it means you have to use broken English, so yeah, sometimes you have to add words to not have the line read retarded. And I'm not talking just about my (rather poor) example. And I don't know what English you learned, but I didn't think I've ever heard anyone leave a sentence like that hanging, unless they burst into tears/laughter while talking. Maybe you are one of those who likes things as literal as possible. You know, the ones who write "I was seeing a dream" or "Even at a time like this". And why not? After all, it's "correctly translated" right? |
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2013-04-23, 04:46 | Link #347 | |
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2013-04-23, 06:03 | Link #348 | |
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2013-04-23, 09:27 | Link #349 | |
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Literal sometimes works. But obviously, if you can make the sentence flow better with slight rewording, you do it. Like when a person says "Haven't you found them?"(asked in a negative way in Japanese) and the answer in Japanese is "Hai" the word for "yes" - but we know as viewers that the person answering has not actually found who they are looking for so you translate the answer as "No." because they are affirming the questioner's query. But you don't have to add to what is suppose to be a dramatic pause or trail-off line.
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Last edited by Heibi; 2013-04-23 at 09:54. |
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2013-05-29, 05:22 | Link #350 | |
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The issue with literal vs. non-literal you run into is if I use a saying to describe what is said in Japanese and that saying is from my area only you will not understand it. However if I give you a link to the original of the Japanese saying and the explanation of it you will understand what they are talking about. Not everything is possible to be translated as to cultural differences. Trust me, I live in Japan and am American and the differences are massive. They will react to some of our common language as being extremely offensive when it is not to us. Literal give a light into Japanese culture that help understanding of who they are as a people. If you convolute it with idioms and metaphors you lose the meaning in the process of what is actually being said. There is a middle group I believe between the two. You can use English slang in place of Japanese slang to give the feeling of a certain era, place, or group of people, however changing the meanings of things to suit one culture over the original ruins the message intended. |
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2013-05-29, 22:14 | Link #351 | |
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