Spring Anime 2010

[clint g]

There are lots of groups of dedicated fine young ladies and gentlemen, and about 30 new shows each season, each putting out a half hour episode once a week. It's not that much of burden for someone who speaks the language to put out a translation of the episode the same day it airs, often just hours. God bless the internet.

God bless the internet indeed The best part about it is that not only are most of the subs on par with official translations, it is not uncommon for fansubs to be of higher quality then some of the official DVD releases

 

[zakkrusz]

Yeah, I have to say I rather like the practice of assigning different colors of text to different characters. I don't know why the crap this technique isn't used for official subtitles too often. It's especially useful when a rapid conversation is going on, or multiple conversations at once.

 

[firehawk12]

That's the limitations of DVD. Apparently they can do more fancy subs on Blu-Ray, but I haven't seen a Blu-Ray anime so I have no idea if they've tried to do anything about it.

Strangely, I'm one of the people who don't mind the karaoke. It seems to bug a lot of people, but I don't mind the super shiny fonts and starbursts.

 

[zakkrusz]

I checked out Senkou no Nightraid. This one should be interesting. It's kinda like Darker Than Black meets Indiana Jones.

 

[firehawk12]

Yeah. I think I was disappointed with it because I assumed it was going to be a serious take on the Japanese occupation of China rather than some wacky SF story.

Also, the Mandarin is horrible.

 

[SlaveOfSeven]

The best part about it is that not only are most of the subs on par with official translations, it is not uncommon for fansubs to be of higher quality then some of the official DVD releases

Yeah, if only because official translators so often insist on trying to literally translate honorifics when it makes absolutely no sense to. It baffles me.

 

[CorporalClegg]

That's one of the things that just totally drives me nuts about professional subs (and dubs).

Honestly, how many anime fans don't know what words like Onee-Chan or Sempai mean? Instead they feel compelled to translate them to Big Sister and Senior. Who talks like that?

They should just leave it as it is or, if they must, Americanize it.

I saw Memoirs of a Geisha in theaters. I doubt most of the people in the audience had ever seen an anime, yet whenever Sayuri said Onee-Chan I don't think anyone had a problem with it.

 

[Pilot Ace]

That's one of the things that just totally drives me nuts about professional subs (and dubs).

Honestly, how many anime fans don't know what words like Onee-Chan or Sempai mean? Instead they feel compelled to translate them to Big Sister and Senior. Who talks like that?

They should just leave it as it is or, if they must, Americanize it.

I saw Memoirs of a Geisha in theaters. I doubt most of the people in the audience had ever seen an anime, yet whenever Sayuri said Onee-Chan I don't think anyone had a problem with it.

It's a slippery slope when you decide to start leaving things like "onee-chan" or "sempai" in the subtitles. Where do you draw the line?

What about the person who is new to fansubs (or anime in general), do you just ostracize them because they aren't inclined to learn Japanese, whether or not its a few words here and there?

I've seen some ridiculous cases were fansubbers have left huge amounts of word untranslated, whether it was because it made them feel cool or in the know or just because they were doing a shitty job. This can also lead to a silly amount of notes on-screen.

Here's an interesting documentary by a translator which explains "the rise and fall of anime fansubtitles". I pretty much agree with the majority of his thoughts.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUYlqLlbix0

 

[CorporalClegg]

Pfft.

The guy comes across as an unemployed whiner.

 

[Pilot Ace]

Pfft.

The guy comes across as an unemployed whiner.

Don't agree, but isn't that beside the point anyway?

It's still various degrees of ridiculous to leave things like honorifics and other things untranslated.

 

[SlaveOfSeven]

It's still various degrees of ridiculous to leave things like honorifics...untranslated.

A few seconds of watching subs that have honorifics translated should convince any fluent English speaker that it's absurd. The titles and words available to us are not used the way they end up being deployed in translations. It's utter nonsense to mangle the idiomatic use of the language you're supposed to be translating into with such unnatural and distracting distortion of speech.

See Crunyroll's (think that's right) translation of Naruto Shippuden, in which the show has become full of peers of the realm and nobility. Utterly ridiculous. Words such as "Sir" and "Lady" have very definite meanings and strong associations. You can't just stick them in because we have nothing more appropriate. It doesn't work.

 

[Pilot Ace]

It's still various degrees of ridiculous to leave things like honorifics...untranslated.

A few seconds of watching subs that have honorifics translated should convince any fluent English speaker that it's absurd. The titles and words available to us are not used the way they end up being deployed in translations. It's utter nonsense to mangle the idiomatic use of the language you're supposed to be translating into with such unnatural and distracting distortion of speech.

The distinction is a skilled translator does the best job they can at making it seamless. Leaving words untranslated is much more absurd and ends up making sentences become nonsense to someone not willing to verse themselves in a language they do not speak--hence their desire for subtitles in the first place.

See Crunyroll's translation of Naruto Shippuden, in which the show has become full of peers of the realm and nobility. Utterly ridiculous. Words such as "Sir" and "Lady" have very definite meanings and strong associations. You can't just stick them in because we have nothing more appropriate. It doesn't work.

If you say so, you couldn't pay me to watch Naruto in the first place.

If you can show it someone who has not been exposed to anime before and they can understand the relationship between the two characters the translator has succeeded.

The problem with translating any work is the chances of creating a one-to-one translation is nearly impossible because of the baggage that comes with language. Translations are about the best possible approximation of meaning, leaving things untranslated except in the most extreme circumstances is doing a terrible job at translating.

 

[CorporalClegg]

Why?

There's a huge cultural disparity there. Translating them literally is silly and translating them to be more American promotes ignorance and degrades the source.

It goes the other way too. There are countless examples of things translated from English to other languages that are done so literally that they come across as really corny and missing the intent entirely.

And the whiner thing is relevant--especially in regards to the TL notes. His example with the Last Samurai came across as pretentious hyperbole.

There's nothing wrong with TL notes; they aren't that hard to ignore. And to suggest that translators instead provide a detailed accompanying text is just ridiculous.

 

[Pilot Ace]

Why?

What, why? Quote something!

There's a huge cultural disparity there. Translating them literally is silly and translating them to be more American promotes ignorance and degrades the source.

Japanese is not a language handed down from God, it is another language like any other.

The former I can agree with, the latter not so much. I don't see how a localized translation is ignorant or degrading, it is an attempt to make a work in another language understandable to another audience entirely.

It goes the other way too. There are countless examples of things translated from English to other languages that are done so literally that they come across as really corny and missing the intent entirely.

Yes. I agree. Not translating honorifics and other words also comes across as silly and distracting.

And the whiner thing is relevant--especially in regards to the TL notes. His example with the Last Samurai came across as pretentious hyperbole.

It isn't much of an exaggeration, it's a relevant example of what the anime fansubbing does to a work.

There's nothing wrong with TL notes; they aren't that hard to ignore. And to suggest that translators instead provide a detailed accompanying text is just ridiculous.

Translator's notes should be used sparingly because they distract the eye. They do become hard to ignore when fansubbing groups use it to the ridiculous extent that he shows examples of in the videos.

I don't think that's ridiculous at all. If the show you're watching requires a lot of notes, which most probably don't, you include a document of some kind highlighting those notes. For fansubbing it would be as simple as including a text document--for official releases you localize as best you can so you don't need to include notes very often if at all.

The video I linked used the example of Otaku No Video, a show with copious amounts of injokes and references. They elected to include a booklet because of how dense the show was instead of covering up the screen with constant notes.

 

[SlaveOfSeven]

The distinction is a skilled translator does the best job they can at making it seamless.

But it can almost never be seamless, because of what CorporalClegg and I have already noted twice: we don't speak like that. It will always stand out like a sore thumb.

Have you ever heard anyone address their sister as "Big Sister?". How on Earth could that ever be made seamless? Better to leave them out altogether.

If you can show it someone who has not been exposed to anime before and they can understand the relationship between the two characters the translator has succeeded

But that's exactly the point: it doesn't help you understand the relationship between characters, because, as I noted, words like "Sir" and "Lady" have very specific meanings and associations, and they're not equivelant to the Japanese honorifics being used.

Edit: to illustrate the point, think about the title "Mr". If you were going to translate that into some language that doesn't use such a title how would you go about it? What does "Mr" actually mean? Well, nothing really. Of course, we know what it means, but its meaning is defined by context. It's just an abstract title used in certain situations. If you spoke a language that didn't have an equivelant, the word is meaningless and untranslatable. You can only learn its meaning by learning the contexts in which it's used. If you grab the nearest word to "Mr" in the language you're translating to that you can find, even though it doesn't have the same meaning and isn't used in the same situations, this seems like a good idea? I don't get it.

Further edit: I can't really tell, but I suspect this post might come across as slightly aggressive, in which case I apologise, Pilot Ace. It's not meant to be; it's just that I feel quite strongly about this issue.

 

[CorporalClegg]

And to chance someone from saying "Big Sister" to calling her by her name, you have, in essence, changed the character.

 

[zakkrusz]

Considering some of the distinct differences between the structure of the two languages, English and Japanese, it's not surprising that some subtle things get lost. Personally, I'd say honorifics are best used in certain types of genres and discarded in others depending on their importance to the story. For some like a romance, comedy, or drama it should be left in but anything else it's not really necessary.

 

[SlaveOfSeven]

For some like a romance... it should be left in...

That reminded me of a show I watched a while ago in which a character was worried about whether they should drop the honorific when talking to someone they were getting involved with, and the honorifics were being translated in some cases (though sometimes ignored, I think). It made for some rather strange dialogue. heh Can't quite remember what the show was; possibly His & Her Circumstances.

 

[firehawk12]

We're talking about honorifics now?

Having just finished Yakuza 3, I feel like you can go too far. I mean, the main character is called Kiryu but every time someone says "Kiryu", they subtitled it as "Kazama". Like, I wonder if they just forgot that last names come first or something, I'm not sure. The problem is that there are two other characters named "Kazama" in the game, so they had to then rename those characters in the subtitles. It was just a huge mess.

Then you have something like when someone calls Kiryu "Ki-chan" they decide to translate it to "Kazzy" in English. The problem is that in Japanese, it's not meant to be ironic. I suppose the English equivalent would be a man attributing feminine attributes to another man ("I didn't know that you were such a Nancy", etc). That's where the subs lose a lot of the texture of the original language.

I'm not totally anal about it I suppose. One of the characters in the game constantly calls Kiryu "aniki", which means literally means brother but is also a term of respect for a superior. They just translated it as "boss", which, I guess is the best they could up with without trying to explain it. With something like that, I just accept it as an aspect of language that is untranslatable.

 

[Pilot Ace]

But it can almost never be seamless, because of what CorporalClegg and I have already noted twice: we don't speak like that. It will always stand out like a sore thumb.

Key bit was "best job they can."

Leaving the honorifics is even sillier if your contention is it doesn't sound natural because no one is going to speak in English and then switch to Japanese mid-sentence.

Have you ever heard anyone address their sister as "Big Sister?". How on Earth could that ever be made seamless? Better to leave them out altogether.

Yes, I have heard people say "big sister" in real life, especially when making introductions. Albeit it is much more common to hear something like that in storytelling in general. When you tell a story the dialogue is not 100% natural because natural exchanges of words are boring and unfocused. You weave exposition, like people's relation to one another, within dialogue. Sometimes it sounds a little forced, but it relays information. That's what good dialogue does, the more seamless the better.

Why is saying onee-sama better than just writing "big sister"? They mean roughly the same thing, in the former you're just making it sillier by leaving it untranslated. It is still awkward and unnatural when you translate it in your head.

But that's exactly the point: it doesn't help you understand the relationship between characters, because, as I noted, words like "Sir" and "Lady" have very specific meanings and associations, and they're not equivelant to the Japanese honorifics being used.

They're not direct equivalents, no, but they communicate the social status of the characters in relation to one another because of the associations. If a character says "sir" to another character my assumption is the one is of a higher status than the other (depending on the context, of course).

I don't see any problem.

Edit: to illustrate the point, think about the title "Mr". If you were going to translate that into some language that doesn't use such a title how would you go about it? What does "Mr" actually mean? Well, nothing really. Of course, we know what it means, but its meaning is defined by context. It's just an abstract title used in certain situations. If you spoke a language that didn't have an equivelant, the word is meaningless and untranslatable. You can only learn its meaning by learning the contexts in which it's used. If you grab the nearest word to "Mr" in the language you're translating to that you can find, even though it doesn't have the same meaning and isn't used in the same situations, this seems like a good idea? I don't get it.

Situations like that (and everything we've been discussing) are why skilled translators are needed in order to make the relatively same implications that words have in other languages. "Mister" can imply a lot of things depending on the context, whether its social status, politeness levels, or gender. You find the best equivalent because that is your job as a translator.

The quirks of any one language may not have exact translations across the spectrum of languages. We've established this over and over again. As a translator, you deal with it because otherwise you're not doing your job.