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Answerman - Do Dubs Really Contain More Swearing?

Hell Girl episode 7 had a large amount of swearing added for no reason. So, you basically hear Caitlin Glass saying the f-word every other second.

That's what turned me away from the Durarara!! dub when it aired on Adult Swim.
I don't see the point in bleeping out swear words on late night tv, it made the show seem trashier that way.

Merxamers wrote:

characters inexplicably swear like sailors,.

Almost equally amusing is whenever a discussion comes and uses such an old outdated phrase

For me, it all boils down to a few questions:

1. How accurate is it to the original script? Some writers curse more than others.
2. If it isn't accurate, is it at least in-character for whoever is cursing?
3. If it's toned down from the original, is it because they plan to air the show on TV? I honestly don't mind edits if they don't detract too much from the show, and if it's meant to achieve a wider audience.

I guess it doesn't really matter though. It's not as if dubs serve as verbatim English-language translations of the original subs. Learned that from several comical DR3 instances of "You perfect cinnamon roll" and "Kamakura Yas queen"

Then you get into the questions of whether you're translating for someone who can be expected to be familiar with some Japanese terms ("sensei" and "ninja" are almost certainly ok, but I've certainly seen shinobi -> "ninja" and tsunami -> "tidal wave," which seem excessive.

If you're translating for a US audience, is it worth leaving something as "Hamburg steak," (which is less known in the US) or is the close more common in the US "Salisbury steak" ok? (Note that Japanese-style Hamburg steak is not quite the same thing as what is served by that name in Europe, being adapted for the Japanese palate?) What about false friends and words that have changed significantly in meaning since being adapted from English into Japanese; should "juice" be translated as such, or with a more generic drink term? Conversely, "spaghetti with meat sauce" will sound fine to American ears, while non North American English speakers may wonder why "Spaghetti Bolognese" wasn't used.

Peppering the translations with unnecessary swearing can have its own problems, obviously, but I think arbitrarily keeping your dialog "clean" can be just as bad. To use an earlier example from this thread, if your grizzled warrior comes home to find his village on fire, he's not going to say "aw, shucks". Not hearing at least a "damn" or a "shit" would seem out of character and jarring. And ultimately the goal of translation is simply to make things seem as natural as possible to the audience.

John Thacker wrote:

If you're translating for a US audience, is it worth leaving something as "Hamburg steak," (which is less known in the US) or is the close more common in the US "Salisbury steak" ok? (Note that Japanese-style Hamburg steak is not quite the same thing as what is served by that name in Europe, being adapted for the Japanese palate?)

The English translation of One Piece uses simply "hamburger" without the steak for some reason, I'll say that, and I was confused for some time. I knew about hamburger steak, but the character simply called it a "hamburger" and took the form of a disk of beef he ate with his hands, and that didn't sound like any food I was familiar with.