Forum - View topicHey, Answerman!
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posterior_praiser Posts: 294 |
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That's a good question. I think that you do miss out on a certian authenticity that way. It makes the relationship more 'western' and less Japanese in a way also. I think it also distorts the relationship between characters in certian situations. If i had only read the PoT manga, I would find it strange to hear the characters refer to others by different names than the ones given in the manga if I watched the anime. It would feel 'incorrect'.
I think it is not a matter of whether or not it is a good style to force on the viewer so much as it is the style that the majority of viewers prefer. Also, there are many nuances in the Japanese language that simply cannot be translated in English, honorifics being one of them. Honorifics come with a ceritan social understanding that most English speaking north americans or europeans don't have a way to express. Because of this, sometimes it is necesary to be a bit less local and more literal; using the asssumption that the viewing audience knows these things, which many do. I agree that keeping in honorifics sounds silly in a dub, but as I mentioned before, there are ways around it that don't involve simply leaving them untranslated. I think that you can stay true to the original ways characters call others without leaving in the honorifics par say. Since Haruhi in Ouran High School Host Club calls Tamaki 'Tamaki senpai', it is much more appropriate for her to call him 'Tamaki' in English than 'Suou', when he is rarely called Suou by anoyone outside his family. It makes no sense IMO. But the fact that they left in the honorifics in that particular dub is silly to me at the other end of the spectrum, cause it really isnt necessary.
Humm I disagree. I think that if you localize the anime, then it wouldn't need to consider the culture, but there are plenty of instances in anime where an undestanding of Japanese culture is necessary to understanding little things about characters or storylines/places. If you take those little things away, then there isn't an issue, but if you want to be more precise and accurate, then it is necessary to account for them. The basic concepts of course can be understood without the knowledge though. It's just a matter of how much you want the translation to reflect the 'Japanese-ness' of its origins. |
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| Aizen-chan Posts: 31 |
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A non anime is most likely going to watch the dub version, unless they are already a fan of foreign films, which then they are going to want the subs to be translated as close as possible.
If we choose to watch the subs, they we watching the Japanese, which is the original and intended language. If the language was supposed to be in English they would have made it in English in the first place, and then you wouldn't need subtitles (unless you were hearing impaired).
And I bet if they did change "Onee-chan" to the girls name, you would then complain that they use the names too much, since the Japanese tend to use names at times that we normally wouldn't.
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Dorcas_Aurelia Subscriber Posts: 3075 Location: Philly, PA; stupid Yankees. |
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I weigh 150 pounds, and my body-fat percentage is about 7, which is at the low end of the recommended healthy level. I shave regularly, and my house doesn't have a basement. Cut the ad-hominem, please. Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it's inherently wrong in the same way that my liking it doesn't make it inherently right. |
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Batman3777 Posts: 159 Location: Down the Shore, NJ |
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Ignore him. That's about the 1000th time he's used that expression, and he still thinks he's being clever. He must spend too much time on 4chan to come up with something useful. I think people argue this stuff too much. Watch it however you want to watch it. There are lots of options available through the LEGAL DVDs... as for people who complain about fansubs.... they were done for you for free, and given to you for free and illegally... you think you have the right to complain about that? Do any of you know what Chutzpah means?  |
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Fabe Posts: 80 |
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I'm watching that episode of Rahxepon right now, the text is translated but its on a separate subtitle track. a lot of dubs do that ,full subtitles on one track and signs/text only on another. Some times they put the text option in the language menu other time you have to use the subtitle button on your remote control. |
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| trescaballeros Posts: 16 |
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!) Saya's a fresh whiff of air for me. Majority of hero/heroines are sullen jerks who won't think twice about killing/hurting (and she's a GIRL, for crying out loud). And I don't think she was treating Haji like dirt. That's what I think at leat. 2)Blind optimism....that's exactly what kept Shu alive. If he went all whiny and despondent like what I feel a lot of people will expect as a "realistic" reaction from him, then he would've been dead and the show would've ended sooner. |
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| skyhack Posts: 6 |
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| Jing, the smarmy, cocky, and detached thief of "Bandit King" fame takes the cake for me as the most annoying character, ever.
It doesn't help that his only recourse when things get tough is to rely on -- his smarts? No, his pervert parrot sidekick, who shoots rays from his mouth! Vash would kick his ass up to his shoulder blades, if Vash were the violent type! Regarding fansubs... I know several native Japanese people, but pretty much zero Japanese! I like subs that are entertaining, accessible, and grammatically correct. I have low tolerance for misspellings, poor syntax, and the like. If a sub looks like it was done through Babelfish, I avoid it. Literal translations are fine (I actually prefer them) if the more obscure idioms are explained at some point. I love my Pani Poni and Zetsubou subs for the chalkboard explanations! The few fansub comparison groups on the web have been a real help to me in finding subs I like. |
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| Obsessive Touga Fan Posts: 27 |
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Wrong. If you're watching something in Japanese with English subtitles, the subtitles are an English translation of the Japanese dialogue. That's what you're watching -- a version of the series that has been translated into English by way of subtitles. The subtitles are not the Japanese dialogue itself. ...Unless, of course, the subtitles leave a load of words untranslated. Then they might as well not be there at all, and you get your wish of people watching in Japanese rather than English. Excepting that possibility, the English-subtitled version is and should be an English translation that takes into account the norms of the target language and its speakers. |
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chingaling Posts: 12 Location: New Zealand |
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| Answerman's done the fansub vs DVD sub argument before, and I still don't agree here.
I might not be an actual fansub watcher but from the various bits and pieces I've seen, I wouldn't write them off as being unprofessional. For one thing they definately seem more targetted toward people who are into Anime, whilst the commercial subbers are going to have to worry about anyone and everyone watching, so why shouldn't the fans prefer fansubs (in spite of being illegal and all)? There's also the sheer fact that these people do seem pretty damn passionate and serious about their job, especially if they're doing it for free. No, I can't say, seeing as I don't speak the language, that the fansubbers are better than the commerical subbers, but I'm still willing to wager it, especially since commerical subs are usually pretty similar to the dub scripts (modified from original translation), and in movies like Advent Children you have to wonder how they do that. |
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petran79 Posts: 102 |
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| Translation is not just about knowing to speak both languages well. One has to be delved also in the cultural studies, in literature and linguistics of both languages. Especially audiovisual translation is a particular difficult process . there is much more than fancyfull coloured fonts.
some subtitling standards http://www.accurapid.com/ Also for some countries reading subtitles has been considered something only for artsy films, since most countries broadcasted dubbed films and series. Older audiences have difficulties reading subtitles, even in English. http://fistfulofeuros.net/ Many non-European nationals that settle in Europe for the first time, especially Americans, seem to find subtitling and dubbing a particularly quaint feature of the continental European landscape. It must indeed be weird to hear Will Smith speak French or German all of a sudden. And on several occasions I have heard American friends in Belgium wonder why subtitles never seem to correspond with what is actually said on screen. In general they do, really, but in a different way. Moreover, subtitles are often associated with “European” as in “arty, obscure films shown at elitist film festivals”. Last year I translated and subtitled an episode of the British soap Coronation Street in which two parents are wondering what their goth daughter must be talking about with her friends. ‘Boys, probably’ says dad. But mom replies: ‘Probably some film with subtitles that nobody else ever goes to see.’ And there I was, poor little European me, translating that line in a soap opera that could not possibly be more mainstream. also this is worth reading: "Modern Japanese displays an interesting case of word, or rather concept borrowing from Western culture. Meiji translators strove to establish a sort of dynamic equivalence between the original and the translation, creating new terms in order to describe realities, which were fundamentally different from Japanese ones. Their efforts resulted in creation of an almost new language that was adjusted to the new concepts rather than translating new concepts with already existing terms" http://accurapid.com/ |
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| Tofusensei Posts: 353 |
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| Most "subtitling standards", though very good best practices, do not apply 100% to anime.
Many subtitling standards say you should put no more than 28 characters (including punctuation and spaces) per line, and no more than two lines on a screen at a time. This is how you end up with "future-men" on the Haruhi DVDs instead of "time travelers" in the fansubs, to save the extra 4 characters. The anime viewing audience can handle things differently than the general public can, which is why pointing to those subtitle guidelines as gospel can be dangerous. -Tofu |
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ybleesSubscriber Posts: 111 Location: New Zealand |
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The answer to this question is "It Depends!" If the story is in a western setting, French, American, most Sci-Fi, then lack of honorifics probably don't make much difference. However I have read a translated text story (light novel) where a younger character was seeking advice from a senior (approximately 4 years older), and the lack of honorifics in the translation made that conversation wierdly intimate. They sounded like lovers - it was amazingly creepy. In this case, yes, lack of honorifics made the relationship seem HUGELY different. I think dubs should probably leave out honorifics - it just becomes too awkward. Subs - maybe, since one can listen for the honorifics in the Japanese dialogue. But manga should definitely retain them so long as the story has a Japanese (as opposed to "foreign")setting. |
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| Zalis116 Moderator  Posts: 4812 Location: Tana Village |
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| chingaling Posts: 12 Location: New Zealand |
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I've been told by another source that the sub scripts are based off an early version of the dub scripts. I don't mean to tell you you're wrong though, I havn't seen every Anime so I can't really say either process applies to every series. The reason I referred to Advent Children was because the script would've had to have been changed a lot to fit the mouth movements, and the fact that the subs are so much like the dub script makes me wonder a bit. There's one part (and my 'picked up' Japanese knowledge does come into play here whether Answerman likes it or not) where Marlene says something along the lines of "big sister?" which was a bit confusing at first because we didn't realise it wasn't supposed to be taken literally. In the english dub, it's changed to "is it her?" to fit the mouth movements, but I wouldn't think the subtitles would need to do the same. The Chinese subs on the same disk however, do say big sister, so it doesn't really ad up. Maybe a lot of stuff I watch is like Blood+ then, or it's just a Sony thing  . Either way, I hope you're right cause I have to rely on the subs most of the time.
On a side note: I feel a bit sorry for the dubbers of some Anime shows, trying to get the english voices to fit with the mouth movements when the Japanese creators weren't that fussed about it to begin with. |
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| Ryoko77san Posts: 5 |
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Whoa, had to do a double take on the question. It said "protagonist only" cause I was about to write a whole essay on Sylphiel and the hate she brings to me with her annoying voice and personality.
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