If the translations don't sound natural, it's because of the English, not because of the Japanese or the translation process. Break the sentences apart, combine them, add bits of grammar where necessary (just be careful not to change the meaning). It's better to have a natural-sounding end result than one which is faithful to the original text but sounds awful. Depends on the text though, I've never done anything political.

Oh, and don't keep untranslated terms just because "they don't have a perfect equivalent". I hate it when translators do that.

Welcome to the site

Zgarbas wrote:

Oh, and don't keep untranslated terms just because "they don't have a perfect equivalent". I hate it when translators do that.

What, you don't like it when people do this?

Zgarbas wrote:

If the translations don't sound natural, it's because of the English, not because of the Japanese or the translation process. Break the sentences apart, combine them, add bits of grammar where necessary (just be careful not to change the meaning). It's better to have a natural-sounding end result than one which is faithful to the original text but sounds awful. Depends on the text though, I've never done anything political.

Oh, and don't keep untranslated terms just because "they don't have a perfect equivalent". I hate it when translators do that.

Welcome to the site

Thanks for the response! Yeah I try my best to fiddle around with the English clauses etc, but some sentences can be so dodgey! I guess I'll just have to keep working at it - it's probably a matter of experience!

Haha, yes. Fansubs are one thing, but half of our translated Japanese books are pretty illegible to people who don't know Japanese due to the untranslated (and often un-footnoted) terms. Or, for delicious redundancy, they keep the Japanese term and add the translation afterward, like "the chashitsu tea room", "The seimon main gate", etc. I have no idea where this fad with keeping untranslated terms even though they can be perfectly translated. We don't do it with any other language =/. Something between elitism and "wanting to sound exotic", I guess. And some translators insist on using stuff like "as for X" when translating は, which makes it nigh impossible to read.

And yeah, it takes a while to translate things and re-do them in your own language, and I guess it doesn't help that it is has more to do with your writing skill than your translating skill sometimes . I'm sure it'll work itself out eventually, though. I always have a look at the translation as if it were originally in its target language, and just rewrite it as I would a normal text.

(all this being said, I am really poor at translating Japanese)

One thing that irks me in respect to translations of Japanese is when the translators translate away certain culturally relevant things such as how someone is addressed (little things such as 君、さん、ちゃん、etc.) in manga, and how sometimes translators effectively "Americanise" a character (I'm looking squarely at the official English translation of あずまんが大王, of the "大坂" character: making her into a stereotypical Southern North American).

So you want everyone to address eacho ther with -chan and -san in the English versions just like the worst of weebs do in real life? Using Mr. Tanaka sounds more natural in English than Tanaka-san.

I prefer it when they try to make the same sort of effect work in another langauge; how the hell should an American understand the differences between standard Japanese and Kansai弁?

Last edited by Stian (2013 July 05, 4:18 am)

-san and -chan are not culturally relevant. As in, not culturally relevant enough to have a reason to be in material that is not in the Japanese language. There are many forms of address even in English, and can be adapted to each situation (Mr./Mrs/Miss/calling someone by their family name versus their first name/Sir/etc). It's not like sets of formality are unique to the Japanese language. Tanaka-san might sound decent for someone who knows Japanese, but not for someone who knows English and just wants to see translated media. It would be rather awkward for me to come over and say "uisukii frate, what's up?" just because English doesn't have a perfect equivalent for this form of address. Japanese is like any other language, and a good translation does not require too much knowledge of foreign languages or customs to understand it . It's leisure reading, not Culture&Civilisation class.   

Also, it can't be helped with the local stereotype. If someone is of a local stereotype from another culture you have to translate to the nearest stereotype in your own, lest the readers for whom you're translating cannot understand what you're talking about. It makes sense to translate an osaka character into a southern American one, and usually people work for their own country, not for other countries. If I do a translation I'll do it thinking about my publishing house's demographics, not some theoretical set of people who may or may not want to read it randomly. Similarly, if you're from the US, doing a translation for people in your country, for a publishing house from the US who will mainly send copies to libraries within the country, you don't have to do the translation with the rare foreigner who buys it online in mind. Just because they speak a global language doesn't make it any less different.

uisukii wrote:

Not entirely. Unless the person has a pretty decent handle on the English language when translating

Why would anyone be hired as a translator if they don't have a good grasp of the language?

How do translators manage to avoid source-language terms in their translations from other languages than Japanese?

French and German have two different words for "you", a polite and plain form. I've never seen this show up in translated works, ever.

Zgarbas wrote:

uisukii wrote:

Not entirely. Unless the person has a pretty decent handle on the English language when translating

Why would anyone be hired as a translator if they don't have a good grasp of the language?

I've read a fair few translated manga wherein the translation has been effectively butchered. On the same note, I've great a fair few novels written in English, by native English writers/speakers, which have a pretty poor standard of writing. *shrugs* Doesn't stop them from selling at the same time as being slammed by critics.

Arupan wrote:

If leaving things such as -san, -chan, -sama makes sense to you, then maybe you should also leave all those different forms of "I" like 俺、僕、わたし、わたくし、あたし、あたくし、うち、わし、拙者、おら、こっち、自分、己、我、etc... just because they have a different nuance as well? The same goes for "you" - あなた、あんた、君、お前、おたく、貴様、そっち、自分、お主、てめえ、おのれ、etc...

No need to throw the baby out with the bathwater. One instance I can think of right off the top of my head is the comic "Onani Master Kurosawa" in how a certain character is nice to everyone, however he addresses the protagonist as "Kurosawa-dono", whereas the way he addresses other people politely but not with the same "title". The character effectively speaks to people more or less the same, but without the prefix to compare in how he speaks to others, the English reader would miss an important nuance in said characters role throughout the entire comic.

Each example is different and I am off the opinion that in some contexts it is better to leave such things in as opposed to not using them as a general rule. A famous example I can think of is the characters in the Brer Rabbit Adventures:Brer Wolf, Brer Rabbit, Brer Turtle, Brer Fox, and Grer Gator.

Last edited by uisukii (2013 July 05, 8:29 am)

Not when talking about people your own age, etc. Also, there is a difference between someone calling someone Tanaka-san and Tanaka-chan, depending on the social position of the speaker. In media such as comics, often the nuance is entirely removed. Having prefixes where necessary is easier than having a bunch of footnotes all the time to explain the reason why someone is addressing someone in a way which changes the dynamic of the relationship between the participants of the discussion.

The difference between -chan and -san is obvious; of course I am aware of it. Using Mr. Tanaka instead of Tanaka-san is reasonable, but using his first name or a term like "darling" could fit the use of Tanaka-chan depending on context.

A translation marketed to English speakers, regardless of whether they are Japanophiles or not, should be independent, and should not by any means require any additional knowledge of Japanese beyond words like Susi, Karate, Karaoke, etc.

And the "nuance" between Xchan or Xsan would used on a teacher could be done by using her/his first name or a nickname instaed of his/her last name...

There are many ways without making the character a "Southerner". Also, there is a larger audience than just Americans, who are reading these comics which have been translated by American publishers. あずまんが大王, for instance, is read in English outside America, where the stereotyping of "Osaka" would make not a whole lot of sense. Though, to be fair, generally speaking the American reading demographic often forgets that other countries speak English.

Most of us (ESL-speakers and people from the British isles) can tell a Stereotypical Southern US dialect from the standard Midwestern (aka "no accent").

Last edited by Stian (2013 July 05, 10:00 am)

uisukii wrote:

Deleted post as this argument and line of discussion is distracting people from the original post and point of this thread. Sorry for going overboard with the responses.

True. Well, the debate about how translation should be is interesting, albeit possibly endless. Maybe there should be another thread for debating translation.
OP I didn't know such things as that Routledge book existed until you made this thread. I otherwise would have thought one studies translation by comparing books with their translations.

uisukii wrote:

Deleted post as this argument and line of discussion is distracting people from the original post and point of this thread. Sorry for going overboard with the responses.

Man... I'm sorry too... I do tend to go a bit overboard when discussing, although I don't discuss language stuff that often. :p