My Paradigm
In his latest article, Sorrow-kun addressed the issue of dialogue in anime. As a non-native speaker, he said, he had to rely on translators to understand what was going on at all times. It’s inevitable that non-Japanese anime fans have to place their trust in translators, as without them, anime-watching becomes an utterly pointless exercise at the point where the viewer can not understand anything that is being said. Sorrow-kun also said that he would like fansubbers to put out their translation philosophies. Here’s mine.
Note: The following opinions belong to me and me only. I can not speak on behalf of other translators.
I call my translation philosophy “functional equivalence.” The adjectival modifier “functional” indicates my belief that translations do not need to be 100% correct. What’s important is that the meaning, or essence, of what is being said is conveyed. This does not give me the leeway to simply disregard or bullshit details; the translation and the original must still be equivalent.
Sounds a bit paradoxical, but the concept is not hard to illustrate. I’ll make a really lame example.
In anime, we often hear phrases like “anta shine!” (Lit: You go die!) whenever, say, two lovers get into a fight. A lot of translators would choose to use the phrase that I printed above as a translation. I usually don’t. My translation for this phrase is usually “Fuck off!” or “Fuck off and die!”
Why do I do this? Because I believe that this is what an English speaker would say when presented with the same situation. I don’t know about you, but when I’m having a really heated argument with someone, and they want me to go away, they tell me to fuck off. They don’t tell me to simply “go” die. The implication in the Japanese phrase “shine” is not for the receiver of the insult to literally die; the speaker of the phrase simply wants the target of his/her frustrations to go away. Keeping that in mind, I believe a list of acceptable translations to be anything from “go away” to “fuck off and die”, depending on the situation.
I admit that this is may be perceived as a rather haphazard and biased way of translating. I will also say the only time I make judgments like the one I just described above would be in a situation where I deem a direct translation into English to be awkward, or when I believe that a functionally equivalent translation into an acceptable English phrase would sound more natural to English natives. In that sense, the above example may not have been the best one, but there are many more like that.
I can not speak for other translators, but I become rather peeved at criticism directed towards phrases that “aren’t the same in Japanese as in English.” For example, I believe there are two or three translations of the well-used phrase “ganbatte”: “Work hard!” (most literal), “Go for it!” (less literal) and “Good luck!” (least literal). I’ve gotten some criticism and some have speculated that I have a tenuous grasp on the Japanese language, citing my (apparent) inability to correctly render a phrase like “ganbatte” into English. I don’t believe that there is only only one valid translation for any given phrase. There are always at least three ways a phrase in language X can be rendered in language Y. It all depends on the situation. If you don’t see what I’m saying, posit yourself in a situation in which you would use the phrase “ganbatte”, say, right before your best friend is about to give a piano concert. What’s the last thing you would say to him? Would it be along the lines of “work hard”? Or would it be more along the lines of “good luck”?
Readers have probably inferred by now that my stated goal in translation is not to provide the viewer with a 100% grammatically flawless transcription of the Japanese original, but rather, a rendition of a foreign work into the target language. The ideal translation would read exactly like an English-language original. The viewer, at no point in time, should have to stop and pause and think, “What does this mean?” He shouldn’t even have to think, “This is awkward.” The flow should be completely natural.
Of course, we don’t live in a perfect world. There are hundreds of situations that lead me to abandon my stated philosophy. One of my least favorite things to translate (other than sex scenes) is honorifics.
I choose to leave them in. Why?
Because they don’t exist in English, and the meaning garnered off an honorific can not be replaced by a functionally equivalent term in English. Kinship terms such as “onii-chan” and “onee-chan” are also left in for that reason. Also, I feel like I’d get destroyed by the pro-honorific camp if I dropped them. But I digress. I leave honorifics in because they are of extreme importance in Japanese culture, and don’t really translate well into English. Some people have said to me that I can simply translate “-san” to “Mr.” or “Ms”. I don’t believe that’s possible all the time. For example, classmates in Japan frequently call each other “X-san.” Certainly it’d be even stranger in English to see two classmates (especially two on semi-friendly terms with each other) address each other as, say, “Mr. Yamamoto” and “Mr. Sarashina.” It simply doesn’t work.
Even more disastrous are terms like “-chan” and “-kun.” I’ve found that professional translators tend to leave these terms in or drop them completely, and I’ve often found that the former is more effective at conveying subtle social dynamics. Of course, I have a biased view on this subject as a native speaker of Japanese; were I to posit myself as a foreigner having no knowledge of Japanese, I would be quite perplexed by all the “-kuns” and “-chans” popping up all over the place. Yet, perhaps this is less of a concern in anime, because my assumption is (nearly) everyone who’s watching the series that I translate (ef, Minami-ke, K-On!, etc…) have enough Japanese ability to at least understand the social implications of honorifics. Thus, the retaining of honorifics does not stem from laziness, but rather, from their necessity in illustrating different kinds of social relationships.
The use (or lack thereof) of second-person pronouns presents another uniquely challenging scenario. Japanese has a plethora of second-person pronouns: “anata”, “kimi”, “anta”, “kisama”, “teme”, “omae”, to name six commonly used ones. English has one: “you.” (“Thou” is an unacceptable translation in 99% of all cases because of its implications of being outdated or literary.) In addition, Japanese also tends to avoid the use of second-person pronouns completely, referring to people by name when addressing them. I usually fix this problem by simply using “You” in all cases that an English speaker would use “you.” This has led to some criticism and arguments with novice editors, but I stand firmly by my decision. We simply don’t refer to people by their names when talking to them.
Ultimately, I believe the whole point of a translation is to bring the work closer to foreign audiences. I act as a bridge between the original author and the viewers of my work; as such, my focus should be on allowing the viewers to understand the original intentions of the author. That meaning inevitably becomes somewhat warped, as absolute equivalence does not exist between two languages. I don’t look for a direct correspondence between the Japanese original and my translation. What’s important is that my viewers understand what’s being said. To that end, it’s of the utmost importance that the language sounds natural over everything else.
As always, I welcome all comments. I’ll probably write a follow-up article after some discussion here and there with readers of this article. I hope this has helped readers understand what goes on in my brain when I translate a work.
PS: Sorrow: You’re not ignorant. Translators are just elitists.
Would you leave in honorifics if the characters speaking aren’t Japanese? For example, characters in space colonies of variable race (or even aliens), but it so happened that the original Japanese text left them in.
Also, how about names? Would you keep last-name first system if the setting isn’t particularly Japanese. (I see this less of a problem since shows like Gundam etc. use Western naming conventions for non-Japanese characters i.e. Quattro Bajeena, or Revive Revival)
I believe in your philosophy of “functional equivalence” too. There are some idiosyncrasies of the Japanese language that just aren’t possible to be intepreted into English. That’s why I think that people who at least studies Japanese to some extent may understand more of the subtle things than those who don’t when watching subbed anime. I’m studying Japanese and occasionally, I see instances where a specific dialogue is intepreted by the subber in a certain way, and I understand from that and a little more.
I believe that the main purpose of translation is to convey the message as accurately as possible. That message need not necessarily be in words, because translation is just a sub-topic of communication in the first place. Plus, translators are still human beings and unlike human beings, we can’t employ Grammar Nazi all the time since each of us has different opinions on a specific dialogue even if we speak the same language.
For a miscellaneous example, I remember that there are 15 ways to decline an offer in the Japanese business context, but to intepret each of them with machine-like accuracy into English is just not possible. Yes, translators are elitists you may argue, but as mentioned, they have their own philosophies and they may be the next best thing you can rely on to understand what’s going on in the show. If you really want to understand based on your own intepretation, study the language.
Whenever I hear silliness about how a translation is a translation and not like a pseudo-machine translation, I like to flip things around and mention English phrases that would sound completely strange if translated literally, like “help yourself”
If direct translations were possible, everything would be translated using Google translator.
I like the fact that you’ve adopted the policy of translating words and expressions based on “functional equivalence” since that’s the standard most professional translators seem to use.
I also find your justification of keeping honorifics interesting simply because this is the first time I’ve actually heard any reasoning for this phenomenon. Retaining language quirks that’s culturally important but with no equivalent translation seems fair enough.
@ghostlightning
Actually, the question should be “will Akira ever find an anime outside the Japanese social setting that he is interested enough to translate?”
Regardless, I’m sure Akira would be pissed if he had to sit through Baccano! reading “Vino-san” and “Miria-chan” in the translations, so he’s likely sensitive to the context of the series he is translating.
But most importantly, what is your stance on OP and ED karaoke translations? I for one strongly dislike them.
Further more, what is your opinion on translators and the editing staff of a sub group putting their credits along side the credits for the show?
(Yeah, yeah. These aren’t really about translation philosophy, but they would bring you considerable hate mail based on your response)
As we discovered last night, we both have a really similar philosophy on translation. A translator, to me, is not meant to convey literal language but to convey the idea in understandable terms.
Out of curiosity, how would you do いっただきます (ittadakimasu)?
Yeah, machine-like translations are useful to exactly no one. What’s the point if it still sounds like gibberish? It’s like you need another translation to figure out the context and subtlety yourself. As far as those basic philosophies are concerned, I wished everyone did it that way.
The subjects of translating honorifics, ‘you’s and ‘me’s, and the whole idea of masculine/feminine speech patterns does however merit special consideration. As stated before, there is no functional equivalent, and I imagine handling these cases well takes uncommon talent and mastery of both languages. Therefore I give leeway of translations to do as much as they are comfortable with in those areas.
I read through most of the article wondering, “Why the hell did he mention the Akira anime in the middle of his Translation Spectrum diagram? Is there some inside joke I’m not aware of?” LOL @ speaking in the 3rd person.
Oh so very true. After seeing enough Hong Kong bootleg subs, it is pretty obvious why one wouldn’t use a straight translation, granted bootlegs tend to get it wrong anyways. Having barely proficiency in Japanese barely comparable to a grade schooler, the only subtleties I notice are when it comes to how one addresses someone. English, on the other hand, obviously has different subtleties arising from a huge lexicon and variable sentence structure. It’s surprising how many sentences are perfectly natural in one language and stiff in another.
Speaking of that, how would you translate the terms いってきます and いってらしゃい without them sounding awkward in English?
A better question than everything above is what fansub group do you work for and what alias do you go under, so we can bash your translations via YouTube rants?
Knowing Akira, he probably subs under an alias and false identity.
@ghostlightning:
Your first question presents a rather interesting problem that I’ve never had to address before. I guess I would translate “-san” as “Mr.” or “Mrs.” when appropriate and drop the honorifics if I felt they weren’t that important. It really depends, I think. Like I’ve said, I’ve never needed to think about this before so I’ve not given it a great deal of thought.
Regarding your question about names: I leave Japanese names in Japanese order, Western names in Western order. Hence: “Yamamoto Taro and John Smith went to the store.” I find no justification for switching Japanese name order. It reads just fine.
@Shadowmage:
Hrm… regarding Isaac-san and Miria-san… I think I might do that… but Mr. Issac and Ms Miria work, I guess… Vino does not get a “Mr.” because he’s too badass. He’s just Vino. Kinda like Pele. Or Zidane.
@Kurier:
I don’t know that OP and ED translations are useful, but there are a few songs that I would love to translate. (see: ef OP and ED, “Super Special”, etc…) To be honest, I don’t really like translating most songs since they’re rather silly and sound even sillier in English, but since my group leader’s been promising me sexual favors, I go ahead and do them anyways.
I hate people who put their name in the opening credits. It’s just an eyesore and (in my opinion) rather arrogant.
As for “Itadakimasu”, several possibilities: “Let’s eat!” “Thanks for the food!” “Lord, we’re gathered here today to celebrate a feast that You have brought before us, and we ask You to bless this food, make us strong, and please continue to watch over us. Amen.”
Joking on the last one.
@Kavik Ryx:
Ittekimasu: “I’m leaving!”
Itterashai: “Take care.”
@Tamashii:
I don’t have an alias. If you look at my group’s website, you won’t find me there.
@Kurier II:
You and I know each other too well.
It’s a sensible way to go about translating… a departure from the obviously flawed idea that Babelfish can produce comprehensible translations.
I’m wondering if you got any flack for translating the name of Yui’s guitar as “Geetah”, rather than “Gitah”, which was a 4chan meme at the time and the popular alternative in other subs. It’s a ridiculous criticism, but some of the criticisms of fansubbers I’ve seen around are.
About Yui’s guitar’s nickname, I don’t see the point in accurately translating the name into English since it’s just a name that has no meaning anyway. It’s just her mispronunciation of the word from ギター (gita-) to ギータ (gi-ta). It’s just that in terms of spelling, English has a quirk that makes words such as “gitaa” and “gitah” sound similar albeit a different spelling.
I don’t see its importance in accurate translation in this case (though try telling that to some K-On! purists and expect some backlashing).
I guess this is a more trivial thing, but how do you feel about fansubbers doing cliffnotes Akira? Like for the more obvious, when some of them do the whole explanation behind the honorifics of something like “San” or “Kun” at the top of the screen with the dialogue translation at the bottom?
Personally for me, I would prefer it if fansubbers would do something similar to what Shinsen-Subs did for Mononoke where they put this stuff after the show ended (credits and all out of the way). Or Lunar’s work with Souten Kouro by putting in the notes before the actual start of the show for like 10 seconds or less. Obviously, the work required for either show requires more work then others, but still.
Maybe, I should not be distracted so much or feel like the inserts are detracting away from the viewing experience. But, most of the time I just can’t help it since they are that obvious or they just take up most of the screen. If there was an explanation behind this or something, then that would be great since I am quite curious about it.
@Sorrow-Kun:
If I got any flak, I wouldn’t know about it; I think you’ve known me long enough to know that I couldn’t care less about what the Internet at large thinks about me. There’s a reason why I don’t put my name on my works and I never look at anything I’ve subbed or translated. In addition, yes, that’s a really, really shitty criticism of any fansubber, and I don’t think that any of us should have to bend over and acquiesce to the ridiculous demands of a bunch of 13 year olds.
@AC:
Actually, it’s not. It’s a full-on name; the name of her guitar is ギー太, with 太 being a fairly common suffix for a man’s name, similar to “ro”, “hiko”, etc.
@FSI:
You know, that’s quite a difficult question to answer. Me personally, I’d try and minimalize problems like that by localizing as much as I can. Most of the time, I’d just drop explainations for basic things that I think viewers should know (things like honorifics, terms like “Onii-chan”, “seifuku”, “lolicon”, etc.) If there’s the odd untranslatable pun or other cultural oddity, I advocate cliffnoting it right then and there. A lot of annoyance comes from (I would assume, I don’t know, I don’t watch fansubs) fansubbers being overly cautious and explaining pretty obvious things. But I still advocate putting explainations when they happen. If you put them up in front, they’re a bit of an eyesore (in my opinion) and you tend to forget what they’re talking about. If they’re at the end… I don’t think people will necessarily look at them. I think Cliffnotes should be cut down to only when absolutely necessary, but I definitely think that annotations need to be displayed simultaneously with the translation. It’s like reading a book and having to flip to the back to read the endnote citation. It’s just annoying.
Thanks for the explanation on Yui’s guitar; I didn’t know about this.
As for Cliffnotes, I actually prefer them at the end of the episode, ONLY IF they are info-dumps where the explanations are too long or take up so much space on the screen that it ruins my viewing pleasure (think what Shinsen-Subs did for Ergo Proxy). I don’t see how series such as GITS, Ghost Hound and Ergo Proxy can do with all the Cliffnotes shown at the same time.
Obviously, annotations should be displayed simultaneously and made short and simple for viewers to understand just by a glance(e.g. places’ names, naming conventions, etc).
@Akira
Thanks for your explanation and I think I at least understand things better. At least, where you are coming from anyway. It does make more sense to cliffnote stuff like some cultural oddities or difficult puns right at the exact moment. I am guessing it might be a rarity for a single episode (instead of an entire series) to contain enough puns, cultural oddities, etc for bridging cliffnotes at the end as the best choice.
On the other hand, I do mind and dislike the practice of using fancy-style fonts with abnormal sizes while doused in odd colors causing enough distractions for the viewer to the point of pausing and re-reading the dialogue. On the spot explanations that are done appropriately are cool. Just not when it feels like the fansubber purposely wanted me to view the cliffnotes more then the anime itself. Maybe, it is a nitpick but for clarity’s sake simplicity seems far better.
Would you happen to know anything behind the quirks of fansub groups that do puns or make some sort of joke right before the show actually begins after the OP credits? A lot of times I feel that they are a waste and wonder why they even bother at all. Especially, when a lot of times they are not even humourous or is actually part of some drama between another group.
@AC
Considering that I have seen encyclopedias displayed in their entirety during a show it is a fucking nightmare to view. So, more difficult shows like Mouryo no Hako or GITS are definitely not going to work that way. I think I recall the initial fansubbers of MnH trying to do that, although thankfully they had an option to turn off the cliffnotes. Otherwise, I would have been really pissed off.
@FSI:
They’re dumb. End of story.
In all seriousness though, I think it’s just another (incredibly annoying) way of differentiating “their” work from the original work. It’s like scanlation groups who add in a color insert credits page. If you look at my scanlations, you’ll never see anything like that… our credits are so small, we make it a game for our readers to find them.
I can still remember Ayako’s distasteful approach in trying to be humorous with their subbing back in Minami-ke…
Hmm… I’ve just started rewatching Fruits Baskets, and I’ve realized that Funimation opted to keep the honorifics in the subtitles. I popped in my Glass Fleet and Beck DVDs and realized that the honorifics were used here as well. It seems that even some professionals maintain the honorifics.
Most professionals I’ve seen choose to leave in the honorifics, at least for anime and manga. In the case of actual literature, I see that most of the honorifics are left out. Jay Rubin, Murakami’s translator, chooses to leave them out, for example, or he translates “-san” as “Mr.” despite the Japanese setting.