Which type of subs do you like the most

[ReinZwei]

Most accurate, and at the same time with good grammar and preferably english

[Autumn Demon]

What does "minimalistic" mean?

Voted literal. It's extremely annoying when subbers add in their own commentary at the top of the screen like "wtf" and "didn't this character die a few episodes ago?", but activist subbing just encourages me to learn japanese.

[Marcus H.]

I like it when translators give themselves the liberty of characterizing the translated dialogue, especially when you would expect Kenpachi in Bleach to say "Shut the f*** up, Ichigo" rather than "Just be quiet, Ichigo". That way, the subs doesn't make itself OOC from the character.

Another thing, I also like to see translation notes, especially when something is very unfamiliar and can't be explained in the dialogue. This is handy for anime with lots of jargon like Shakugan no Shana and Toaru Majutsu no Index. But I guess it's better to leave it after the credits have rolled.

[Triple_R]

Originally Posted by Marcus H.

I like it when translators give themselves the liberty of characterizing the translated dialogue, especially when you would expect Kenpachi in Bleach to say "Shut the f*** up, Ichigo" rather than "Just be quiet, Ichigo". That way, the subs doesn't make itself OOC from the character.

This is actually what I tend to dislike.

It's like the subber thinks he or she has a better handle on the character than the actual maker of the character or the anime that's adapting the character to anime. That's misguided at best, and arrogant at worst.


Plus, this is often just another form of localization, imo. It's often trying to give the character "cooler" dialogue (i.e. which often translates into more westernized dialogue in the eyes of many subbers).

I don't want "cooler" dialogue. I want the dialogue that the source material and/or anime maker chose to give the character. They're the ones who should be determining the characterization of a character, not a subber.

[Raiga]

Originally Posted by Triple_R

This is actually what I tend to dislike.

It's like the subber thinks he or she has a better handle on the character than the actual maker of the character or the anime that's adapting the character to anime. That's misguided at best, and arrogant at worst.


Plus, this is often just another form of localization, imo. It's often trying to give the character "cooler" dialogue (i.e. which often translates into more westernized dialogue in the eyes of many subbers).

I don't want "cooler" dialogue. I want the dialogue that the source material and/or anime maker chose to give the character. They're the ones who should be determining the characterization of a character, not a subber.

Here's the problem I see with that, which I also mentioned in my earlier post: there's more to dialogue than the literal dictionary meanings. Yes, the original Japanese writer(s) created the characterizations. How did they express those characterizations? Well, in part through the plot and the characters' actions, but also in part through the way those characters talk. Not just what they say. How they talk. There was an example I read in an essay for class recently, too lazy to grab the exact quote, but it was something like, "You can say basically the same meaning in a variety of ways: "I was attacked by a bear!" "Fucking bear tried to kill me!" "That ursine juggernaut thought to sup upon my person!" -- and the way you say it sends a message about yourself."

Especially in anime/manga, which tends to exaggerate speaking styles. On the one hand you've got your hardcore no-good delinquent character who refers to everybody as "temee," slurs every single diphthong into an "ee," never uses honorifics, always uses the least formal verb forms, and tends to just replace troublesome intervening syllables with "n." On the other hand you have your extremely polite shy girl who always uses her "-masu"s and tends to have "o" in front of every other noun and calls -everybody- "-san" etc. etc.

When each of them greets their friends they're going to be saying very different things. If you ask me, a translation that has both of them saying "Hi, how are you" is losing half the point.

So I'm all for the delinquent's line being rendered, "Hey, th'hell you been up ta?" and the polite girl saying, "Good day, how is everybody doing?" Or something like that.

The point is, subbers, at least most of them I believe, aren't trying to impose their dogmatic opinion of the character, on the contrary they're trying to do the author justice. Now, naturally this will be a bit influenced by personal opinion-- nobody's perfectly objective, after all-- but a literal-as-possible translation would be influenced by personal opinion as well. There's no way to get around subjectivity, really. If a feminist translates a text, for example, and you compare it side-by-side with another translation, say, a Communist translation-- however professional both translators are, you can probably see their ideologies very subtly showing through.

If you ask me, I prefer translation that tries to have a bit of life in it. I want the tsundere to sound embarrassed and snappy in English as well as in Japanese. I want the big guy to sound tough and glowering in both languages. Etc. This post is already overly long so I guess I'll end it here...

[Triple_R]

Originally Posted by Raiga

Here's the problem I see with that, which I also mentioned in my earlier post: there's more to dialogue than the literal dictionary meanings. Yes, the original Japanese writer(s) created the characterizations. How did they express those characterizations? Well, in part through the plot and the characters' actions, but also in part through the way those characters talk. Not just what they say. How they talk. There was an example I read in an essay for class recently, too lazy to grab the exact quote, but it was something like, "You can say basically the same meaning in a variety of ways: "I was attacked by a bear!" "Fucking bear tried to kill me!" "That ursine juggernaut thought to sup upon my person!" -- and the way you say it sends a message about yourself."

And if the initial writer of the character chose to not have the character use vulgarity in his or her speech, then I think it's wrong for the subbers to add that into the sub to make that character sound "cooler".

It sends a message about the character that is quite possibly very different from what was intended by the original Japanese.

Especially in anime/manga, which tends to exaggerate speaking styles. On the one hand you've got your hardcore no-good delinquent character who refers to everybody as "temee," slurs every single diphthong into an "ee," never uses honorifics, always uses the least formal verb forms, and tends to just replace troublesome intervening syllables with "n." On the other hand you have your extremely polite shy girl who always uses her "-masu"s and tends to have "o" in front of every other noun and calls -everybody- "-san" etc. etc.

When each of them greets their friends they're going to be saying very different things. If you ask me, a translation that has both of them saying "Hi, how are you" is losing half the point.

Well, again, just translate as is. If the speech is informal and slurred in the original Japanese, then slur the speech in the sub translation and make it informal. That's not the same as adding a swear word, though.

Now, naturally this will be a bit influenced by personal opinion-- nobody's perfectly objective, after all-- but a literal-as-possible translation would be influenced by personal opinion as well.

I disagree.

I don't see why it would have to be.

If you're aiming for as-literal-as-possible then that can effectively cut out personal opinion. There may, of course, arise uncertainty over what is the most literal translation, but aside from the need for such occasional determinations, a literal-as-possible translation will be free of personal opinions.

Whereas trying to characterize the translated dialogue will heavily rely on personal opinions.

There's no way to get around subjectivity, really.

I largely disagree, honestly.

If a subber makes a concerted effort to be objective, and to translate the Japanese as literally and consistently as possible, then that will greatly minimize, if not remove, subjectivity.

If you ask me, I prefer translation that tries to have a bit of life in it.

If the anime's dialogue is good, the original dialogue will have plenty of life to it anyway. There's no need to spice it up when translating it over to English. In fact, doing that can ruin some of the subtlety that the writer may have been aiming for.

I want the tsundere to sound embarrassed and snappy in English as well as in Japanese. I want the big guy to sound tough and glowering in both languages. Etc. This post is already overly long so I guess I'll end it here...

I get and respect your point, but I don't think you give the original dialogue enough credit, really.

If the original dialogue is good, the tsundere will still sound like that, and the big guy will still sound like that, even after a fairly literal translation.

[DragoonKain3]

With comedy, I like them to be very liberal about it. Nothing kills a joke more than having footnotes explaining what the joke meant in Japanese.

IIRC, AFK was pretty good about this back then with Haruhi/Lucky Star, and most recently with GG doing BakaTest.

That said, personal pet peeve is when the character is saying the last name of another person, but whats written in the subs is the first name. (I don't mind much Western/Eastern ordering of names as they're uncommon enough, though I prefer to read what I actually hear from the audio) On the whole, I like them keeping honorifics and stuff like onii-chan around on subs. I facepalmed for practically the whole episode when I first saw "Pretty Boy"...

Apart from that? I don't mind liberal translations at all, as long as that being liberal translates to better readability and less footnotes.


Note that what I like in subs does not necessarily translate well into dubs. After hearing the dub of I! My! Me! Strawberry Eggs where they put honorifics into English voices, or putting in Japanese words like Omiai in a perfectly fine English conversation was just way too weird.

So if I had a choice for non-comedy series, subs thats as close as the original as possible, while dubs that are more liberal as to make it flow more freely by eliminating Japanese words (closed caption as another 'subtitle track' as a bonus). I think that's what they did with the Ghibli movies (or at the very least with Princess Mononoke), and I was pretty happy with it, as I get the best of both worlds.

But if I only had subs? I'd take liberal translations anyday, as long as being liberal serves a purpose. Like this...

[Raiga]

@Triple R:

Japanese does not contain swearwords as such. Uh... no wait, I think there are a couple. But mostly it's just really rude/informal forms and such.

The thing is, there is no such thing as a "literal translation," not exactly. Your translation can attempt to be more literal, yes, by preserving sentence clauses and vocabulary and such, but a true literal translation does not exist. It's because languages are too different from one another, and inseparable from their respective cultures. Inevitably, there will be something lost in translation and something gained in translation.

Which is why I say it is impossible, yes, impossible, to remove subjectivity. You can minimize it to a point, but language is inseparable from an act of interpretation. Translation is not a machine that takes in an input in one language and spits it out in another based on a bunch of mathematical algorithms. It's the translator doing his or her best to really understand the meaning in the original language, and interpret it into the target language.

In my opinion, a good translation is not a guy sitting in front of a script with a dictionary, saying, "Okay, the first word is X, which means Y, the second word is Z, which means W..." A good translation is a guy thinking about the entire sentence, and saying, "What is that sentence really telling me, and what is the best way I can say that same thing in English?"

And there will be features of one language that simply don't exist in another, and vice versa. Japanese has no plural except for humans and certain animates. English has no systematic politeness. Japanese does not require the subject of a sentence to be reiterated. English does. Which is why you always have to make judgement calls in translating.


Of course I say all that but personally I'd rather read TL notes than a translation that glosses over cultural stuff, puns, or language peculiarities. Which is why I really admire a.f.k.'s translation in and of itself but wince at the localization... admittedly a clever way to deal with Japanese pronouns, but not what I'd prefer.

[Triple_R]

Originally Posted by Raiga

@Triple R:

Japanese does not contain swearwords as such. Uh... no wait, I think there are a couple. But mostly it's just really rude/informal forms and such.

I would argue that this relative lack of such words says something about Japanese culture as a whole. Something that's lost when you heavily incorporate such words into your subs, for any of the characters really.

That's just one example of how subs can lose the original Japanese cultural flavor, of course. Another is the dropping of honorifics.


If I want to watch anime with a westernized flavor, I'll watch a dub.

But when I watch a sub, I want to watch anime that's as close to its Japanese cultural flavor as possible.

The thing is, there is no such thing as a "literal translation," not exactly.

I still largely disagree. A "literal translation" would be one that keeps the original Japanese cultural flavor of the anime intact, with out editing out the elements of it that don't have western cultural equivalents.

By keeping those elements in there, anime maintains its distinct Japanese cultural flavor. And, call me a Japanophile if you will, but I like that about anime. I like how I'm hearing characters reflecting their cultural background in how they talk; I like how I'm hearing an approach to speech that's different from what's commonplace to me or western TV. It makes anime stand out more, and in a good way, imo.

In my opinion, a good translation is not a guy sitting in front of a script with a dictionary, saying, "Okay, the first word is X, which means Y, the second word is Z, which means W..." A good translation is a guy thinking about the entire sentence, and saying, "What is that sentence really telling me, and what is the best way I can say that same thing in English?"

I disagree.

Because that approach leads, in my opinion, to the subs losing the initial Japanese cultural flavor of the dialogue (and narration in some cases).

"What is the best way I can say that same thing in English?" will usually be a western way of saying it. And I don't want the western way of saying it. I want the way of saying it that the Japanese typically aim for.

[boscowitch]

just as a note for the "minimalistic" option, sometimes i found subs wich was WAY shorter than the spoken dialog bug got the contents message across, they may not reflect the dialog but if you understand japanese there at least helpfull to speedy scan them if you didn't understood everythink.
if you don't understand japanese they might be a bit short but they anime can be understood.

i don'Ät consider this good subbing but these are sometimes better than no sub for some rare stuff (applies more do j dorama, there are a lot more unsubbed than anime i think)

[Marcus H.]

I don't agree that English dub is the only Western way to appreciate anime.

Okay, here's what I think about your last post:
> Losing Japanese flavor =/= Westernization. Translating something and taking liberties in translation doesn't mean in the end what you'll see is the Westernized version of the line of dialogue. Translators consider that nowadays.
> I prefer subs to dubs because they take away the only thing allowing you to learn Japanese culture: the original dubs. As you watch subs, you'll soon learn the language, and the culture behind it. That happened to me when watching AXN's subbed anime.
> IMHO, your definition of "literal translation" is mere translating Japanese to Romaji. Taking away SOME cultural aspects of words is inevitable in translation.
> I've read the last part of your post and I can say that I'm completely disappointed. Thinking that fansubs ALWAYS strip away the cultural aspect of that anime and it will turn out as a WESTERNIZED version of that anime is utterly wrong IMHO. Don't forget; there are still visual aspects that will try to maintain the Japanese flavor of a series.

Japanese Anime + Western Translation = Westernization of Japanese Anime is too dichotomic.

[Triple_R]

Originally Posted by Marcus H.

I don't agree that English dub is the only Western way to appreciate anime.

I never said that it is.

I simply said that I personally prefer western flavoring of translations to remain within the dub.

Okay, here's what I think about your last post:
> Losing Japanese flavor =/= Westernization.

I never said this, either.

If you were to translate anime into one of the languages of Africa, and did so while removing the elements of Japanese cultural flavor present in the dialogue, then you would lose Japanese flavor, but it wouldn't be westernized, of course.

However, sometimes, westernization and losing Japanese flavor do go hand-in-hand.

Translating something and taking liberties in translation doesn't mean in the end what you'll see is the Westernized version of the line of dialogue. Translators consider that nowadays.

I never said that they didn't consider it.

> I prefer subs to dubs because they take away the only thing allowing you to learn Japanese culture: the original dubs. As you watch subs, you'll soon learn the language, and the culture behind it. That happened to me when watching AXN's subbed anime.

And you'll learn the language and culture best if the subs are as true to that language and culture as possible, imo.

> Taking away SOME cultural aspects of words is inevitable in translation.

Perhaps. But the rest of the cultural aspects can be maintained, and I'm arguing that it's best to maintain them.

What you were championing (the inclusion of swearwords that weren't there in the first place, at least for characters like Kenpachi) is not inevitable. It's a matter of your own personal taste in subs; no more, no less.

My taste in subs is simply different than yours.

> I've read the last part of your post and I can say that I'm completely disappointed. Thinking that fansubs ALWAYS strip away the cultural aspect of that anime and it will turn out as a WESTERNIZED version of that anime is utterly wrong IMHO.

I never said anything of the sort. Where did I say that all fansubs always strip away the cultural aspect of that anime?

What I was saying is that I prefer it when fansubbers (and sub-jobs in general) go for the most literal translation possible. I never once said that fansubbers never do this. Some fansubs I've seen in fact do tend to do a pretty good job here, imo.

Japanese Anime + Western Translation = Westernization of Japanese Anime is too dichotomic.

If you westernize the dialogue when you translate it into English then you are obviously going to be westernizing the anime, at least to some degree.

[Bassoonicmayhem]

In my personal opinion, I think that the sub should be accurate and near to the original. One, it pays respect to the original writers and at the same time it pays respect to the culture by keeping honorifics. There’s not that much more I can add that Raiga hasn’t stated.

Oh but something I have notice... Subbing is not the same thing as dubbing; I think that’s getting confused here (Or at least the title is getting confused.) A more westernized sub is okay, but I would much rather watch a more accurate sub with honorifics and all. When it comes to actual dubs, it’s the same (except for Shin-chan; that show wouldn’t be half as funny if they didn’t change up the jokes and westernized it [or at least I think they did.]) Remember, the thread is about subs not dubs, but they can easily be compared.

[kakakka]

I prefer in the middle of first one and the second, though I lean more to the first.

The first one could make the dialoque lose some of its intended meaning, ...or exagerate. One time there's a sub that wrote 2 long lines for just a short sentence, just to make sense. It was hard to follow But I'm in it for making sense and not go intensive research on how some of the dialogue goes.

The second one takes time to adjust for people, since Japanese sentence structure, cultural reference takes time to get use to. Some people are just in to get entertain, and not getting the reference can sometimes lead to one's disappointment for not understanding any of it. Or, the subs goes so near being accurate to the dialogue, but what it only does is... not making sense.

Im up for a mix of the two 'kinds'

[Schneizel]

Triple R obviously doesn't speak Japanese. There's no need to make such long replies to him, Raiga.

[Triple_R]

To the anonymous person who argued to me that "1:1 accuracy is stupid":

Why? Why is it stupid, in your opinion?

[bayoab]

Originally Posted by klare

but i prefer the name to be correct, like until now i am not sure which one is correct:
- 12 Kingdoms: Youko or Yoko?

This is a difference in romanization. Some people believe in writing out long "o" as "ou", others use a macron "ō", and other's just drop the macron and write "o". There is no right or wrong here really.

- Sora no Woto: Felicia or Filicia?

The latter is "correct" here. This is Japan deciding to make an odd spelling with the same pronunciation the official.

Originally Posted by Chiibi

I do not need to "study it a little harder" because if I'm typing Japanese on a keyboard, I have to type "se-N-pa-i" to get 先輩..........so to me, anything else would be incorrect. Even if it's not truly incorrect romanizing....I......still don't like it...because it doesn't make sense to me.

This is called wapro (Word processor) romanization and it is considered (by some) to be a cancer to the Japanese language.

[Quarkboy]

Originally Posted by bayoab

This is called wapro (Word processor) romanization and it is considered (by some) to be a cancer to the Japanese language.

Nah, 2ch is the cancer of the Japanese language

[Raiga]

Originally Posted by Triple_R

To the anonymous person who argued to me that "1:1 accuracy is stupid":

Why? Why is it stupid, in your opinion?

That wasn't me, but let me just say that I don't believe it's stupid so much as, well, impossible. When I say "perfect literal translation is impossible" I'm not stating that as just my own opinion based on my own experience (though in part it is). One of my teachers is a professional translator who's won a bunch of awards and she has on multiple occasions told our class the exact same thing I told you: there is no such thing as a literal translation. If I can fit a translation theory course into my schedule next semester I'm sure on the first day of class they will tell us the exact same thing as well.

I'm not sure if you know another language, but if you do, try to think about it and think about how you'd express the same idea in English and that other language. Most likely you'll notice vast differences. Of the four languages I'm familiar with, none of them will go 1:1 between each other. The closest are Latin and English, and that's because Latin is practically English's great-granddaddy. Or maybe great-uncle. And even then there's just so much that doesn't work.

Ask any translator about it and you'll hear the same thing. It's impossible to translate 100% systematically. You have to make interpretations, because languages don't work like that.

As for the cultural stuff, a non-literal translation does not mean one that cuts out cultural elements. I refer to non-literal on a very much word-and-sentence level. To elaborate on an earlier example: you've probably heard this a lot in anime, the word "urusai." If you look it up in the dictionary, you'll find that it's an i-adjective that means "noisy, annoying." When it's said in a sentence to describe another character, then the translation would usually read, "He's really annoying." But if somebody just yells "URUSAI!" at another character, the translation is usually, "Shut up!" In other words, literally speaking, the character is yelling that whoever is talking is being loud and annoying. Now, would you prefer the subs to say, "Annoying!" or even "You're noisy!"? I dunno, maybe you would, but I think "shut up!" does the job just fine, because in the social context, that's as close as you're going to get.

Which is what I mean when I say there's more than the dictionary definition. "Urusai!" and "shut up!" both serve the same social context: they are brief, rude, commonly used phrases for situations where somebody else is speaking so much that they are annoying. Another example is the greeting you use in the morning: in English we say "good morning," in Japanese they say, "ohayou," which IIRC comes from the adjective that means "early," in other words, "ohayou" is something like "It is early, isn't it?" But nobody says that in English, and they serve almost the exact same social purpose. If you want any more literal, you may as well learn Japanese.

Uh, this got long again. S'okay, I don't really mind writing long posts. XD Anyway, long story short, perfect literalism is in fact impossible. Language does not exist outside of human minds (and maybe some animals, hmmm), so it is impossible to avoid interpreting it when you translate.

[Triple_R]

Originally Posted by Raiga

That wasn't me, but let me just say that I don't believe it's stupid so much as, well, impossible. When I say "perfect literal translation is impossible" I'm not stating that as just my own opinion based on my own experience (though in part it is). One of my teachers is a professional translator who's won a bunch of awards and she has on multiple occasions told our class the exact same thing I told you: there is no such thing as a literal translation. If I can fit a translation theory course into my schedule next semester I'm sure on the first day of class they will tell us the exact same thing as well.

I'm not sure if you know another language, but if you do, try to think about it and think about how you'd express the same idea in English and that other language. Most likely you'll notice vast differences. Of the four languages I'm familiar with, none of them will go 1:1 between each other. The closest are Latin and English, and that's because Latin is practically English's great-granddaddy. Or maybe great-uncle. And even then there's just so much that doesn't work.

Ask any translator about it and you'll hear the same thing. It's impossible to translate 100% systematically. You have to make interpretations, because languages don't work like that.

As for the cultural stuff, a non-literal translation does not mean one that cuts out cultural elements. I refer to non-literal on a very much word-and-sentence level. To elaborate on an earlier example: you've probably heard this a lot in anime, the word "urusai." If you look it up in the dictionary, you'll find that it's an i-adjective that means "noisy, annoying." When it's said in a sentence to describe another character, then the translation would usually read, "He's really annoying." But if somebody just yells "URUSAI!" at another character, the translation is usually, "Shut up!" In other words, literally speaking, the character is yelling that whoever is talking is being loud and annoying. Now, would you prefer the subs to say, "Annoying!" or even "You're noisy!"? I dunno, maybe you would, but I think "shut up!" does the job just fine, because in the social context, that's as close as you're going to get.

Which is what I mean when I say there's more than the dictionary definition. "Urusai!" and "shut up!" both serve the same social context: they are brief, rude, commonly used phrases for situations where somebody else is speaking so much that they are annoying. Another example is the greeting you use in the morning: in English we say "good morning," in Japanese they say, "ohayou," which IIRC comes from the adjective that means "early," in other words, "ohayou" is something like "It is early, isn't it?" But nobody says that in English, and they serve almost the exact same social purpose. If you want any more literal, you may as well learn Japanese.

Uh, this got long again. S'okay, I don't really mind writing long posts. XD Anyway, long story short, perfect literalism is in fact impossible. Language does not exist outside of human minds (and maybe some animals, hmmm), so it is impossible to avoid interpreting it when you translate.

Perhaps advocating "literal translations" wasn't a good or accurate way of getting across the point I was aiming for.

By literal translations, I didn't mean spelling out the Japanese equivalent of "dejavu" into unwieldy English, for example.

What I mean is this: There are elements of Japanese culture that are reflected in their dialogue. One such element is what you called "systematic politeness". This systematic politeness tends to result in honorifics, a predominant lack of vulgarity, and some other speech patterns and conversational approaches that are unique to Japan.

To give another example of what I mean here, I've heard that it is generally considered poor conduct in Japan to apologize outright for something. So, translating a Japanese line that isn't specifically stating "I'm sorry" into "I'm sorry" in English could very well end up with the character saying something that he or she would never say, at least not in the eyes of the Japanese writers.

Basically, I just think that subbers, when translating anime into subbed English, should keep these elements of Japanese culture at the forefront of their mind.

Now, of course there are Japanese words with no smooth English equivalent. So, for those words, yes, judgment calls have to be made.

Translating an angrily shouted "Urusai" into "Shut up!" might be a good way to go. I'd also be fine with "Annoying!", but "Shut up!" probably works for most tsundere-esque characters (which are the ones most likely to use it, I find). I don't think that it's too far outside of the "systematic politeness" of Japanese culture.


Let me put it this way... If I was to watch a movie set in medieval England, I'd want the dialogue to sound like it believably would in actual medieval England. I wouldn't want the dialogue to be altered to sound more like modern American English because that, in my view, ruins the whole point of having a medieval England setting (unless it's a complete comedy, of course).

If that means that people sound like The Mighty Thor from Marvel comics, then so be it.


Likewise, I don't want the distinctive typical speech patterns of modern Japan to be altered into more western speech patterns just so that they can be more culturally western.

Dialogue shouldn't be made unwieldy when the dejavus come up, but at the same time, it shouldn't be culturally whitewashed, either, imo.