Is not translating some words a good translation decision?

[Lynxara]

My personal view is that I prefer Japanese honourifics to be left in - they're easy to look up, you'll be familiar with them if you've seen other Japanese media, and they have no English equivalent.

I used to feel this way, but then I was watching an anime once where a character used an honorific in a way that seemed utterly impossible and wrong to me. When I brought it up to my Japanese teacher (for this is when I was back in college), she basically said everything I'd looked up about honorifics online was wrong and I should just forget I had read any of it until we did the lesson on honorifics.

And it did, indeed, turn out that a lot of assumptions I and Internet fans made about how honorifics worked from anime were not consistent at all with the actual rules governing their use. Also, basically all of them did have English equivalents, they just weren't similar particles of speech in some cases, or things you could really indicate in a text-based translation.

So now, I think whether you leave honorifics in should reflect the type of story it is. If you're translating something like a school drama, then it becomes difficult to leave honorifics out, since you might have plot points that hinge completely on what honorific a character is using to refer to another. It's also more excusable to leave honorifics in manga than anime, I think, since manga is purely text-based and the English equivalents to honorific use often involve shifts in tone of voice.

For the average tokusatsu show, which tends to be henshin hero or kaiju stuff, I don't think I've ever seen a reason to leave them in. The plots simply don't hinge on relationships the way some other genres do, and generally anything the honorific is telling you about a relationship can be easily inferred from other obvious things like the actor's tone of voice and body language. Honorifics that function more as titles can be directly translated in most cases. It is very rare that you see any use of honorific that is complex or significant at all, let alone difficult to translate.

 

[Guardian07]

For the honorifics, ultimately it depends on the setting, though the only time I'm totally okay with leaving out honorifics is if the characters are not Japanese, or are not supposed to be speaking in Japanese even though they're speaking in Japanese. Easy example, in Gundam anime.

When not talking about honorifics, things get a little more complicated, and I usually tend towards leaving it untranslated. For Kamen Rider, it's "Henshin" because it's just so iconic to Rider, same as saying "Kamen Rider" not "Masked Rider", and saying "Super Sentai" and not "Super Task Force". However in Magiranger the transformation call is "Mahou Henshin! Maagi Magi Magiro!". Here, it's fine to translate to "Magical Transformation" or something like that, since "Henshin" is not as iconic to Sentai as it is to Rider. For "Maagi Magi Magiro", you have to leave it because it is supposed to be a magical language to use magic in the show. In the same time, I'm mixed on translating "Gokai Change" because of the word "Change", which can mean that the phrase is meant as a chant or magic word.

Also, there are some stuff that has a literal meaning but treated as a name or a special word or phrase, and the literal meaning tend to be something that's just neat to know. Then I would like leaving it in.

Something that I stumbled upon is the names of the Destron commanders. They are Kiba Danshaku, Tsubasa Dai Soujou, and Yoroi Gensui. At first glance(or if you just hear it) they're translatable to Baron Fang, Archbishop Wing, and Marshall Armor. But I found out that in the show, the Kiba, Tsubasa, and Yoroi are written in katakana, and the rank is not, which can lead to the conclusion that Kiba, Tsubasa, and Yoroi were meant as names.

Long story short, put a lot of thought in to it. A lot of things can and should be translated, but not everything. Just my opinion, however.

 

[NateRiver]

I think it's fine to leave in words of importance like morphing calls or brand names, but when translators do stuff like "Cow-san-tachi",which can be translated to a mere "cows", it really grinds my gears.

 

[Lynxara]

For Kamen Rider, it's "Henshin" because it's just so iconic to Rider, same as saying "Kamen Rider" not "Masked Rider", and saying "Super Sentai" and not "Super Task Force".

I've always found this argument a bit odd, because henshin is absolutely a common word. It's just "transform," there's not even the nuances to it that make translating "sentai" into English a bit complex and dicey. Henshin's not even a word you mainly hear in Rider, you tend to hear it frequently in any anime/manga/movie/etc. that concerns characters who become other things. I think the tendency of Rider fansubs to leave "henshin" untranslated sends kind of a bad message in that regard. It's one thing to not translate words like "Sentai" that are genuinely complex, or to not translate honorific usage that is genuinely complex and meaningful, but "henshin" means pretty much one thing all the time and is easy to translate.

In the same time, I'm mixed on translating "Gokai Change" because of the word "Change", which can mean that the phrase is meant as a chant or magic word.

Not really. Even little kids watching Gokaiger probably know what "change" in English means by then. It's a very common loanword and a lot of Japanese pop uses it. Gokai Change would pretty much translate as "Hearty Change," and the main argument against translating it is simply that the show never uses the descriptor "gokai" in any context that's not the team name, so it's debatable what the audience would actually gain from having a translation.

But I found out that in the show, the Kiba, Tsubasa, and Yoroi are written in katakana, and the rank is not, which can lead to the conclusion that Kiba, Tsubasa, and Yoroi were meant as names.

This is a common misconception and not entirely true. From a Japanese perspective, they'd come off more like names if they were written with kanji rather than katakana, since names are always in kanji (with hiragana providing a reading).

In children's shows, names with obvious kanji-based meanings are sometimes written out in katakana just to make them easier to read (and emphasize the name's cool sound). The process of learning kanji is a slow one, and even teenagers who are otherwise quite literate can be reliant on furigana to read quickly. Little kids are assumed to know a lot of words, but not necessarily how to read the kanji for those words.

For names like these, whether or not to translate them would likely to be a matter of preference where both methods of handling it are perfectly acceptable. It wouldn't be strictly necessary unless at some point in the show, some dialogue or a plot hinged on the characters recognizing what the villain names meant.

Long story short, put a lot of thought in to it.

We can agree on this much, certainly.

 

[Solari]

Why isn't the random french spoken by Enter in Go-busters translated?


Bringing up a related topic which I found interesting when I first started reading manga in Japanese.
Usually, the meaning is written in kanji and occasionally the pronunciation in furigana on top.
However, in manga, this pronunciation may be made-up or a foreign language and not necessarily be the correct Japanese pronunciation. (usually attack names, can be character names too)
Example, katekyo hitman reborn - meaning of what the author intended to convey in kanji, while the Italian equivalent pronunciation is on top in furigana.
I think this is quite an interesting aspect to manga.
In fan-translated manga, I usually see the attack in the furigana pronunciation and a note somewhere with the meaning.

 

[KingRanger]

Why isn't the random french spoken by Enter in Go-busters translated?


.

I wonder about this myself.

 

[Hell Kaiser Andy]

The most obvious would maybe be translating him and having it in italics.

 

[Lynxara]

I wonder about this myself.

It's probably just translator's preference. That said, if the audience was meant to understand everything Enter was saying, I think the show would subtitle his French in Japanese. There's no subtitles, so I wonder if that particular speech tic is meant to come off as confusing? I really don't think the average Japanese viewer would understand everything Enter's saying.

 

[Guardian07]

I still have a lot to learn then.

About Enter's french, not translating them would not detract from the enjoyment or affect understanding of the plot. But still, they're just words like "please", "magnificent", "yes". I can understand them being simple words and not full sentences, the translator don't feel the need to translate them, but why don't just put them in.

 

[Lynxara]

But still, they're just words like "please", "magnificent", "yes". Why don't just put them in.

Yeah, this is what I mean when I say something is translator's preference. There are some elements of translation where the argument for doing things a certain way and the arguments against it are going to be equally valid. At that point, most translators will just go with a gut feeling about what's right.

There really is no reason not to just translate what Enter is saying, since it's all simple words. On the other hand, his dialogue isn't subtitled and it's clear that nothing he's saying really matters to the plot. So ultimately it's just a matter of style, more than a matter of right/wrong.