Dark Translations

[B173_M3]

I’ve always been impressed by how someone could believe that someone who translates from what he hears may be “more faithful to the original” than someone who translates from a written script, with the help (if needed) from the original script writer.

I’ve never really heard much in terms of translators receiving feedback from the script writers, because a company that sells the license is usually seperate from the actual animation studio/design board. From what I can tell, the licensor simply hands the script over to the licensee under the impression that the translators know what to do.

As for the translations, there are significant advantages of getting a translation by listening/watching the anime over looking at a script, because you’re more involved with the story/dialogue/characters. If you’re doing it with just a script, you’re just staring at line after line of words strung together and you’re forced to visualize what is going on. If you get the dialogue while you’re watching the anime, you can see/hear everything–You can get a better understanding of what’s going on with the plot, you can see/hear each charater’s emotions, you know precisely who each character is talking to, and you can actually see instances of non-verbal communication taking place between the characters: This can tremendously affect how you word your translations, because it can affect your understanding of the intent behind the dialogue.

[Nandemonai]

@B173 M3

I’ve never really heard much in terms of translators receiving feedback from the script writers, because a company that sells the license is usually seperate from the actual animation studio/design board. From what I can tell, the licensor simply hands the script over to the licensee under the impression that the translators know what to do.

You have now. My friend holds panels at cons detailing the translation process. Numerous times the Japanese creators have come back demanding to know what my friend is smoking, in many cases demanding specific changes. Especially tough is translating sentence fragments, because not only are they usually key moments in the show/game/manga, but Japanese sentence structure is totally different than most other languages. There have been instances where (as my friend explains it) the creators come back demanding to know why he changed something, saying “if we had wanted the words to be there we would have put them there” – but in Japanese it’s perfectly obvious what the person is saying because of the way the language is inflected, whereas in English, it isn’t.

@B173 M3

As for the translations, there are significant advantages of getting a translation by listening/watching the anime over looking at a script, because you’re more involved with the story/dialogue/characters.

This is a false dichotomy. Nobody ever said professional translators cannot do both. And in fact, they do both. There is no way you’re going to convince me that (show + script) can be worse than (show by itself)

[B173_M3]

@Nandemonai

This is a false dichotomy. Nobody ever said professional translators cannot do both. And in fact, they do both. There is no way you’re going to convince me that (show + script) can be worse than (show by itself)

Neither can you do the same to the fans who prefer fansub translations to professional ones: You can’t tell them what they should or shouldn’t think is better, as only they themselves can establish what is better for them. I’m not talking about the fact that fansubs are free either–There’s obviously something about the translation and editing patterns of various fansubs that tend to make a lot of people desire them over professional tranlations. If the “professionals” are indeed better but aren’t being seen as such, wouldn’t that be a golden opportunity for the companies to step back and evaluate themselves to see what they can change/improve? I really don’t see any real use in arguing with opinions of a segment of the fanbase, as only they know what is better to them.

I think we’ve gone too far off-topic.