Subbers becoming weeaboo-ish?

edited 22nd Jun '11 3:07:07 PM by Sporkaganza

Okay, if it's honorifics...then there are perfectly serviceable english words for translating them to, which basically mean exactly what the honorifics do. Adding san to the back of someone's name is no different from adding Mr. to the front.

And really, you can hear them say honorifics if it's an anime, right? Why do you need to read it.

Adding san to the back of someone's name is no different from adding Mr. to the front.

I'm kinda thinking you may not have a clue what you're talking about.

Because its not.

You must live in a very different place then if Mr/Ms/Mrs is that common and have that broad of meaning where you are...

edited 22nd Jun '11 5:00:54 PM by Aondeug

^ I could just call you Aondeug and it would have the same level of equivalent formality as someone Japanese saying Aondeug-san.

Yes. That works. Saying that it's no different than adding Mr. to the front of a name is wrong sounding though since -san is amazingly common and more akin to someone just saying your name out in the States.

edited 22nd Jun '11 5:17:06 PM by Aondeug

I could just call you Aondeug and it would have the same level of equivalent formality as someone Japanese saying Aondeug-san.

While this is true, this only works for that particular honorific. How do you work in in the others? And what about the absence of an honorific? People forget this a lot, but thats just as important. And is Aondeug her first or last name? It makes a difference. Maybe you can use their last name without an honorific, but need one for their first name.

You can draw rough equivalences between "-san" and "Mr/Ms/Mrs", but...those are pretty much the only three honorifics we have, while Japan still has a bunch of others, with no equivalent.

They're called subtitles. They display every spoken lines, that's why even english dialogue is displayed in subtitles.......................................

Unfortunately, some fansubs, such as GG Subs or some other group have a tendency to **** that up too....translating "yay!" to "woohoo!" even when "yay" is said in english...translating "thank you" to "merci" even when the character explicitly said "thank you"...

What if the dialogue is between two very familiar characters? They wouldn't use honorifics to address each other, then what?

edited 22nd Jun '11 5:22:22 PM by Signed

^^ Well, you can drop the majority of uses of -kun as well. Or if it's something like a teacher referring to a student you can have it be one of those teachers that calls you Mr. Sakurazaki. In the case of sensei (does that count as honorific exactly? whatever) just use Mr. or Doctor. or whatever is appropriate. Sama can be sir or just gotten across with the normal excess formality such a character would be using.

I don't mind honorifics, but I do think you can almost always get rid of them.

-chan you could mutate into some sort of petname. It's not an exact equivalent but it's something you could do. Or you could just drop the whole thing together.

-sama you could make Sir, Lady, Mr./Ms./Mrs. depending on context.

-dono you could make Sir or Lady.

-senpai...could...You could write their spoken dialogue in some form that conveys the respect in English...I have no fucking clue. Kill it I guess.

-sensei is Master, Dr. or Mr./Ms./Mrs. depending on context.

-kun dies in a corner.

There are other ones out there I am sure but eh...I am lazy...and they likely just get weirder from there on out so...MEH.

That's how you could handle it. Not how I would because I prefer honorifics for subs and comics, but eh...

edited 22nd Jun '11 5:27:48 PM by Aondeug

The most obvious wrongness of this post, as others above me surely already ninja'd me to explain it, is that no, they are quite different in their meanings, and applied to different situations.

But even ignoring that, they are only "equivalents" in the same way as "samurai" is the Japanese equivalent of "knight", "anime" is the Japanese equivalent of "cartoon", or "Miko" is the Japanese equivalent of "Nun". Comparable, but not interchargible.

Sure, they have similar generic roles, but they are, by definition only applicable to Japan and the West in that order. Just as samurai is more than the word that the Japanese use for their knights, "-san" is much more than the word that they use for saying "Mister". It is what Japanese people use on each other as a honorific.

And in converse, Mr. is more than just "A generic honorific". It is "a generic honorific used between english people". Japanese people unironically calling each other "mister" is about as wrong and inaccurate as Russians calling each other signore and signora, or americans calling each other Herr and Frau.

The honorifics are just associated with the cultures using them, along with the name that came with them.

edited 22nd Jun '11 5:29:54 PM by EternalSeptember

Lets say you have two characters, lets call them, oh...Yamada Jirou and Nakajima Kaoru. Say they are second years in high school.

So at first, they are classmates, but not particularly close. They would probably refer to each other as "Yamada-kun" and "Nakajima-san"

They get closer, and start going out, their form of address changes a bit, Jirou now calls her "Kaoru-san", but she's still calling him "Yamada-kun".

Eventually he asks her to call him by his given name, and calls her "Kaoru" without an honorific. She blushes and goes "Ji...Ji...Jirou...-kun".

How do you convey this in English without completely butchering the nuances?

And keep in mind that you don't know how this will play out when you begin your translation.

^ Are body language, tone of voice and other pieces of the language non existent or something? Are honorifics the only way to denote formality levels? Because I was under the impression that the English language has done pretty well for itself without using them nearly as much.

I give up and make my illiterate friend do it instead. Of course I would do this for any such thing in general as I don't want to translate anything ever so...

edited 22nd Jun '11 5:35:09 PM by Aondeug

We're dealing with a subtitle translation, not a dub. I (in general) do not support honorifics in dubs.

Of course, if someone doesn't know honorifics, they are probably going to have trouble interpreting tone in spoken Japanese.

but that is interchangeable

except for in some puns

Oh god...honorifics in dubs...That concept is frightening...

If it's subtitles then it's animated and the way they talk to each other is even more obvious. Polite and disinterested behavior are not hard to differentiate from intimacy and friendliness.

By the way guys tell me the closest English version of this thing in every context (multiple phrases may be used for each context.)

I...I don't know? It looks like it could be "My, my..." or "Oh my!" in certain contexts...

It makes sense when I hear it but what is it in ENGLISH...

edited 22nd Jun '11 5:43:52 PM by Aondeug

Tsk-tsk.

"oh my" or "oh dear" I guess......

Also.......isn't this thread about subtitles? Or is it about dubbing now?

edited 22nd Jun '11 5:46:23 PM by Signed

BOTH. SUBBING DUBS. THE NEW TOPIC.

I remember the ancestor of this discussion from back in the Eighties when we first started getting translated manga. The general attitude of the importers and the professional translators they were employing was that a good translation was one that sounded/looked like it was written in the target language in the first place. Admittedly, this caused problems with honorifics and similar issues, but they felt that they could convey the intention in English, even if this required rewriting the content to reproduce the original meaning. Since they were trying to aim at a mainstream market, it was understandable.

The dedicated anime/manga fans of the time didn't like this approach much. Most of them had taken the time and effort to learn at least some of the subtleties of the honorific system. They wanted a product closer to the look and feel of the original, even at the expense of turning off new readers who would bounce off the honorific system.

It took more fannish companies getting in on the market and having some success, and Tokyopop making some ruthless cost-cutting decisions, before the big companies loosened up.

I don't think i've ever heard that in a context that would be replaced with "tsk-tsk"...