Subbing peeves

Admittedly, it's quite elitist but it serves the purpose of the intended audience. Some translators would say that localization is better, but MOST (read: I say MOST) anime watchers prefer their honorifics when the context is appropriate.

I'm all for "why should we tailor these cartoons to people who don't even give a fuck?"

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I care significantly less about flow in subs than in dubs. The very point of subs is that they're an approximation of what's going on (and the rest is conveyed by the acting, voice or otherwise) it doesen't need to flow: The spoken dialogue already does that.

Which is incidentally why dubbing is so infinitely much harder to do right.

RE: honorifics. It's not exclusive to japanese translations by any means. In at least my translation of "One Hundred Years Of Solitude" they use "senor" (sorry, can't do the little squiggly thing), in french books they often use "madame/mademoiselle" or "monsieur", etc. etc. It's a fairly common practice.

edited 10th Mar '11 5:17:49 AM by Arilou

"No, the Singularity will not happen. Computation is hard." -Happy Ent

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Alt+0124

...I think. I can't see to get it to work on my laptop. It is, however, on the first "page" of the character map thing in the start menu.

Certain things should by all means be preserved, especially if they carry nuances of character behavior or relationships - I refer of course to honorifics. Aside from that, pretty much everything other than attack names and work-specific terms should be translated.

...Of course, the subs of Yumekui Merry coming out nowadays translate major characters' names...

It's been fun.

lolgg

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Yes, that is exactly what they do. That's why I see translation as a fundamentally imperfect solution to the problem of not understanding a work in a foreign language; the best solution would be to cut out the middle man by just learning the language — however, this is both impractical and itself subject to imperfection (you must, after all, learn the language from someone, so obviously there are still some middle men involved, though less than with translation, as the translator had to learn the language from someone(s) else as well). This is why I add the qualifier that when translation must be done, I prefer that as little be done as possible. Of course, what "when translation must be done" and "as little as possible" mean are entirely relative to particular work being translated, as well as the person experiencing it.

As for what "things" mean in this context, let's go with the idea that stories originally start as ideas in the creators head, which must then be translated into whatever his native language is; however, as all translations are imperfect, some things will necessarily be lost when we translate out of ideas and into words (have you ever noticed that when you try to articulate something, it always ends up coming out slightly differently than it was in your mind?). Thus, translated works are really translations of translations, meaning that even more will be lost. I just think that we should try to keep our losses to as little as is practical (of course, "as little as is practical" is subject to the same caveats discussed above).

Does this make sense?

edited 10th Mar '11 11:14:28 AM by Taelor

The Philosopher-King Paradox

Didn't Douglas Hofstader write a book about this subject?

You can't even write racist abuse in excrement on somebody's car without the politically correct brigade jumping down your throat!

I don't know; I found Godel Escher Bach to be boring and consequently didn't read past the first few chapters.

edited 10th Mar '11 11:08:34 AM by Taelor

The Philosopher-King Paradox

I findd that a pretty bad analogy, as the profession in question here is entertainment. Unlike with thesis papers, that are expected to be serious, there is no reason why subtitles shouldn't be stylisic.

That's like, if you would say that since "professionalism implies that you will be straight to the point", professional singers must never use stage effects, costumes, presentation speeches, etc, just walk to the microphone, sing the songs, straight to the point, and go home.

There is no reason why fansubs shouldn't be more fitting to the theme.

If a show has a flashy, colorful OP, adding a flashy, colorful karaoke sub is more appropriate than a white, "professional" text. Or if it's so amateurish, why do the original writers themselves use similarly strange fonts for episode titles, and credits? Isn't it the same thing?

Also, there is a professional school of translations that favors changing the in-story signs, (for example Pixar re-renders every scene with a sign in it for all local languages). And for adding the professional creator's name and logo to the OP or the ending credits.

The thing is, ultimately, that none of us give a flying fuck about the people translating. Sorry, guys, but I don't. You do a great service, but I'm interested in what the people who made the show did, you are just allowing me to experience it. I don't watch these shows to experience the creativity of the translators.

Since this is a thread about general subbing peeves and not merely about the translation, I will go ahead and say that the subs that annoys me the most are those that like to pile line upon line of subs one go so they fill up half the screen.

Please. One line is good. Two lines is the maximum, unless there's wordplay involved.

I tend to see massive amounts of lines when there's technobabble or an explanatory exposition going on. They confound the explanation even more by making it hard to read.

Want to name a time where that actually happens?

Well, I don't give a flying fuck about the actual creators of works either, but unfortunately that doesn't give me an excuse to avoid seeing their names.

edited 10th Mar '11 12:19:54 PM by EternalSeptember

There's a major fucking difference between the people who made the show, and thus without which you would not be experiencing it at all. and the people who simply translate it.

I have no issue with there being credits for translators, but they certainly should not go placing themselves above the people who actually created the work.

So, creators are important, because "without [them] you would not be experiencing it at all.", but translators are not important, because "[they] are just allowing me to experience it"?

As far as I'm concerned, there would be no experience at all without the subbers, and the creators are also just "allowing me to experience it" by making it.

Most of the time, the names and logos you see at the beginning of an anime, or even a film, TV show, or video game, are not of the artists, but from various stages of development, and publishing.

"Presented by UTW" is not that much different than "Published by Kadokawa", and the latter is a lot more obnixious, with stopping the OP music, and that female narrator sound reading a stock message aloud.

Not to mention how TV shows are officially and professionally published here in Hungary, where the intro's music gets turned down, so a narrator can read the names of the dub actors and the publisher's names during the song.

edited 10th Mar '11 12:47:55 PM by EternalSeptember

I hate it when subs have bad timing. If there's a pause in the dialogue, there should be a pause in the subs. I hate it when the dialogue does something like "Pardon me while I make... [Dramatic Pause] [Reaction Shot] [Another character's Reaction Shot] ...The Reveal!" and the subs just say "Pardon me while I make The Reveal!" and either leave it on the whole time (through all the shots with no actual dialogue) or just leave it up for the first part (leaving "...The Reveal!" subless, because you already read it once, right?).

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

Thats just incompetence. Its also not a major problem, generally.

You guys do know that the only reason opening/ending themes exists is for showing the credits right?

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

Well, also for selling CDs.

Yes. Yes, it is. And it's wrong. Summer Wars, for instance, was meant to be accessible to a general Japanese audience. If you're writing a dub script for an American release, it's a perversion of the spirit in which it was created to deliberately make it inaccessible to a general American audience with a half-assed translation. Removal of "sempai" is in no way equivalent to replacing "rice balls."

Granted, this thread is about subbing peeves, and dubs have higher demands, because A) they make clunky dialogue jump out more and B) they're made with the knowledge that a broader audience will be watching them. Plus you want the subtitles to not clash with what you're hearing, which unfortunately leads to some pretty awkward translations when bizarre Engrish is present in the original dialogue.

It's not about going out of anyone's way. It's about equivalence. Quality should not be sacrificed for the sake of exoticism.

One version is tailored to one nation, another to another. That's what a translator does.

No, because it still shows excessive attachment to the words and grammar of the "intermediate" stage. If you fully understand what's behind them, you can make them come through more clearly, and thus lose less, than if you try to wrap the wrapping paper in its own paper. In the words of Toren Smith, "Know the story; know the characters. The rest is details."

He did indeed, and I was thinking about it (and this) while writing my previous post. :) I haven't read it, though; I'm still only about 500 pages through GEB. But I think most of his translation experience is in poetry (where formal and dynamic equivalence are more at odds), with some exceptions like the international versions of GEB.

It may do well to examine movies and TV shows that had subtitles in parts of their original version. Lost, Avatar, The Super Dimension Fortress Macross: Do You Remember Love?, Evangelion 2.x, and so forth. Usually, it seems the makers opt for subtitles as unobtrusive as possible — they're not the main attraction, they're a means of understanding it. Draw attention to the content, not themselves.

Granted, I have enjoyed subtitles that drew more attention to themselves than might be advisable, such as Black-Order's work on Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann. (Font choices, by the way, have different needs when they're translating on-screen text — then, unobtrusiveness means matching the original font as well as you can.)

Might be a good point to bring it up — what's your opinion on individual lines in subtitles that appear one part at a time? Take Black-Order's TTGL subs again — the climax of episode 8 has the line "Listen, Simon... don't forget." The first half appears on-screen, left of center, and then as Kamina says the second half, it appears next to the first half, so that the full line is on-screen (and centered). I don't think DVD has that capability at all.

That's one of the easy signs to spot how good a sub is, if they bother to program the subs to not stack on each other.

I remember when Maria-Holic came out one of the groups who was subbing it was just terrible, the subs were hard to read, the timing was always off and the text didn't stack properly, most good subs have the words change every few seconds to prevent line stacking.

And it's not like this is a secret problem only a few people realize, if people don't like a certain group they complain about it and the site just picks another from the 3-4 groups available, the popular groups get more coverage and more experience and grow better and more prominent so the most major sites will feature the same groups who do try to maintain a level of quality.

And Generator Rex and Reborn are not similar nor do I think they are, it's just two examples I know of that are directed towards the same audience, and I already stated that was not my stance on Moe, just a generic complaint I hear.

If you show an odd gambling machine, and the characters say "Playing Pachinko is going to consume your life dude." then most people are going to assume that the odd machine is a "Pachinko Machine" and move on with it, the thing is you don't even really need to explain it in TN's, the majority of viewers accept it as a "culture fact" and continue to watch the show while filing a note to do a google search in the back of their head. I mean I see "grits" appear a lot in television, I don't know what it is but I know it's a food, so "grits is a food" the end, I don't need a TN explaining to me what they are as I really don't care and can find the information easily myself, a lot of people seem to be underestimating google search.

And if you take out the culture, take out things specific to that country and replace it with your own then how is it still "Japanese" or whatever country you want to use? If take all the French food, all the French puns, all the French music and all the French words out of a French movie then how is it still French? It's not just a matter of jokes and pop culture references, it's a matter of removing the things which differentiate the product from the rest of it's competitors.

It's like in Durarara, change Mikado to Michael, Anri to Ashley and Kida to Carl and then do a few touch ups on the signs and other cultural things, and to the average viewer is it really that hard to believe it takes place in a fictional American city now? It's not like most viewers are going to have a good grasp of the differences between American and Japanese architecture unless they go look it up.

Or for a real example in Ace Attorney would the average gamer really had that hard of a time believing the setting was America? The setting was American, the names were names you'd hear anywhere like Nick, Maya, Miles, Mia, Ema, and Lana, and most jokes were changed to things that better matched American humor and comedy.

The only thing left that could distinguish it from most American works was the anime art style, take that out of a game like Ace Attorney and the game is basically American, and while that's all fine and dandy, it gives me less incentive to buy this over other humorous investigation media like Psych and "It's good" is not a good reason considering everyone told me Avatar was good too and I hated that movie.

EDIT: It's not a perversion if every single thing is not given its English equivalent, the home country doesn't always want every single thing to correlate to them, sometimes they actually want to see other cultures and see what a general Japanese audience would watch.

edited 10th Mar '11 4:29:55 PM by WORLDTree

White text can be a lot more obtrusive than text matching the theme of the show.

Also, I remember that Avatar also had some sort of unusual yellow, natural-looking font type for the Navi speech, I remember that I thought "Finally, some decent looking subtitles in a film!"

edited 10th Mar '11 4:45:58 PM by EternalSeptember

If you're writing a dub script for an American release, it's a perversion of the spirit in which it was created to deliberately make it inaccessible to a general American audience with a half-assed translation.

Who the fuck is talking about a dub script? Seriously.

The problem is, though, that we can never fully understand "what's behind the words and grammar of the 'intermediate' stage"; indeterminacy of translation applies any time that communication occurs, even when it's done in a language that the people in question "know" — so ultimately, the "intermediate stage" is all that we have to go on.  ^*

^{In fact, we don't even have the intermediate stage to go on, but only our perceptions of the intermediate stage, as we can never completely rule out the possibility that we may have misheard or misread the words in question — but this is only tangentially relevant to our discussion of translation}

I should also point out that I'm not saying that any particular method of translation is necessarily better or worse than any other — all I'm saying is that different methodologies have different advantages and drawbacks, just that different people have different needs. Some methods may be better suited to the needs of some people, and others methods to other people. In writing this, I'm merely attempting to explain why I prefer one particular method over another, and I make no claims about the merits of any methodological choices in the absolute sense.

edited 10th Mar '11 5:08:02 PM by Taelor

The Philosopher-King Paradox

Way to nitpick so you don't have to actually address the points he's making

edited 10th Mar '11 5:04:06 PM by Sporkaganza

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