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Sub-watchers: do you prefer honorifics?


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yoshiyukiblade



Joined: 10 Nov 2012
Posts: 305
PostPosted: Sat Aug 24, 2013 9:09 am Reply with quote
Zalis116 wrote:
So do you get up in arms if subs translate a sentence like "Misaki-san wa ima kaerimasu ka" as "Are you going home now?", rather than "Is Misaki-san going home now?" And most good subtitles perform some degree of simplification and omission for the sake of "screen real estate" and providing enough reading time. Subtitles are not supposed to be exact closed captions; is there really anything lost by reading "What're you doing here?" rather than "What're you doing in a place like this?"? I try to cut out verbal chaff like "well then" wherever I can.


I have to agree with that. Sometimes, I can clearly hear a name+honorific being spoken, but subtitles often replace them with pronouns for the sake of reducing repetition, which is also generally proper English. It also occasionally happens when a character refers him or herself in the third person.

There are also some other appropriate times to replace clearly understandable words with others. Just today, while watching Railgun ep 19, I can clearly hear the characters saying "hamburger" when describing cooked ground beef. However, since it's a particularly small, rounded type of ground beef, it was subbed as "meatball," which makes more sense. There are also a few other substitutions, like replacing "toilet" with "bathroom" and I think they're one of those tricky situations that have to be localized in spite of what my ears hear.
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Olliff



Joined: 28 Feb 2008
Posts: 550
PostPosted: Sat Aug 24, 2013 11:54 am Reply with quote
Japanese is far from the only language with honorifics or similar linguistic elements. However, Japanese is the only language that has professional translations that include these honorifics. This is a new invention primarily at the demand of the viewer. Personally, I would prefer if the honorifics in anime were handled like how proper Japanese was translated in classic films, such as Seven Samurai. This film does not leave in untranslated honorifics, but they may influence how a sentence is translated. Anime should not be translated differently than other Japanese media based just on the whims of otaku who think it is ineffable. This is not correct; honorifics can be expressed through other means in translation without having to resort to leaving in untranslated honorifics.

The whole I hear it and they are unexpressable arguments are unfounded. There are several Japanese words for "you" and "I" with many different meanings and connotations. Why would you insist these words should be translated while honorifics are left in their raw Japanese form?
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Kruszer



Joined: 19 Nov 2004
Posts: 7981
Location: Minnesota, USA
PostPosted: Sat Aug 24, 2013 3:11 pm Reply with quote
Chiibi wrote:
Galap wrote:
But you can hear what honorifics they say in the Japanese, so I don't really see how it makes you miss anything.


We explained this: it's distracting when the ears are hearing something that the eyes are not seeing.


I know some people are better at mentally multitasking and filtering than others. For instance, when I watch subs I don't really listen to the "words" but rather the emotional tone of what's being said as I read the text. I've had people ask me how I can listen to music and read on the bus at the same time, while keeping track of when to get off, and my response is: "It's easy. You can't?". Whereas, conversely I myself am unable to take in visual details of a show while simultaneously reading subtitles without a pause button like a lot of people have no problem doing and I'm sure they'd tell me the same thing if I asked how they did it.
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yoshiyukiblade



Joined: 10 Nov 2012
Posts: 305
PostPosted: Sat Aug 24, 2013 4:28 pm Reply with quote
Some words just stick out like a sore thumb, namely names. It's not necessarily something we actively listen for, but just pick up naturally as if it were our native language. For me, it's names, borrowed English words and a few learned words whose definition I'm still not 100% certain about.

Nothing distracts me more than reading something that makes me think, "Did they really say that?" Names and heavy profanity (F-word, for example) are probably the most noticeable offenders. As my primitive dictionary of terms grow, so do my distractions. In the same token, I get used to it and they become nothing more than mental footnotes while I watch. It's also very insightful to see how subbers translate certain words or phrases to English depending on the context. I hope that some day I can better identify if a sub is being too liberal or conservative in their translations without actually having to learn the ins and outs of the language.
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vashna



Joined: 19 Feb 2010
Posts: 1313
PostPosted: Sun Aug 25, 2013 12:58 am Reply with quote
I know that this is probably not going to mesh with a lot of people here, but I honestly don't have a problem with leaving name order the way that it is. That would avoid awkward moments like the one involving Shishio...Makoto/Makoto...Shishio.

Japanese isn't the only language that does that. Besides Sinospheric languages, Hungarian is like this. I've read some Hungarian novels translated into English, and they just provided a translator's note in the beginning of the book telling the reader that Hungarian names are rendered with the family name first.

I don't mean to get off track, but I've really never been sure why more series weren't dubbed this way, or as far as manga is concerned reversioned in this manner. It would help prevent those kinds of weird situations, which might make it easier to decide whether or not to actually ad the honorifics in.
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Hitokiri Kenshin



Joined: 14 Feb 2012
Posts: 291
PostPosted: Sun Aug 25, 2013 10:53 am Reply with quote
With name order it depends on the series and who's doing the subs and company. A lot of Funimation's stuff does Japanese order, but some do Western order and not just for the non-Japanese/Chinese characters.
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Touma



Joined: 29 Aug 2007
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Location: Colorado, USA
PostPosted: Sun Aug 25, 2013 11:05 am Reply with quote
@ vashna
I think that anime, and manga, in North America uses Western name order simply because that is what the customers use at all other times. People just assume that the given name is the first name and the family name is the last name.
I think that there are very few times when using the Western order actually has a negative effect, and those are usually just quick jokes like the Haruma Kenji vs Harry McKenzie gag in School Rumble.
Switching to Japanese name order would be a major change, and there is just no incentive for the producers to do it.

Personally, I have no strong feelings about the name order. I do wish that it was consistent across all media, but that is never going to happen.
Since I am not familiar with most Japanese names I often cannot tell which order is being used when I see a name in a news article or review. I doubt that it is ever really important to me, but it is just a bit annoying.

To repeat what I said about the actual topic of the thread, I prefer that the honorifics are used in the subtitles. I like to have them even in the dub if that would not seem out of place.

EDIT:
A thought just occurred to me.
I do not import anime so I do not know what it is like, but from what I have read it seems that the Japanese are sometimes adding English subtitles, and even dubs, to their releases and selling them in North America.
I am curious what they do with the names and honorifics in their translations. Do they keep the honorifics and Japanese name order, or do they Westernize it for us?
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Shadowrun20XX



Joined: 26 Nov 2007
Posts: 1935
Location: Vegas
PostPosted: Sun Aug 25, 2013 1:08 pm Reply with quote
Depending how long you have been into anime will determine how honorifics will effect you or not. There are far too many variabilities versus experience to say really. In my opinion I like them, and would say people need to experience a bit of it too see what it is all about.

Most fans will not care. They hear and see what they want to hear and see without the technical side of things. If you were to ignore like, how 4kids did Pokemon then it can change the context of the story being told.

Watch dragon Ball Z in several different languages they differ greatly from the original Japanese. Many jokes are shrugged off or are outmoded through honorifics as well.

What up Zalis-Dono!
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Chiibi



Joined: 19 Dec 2011
Posts: 4828
PostPosted: Sun Aug 25, 2013 6:56 pm Reply with quote
Zalis116 wrote:


So do you get up in arms if subs translate a sentence like "Misaki-san wa ima kaerimasu ka" as "Are you going home now?", rather than "Is Misaki-san going home now?"


Of course not. It should be "Are you going home now, Misaki-san?

:p

lol

Gatherum wrote:
Not necessarily: I do not find it difficult to follow when the honourifics are omitted.

Necessarily for me. It's not "difficult for me to follow" when honorifics are ignored, it's just annoying as hell.

Let me tell you a little story, okay?

When I was in high school, I was renting anime a lot from my (not so) local anime shop. I rented a little OVA called Princess Rouge and fell in love with it. It was released by AnimeWorks and they completely ignored all the honorifics (most anime companies at the time did...or they translated them). I was young and I did not know Japanese outside of "baka" or "aishiteru". I did not know that younger sisters did NOT call their older sisters by their name; they called them "older sister". But "Nee-sama" was ALWAYS subbed as "Rouge", the main character's name.
SO because of this, I had no idea she was actually the older sister which was important to the plot as she had freaking amnesia and remembered NOTHING.

.............see why that would make a person cranky? See why ignoring honorifics altogether can be a very bad idea? For the love of God, at least sub it as "Older Sister" for the sake of other young people who don't know Japanese yet!?
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walw6pK4Alo



Joined: 12 Mar 2008
Posts: 9322
PostPosted: Sun Aug 25, 2013 11:50 pm Reply with quote
By this point, what I hear registers more than what I read, so I guess it could go either way in the subtitles. I'll already know what they're saying, but for manga it can be trickier.
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Megiddo



Joined: 24 Aug 2005
Posts: 8360
Location: IL
PostPosted: Mon Aug 26, 2013 12:08 am Reply with quote
I prefer honorifics if the anime takes place in Japan and/or the conversation is between Japanese characters. I'm not too stiff on that though for the most part.

However what I absolutely despise is when a character is called by his last name in the audio and the first name is used in the subs. Honey & Clover is one of my favorite anime ever and the DVDs are completely unwatchable to me because of this issue. I expect to see 'Takemoto' in the subs and yet there's 'Yuuta'. Why on earth did they make such a stupid decision?
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yuna49



Joined: 27 Aug 2008
Posts: 3804
PostPosted: Mon Aug 26, 2013 7:23 am Reply with quote
For me, the worst related example was the treatment of "Kou Shurrei," the name of the heroine, in the Geneon release of Saiunkoku Monogatari. The author of the novels, Yukino Sai, was concerned that Western audiences would not notice the subtle difference in pronounciation between the two Kou clans and be confused about their relationship. So the decision was made to use the Chinese transliteration Hong instead. (Saiunkoku takes place in a fantasy world that has many similarities to T'ang China. The clans are named for colors; Shurrei's is crimson, hence "hong.") Then they decided to use Western word order as well, so "Kou Shurrei" became "Shurrei Hong" in both the English dub and the English subtitles.

If that occurred a few times through the show I probably wouldn't have minded. But many characters refer to Shurrei as "Kou Shurrei" throughout the entire series. It became annoying to hear one thing and read another episode after episode. I also think it was an unnecessary solution to a minor problem since the other Kou clan plays only a very small role in the story. Still Yukino said that was her preference, so Geneon followed her desires.

I'll admit to missing the distinction myself when I first watched the show in fansubs, but it didn't affect my understanding all that greatly. I bet if they had tested this decision with a focus group of potential R1 viewers, they might have made a different choice. Probably most of the purchasers of Saiunkoku Monogatari like me had no need for the translation change and would have preferred the original.

I also dislike the practice Chiibi describes where honorifics like "nee-sama" are translated as the character's given name. Not only does it clash with the spoken Japanese, it can obscure important relationships among the characters.


Last edited by yuna49 on Mon Aug 26, 2013 7:31 am; edited 4 times in total
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Gon*Gon



Joined: 29 Sep 2011
Posts: 679
PostPosted: Mon Aug 26, 2013 7:24 am Reply with quote
I prefer if there were honorifics. Not because I like them perse, but because it's not uncommon that subs that don't use honorifics fall flat on their faces when the usage of honorifics is used as a plot point, gag, or whatever.


Using honorifics is playing it safe and makes sure there won't be cases where subbers awkwardly try to translate a joke or dialogue where honorifics are actually important when they haven't used any of it before.
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Hitokiri Kenshin



Joined: 14 Feb 2012
Posts: 291
PostPosted: Mon Aug 26, 2013 4:50 pm Reply with quote
Megiddo wrote:

However what I absolutely despise is when a character is called by his last name in the audio and the first name is used in the subs. Honey & Clover is one of my favorite anime ever and the DVDs are completely unwatchable to me because of this issue. I expect to see 'Takemoto' in the subs and yet there's 'Yuuta'. Why on earth did they make such a stupid decision?


I've seen the opposite of this happen with Ranma 1/2. His butler clearly called Tatewaki Kuno "Tatawaki-sama" but the sub said "Master Kuno".
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vashna



Joined: 19 Feb 2010
Posts: 1313
PostPosted: Tue Sep 17, 2013 5:33 pm Reply with quote
That translation is particularly strange, especially considering that the subtitle writers obviously took the time to render "-sama" as Master, which I would argue is a fairly accurate rendering.
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