Forum - View topicHey, Answerman! [2008-11-21]
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Mohawk52
 Posts: 8202 Location: England, UK |
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Steroid
 Posts: 329 Location: At home, where all good hikikomori should be |
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I respectfully disagree that not being fluent in Japanese disqualifies someone from judging a translation. If nine out of ten translations render a word one way and the tenth renders it another, you don't have to be an expert to figure it out.
Example: There was a line from the opening song of Aria the Natural: "Hitori ja nai kimi to issho ni iru kara." The subtitles (which I thought were otherwise excellent) translated it as "You're not alone, because I'm with you." My thought was why, in a love song, would the persona sing their own praises? It should probably be "I'm not alone, because you're here with me." When I consulted a friend of mine who is fluent (because I am not, and I don't trust myself), and gave her the line, she gave an answer with the people in the same order I thought. The subtitles translation could be right, since the original sentence has no articles, but it made less sense from my view. And I didn't need to be fluent to see that. But as regards "the meme that 'these shows are really for adults,'" I think that compared to the fare offered for teens and young adults, the popular anime in the Bleach vein are more advanced, but set that aside. The F-bombs and untranslated Japanese let the viewer think that A)he's seeing something rebelious, or at least not meant for him, and 2)that he's seeing something that non-anime-fan friends and relatives won't understand. It's the same motivation behind some youths creating their own language and talking in it to freak out their parents. And that's why I agree that "the American companies don't know what they're doing and don't understand the show," because the American companies care about satisfying the parents of their viewers, and the fansubbers care specifically about being a thorn in their side. |
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Ai no Kareshi
 Posts: 561 Location: South Africa |
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You did consult someone who is fluent in the language to verify, though. I don't imagine a lot of people do that before they start criticizing a translation.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but you seem to be claiming that neither American companies nor fansubbers can be trusted for a faithful translation... |
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Mohawk52
Posts: 8202 Location: England, UK |
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hollowmoon
 Posts: 8 Location: Stockton Springs, ME |
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I came in here to says this, but you beat me to it. So a second vote for Miaka if anyone is keeping a tally. |
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Steroid
Posts: 329 Location: At home, where all good hikikomori should be |
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Yes, neither can be trusted. It's possible for either to actually create a faithful translation, but both have other interests which color their views. That said, there's more diversity of goal among fansubbers than among companies, all of whom are influenced at least partially by profitability. |
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Gilaskan
Posts: 7 |
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"Il traduttore è traditore," A very old saying, meaning "Translators are traitors". For thousands of years, it's been said that translators can't be trusted. Now, for the purposes of watching anime, most translations are accurate enough for the purposes of watching. Do some fansubbers drop in some extra F-bombs and leave some nouns untranslated? Sure, but the plot is gotten across. Do some professional dubs tone down the swearing or change a Takeshi Miike joke to a Quentin Tarantino joke? Sure, but again, the ideas and plot are gotten across. |
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Veers
 Posts: 1197 Location: Texas |
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I'm far from fluent, but I've studied enough Japanese over the years to do translations of simple reading level manga like Yotsuba. But Japanese is so fundamentally different from English that even something as simple as Yotsuba can't be translated simply by picking up a dictionary and matching kanji to English words (trust me, I tried that several years ago). But reading/writing and speaking are two separate skills and while I can work my way through text I'd be at a loss trying to actually converse in person.
I think a lot of translation complaints come from when a translation is actually more of a localization and less of a literal translation. Lots of fansubs lean towards the literal side of things, so that's what people who watch them are more used to and when a translation (fan or official) comes along and is more creative and less literal (which is not necessarily wrong), it's not what they're used to, therefore it gets blasted as a poor translation. It's a lose-lose situation for translators, though. If you're too literal, people with some (or lots of) legit knowledge of the language will complain that you're not grasping the whole situation and if you're not literal enough, people whose knowledge doesn't go beyond a few romanized words or phrases will complain because they don't know why a translation can be right even if it's not what they're used to hearing. I can think of lots of English dubs I dislike (and a few I like better than the Japanese) but I can't remember ever seeing an official sub translation that bothered me or that I thought was "wrong". I don't think there's any reason to look down your nose at someone for preferring one translation over another, but at the same time, unless you can do an equal or better translation or prove there are mistakes, there's no reason to look down your nose at one translation while praising another. Any reason other than silly pride, that is. |
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jetz
 Posts: 2148 Location: Manila, Philippines |
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I actually have friends who wouldn't download an episode if it wasn't subbed by the group they wanted. I think that's ridiculous - I don't have a particular favorite group, but as long as their translations make sense, then that's fine.
I want to reply to this week's question - I just wish I have the time to write a decent reply. My answer would be Miaka from Fushigi Yuugi
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doctordoom85
 Posts: 2093 |
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I've never been annoyed by main characters, any character who wears their emotions on their sleeve usually has a good reason to (whether disturbing backstory, cruel surroundings, or the fact that a minor is being subjected to this. I suppose young soldiers who came back from war shell-shocked were just being "emo" as well? Give me a break.). However, for dislikable, got to give it to good old Light Yagami. While the show is pretty much entirely populated with morally ambiguous characters, Light takes the cake (if L will forgive the expression). This wouldn't be so bad since he's not a protagonist you're actually supposed to root for (regardless of what some fans might tell me), but I would have liked to seen at least ONE redeeming quality to him. Instead, he's a total jerk***. Some villains are meant to be hated, but when you make them the main protagonist, you should at least give the audience a little reason to think they might not be so bad.
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The Ramblin' Wreck
 Posts: 924 Location: Teaching Robot Women How To Love |
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The flake is a obvious fake.
My problem is when the translations aren't into natural English. Now, not all groups fall into this, but some of the dialogue comes across as tremendously stilted. (Of course, the original dialogue could also be stilted, I guess) Also, leaving untranslated Japanese in for "otaku cred". Best example I can think of is from Death Note: "Just as keikaku.....* [Note: keikaku means "planned"] |
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RadicaLElly
 Posts: 194 Location: Coral Springs, FL |
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I liked all the advice about running panels. Keep in mind though that panel time does vary. The example used was 50 minutes but one con I did my panel with gave me nearly 2 hours.
Videos are fun but don't make them too long or too boring. Also, if you use some kind of visual (a powerpoint for a example), please, DO NOT read off of it word for word. This is a problem my partner has and it's one of the fastest possible ways to clear the room. It gets boring very fast. |
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Zalis116
Moderator
 Posts: 6879 Location: Kazune City |
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Gee, and I thought the "fanboys complaining about translation issues" mentioned in the summary would complain about my complaint that allegedly English-language fansubs often lack English titles. While I've still got a long ways to go before becoming truly proficient in Japanese, I can still sit down and compare fansubs and official releases side-by-side. If we assume the professional releases to be correct, the good fansubs come pretty darn close. I did this with a couple episodes of Ouran recently, and the two releases were functionally identical over 95% of the time. In a nutshell my thinking is, "Official subs are better, but good fansubs aren't significantly worse."
That's not to say that fansubs = literal and official subs = "liberal" 100% of the time, though. Some fansub groups are on the liberal end of the spectrum, and I've seen some dreadfully awkward official subs as well. You don't need to watch the credits on Geneon's DearS release to know that no native English speaker ever touched those subtitles, because it shows.
Speaking of convention panels, winging it can work, but you've got to be damn good at it. Just last weekend I ran a dating-sim/romance-game panel that was a late addition to the con schedule. I didn't have much of a plan beyond "bring a bunch of games and DVDs in, talk about the history of the genre, talk about specific games, take audience questions," and at least from my perspective it went very well. And on the flipside I've ran panels that went badly even though I planned the hell out of things. |
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Mistypearl
 Posts: 517 |
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Fansubs...are fansubs...
Even official subs are different from the spoken word... I watched a show with english dub and subtitles (mainly because i was too lazy to switch the setting. haha.) and the subtitles were different from the spoken words, mainly because the dub had to change the words to fit the mouth moving. it's a given. It's not always going to be the *exact* thing said, as long as you get the jist, it really doesn't matter for the 'quality' of the sub. Unless the font is super big. or small. or bright pink. 
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braves
 Posts: 2309 Location: Puerto Rico (but living in Texas) |
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Exactly. No Christian who was offended by Zac's response would have written the Bible with a lower-case "b". >.< |
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