Subbing peeves

Honorifics should be consistent. Either include them or don't, but don't only include some honorifics.

Translators notes should show up as infrequently as possible in the actual subtitle track. If you want to include a .txt with additional notes in it, go for it, but translators notes are distracting and cover up the screen, and often aren't necessary in the first place.

Nothing should be hardsubbed. If the effects in your karaoke animation require you to hard sub that part, then those effects are probably stupid and distracting anyway, so just use regular animated subtitles.

Um... that's all I can think of off the top of my head.

I'm not really too picky otherwise.

Funny you should mention sensei...because I have this odd habit in Real Life to call my teachers and professor "teacher" and "professor" out of sheer convenience.

Also because I have no idea how I'm supposed to pronounce some of their names.

Of course, in this case, it would be me who is the exception, since everyone else have no problem referring them to Mr/Mrs. whatever.

"Every opinion that isn't mine is subjected to Your Mileage May Vary."

Personally, I'm fairly neutral on the issue of honorifics specifically. I mean, if they put them in, okay, fine, but if the sub doesn't put them in, I'm perfectly capable of just hearing what honorifics are in use and understanding what is meant.

Unless the english phrasing limps because they're translating the honorifics badly; like turning -san into Mr. even when it wouldn't make sense to use Mr. in english. That's just annoying.

But one the subject of actual peeves I have: When you decide to sub a song, why would you put the romanji on but nothing else? Who benefits from having that, and that alone, plastered all over the OP?

"Canada Day is over, and now begins the endless dark of the Canada Night."

I call many of my teachers and professors "Teacher" or "Professor". I've been told I can call my professors by their first names...This doesn't seem right...AT ALL.

^People who want to learn how to sing the song, but are too lazy or stupid have not learned the kana and some kanji and are also unconcerned with learning the meaning of the song? ???

That bugs me though. Quite a bit.

edited 9th Mar '11 1:30:27 PM by Aondeug

If someone wants to accuse us of eating coconut shells, then that's their business. We know what we're doing. - Achaan Chah

Because it really can't get linked enough...

edited 9th Mar '11 1:40:41 PM by ShayGuy

My main desire for a translation is that I want to know what the people who made the show were trying to say, I'm not particularly interested in what the translator thinks they should have been trying to say.

JP name order because reversing them is stupid, Honorifics because omitting them/localizing them is just asking to get yourself bitten on the ass 15 episodes down the line, and no gratuitous localization.

I always get confused when Japanese names are put in Western order. >_>

If people learned from their mistakes, there wouldn't be this thing called bad habits.

To be fair, you can't really expect subs to be perfect if they're being made as the show is airing, since translators can't predict the future.

Ideally, after the show's over they'll go back and fix the subs so that they actually make sense. This doesn't always happen, though.

Err. What? Of course people do. Do you not live in the US?

Also, Gagsubs are fine by me, as long as they are done tastefully and not overtly. (Like how one subbing group had Graham say "Trans-Graham!" instead of Trans-Am during Gundam00)

My other signature is a Gundam.

God, I hate that video. There are so many things wrong with it!

First of all, there is a huge False Dichotomy as he just takes an extremely Woolseyist stance on the sliding scale of Translation Style Choices, claims that this is the "professional" stance, and everyone who disagrees with him must either take a "Blind Idiot" Translation approach, or be a hypocrite, for only wanting to keep some expressions, those that the audience can be expected to be familiar with, but not others. There is no sliding scale, just Woolseyism and BlindIdiotTranslation.

Second, he blames all decorative text styles for distracting from the anime itself, and mocks them with some bad examples, ignoring that sometims thematic text styles are more fitting than some white Times New Roman letters at the bottom of the page. Often, it can feel exactly like what the original artists would have done if they needed to use subs. Actually, I think that visual quality is one of the greatest prides of anime fansubbing, and it's a shame that official subtitle makers don't follow them.

It gets even more ridiculous as he starts mocking retouched scenes, like in-universe blackboards or papers having english text edited onto them, because "professional transators don't try to make it look like part of the art".

Apparently, with translation text, "getting the same experience as the original audience" means Woolseyism: creatively working around idioms, grammar, and culture-specific concepts. But when it comes to visual formats, it means literally getting the same picture on the screen as them, by making the text as small and unremarkably bland as you can, without ever trying to creatively make it fit in.

edited 9th Mar '11 3:10:42 PM by EternalSeptember

(1) Honorifics. USE THEM OR DON'T.

(2) Sentence structure. Does it make sense? Does it sound like something a human being might say? No? WELL YOU BETTER FIX IT THEN BITCH

I've got new mythological machinery, and very handsome supernatural scenery. Goodfae: a mafia web serial

@Shay Guy: This this this this this. So much. It's bad enough in official manga translations, but in scanlations? Oh, they're awful. They don't even make the dialogue try to sound like anything English-speaking people would actually say, sometimes to the point where it becomes impossible to tell what any of the characters mean by what they're saying. It's just awful in every way.

Don't people even stop and think about whether or not whatever translation they've just made sounds like something someone somewhere would actually say ever? It's franky embarrassing. It's a big reason why I don't really read a lot of manga (since I'm too cheap to spring for official translations, I have to read the scanlations and oh my god they SUCK so bad it hurts).

edited 9th Mar '11 3:43:37 PM by Sporkaganza

Always, somewhere, someone is fighting for you. As long as you remember them, you are not alone.

and it's a shame that official subtitle makers don't follow them.

Now lets be fair, the DVD subtitle standard is, in fact, complete shit. There is only so much that you could do with it, and doing visuals on par with what can be done with something like Aegisub and the MKV container would require hard-coded subs. Which is bad bad bad.

There are some standout attempts, Right Stuf's release of Kare Kano being the most impressive. Of course, it broke on some players because it pushed the capabilities of the DVD format to the limit.

B Ds are more versatile, but we've entered a period where R1 companies are struggling, so its hard for them to justify the expense that much extra effort would take.

I don't much like official subs these days, either, actually. They're usually a bit better than fansubs, but they fall into the same trap of being too literal. They don't go so far as to sound awkward, but I've found that official subs are usually just too dry.

Always, somewhere, someone is fighting for you. As long as you remember them, you are not alone.

Glad to know I'm not the only one who hates overly literal subs.

In my case, I already know Japanese, I'm just lazy. So I really could do without literal translations that sound awkward in English and try to convey Japanese idiom literally. It does my head in, because then I have to go and remember what that particular idiom's English equivalent is myself.

Which, last time I checked, was the translator's job. If it happens more than a couple of times, I go "fuck this, I'm switching to the dub" and I stay there unless the dub acting is really dire.

My best translations are pretty much Woolseyism style localisations and pretty much anything else annoys me. It's how I roll when I translate something and frankly I don't like other approaches. While Japanese is not a Starfish Language (the grammar's much less messy than English) there's too much cultural weirdness that is too difficult to be worthwhile translating effectively and substitution for equivalent local idiom is usually easier and more effective, even if it fucks with authenticity something fierce. (But authenticity purists are better off watching it in the original language without subs, IMAO)

Any time someone uses -Tachi to describe a group. Just use a fucking s or something, god.

What I hate is when all the dialogue is translated, but pieces of writing that appear on-screen aren't, especially if what's written is plot relevant.

"It takes an idiot to do cool things, that's why it's cool" - Haruhara Haruko

Justin: I have seen that done in a fan translation of a comic before...I wanted to hurt things.

If someone wants to accuse us of eating coconut shells, then that's their business. We know what we're doing. - Achaan Chah

1. ) People who can't take the three extra minutes to find a good fansub

It's like when everyone realized that a lot of the bad dub mistakes in the past had slowly been weeded out in the present. Really I haven't seen bad translations, excessive translator notes, or the "Japanophile" pandering in any fansub I've watched since like Bleach 73. I mean it doesn't take that much to realize how good the translation is on any manga or anime, often it's apparent in the first five pages or six minutes, and if it's not up to your standards it's fairly easy to find an alternate group doing the translation through simple Google searchs unless what you're reading is super obscure in which case you should be thankful you're getting it at all if it truly is so obscure only one group is translating it.

And really a lot of the problems people are complaining about come from the Wooleyism not from a lack of it, like for example the stilted structure in most translations. Rather then simply use the Japanese word and be done with it, some people got all anal about it saying "Dude stop including all these Japanese words you Weeaboo! You're ruining the flow!" and so instead of just saying "pachinko" we get some weird awkward substitute word. But then what about TN? Whenever we have words like "Pachinko" we have a bunch of annoying TN's pop up explaining what it means!

This is coming from a guy who pretty much is sub-exclusive, TN's are pretty much non-existent in good or even mediocre fansubs. Why? Because of supply and demand, most people really aren't that particular if a culture fact they don't know slips over them as at the most they go do a google search and get their answer. Most groups don't do TN's anymore because people really don't care whether or not they're included, and TN's are just more work for the sub-group. So if no-one cares, and the group itself gets no particular benefit from it, then why keep including it? It's the same reason why more and more groups are just choosing to leave the OP's and ED's clean now instead of subbing them with the karaoke effects like they used to, it was nice but no one particularly cared and while I miss them I'm not going to stop watching because they're gone.

The only TN's I see now are in Manga, which are included in the little white spaces between panels and are anything but obstructive. And while some people will obsess about "Why is she overreacting so much?" and demand a specific culture answer, most people just accept, "Oh it's a culture difference, cool I'll look that up later" and continue watching the show like normal people.

But really, what's the point of a Wooleyism? Because for me personally it can be the greatest most creative wooleyism in the world but I'm not going to care because I wanted to watch a Japanese show not an American one. The two are different and offer different things, hence why one has not eclipsed the other because they appeal to different people and satisfy different tastes.

I mean if there was no difference between the jokes, references, and writing of Reborn and Generator Rex, then why would I bother getting on my computer every Thursday and watching the stream when I can just flip on my TV and watch the exact same show? Why would you bother going to a theater ten extra miles away to watch the same movie, with the same friends, and the exact same food?

It's like if there's a Japanese cop show and an American cop show. When they sub the Japanese one they change all the references from famous Japanese criminals to famous American ones, and change all the jokes to ones that make sense in English.

If the jokes are American and the culture references are American, then why don't you just watch the American show? If all I wanted to see was pretty anime pictures then I would just surf through -booru and Pixiv for 24 minutes a day. If you take out the culture specific jokes, nods, and cues, then what's the difference now between this product and the billions of other products already available to the home country?

It's like when my friend explained to me why he liked Durarara over Baccano even though they were by the same author, because Baccano took place in Great Depression America. And to him it made the show boring, he'd already seen this over and over again in the works already available to him in English, if he'd wanted to see it again he would just go to the library and pick out one of the hundreds of books and other media available to him, not watch Baccano.

It's the same reason why everyone hates moe shows, if I've already seen this a hundred times in the exact same way then why can't I just watch K-On again and get the same thing?

edited 9th Mar '11 6:40:12 PM by WORLDTree

Fansubs -> Cop shows -> Moe.

I'm sure there was a point there somewhere but I'm kind of having a hard time finding it...

When I complain about "stilted dialog", I'm talking about expressions like "even at that time" instead of "even then".

edited 9th Mar '11 6:57:53 PM by silver2195

Currently taking a break from the site. See my user page for more information.

Fansubs:Like normal dubs, they have learned their lessons over time and the better ones have mostly fixed a lot of errors people complain about.

Cop Shows:Example point, American and Japanese cop shows are very different in both how the law works and the history of the legal system etc. if you change these into Wooleyisms for another country like America then you might as well watch one of the many American Cop Shows instead.

Moe: Example point to support cop shows, people don't like moe because they believe every show is the same, and by watching one you have watched them all, it supports Cop Shows because by localizing all the culture you might as well just watch one of the abundant local shows.

edited 9th Mar '11 8:20:05 PM by WORLDTree

Man, that was a great post! Except you managed to crash and burn in the very last line.

It's the same reason why everyone hates moe shows, if I've already seen this a hundred times in the exact same way then why can't I just watch K-On again and get the same thing?

The lack of self-awareness. IT BURNS!

It's not like I personally believe that, it's just the most generic excuse I hear as to why people hate Moe, in my opinion a different experience can be as little as having different hair colors or body builds, just changing events like going to a farm instead of the beach can lead to a different impression of a show depending on the person.

Ok, fair enough. You didn't make that very clear originally though.