There's two schools of thought, broadly speaking, on how to deal with this. Over-Time's translators tend to believe you should translate the sense of the line, above all else. TVN's subs (from what I can tell) go with the idea that you should write out the things that the audience probably recognizes, so they aren't distracted by a disconnect between the subs and the audio. Some translators will mix the two approaches, keeping in loan words if the rest of the line can be written to accommodate them. There's positives and negatives at play here, and ultimately, it'll just come down to how much you decide you want to trust a given group's translator to make good choices.
I've read pretty much everything that's ever been typed about translation on this forum at this point, and that bolded line right there is at the heart of what I eventually settled on as my big gripe with O-T.
I don't trust 'em. I don't like the anglicized names, I don't like how honorifics are handled, I don't like how puns are handled. I feel like I'm losing a chunk of meaning every time I see them and it casts doubt on the whole production because I am mostly ignorant of the meaning of what I am watching.
This was also an excellent and eloquent explanation of the situation, as usual from Lynxara.
The fact that you find it necessary to insult the people that don't agree with you about that documentary.. Well...
It has many personal meanings to individuals. But there is a concrete definition in dictionaries.
OhgodsIhateyousomuch.
To be honest, wanting to achieve that subconscious comprehension more quickly is why OT prefers to translate terms like Zyuden, that would otherwise have to be carefully memorized as jargon before they faded into the background. It is true that if you botch translating a name, you can end up with something that's actually harder to memorize than just the Japanese term.
I've had this happen a lot with 'official' translations on sites like Hulu and Crunchyroll. The disconnect between what's heard and what's seen, especially when the combination of word and context is enough to convey the entire meaning, is hideously distracting and the act of trying to read, watch, and hear at once is already stressful enough on my brain. I don't multitask well.
The sense of chance, as an English word, is one of neutral possibility. A chance can indicate both good and bad possibilities. The Japanese use is almost always positive, which is why "opportunity" can be a better fit. In English, the sense of "opportunity" is basically positive, and it's usually used to indicate favorable situations.
I got into an interesting short discussion on this topic in a youtube comment the other day. We were discussing where cultural differences cause loss of meaning, specifically aibo [partner] being used to refer to one's steed being translated AS 'steed', which is apparently a common usage in Japan. That led to me calling Japanese a "boring language" and them to talk of how context plays a larger role in Japanese than English, often entirely changing the meaning of a term.
And to that I say bullshit. Context always matters in language and saying that a person won't understand "partner" referring to a mount is ridiculous. English-speakers can understand context as well as anyone else and if you're wondering what any of that has to do with 'chance' well I'm getting to that.
Even though the English word 'chance' *can* mean the possibility of a positive or negative outcome, just as we use the idiom "This is my chance!" to mean only the positive opportunity we as viewers, aware of the context in which the phrase is spoken, can clearly perceive "A pinch is a chance!" for precisely what it is. Taking the singular word 'chance' outside any context and using its potential definition as justification to change that phrase is utilizing poor judgment that doesn't take into account how the word is being used.
[hide]There are two forms of subtitling, Dynamic Equivalence (Liberal Translating) and Formal Equivalence (Literal Translating). With literal translating, you sacrifice readability for accuracy and accuracy for readability for liberal translating. I would propose that neither is technically wrong and whichever one prefers is up to the individual. Not to mention, a host of other factors need to be taken into account as well, such as the translator’s personal preferences, the source material, the target audience, etc… However, personally speaking, I find myself favoring the literal form of translating.
I’m not sure about the translation policies of others, but if I were to translate something, I want to present the media to the viewer as close to the original as possible. To me, that should be the goal of a translator, to allow someone to enjoy a media product for what it is (the good and the bad), and not add your own spin to it. That way, the audience is enjoying something YOU wrote and not the product itself.
A translation =/= re-write. That’s not a translation, that’s putting your own spin on things and modifying the original script. Even though the liberties taken with liberal translations might improve the show making it funnier, wittier or cruder, you are not letting the audience enjoy the show for what it is.
Whatever the case, one of the things that you are dealing with when it comes to foreign cultural products is indeed the fact that it comes from another country. What I believe shouldn’t be done is localization (which I differentiate from translating). Sure you can ‘translate’ stuff like the honorifics, as bizarre as it will inevitably end up sounding. But what about the other cultural terms and practices that have to “demand the person watching to integrate themselves†into the culture of another country? Where does one draw this line? Idioms? Puns? Food? Traditions? Names? Locations? What is “Golden Week’? What is ‘omotenashi’? What is ‘onee-sama’? What is ‘otaku’? Should one ‘translate’ wasabi as ‘Japanese horseradish’? Then are sushi ‘pieces of assorted fish on rice wrapped with seaweed’?
If you ask me, you can’t have your cake and eat it – watching Japanese anime or tokusatsu without wanting any of the ‘Japaneseness’. I for one don’t watch American TV shows without expecting to learn some of America’s culture. Fido? Independence Day? Philly Cheesesteak? Yup. I don't suppose you watch British television shows or movies and expect 'torch' to be localized into 'flashlight' or 'car park' into 'parking lot' do you?[/hide]
I truly agree with this explanation of the goals and strategy of translation. Specifically that translation is a very different thing from localization. And it's a matter of with whom the responsibility of reconciling cultural differences lies. I said this in the TVN thread, but I'll repeat:
I don't trust the translator to be well-versed enough in *both* languages, the from and to, in order to fully capture the intended meaning of the original writer all of the time. And I would rather have the responsibility of needing to research some Japanese culture to better understand what's going on than to have a localized interpretation of the material. 4kids indeed.
Yeah I probably took that a bit to far, but am I the only one that warrants a public reprimand from a forum admin here?
Yes. You sling insults and veiled implications of stupidity and don't engage on an intellectual level with your talking partners. It's disruptive and prevents the flow of meaningful dialogue.
"Official names" can go drive right off the cliff though. It's one thing to stick to "officiality" and the other when romanization clearly breaches the limits of retarded (like Condol, Saver or Pteragordon).
Oh my gods how I hate Condol. Of all the things that cause to spew forth a flaming torrent of bubbling hatred from my throat that is very near the top of the list right up there with "irregardless", "nuculer", and "ATM Machine".
It's good that I know that...abomination...exists though. Because I need to look him up to buy his toys, and I want to own *all* of his toys. And just the other day I had to spell out his name to a store clerk at an import shop that was searching on his computer. So...consistency in naming IS important and serves a purpose, however much I may hate the thing itself.
This has been said to the person in question multiple times, but he/she does not seem to get it or doesn't care to get it. I mean it would be like saying I need to get fully informed about how cows are raised and the process of all that in order to enjoy a steak dinner.
Your analogy is faulty. A steak dinner is not in any way an intellectual experience. It is a purely visceral one which relies only on your own 5 senses to be fully understood and enjoyed.
The contextual situations presented in the media you consume are integral to it. They cannot be disregarded. I've asked for this from subbers before, but it merits asking again:
Please consider, if you are knowledgeable, providing a short cultural breakdown of the situations in the thing you are translating. If you don't want to clutter up the screen with asides and sign translations then PLEASE put it in a text file or embedded in comments in the script itself. But more important than that, make that file available with the media and in torrents and zip files. If 10 years from now all of your servers are down and your hosting sites have tossed your files to the winds, I would like to be assured that anywhere I find your work that it will come with the information needed to best understand and experience it.
