Aspects of Translation

[jfs]

"This morning watashitachi went to the suupaa and katta a suika" ?
No thanks.

[Sylf]

That's the perfect way to alienate anyone who start watching fansubs later.

[mangatron]

Originally Posted by Sylf

That's the perfect way to alienate anyone who start watching fansubs later.

Agreed. To be honest, I don't like putting in any japanese words in subs unless the english equivalent is a two sentence paragraph

The purpose of my dislike for japanese and english subs all in one?

That is my reason right there. The whole purpose of translating japanese -> english is so that we may end up with a finished english subtitle script right?

For the average joe who just learned how to download via Bit Torrent, I think a pure english script is best for that joe.

Example experience:
Joe is reading a sub: " Here Onee-sama, I made some Onigiri."
Joe instantly thinks: "Wait, what does-...Oh yeah Onee-sama = elder/Sister. Ah wtf Onigiri? Meh, rice-roll thingy whatever...."

We just chipped off about 12 seconds of brainpower and destroyed several brain cells in Joe.

Save the Average Joe. Translate what you can.

[N-Bomb]

Why don't we just LEAVE IT IN.

While we're at it, we should transition to using romaji subtitles, because come on, you should know some Japanese if you're going to be watching fansubs, coffee-tachi!

...

...

...my god.

[FatPianoBoy]

Originally Posted by jfs

"This morning watashitachi went to the suupaa and katta a suika" ?
No thanks.

The purpose would be to help people learn Japanese, not necessarily provide a natural English translation.

[jfs]

Originally Posted by FatPianoBoy

The purpose would be to help people learn Japanese, not necessarily provide a natural English translation.

For that, an English sentence with some words/phrases replaced with the Japanese they would be translated from probably won't work. Rather put the romanised Japanese line and put English translations of selected words (or all words) as ruby text. I think this would amount to an absurd amount of work, especially if doing a complete series (even if short) and few if any would really do it. The real gain from viewing it would also be very limited I think.

[chaos4ever]

Originally Posted by mangatron

For the average joe who just learned how to download via Bit Torrent, I think a pure english script is best for that joe.

Example experience:
Joe is reading a sub: " Here Onee-sama, I made some Onigiri."
Joe instantly thinks: "Wait, what does-...Oh yeah Onee-sama = elder/Sister. Ah wtf Onigiri? Meh, rice-roll thingy whatever...."

We just chipped off about 12 seconds of brainpower and destroyed several brain cells in Joe.

Save the Average Joe. Translate what you can.

Sure, we can put everything into English equivalents, but if we're reduced to replacing "sushi" with "raw fish on rice" or "katana" with "thin curved sword," I think we're being a bit disingenuous to the purpose of "fansubs by fans for fans." A lot of things can be taken in context and understood from context after being exposed to it a few times. If anything, 1> we should not assume ignorant and stupid viewers. 2> We should at least be attuned to what kind of audience will be interested in watching certain series (and the series itself) and adjust the subtitles accordingly. 3> We should also assume that the audience is at least a bit curious and have the motivation (and ability) to google and wiki "common" things. After all, they have to be on the internet to download things, and they can easily look up things on it too. But in all honesty, it's eventually the TLer who set the standard (with the ambitious editor) with what the group works on via the script.


If you're going to do ruby text, you might as well just accompany the release with a TL script with all of the spoken lines broken down and annotated. The screen doesn't have much space for subtitles to begin with. Anything more, the things just get messy.

[bayoab]

Originally Posted by chaos4ever

Sure, we can put everything into English equivalents, but if we're reduced to replacing "sushi" with "raw fish on rice" or "katana" with "thin curved sword," I think we're being a bit disingenuous to the purpose of "fansubs by fans for fans."

There is a difference between leaving english loan words and pure japanese words. Pretty much every english speaker is familiar with sushi restaurants. Not everyone is familiar with sukiyaki, yakiniku, etc. English loan words are fine to put in subs even if it's not in common usage. Then again, when they start ordering sushi in a restaurant in an anime, you aren't going to leave it as "2 Maguro" "2 Oomaguro" "2 Amaebi" because not everyone orders sushi in japanese and these all have direct common english names. Things would get interesting if someone ordered "odori" though.

[Shouta]

Woof, -tachi doesn't need to be left in.

Subs don't need to be more alienating to watchers. The more Japanese you leave in your sub, the harder it is for new people to pick it up. If the term can be translated without sounding akward, then it should be translated. There are exceptions (proper nouns, names, archaic words, jokes, and etc) but those are the minority in most cases.

If someone is using solely fansubs to learn Japanese, they need to be smacked around with a big fish of some sort, preferably trout or swordfish. That's just a terrible, terrible idea. If the person is using fansubs with a proper instruction in Japanese, they don't even need the untranslated terms in it. =P

[Potatochobit]

I agree, if someone is serious about learning japanese they should purchase the tokimeki memorial game series on the sega saturn and get a nice verb dictionary and start to play, just like I did.
of course, taking courses for over 8 years helped too.

translating food goes both ways. usually its best to localize it, dont type karrepan type curry bread. or like i did with kanipan i prefer to type it as crab pastry, since then most people know its a light snack. but on more cultural food like yakisoba, its best to leave it as yakisoba. literally translating it to wheat noodles is more like listing its ingredients. people say french bread, not white flour bake. on the sushi issue though, lets say maguro onigiri, its probably best to just say tuna sushi, since most people are familiar with the basic form of sushi, no need to go into detail.

[Shouta]

but on more cultural food like yakisoba, its best to leave it as yakisoba. literally translating it to wheat noodles is more like listing its ingredients.

Fried Noodles, yo.

[CelesAurivern]

Originally Posted by mangatron

Joe is reading a sub: " Here Onee-sama, I made some Onigiri."

Of course, we could do it like the commercial pokemon dubs.
Replace onigiri with doughnut, nevermind what is being shown on screen.

And on the topic of removing japanese words from sight:

Ninja: Traditional Japanese Secret Agent
Shinobi: Traditional Japanese Male Secret Agent
Kunoichi: Traditional Japanese Female Secret Agent
Samurai: Employed Traditional Japanese Warrior
Ronin: Unemployed, Wandering Traditional Japanese Warrior

God Bless Uhmerika!

[Shouta]

Originally Posted by CelesAurivern

Of course, we could do it like the commercial pokemon dubs.
Replace onigiri with doughnut, nevermind what is being shown on screen.

Actually, they only did that for the early episodes of the show. I believe they changed it back to riceballs as the series went on. I can't recall any specific instances that they mentioned riceballs though.

[Cythraul]

Originally Posted by chaos4ever

Sure, we can put everything into English equivalents, but if we're reduced to replacing "sushi" with "raw fish on rice" or "katana" with "thin curved sword," I think we're being a bit disingenuous to the purpose of "fansubs by fans for fans."

bayoab commented on this already but just to drive the point home, both katana and sushi can be found in reputable English dictionaries (OED), and katana has been used in English at least since the early 17th century. Same goes for ninja, samurai and ronin (including even the newer "student who has failed university exam" meaning). These words are, for all intents and purposes, English.

[N-Bomb]

I shouldn't need to mention that there's a HUGE difference between parts of language (which should be translated), and proper names (which should not).

[mangatron]

Originally Posted by chaos4ever

Sure, we can put everything into English equivalents, but if we're reduced to replacing "sushi" with "raw fish on rice" or "katana" with "thin curved sword," I think we're being a bit disingenuous to the purpose of "fansubs by fans for fans." A lot of things can be taken in context and understood from context after being exposed to it a few times. If anything, 1> we should not assume ignorant and stupid viewers. 2> We should at least be attuned to what kind of audience will be interested in watching certain series (and the series itself) and adjust the subtitles accordingly. 3> We should also assume that the audience is at least a bit curious and have the motivation (and ability) to google and wiki "common" things. After all, they have to be on the internet to download things, and they can easily look up things on it too. But in all honesty, it's eventually the TLer who set the standard (with the ambitious editor) with what the group works on via the script.


If you're going to do ruby text, you might as well just accompany the release with a TL script with all of the spoken lines broken down and annotated. The screen doesn't have much space for subtitles to begin with. Anything more, the things just get messy.

lol either I used a bad example or my point was missed

Look at my sentence again, and then my last sentence. Onee-sama is a title, Onigiri is material (food). What the average joe looks at is the food, but what he hears is the title (onee-sama). Any joe can decipher "I brought you some Onigiri" as he see's said person bringing in yummy food, but hearing the word "onee-sama", which in some cases might be joe's first time hearing it, would spark a question. It's human nature, I'm not saying joe is dumb and needs therapy, but "onee-sama" could be translated, depending on if the series has a family sided term for onee-sama, which is usually the case, as family based "onee-sama" could just be, Sis. But then when it's not family based like Otoboku, it sounds odd if it's translated, right? Using it as a title followed by as part of a paragraph was an excellent choice for that series, as it then explained, without need for a TL-note, what this term of non-family based "onee-sama" means. As, "onee-sama" was widely used throughout the series when they are clearly not related. But thanks to its earlier title-and-word-combo, it is understandable to leave it in.

I faced a similar problem with my latest full translation, To Heart 2 OVA. Yuji widely refers to Tama-nee as "Aneki". What was I supposed to do? Aneki has a similar meaning to "onee-chan/san/sama". I'm not doing a TL note, average joe might get confused if he watched a earlier anime that used "onee-chan/san/sama", and wonder what a TL-note like "Aneki: also means sister" would mean. Average joe might say "So now there's four sister meanings? What should I use the next time I call my sister?" (That is assuming average joe has a loli sister ) the hell did I just say loli?

My end result was Sis. As average joe watches TH2 OVA for the first time and joe see's that Yuji is obviously the younger one, and Tama-nee is the older, bossy sister. Joe then connects his previous knowledge of "onee-chan/san/sama" to "Aneki" and thinks "oh yeah, so aneki = elder sister. Coolio." Thus my "Sis" was born, and no I'm sure average joe would not be using a computer similar to mine that utilizes SiS technology

As you can see I tie my translations to their visuals, I don't just slap a translation thinking "They'll know". No, I always think about that poor unfortunate joe born every minute not knowing if he will watch anime in his near future. and no, I didn't forget about Jane-neechan.

I make translations for all, not for the ones who "been there, sorta done that"

Tell me, what do you prefer?

*joe has joined #gijoe
<joe> Hey guys, what does "aneki" mean? Stupid translator didn't elaborate in his TL note ~__~
<Anonymous> lol
<2chan> lol, n00b go to japan

or

*joe has joined #fansubs4all
<joe> hey guys, when does next ep come out? I'm dying for it, good job keep up the good work ^___^
*~mangatron sets mode: +b joe
*joe was kicked by mangatron (Don't ask for releases. Thanks for watching.)

Originally Posted by CelesAurivern

Of course, we could do it like the commercial pokemon dubs.
Replace onigiri with doughnut, nevermind what is being shown on screen.

You know my favorite one?

That episode they said "let's eat hamburgers" when what they are holding is white meat, black bun food

(who can guess what ep?)

[cyth]

Originally Posted by mangatron

I make translations for all, not for the ones who "been there, sorta done that"

When I started watching fansubs, the series I chose to watch all had those little translation notes explaining what Onii-chan, Jii-chan, Onee-sama etc. mean. Eventually, I got sick of seeing them, but initially they were a huge help, although I still needed time to really figure out from contexts how they were usually used. Anyway, the current generations of fansubbers are getting older and older; some of them have been around for a very long time; but new fans are born every day who also watch newer content. I think most of today's fansubbers expect viewers of their fansubs to have a bit of knowledge about these cultural things already, so I rarely see any of those TL notes in modern fansubs. In this regard, I believe the fansubbing scene has become elitist. I don't think that's such a bad thing, but yah, Joe Average/Newbie gets the shaft. Because of that I'm more in favor of transforming those language bits to work better in English, even though some of the original meaning *might* get lost. But let's face it, translating is a lossy process no matter what you do. Also, how much enjoyment are we willing to kill with notes and the likes for the sake of delivering a more genuine meaning?

[False Dawn]

I think the usual ones like Oneesan, Oniisan, Senpai etc. are pretty acceptable nowadays -- because even if a new fan doesn't understand these, they are widely used so he should, if he has any intelligence, cotton on that "hang on a minute, all those kids refer to their older sisters as Oneesan..."

The only thing is where to stop, really. I think that depends largely on the translator and editor of certain series - for example, one series I edit, we've decided to translate everything, even honorifics, though this largely works because of the type of series and editing style we have chosen for it.

I think perhaps -tachi is pushing it too far, as would things like Obaba or Ojiisan without tl notes. Personally, I know that if I was a new watcher, I would immediately be clueless at these words (especially as they are frequently used to non-relatives).

Though, some releases do have things like this, without 'translation' or tl notes. One of the releases I watched recently and noticed had a lot of Japanese words left in had honorifics like:

Shin-niichama

Toshihiko-bocchama (<---- and I have to admit, I don't even know the significance of that honorific - it may be a quirk of the character, but because it's a very Japanese reference, I missed it as being that)

Misoji (Okay, this one is in reference to a font, so it's a name, but again, I got no significance from it, despite there seeming to be some joke in the scene)

mizutaki (this may have been explained in a previous episode, though my mind isn't sharp enough to remember what food it actually is)

shirataki (again, maybe mentioned in previous episode, but who knows)


And I noticed that there was a "Sa..." in the script as well. I know that if I wasn't a seasoned anime watcher, then I would have been like "Sa? Wtf is sa?" I have to admit that some of these even gave me trouble and I've been watching anime pretty regularly for around two years now. It's not major, as I'm sure everyone will agree, but seeing the Japanese words that were left in unexplained in this script makes me think that any of the more obscure honorifics and words probably need translating or at least explaining in some way.

After all, if in doubt, a TL Note can work wonders ^_^

[Quarkboy]

Originally Posted by False Dawn

And I noticed that there was a "Sa..." in the script as well. I know that if I wasn't a seasoned anime watcher, then I would have been like "Sa? Wtf is sa?" I have to admit that some of these even gave me trouble and I've been watching anime pretty regularly for around two years now. It's not major, as I'm sure everyone will agree, but seeing the Japanese words that were left in unexplained in this script makes me think that any of the more obscure honorifics and words probably need translating or at least explaining in some way.

After all, if in doubt, a TL Note can work wonders ^_^

Sa? Untranslated? That's just lame. It's easily and accurately translated by something like "Dunno..." or "who knows?" or "beats me..."

Not translating sa is more a sign of a poor translator than an editing choice. I see no reason for leaving it untranslated other than ignorance of its meaning.

[CelesAurivern]

Originally Posted by Quarkboy

Not translating sa is more a sign of a poor translator than an editing choice.

Then again, the editor should be shot for letting that go unchallenged.