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Overusing English vocabulary in the language - Betelgeuzah - 2013-11-29

Hey guys,

I've been playing FFXIV for some time, the English version as well as the Japanese version and one thing that sticks out in the JP version is the use of katakana-ized NPC names as well as skills. It seem to be everywhere, from monsters called フォレストファンガア (forest funguar) to skills called　ヘビショット (heavy shot).

My honest opinion on this is that I'd rather play the English version because it is quite clear that Japanese does not bend itself very well to the usage of English spelling and pronunciation. It's a travesty to look at some of these names.

I'd like to know the thoughts of you all on on the matter? Does it bother you, or maybe you even prefer it to be this way? Do Japanese think its cool to borrow names from English traditions even though the language is totally butchered in the convertion process?

Overusing English vocabulary in the language - yudantaiteki - 2013-11-29

I barely notice anymore; I've been playing RPGs in Japanese for over 10 years now and heavy use of loan words is normal in almost every game.

Overusing English vocabulary in the language - Zgarbas - 2013-11-29

Back when I was a game-tester everyone was surprised at how good I was at proofreading the Japanese version of games.
It was secretly all in English Tongue.

But yeah, if I hadn't have had the English equivalents in a handy list I would've been preeeeety damn confused.

Overusing English vocabulary in the language - Tzadeck - 2013-11-29

Betelgeuzah Wrote:My honest opinion on this is that I'd rather play the English version because it is quite clear that Japanese does not bend itself very well to the usage of English spelling and pronunciation. It's a travesty to look at some of these names.
Why does it matter at all that Japanese does not bend itself to English usage well? Language is just random sounds being associated with meanings, so why be picky about the god damn random sounds.

Overusing English vocabulary in the language - Betelgeuzah - 2013-11-29

Tzadeck Wrote:
Betelgeuzah Wrote:My honest opinion on this is that I'd rather play the English version because it is quite clear that Japanese does not bend itself very well to the usage of English spelling and pronunciation. It's a travesty to look at some of these names.
Why does it matter at all that Japanese does not bend itself to English usage well? Language is just random sounds being associated with meanings, so why be picky about the god damn random sounds.
Of course it matters. If I'm going to be hearing English "random" sounds (so not really random at all) and they are completely messed up in the conversion process, yes it can be annoying.

I understand that you don't feel this way but I am a bit surprised that you can not understand why somebody else would be slightly bothered by this kind of thing.

Overusing English vocabulary in the language - dtcamero - 2013-11-29

because there's a poetry to a name in English. that music gets garbled when turned into Katakana.

Moreover there is an etymological hint at its origin. Is the name Germanic, Slavic, Latin, or something completely new-sounding? Each of those brings with it a host of nuances that get lost when a main character is named シカンシナー.

I agree and find that loads of complex people and place names in katakana are rather unpleasant. I would rather have them written in English inside the Japanese text.

Overusing English vocabulary in the language - Arupan - 2013-11-29

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Overusing English vocabulary in the language - JimmySeal - 2013-11-29

Betelgeuzah Wrote:I understand that you don't feel this way but I am a bit surprised that you can not understand why somebody else would be slightly bothered by this kind of thing.
I can understand why it bothers you but you're just going to have to get over it. The Japanese language isn't going to change to accommodate your tastes, and you have nothing to gain by taking issue with it.
The Japanese have been "butchering" the Chinese language for over 1000 years, and I assume you have no issue with that. We might not even have a Japanese language today if they hadn't done so.

Overusing English vocabulary in the language - qwertyytrewq - 2013-11-29

Thoughts of us all were already given recently here: http://forum.koohii.com/showthread.php?tid=11229

At the end of the day however, there is really only one option: deal with it. The rest is all academic.

By the way, how does the Chinese language do it? Similar to ateji? Meaningless combination of Kanji used only for their sounds.

Overusing English vocabulary in the language - Ampharos64 - 2013-11-29

I quite like the way it sounds, but I still have to wonder just why they insist on doing it, when it's not an established loanword that is. I wonder to what extent the Japanese audience understand it, do they secretly all know English and aren't telling us? : D

It's especially aggravating when I spend a while trying to figure it out, look it up with no success, try in hiragana in case it was Japanese written in katakana for effect, wonder if it's an obscure loanword from German or something, and then eventually realise it was indeed an English word all along.

Overusing English vocabulary in the language - Betelgeuzah - 2013-11-29

Arupan Wrote:>>OP
Why? Would you be more pleased by a term such as 重撃 with some furigana over it indicating the spelling which would be something like じゅうげき or ちょうげき and some explanation written in brackets? That would be hilarious Big Grin

Many game developers write new terms like the already mentioned 重撃 and write ヘビーショット above them by the way. "Virtual reality", for example, is sometimes written as 仮想現実 but I'd rather have the katakana version (バーチャルリアリティー) instead. So again - preference.
Of course it's a preference, I never implied anything else. And yes, I would definitely prefer if native words were used in naming conventions whenever possible. If there has to be furigana then so be it. I personally don't see anything hilarious about using your own language to describe things.

Now I have to make clear that I'm also not looking for anyone to "solve" this "problem" for me. It's a discussion and I simply want to hear your opinions, not be told things I am aware of.

Quote:I agree and find that loads of complex people and place names in katakana are rather unpleasant. I would rather have them written in English inside the Japanese text.
Yes, at least then the original spelling would be retained. I am perplexed by why it was done this way in XIV as in the predecessor (afaik) monster, npc as well as player names were written in romaji. Even now the player names are written in romaji so there is no real consistency.

Quote:By the way, how does the Chinese language do it? Similar to ateji? Meaningless combination of Kanji used only for their sounds.
This is a very good question and I've been wondering as well.

Quote:The Japanese have been "butchering" the Chinese language for over 1000 years, and I assume you have no issue with that. We might not even have a Japanese language today if they hadn't done so.
I don't know Chinese so I don't notice the possible similar patterns. Obviously, then, it doesn't bother me. It might if I ever did take up Chinese to a high level.

Overusing English vocabulary in the language - tokyostyle - 2013-11-29

Ampharos64 Wrote:I wonder to what extent the Japanese audience understand it, do they secretly all know English and aren't telling us? : D
It's impossible for any of us to answer this question, but I hope the following story gives you some insight.

On my first visit to Japan I knew absolutely no Japanese except for some basic introductions and having randomly studied some hiragana and katakana. During our travels a friend and I went into an arcade to look around and took an interest in a multiplayer RPG arcade game and after a long deliberation we decided it was better to attempt to play it than to leave Japan without ever trying. We put in our money and stumbled through enough menus to get started, pressing the bottom right most button on the touch screen turned out to be a good strategy, and we thought we were home free. Unfortunately for us the next step was a tutorial mission which for us poor monolinguals was a barrage of instructions that we absolutely did not understand.

Thankfully for us the player on the machine next us figured out we had no clue what we were doing an attempted to teach us how to play. The extent of his English instruction followed the forum of "This [noun]" and while this might seem completely insufficient at first it turns out that he knowledge of RPG nouns was absolutely insane. Controls became "this button attack", "this button block", "this button magic", and items were explained in a similar way. He was also able to explain how to use our starter pack cards both by "this is weapon" and most importantly by saying "use this".

Thanks to a very kind Japanese guy we were able to beat the intro and first level without too much difficultly! Yet even though he was super helpful and knew an amazing amount of RPG terms in English he definitely couldn't hold a conversation and we figured out very quickly it was a bad idea to try and ask too many questions. Thus I wouldn't say they secretly all know English but that fans of games have probably internalized RPG terms much as a fan of anime understand ~san/~chan, sempai, and itadakimasu.

Overusing English vocabulary in the language - fakewookie - 2013-11-29

Yes, it bothers me too. You're not the only one.

My hope is that it will decrease with the decline of US world influence.

Overusing English vocabulary in the language - JimmySeal - 2013-11-29

qwertyytrewq Wrote:By the way, how does the Chinese language do it? Similar to ateji? Meaningless combination of Kanji used only for their sounds.
In Chinese, they make a bigger effort to import neologisms meaning-wise:

電腦 - computer
黎明行者號 - dawn treader
微軟 - Microsoft
網 - the "net"

When there's no sensible way to translate something (such as with people's names or MindTrick's examples below), they use ateji - meaningless combinations used only for their sounds:

哈利波特 (ha li bo te) - Harry Potter
羅恩 - (luo en) - Ron
路西 - (lu xi) - Lucy
納尼亞 - (na ni ya) - Narnia
三明治 - (san ming zhi) - sandwich

Sometimes, though, they use the ateji approach, but take meaning into account in the character choice:
古靈閣 - (gu ling ge) - Gringotts

Overusing English vocabulary in the language - MindTrick - 2013-11-29

qwertyytrewq Wrote:By the way, how does the Chinese language do it? Similar to ateji? Meaningless combination of Kanji used only for their sounds.
I feel it's not as common as in Japanese but ateji is used in Chinese:

批萨 (pi sa) - pizza
麦克风 (mai ke feng) - microphone
巧克力 (qiao ke li) - chocolate
高尔夫 (gao er fu) - golf

Overusing English vocabulary in the language - qwertyytrewq - 2013-12-01

So Chinese transliterations of English words are about as bad as katakana?

I've heard the Chinese pronounciation of chocolate before. If I was learning Chinese, I wouldn't have been able to work that out.