this is hilarious.

No cmon man this is srs

I do find it somewhat funny that this is the most commented on blog post on the front page, tho.

In particular, on the point of translating ero-scenes in VNs, I think relentlessflame’s comments hit the mark. The most important understanding a translator could have is the relationship between writer/artist, medium, and the reader. The case we have here involves a medium that borders both minimalistic scene descriptions (as seen from writing styles belonging to writers of most light novels) and art, capable of bothing showing action through very rough animation, but also static pictures as well. On top of all of this, you add in the sounds and voices.

If we take a look at the evolution of non-voiced eroge to voiced eroge, it’s also arguable that the VN should is primarily an example of writing and art, with voice acting added onto the mix only later. In light of this view, I completely agree that one should localize the onomatopoeia that are more readily used in Japanese into the longer, more descriptive phrasing used in English. Dialogue, also, of course, should be translated, and left to the translator’s discretion as to the choice of wording.

However, I think that if we had to consider the voices as being absolutely integral to the VN, we would have to consider ill-fitting situations between the localized English and its spoken companion. Here is where I stand: my opinion is that the onomatopoeia can be removed on occasion, depending on the length of the text given. However, onomatopoeia in certain situations where the amount of usage is to an acceptable amount (this would have to rely on the translator’s style and judgment), should be retained. Of course, your post doesn’t necessarily exclude this (note: Ah! I’m going to come!”), but I do think a word of caution here is necessary.

In contrast, I do feel there is one point that should be kept minimalistic in translation, and that part is the actual dialogue. Here, I side with Sorrow-kun on the fact that I want to both see and hear as close of a translation as possible, even if it means that your audience will not necessarily understand the context in which the more literal translation is used.

Let me provide an example: もうダメ (mou dame) in my opinion, should be kept at “I can’t-”, no matter how much the translator can guess at the intent of the author through the voice actress’s voice. The reason for this is that I see no need in particular for changing the script, even if in English we rarely use such phrasing in both real and fake (pornographic) sex. The reason for this is that the original Japanese voice is still retained in the translated version, and the reader must learn for himself how the cultural differences cause the dialogue to different between languages.

Also, on this point, this is where I disagree with your point about English being inherently vulgar. What’s at work here is American (and perhaps, generally Western) notions of how to express oneself differing extremely widely from the Japanese version. In America, and perhaps other parts of the English speaking world, more “vulgar” terms are used because they are 1.) culturally acceptable, 2.) more direct, in the way that many people are simply more direct with their way of saying things in the West compared to Japan, and 3.) the meanings of these words don’t carry the same weight. Because we’re allowed to be more vulgar in the west in this situations, that seeps into our language.

Now, this problem means that, unless the voicings themselves are rendered in English, we should seek the maintain the same sense of atmosphere, not mere meaning, located in the script. As people have said before, context does matter, and this is where I think knowledge of the cultural, not just linguistic, differences is truly at play.

And, just as a final point, while I think that context matters, simply saying “context is important” doesn’t solve anything. Akira has kindly stuck his neck out there in order to present a system by which to work with translations, and I think merely arguing that all translations require context is a weaker point that fails to fully demonstrate the power of the system proposed here. While I certainly don’t agree with everything, I would like to thank Akira for providing an excellent post.

Anyways, I do agree that translating sound effects, even when they are explicitly written out in the games, should be omitted since there really is no suitable English equivalent, and given that there is an audio track to compliment the scene, it would be redundant.

I suppose there is a real issue if there is no audio at all in which case a translator would probably be forced into translating the text since they provide crucial context that I believe is necessary. In this case, I actually think that a direct translation as to how the moans sound would be best since their English equivalents are rather dry.

I suppose I can sort of buy the argument that the way sound effects are handled sort of has some manga-esque qualities, but I’m not sure if this was actually a “cue taken from manga” (i.e. it was by design), or just a side-effect of legacy, the production process, and the scripting relationship between the text and the sound file. If you’re going to throw the whole one-to-one relationship between the voicing and the on-screen text, then you might as well consider it in an even broader sense as well.

oh ok, in that case I see no problem. In my experience no translator can do the best translation without first actually understanding the project involved, and it sounds like your choice seems more appropriate to me now.

I am not, of course, suggesting that you should all go off and commit blasphemy. What I am saying is that there is much more freedom to do stupid shit in ero-scenes than there is in regular dialogue, which is why I wrote the disclaimer at the beginning of the article: “IT WOULD BE A TERRIBLE CHOICE.”

It is because, not in spite of, this greater latitude of freedom afforded to us in the translation of ero-scenes that I am proposing this method in the first place. Naturally, context is king, which is why I suggested the occasional, not persistent, use of profanity. The reason why I dropped the moans and metaphors is simple: they’re cockblocks. Like Kurier and others here have said, I really don’t want to read lines upon lines of cave metaphors when I’m sitting here trying to jerk it. Seriously. Buzzkill.

And now, comment responses!

@Shinmaru: Indeed, there is often a very subtle nuance between what is correct, and what is appropriate. There is great harm in being literal, which is why I tend to lie on the liberal side of the spectrum. See my previous article, “My Paradigm”, for more information on that, if you’re interested.

@Aroduc: I do also believe that one should strive to maintain a consistent style, and this may be a rather bad response to your point, but the original author clearly does not keep a consistent style either. Many a time I have played gorgeously written games, only to find that the text reverts to a 4th grade level once ero-scenes hit. Once again, I have said that the ero-scene functions differently from the rest of the text, and therefore, should be treated differently.

You shouldn’t take my comment about sex being profane too literally. I absolutely agree that different sex scenes warrant different translation. Also, clitoral hoods are the best. :V

@AC:

I fap to silent ero-scenes all the time. Also, “pound, hammer, drill” are all fairly common verbs used to describe pelvic thrusting in the States.

@SK:

The silliness depends on what is going on. If this is a rom-com, and there’s something lulzy going on, then yeah, the sillyness should be kept. I agree with lknight: the language in ero-scenes is inherently clumsy. There’s almost no reason for us to transfer that clumsiness. There’s a difference between clumsy and silly, and clumsiness should, in this case only, be eliminated.

If you look at the translation of hentai, it perfectly expresses what I am attempting to outline here. Most good hentai translations I’ve seen have eliminated sound effects and only keep crucial dialogue. This process is complicated in eroge by the existence of narration. The voiced stuff (i.e., dialogue, not narration) can be translated like hentai; that’s what I’m advocating.

@mt-i:

There’s a fine line. Loving sex is still sex, in my opinion. NO ONE says kiddy shit in sex. Not even in eroge. They may say it in a nice manner, or in a way that can be perceived as cute, but make no mistake, it is inherently mature in nature. I skip onomatopoeias because it detracts from the experience. See: cockblock, above.

@Kurier:

You spelled “their” wrong. Typical.

>_>;;; just kidding. Thanks for agreeing with me. You’re definitely right about the distraction factor. Not too sure about your theory on word and meaning, though I do agree that it is meaning that we should translate, not words.

@TIF:

You know, I think it’s a good example to look at the US Porn industry as a benchmark. The two have remarkable parallels in dialogue, although one is much more vulgar than the other, a virtue of English being a much more vulgar language.

@gaguri:

Indeed, context does dictate everything. Like I conceded in the article, the translation of that line as “I’m gonna come” is highly controversial. However, I chose that translation specifically because of the context. You should hear the audio clip. I swear to god she was actually coming when she recorded that. It’s also not a cutesy “Oh no~” thing, either. And yes, I do agree that the opinion of the client is important, but at the same time, since I work mostly for myself, I dictate the style, and the client comes to me if he or she enjoys it.

@Sensei-Hanzo:

It’s just VNs being wacky. Reading an ero-scene in Japanese is an extremely jarring experience. Sometimes, I ask myself, “Wow, did this author really write this? It reads so differently from the rest of the work.”

@Relentlessflame:

I think a VN is a novel in spirit, but also takes cues from manga. In manga, all sound effects are faithfully rendered. In a VN, half of them are rendered, the other half are described. In a novel, they are all (or mostly) described. Once again, if you look at my article, I say that the eroge must be voiced for this system to work. Without voices, the system falls flat on its face and becomes useless.

If you think of these games as novels first, where the multimedia is there to enhance the experience, then it’s important that someone who turns off all the voices still gets the full experience in terms of what’s going on. But at the same time, if this were an actual novel, it’s not as if you’d have pages and pages of dialog sound effects. It’s just there because the text box contains a transcript of the dialog, and the audio files are matched to appear whenever the dialog appears (so that the scripters can keep things straight). If you were really willing to re-invent the wheel and re-imagine things, you might break the relationship between the audio clips and the text box and have the two complement each other.

Anyway… late due to technology fail, but what else is new. Thanks for the interesting topic.

I’m only just starting as a translator, but part of my translation philosophy is to try to consider “How would the author have written this were he writing it in English? (assuming he was a native English speaker)” I haven’t read too many sex scenes in English works, but those that I have encountered definitely don’t have long strings of panting sound effects. If sounds were in there at all, they would probably be written out as a description rather than a transcription. Translating sound effects by replacing them with a description would be…taking quite a bit of liberty, but like all translation I think it depends on the context.

With regards to metaphors, I know there are purists like Sorrow-kun who want to know what the VAs are saying, but… I find it difficult to prioritize preservation of Japanese sentence structure and literary devices when it comes at the cost of something that sounds good. I agree with Kurier that as long as the meaning is preserved, then it should be fine. The only issue I have is that as I haven’t read any Japanese literature outside VNs, I don’t know if this is a common thing for Japanese writers to do or if this is just VNs being wacky. If it’s just VNs, then I guess that would sort of convince me to leave them in, since it would presumably be equally strange for the Japanese audience. I find it hard to believe that so many works would use such deviant language, though.

Anyway, that’s just my two cents. Thanks for bringing up this topic. It’s an interesting subject that merits discussion.