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"SoldaTs", why the hell? (Pronounciation)




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Tempest
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PostPosted: Sun Jun 29, 2003 10:16 pm Reply with quote
Okay, while I was watching Noir 3 my wife asked "Why the hell do they prnounce it "Solda - Ts", you don't pronounce the T.

To which I replied, "Yeah, the Japanese aren't that great at pronouncing foreign languages and the English translation just kept the Japanese prnounciation."

My wife however pointed out that the Japanese audio does indeed pronounce the word correctly, with a silent T, so honestly, why the hell would ADV go and add that "T" (and s. Soldats is pronounced "soul da")?

-t
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jmays
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PostPosted: Sun Jun 29, 2003 10:20 pm Reply with quote
My first guess would be that no one involved in recording knew French. ^_^

-Miagi
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Allen
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PostPosted: Sun Jun 29, 2003 10:30 pm Reply with quote
Tempest wrote:
Okay, while I was watching Noir 3 my wife asked "Why the hell do they prnounce it "Solda - Ts", you don't pronounce the T.

To which I replied, "Yeah, the Japanese aren't that great at pronouncing foreign languages and the English translation just kept the Japanese prnounciation."

My wife however pointed out that the Japanese audio does indeed pronounce the word correctly, with a silent T, so honestly, why the hell would ADV go and add that "T" (and s. Soldats is pronounced "soul da")?

-t


to paraphrase matt greenfield, the characters speak english, so all the dialogue is in english, and as you know, english is never wrong..

...or something.
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Tempest
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PostPosted: Sun Jun 29, 2003 10:37 pm Reply with quote
Boxie wrote:

to paraphrase matt greenfield, the characters speak english, so all the dialogue is in english, and as you know, english is never wrong..

...or something.


LOL!

Then they should be calling them "the Soldiers" shouldn't they?

"Are you from the Soldiers? Are you here to kill me?"
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Emerje



Joined: 10 Aug 2002
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PostPosted: Mon Jun 30, 2003 12:02 am Reply with quote
Uhg, further proof that ADV has the worst translaters and directors in the world. Rolling Eyes ADV is the biggest anime company in the West, but sometimes I think they pump out so much stuff that they go for speed over accuracy. Their eye and ear for detail appears to be gone at this point, rather than research and pay close attention to doing this the right way they just do it their way.

This is probably my favorite error as pointed out by Dom at Megatokyo:



That's from ADV's release of Voice of a Distant Star. I love Dom's explenation: "Or maybe 5 is Japanese for 4, in someone's twisted brain. Who knows? Maybe, as my roommate Cortana says, it's the true explanation why 100 yen is worth 80 cents. "

Maybe he's right...

Emerje
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cyrax777



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PostPosted: Mon Jun 30, 2003 12:11 am Reply with quote
hey atleast it wasnt "mass naked children" Rolling Eyes
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Delthayre



Joined: 05 Jan 2003
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PostPosted: Mon Jun 30, 2003 8:38 am Reply with quote
I did not know that, which is odd since I'm usually an insufferable pedant. I'll chalk it up to my dislike of and therefore inexperience with the French language (not political, I'm just not fond of the sound). Given the amount of detail apparently paid to some of the English production and the close match between the English and Japanese, I would have thought that this would have been handeled correctly.

Aw sioot, now I won't be able to enjoy the otherwise strong English dub of Noir knowing that this mistake is so prevalent. Believe it or not, that isn't a sarcastic jab, I'm actually going to be nagged at by this. *sigh*

My only guess as to why it's mispronounced: The director was a bit lazy and just had them pronounce it phonetically. That's sort of an American instinct. I imagine that in the Japanese scripts "Soldats" was written ソルダ (SoRuDa, the 'u' of 'ru' being essentially silent), thus avoiding most pronounciation issues. However, English speakers usually base the spelling of borrowed words on the native spelling. Just listen to how many times you here 'gyros' (propery hir-OZ) pronounced JI-roz.
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BuffaloStyle



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PostPosted: Mon Jun 30, 2003 11:15 am Reply with quote
Delthayre wrote:
Aw sioot, now I won't be able to enjoy the otherwise strong English dub of Noir knowing that this mistake is so prevalent. Believe it or not, that isn't a sarcastic jab, I'm actually going to be nagged at by this. *sigh*


I agree. Noir has been one of the few anime that I watch dubbed. Now, the mispronunciation of the French word "Soldats" will annoy me since I have always had problems with the anglo-izing of French words. Not doing any research is pretty lazy on ADV's part. I just may have to switch over to the sub version. Bummer.
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Case



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PostPosted: Mon Jun 30, 2003 11:46 pm Reply with quote
I have to admit... After hearing Mireille's valley-girl-ish "What-EVUR" in the first episode, I have not watched any of the episodes in dubbed format since.

However... In that one episode I did watch, I seem to recall them pronouncing Mireille's name roughly as "Mur-ALE". But, if you know anything about French (or listened closely to the Japanese track) it should be pronounced roughly as "mi-RAY", similar to travailler.

...Which makes me wonder, why are any of you surprised by the mispronouncation of Soldats? (Unless they altered the pronounciation in later episodes, or my memory has gome completely bad...)

But then again, I have never been able to understand you people who like ADV dubs. I have never understood what people are talking about when the mention ADV's ADR improving, Eva's dub being an accomplishment, or whatever. With a few rare exceptions, in my book their dubbing department does and has always sucked, and their dubbed material pales in comparison to dubs done by Bang Zoom and Ocean Group, among others.

Delthayre wrote:
Just listen to how many times you here 'gyros' (propery hir-OZ) pronounced JI-roz.


Heh. I always thought it was pronounced "yaros". Shows how lingual I am. Anime smile;;
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BuffaloStyle



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PostPosted: Tue Jul 01, 2003 2:01 am Reply with quote
Well that's embarrassing.

Truth be told, I've never listened to the Japanese track nor really looked at how Mireille's name is spelled. I probably should have caught that her name was also said wrong. Oops. Just one more reason to watch the sub.
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Delthayre



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PostPosted: Tue Jul 01, 2003 2:44 pm Reply with quote
The pronounciation of Mireille has been explained as being the proper Corsican way of saying it. However, given the error in pronouncing, "soldats," I this explanation is cast somewhat into doubt. I really couldn't say myself as I do not know very much about Corsican other than it is a Romance language spoken by a sizable segment of the population on the island of Corsica.

I still like the dub however, and I think I'll keep watching it, only with a little cringe every time I hear, "soldats."
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LordByronius
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PostPosted: Tue Jul 01, 2003 3:11 pm Reply with quote
Probably one of my least favorite otaku moments was when I ran into a bunch of older nerds who actually called the show "No-ah-ruu."

Me: "But... it's a French word!!!! Just because the Japanese can't pronounce it correctly doesn't mean YOU should!"

Him: "Hmph! I'll stick with what they say in the Japanese language track, for it is absolute and what the creators intended."

Me: "grumble"

I couldn't give a hoot n' hollar whether or not you "prefer the sound of the French language," but it's really not all that hard to suppress the "r" in "Noir."

... Yes, I had to take two years of 200-level French classes. I might have to take one of them again, because I got an incomplete and I'm not sure of the instructor will ever get around to reviewing my completed materials because she's up in France at the moment. Mon instructeur, et les ballots d'anime, sont tres fous!
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