History Main / TooLongDidntDub

* The Sandy Frank dub for ''{{Gamera}} vs. Guiron'' inexplicably maintained "Kon-chan" as the children's nickname for the police officer, Kondo. The ''{{MST3K}}'' release of the episode got a running gag out of Joel and the Bots mishearing this as "Cornjob".

**** Gotta love ''Wizard'' and the TransformationTrinket chatter. Left in Japanese, ''with the kanji for the word written in the middle.''

* A common belief in Islam is that there is no such thing as a satisfactorily accurate translation of the Koran, and non-arabic Muslim converts will usually take the time to learn Arabic in order to read the Koran untranslated.

*** There is a certain type of Christians, however, who treat the King James Translation as inspired by God, and believe it just as good as (if not better than) the original versions, best exemplified by the phrase "If English was good enough for Christ, it's good enough for America."

* Many English translations of French literature, such as ''Literature/LesMiserables'' and the works of Creator/AlexandreDumas leave in the ''monsieurs'', ''mademoiselles'', and ''madames'' (or at least their abbreviations), instead of translating them into Mr, Mrs., etc.

*** One of the best moments of this is when Takeru's big secret is revealed. [[spoiler: He's a decoy for the real head of the Shiba house and child of the previous Shinken Red, who was off perfecting the sealing technique.]] When this is described using the word [[spoiler: kagemusha]], you're given the literal translation of the two halves of the word - which explains ''absolutely nothing'' - and a note telling you to ''go see the movie from TheSeventies by that name.'' Eventually, other dialogue gives you a better sense of what's going on, but "at first you're confused and then you glean the meaning from talk of the next two episodes" is ''not'' how dramatic reveals are intended to work.

*** Geki ''is'' a close second. The morph phrases rhyme... so they're left untranslated, because it's more important to point out the fact that they all end in -e rather than to point out ''what's being said.'' Pretty much any proper name will be untranslated even when the name is (a) simply descriptive, and (b) it's kinda important that we know what they're talking about. Remember when the Kenma used their secret Ringi to put the Kensei-tachi in a Doukokugan, and there was a race to the Jyugenkyo to obtain the Jyukenshin, but Rio has the So Zyu Tou, which allows him to pass the Nanae Nanase stones, so he gets to it first? Oh, the Jyukenshin turns out to be Sai Dain. It can become the Jyuken Kyojin, Sai Dai Ou! Naturally, this is revealed in the episode ''[[http://31.media.tumblr.com/0540eb0c86eae73550b57032f81e8309/tumblr_mnw6g1E7lP1s4ltl4o1_1280.png Gowagowan no Daindain: JyuKen KyoJin, kenzan!]]'' Ah, good times. Also, unknown to many fans who have only seen the TV-N version, RaisedByWolves hero Jan's "made up" words are not made-up, but Japanese onomatopoeia, and his usage is along the lines of HulkSpeak or BuffySpeak. All that "[[CatchPhrase Zowazowa]]" and the like being left untranslated is ''no'' better than anything else in this paragraph, or on this entire page.

**** Gotta love ''Wizard'' and the TranslationTrinket chatter. Left in Japanese, ''with the kanji for the word written in the middle.''
**** In ''Fourze,'' Gentaro's catchphrase is tough - depending on the context it can mean several things, resulting in no two subbers translating the last word the same way. "It's space time!" "Space is here!" and "Space is awesome!" have been seen. Naturally, there is one group and one only who gives it as "Space kitaaaaaaaa!" G'wan, guess who. (And from then on, ''every'' appearance of the word ''kita'' in ''anything'' is left untranslated, even when it doesn't seem like they're homaging Fourze.)

*** One of the best moments of this is when Takeru's big secret is revealed. [[spoiler: He's a decoy for the real head of the Shiba house and child of the previous Shinken Red, who was off perfecting the sealing technique.]] When this is described using the word [[spoiler: kagemusha]], you're given the literal translation of the two halves of the word - which explains ''absolutely nothing'' - and a note telling you to ''go see the movie from TheSeventies by that name.'' Eventually, other dialogue gives you a better sense of what's going on, but "at first you're confused and then you glean the meaning from talk of the next two episodes" is ''not'' how dramatic reveals are intended to work.

*** Geki ''is'' a close second. The morph phrases rhyme... so they're left untranslated, because it's more important to point out the fact that they all end in -e rather than to point out ''what's being said.'' Pretty much any proper name will be untranslated even when the name is (a) simply descriptive, and (b) it's kinda important that we know what they're talking about. Remember when the Kenma used their secret Ringi to put the Kensei-tachi in a Doukokugan, and there was a race to the Jyugenkyo to obtain the Jyukenshin, but Rio has the So Zyu Tou, which allows him to pass the Nanae Nanase stones, so he gets to it first? Oh, the Jyukenshin turns out to be Sai Dain. It can become the Jyuken Kyojin, Sai Dai Ou! Naturally, this is revealed in the episode ''[[http://31.media.tumblr.com/0540eb0c86eae73550b57032f81e8309/tumblr_mnw6g1E7lP1s4ltl4o1_1280.png Gowagowan no Daindain: JyuKen KyoJin, kenzan]]!" Ah, good times. Also, Jan's made up words are not made-up, but Japanese onomatopoeia, and his usage is along the lines of HulkSpeak or BuffySpeak. All that "[[CatchPhrase Zowazowa]]" and the like being left untranslated is ''no'' better than anything else in this paragraph or on this entire page.

**** Gotta love ''Wizard'' and the TranslationTrinket chatter. Left in Japanese, ''with the kanji for the word written in the middle.''
**** In ''Fourze,'' Gentaro's catchphrase is tough - depending on the context it can mean several things, resulting in no two subbers translating the last word the same way. "It's space time!" "Space is here!" and "Space is awesome!" have been seen. Naturally, there is one group and one only who gives it as "Space kitaaaaaaaa!" G'wan, guess who. (And from then on, ''every'' appearance of the word ''kita'' in ''anything'' is left untranslated, even when it doesn't seem like they're homaging Fourze.)

*** In another ''Den-O'' example, Ryotaro's sister (who runs a cafe) very cutely refers to the coffee beans as "coffee-tachi". This was also left untranslated and has become the butt of many a joke.

* TV-Nihon (another fansubbing group) takes a lot of heat not just for doing this but for defending it. Their rationalization is that the words they don't translate don't have good English equivalents – which fans mock, since among those words are honorifics and "kisama" and "yatsu", which are very rude versions of "you" and typically get translated by professionals as "[[YouBastard bastard]]", "asshole" or the like. This leads to lines like "You little yatsu!" in their translation of the ''ZetaGundam'' compilation movies. TV-Nihon's general response to criticism is to yell at the people pointing out their problems and tell them they should be grateful they're subtitling these shows at all.

*** As of ''[[VideoGame/StreetFighterXTekken Street Fighter X Tekken]]'' this has been rectified completely as now Ken and Akuma shout out the names of their hurricane kick attacks. Strangely, [[BradSwaile English Jin]] also yells out the Japanese names of his Median Line Destruction and Power Stance moves when he performs their EX versions.

** Their sub of SamuraiSentaiShinkenger seemed to be asking themselves "How can we translate as little as possible?", and translator notes pop up all over the damn place. ...for the first couple appearances. Hope you get everything memorized if you want to enjoy every single episode.

** The ''very first episode'' of ''TensouSentaiGoseiger'' had a boy calling the girls "Oneechan-tachi". Not even so much as a translator note for what that meant. Which by the way, simply means he's referring to the two girls. In plural. ''That's it''. This isn't even the first time they've refused to translate "-tachi", a phrase that simply indicates a noun being used as a plural.

*** Or how about the ''GouGouSentaiBoukenger'' MilestoneCelebration movie, where [[TheDitz Natsuki]] uses the phrase "Natsuki-tachi's great sempai-tachi"? Really, they only translated ONE word.

** Much of the English-speaking world thinks of the ''EngineSentaiGoOnger'' character Hant as "Hanto" because TV-N went with that romanization of his name instead of... his name as seen on his jacket in every episode ever.

*** [[WildMassGuessing Volgin is an otaku]]!

*** As of ''[[VideoGame/StreetFighterXTekken Street Fighter X Tekken]]'' this has been rectified completely as now Ken and Akuma shout out the names of their hurricane kick attacks. Strangely, Jin also yells out the Japanese name of his Median Line Destruction move when he does the EX version of it.

** The original AnimEigo dub of the ''Manga/AhMyGoddess'' OVA also kept "sempai" intact.

* Normally averted in AnimEigo's releases of the ''UruseiYatsura'' TV series. The translators tried to deal with the constant barrage of wordplay and cultural references with carefully-chosen translations for the subtitles, only rarely resorting to on-screen notes, and it usually works without drifting too heavily into {{Woolseyism}}, but they also included notes inside the video/DVD cases (covering up to four whole sides of an inlay-sized booklet in fairly small text) that go into comprehensive detail about the jokes and references, even explaining what the characters ''really'' said and why they translated it a particular way.

** Oddly, none of the above issues showed up in their sub of ShinKamenRiderPrologue, which had a perfectly normal sub. However, because of things like the plain yellow sub font, a lot of people suspect they simply ripped the subtitles off of the international dvd that the source footage came from.

* The English voice tracks for [[RyuAndKen Ryu and Ken]] in ''VideoGame/StreetFighterIV'' replace "Tatsumaki Senpuukyaku" (literally [[HurricaneKick "Hurricane Spinning Kick"]]) with generic grunts. They fully voice the "[[EnergyBall Hadoken]]" and "{{Shoryuken}}." Subverted by Gouken who shouts Tatsumaki Gou Rasen during both variants, and by several others in game...during their EX variants at least.

* ''[[TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons D&D]] 3.0-3.5 has dozens of books; only the 3.0 Player's Handbook was translated into Turkish. The only half-decent parts of it used Arabic and Persian words to emulate Latin's "mystic" feel in English... replacing a bunch of words the readers didn't know with another bunch of words the readers didn't know. In other sources, things as simple as weapon names are translated very inconsistently. As a result, most {{Game Master}}s in Turkey pepper their games generously with English words. As most gamers pick up a lot of those words from computer games, it's not much of a problem.

** By this point, in addition to fansubbers, there are groups that call themselves "scrubbers," who take the GratuitousJapanese-filled scripts of other subbing groups (primarily TV-N) and turn them into complete translations. If TV-N translations didn't ''need'' translations, [[GenrePopularizer the whole idea of scrubbing may not have come to be]].

** The English dub of the anime leaves Candice's use of the word "{{kiai}}" untranslated for some reason, possibly because there was no good two-syllable English word that meant the same. Which, amusingly enough, would be a literal example of the trope name.

** The English dub of the anime leaves Candice's use of the word "{{kiai}}" untranslated for some reason, possibly because there was no good two-syllable English word that meant the same.
*** Amusingly, the fansubs used "fighting spirit". Pokemon fansubs in general are pretty free from this trope.

[[caption-width-right:330:Yeah...what he said [[note]] also, they didn't translate Ryuketsu...[[/note]]]]

It can also be an [[PragmaticAdaptation useful escape]] if a concept is considered to be too touchy to escape censorship ExecutiveMeddling; A BilingualBonus are rare enough it'll just be treated as a story term and perhaps even eventual outright fan jargon. In extremely divergent adaptations, it may even be treated as a different concept in fan discussions.

See also AliensSpeakingEnglish. Contrast TranslateTheLoanwordsToo, where the translater translates something which wouldn't need changing.

* {{Fansub}}s of anime and Scanslations of manga are notorious for this, to the point that the subject of whether to actually translate words and phrases ''at all'' (never mind how to do it) can lead to massive FlameWar. Many (most?) fansubbers out there working on anime titles don't even bother to translate some common words which DO have a perfectly serviceable and accurate translation, such as "baka" (meaning "idiot" or "fool"). This generally meets with derision even from those who prefer {{honorifics}} and the like to remain untranslated.

* The Kaizoku fansub translation of ''OnePiece'' do this with attack names (which otherwise have little relevance) and words such as "[[TrueCompanions nakama]]". Translations might still be given at the top of the screen (which may or may not be accompanied by background info and/or double meanings).
** There's also {{Funimation}}'s official simulcast sub, which calls "Haki" (meaning, among other things, ambition) "Haki energy". Reportedly, they originally wanted to translate the term, but didn't due to a [[ExecutiveMeddling request]] by ToeiAnimation.
** However, ''OnePiece'' kinda justifies this in many cases: words already foreign (Sanji's attacks are all French words), double meanings (the worst, half of the [[CallingYourAttacks attack callings]] are these), Japanese puns...
** ''OnePiece'' fansubs/scanslations which ''never'' translate the Devil Fruits even when there's an obvious translation (for example, "Doku-Doku no Mi" simply means "Poison-Poison Fruit"). Though it isn't always that easy. The Devil Fruits have an unusual naming scheme, and tend to be named after specific Japanese onomatopoeia instead of exactly what they are.
*** Even the ''4Kids'' dub called the Flower Flower Fruit "the Hana-Hana fruit," which even the uncut "FUNimation" version translated.

** Admirably averted in other parts of the FLCL dub, where Japanese puns and word plays were adapted for English-speaking audiences.

** This is also because the translation was based on the assumption that the viewers should have known this already--often the manga translator's notes would start with "As anime fans would know..."

* ''[[HaruhiSuzumiya The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya]]'' dub, though it fully translates honorifics, leaves in a lot of Japanese references, starting with the concept of "Golden Week," with little to no explanation. Haruhi also gives a very detailed description of what the word "[[MoeMoe moe]]" means.

* The ''Manga/AzumangaDaioh'' dub leaves in Chiyo-''chan''. Those not familiar with Azuma's [[NoNameGiven overtly]] [[EveryoneCallsHimBarkeep friendly]] naming schemes has led a handful of writers are under the impression that "chan" is part of her name... This was probably done to facilitate matching the lip flaps, since they translated other honorifics (Tadakichi-san = Mr. Tadakichi, for instance). That, and there's no real direct translation for "-chan." "Li'l" is pretty close, though.

* TV-Nihon (another fansubbing group) takes a lot of heat not just for doing this but for defending it. Their rationalization is that the words they don't translate don't have good English equivalents -- which fans mock, since among those words are honorifics and "kisama" and "yatsu", which are very rude versions of "you" and typically get translated by professionals as "[[YouBastard bastard]]", "asshole" or the like. This leads to lines like "You little yatsu!" in their translation of the ''ZetaGundam'' compilation movies. TV-Nihon's general response to criticism is to yell at the people pointing out their problems and tell them they should be grateful they're subtitling these shows at all.

* Many ''DragonBall'' fans have a bizarre tendency to spell the names of certain characters by their literal Japanese-to-English romanization instead of Toriyama's refreshingly [[SimpleName straightfoward English]] that appears on the most quality-controlled merchandise, just so they can claim [[FanDumb they're being true to the original Japanese work]]. Thus Vegeta's name is spelled as "Bejiita", "Freeza" becomes "Furiiza", "Trunks" becomes "Torankusu", and "Baby" as "Bebii". Some do take it a step further and call the manga "Doragon Booru."

* TokyoPop's translation of the ''FruitsBasket'' manga keeps the honorifics, but the Singaporean English translation doesn't (resulting in some odd equivalent nicknames being given to some characters). The anime loses them too; the reasonably significant (although the anime doesn't cover it) fact that Yuki doesn't call Tohru by her first name but calls her Honda-san is changed to "Miss Honda".

** The same thing happens with almost every single QueensBlade fansub, scanlation or translation, despise being set in a Fantastic Western European world and it's implied in the series that the language used by the heroines is ''English!''
** This is even worse with series which don't take place in Japan (or any East Asian country) at all, like the U.S. (''ChronoCrusade''), Italy (''GunslingerGirl''), Germany (''{{Blassreiter}}'', ''Anime/{{Monster}}''), England (''{{Hellsing}}'', ''Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventure'' Part I) and others. In fact, in most of those series, there's very few Japanese characters to justify the use of honorifics, and only in ''Anime/{{Monster}}'' the main character is Japanese, but he speaks German due to his job.
** In fact, the [[FridgeLogic logic]] used by those fansubbers is: Since Anime is a Japanese media, the same rule for fansubbing must be applied in any series, '''regardless if the series takes place in Japan or not.'''
* [[DelReyManga Del Rey]]'s official manga translations leave honorifics to keep the spirit as close to the original as possible, due to the potential for lost nuances in dropping them. To aid the reader in understanding this choice, each volume opens with a refresher course in common honorifics and closes with translator notes on various cultural references that would likely go over their heads.

* In the dub of the RurouniKenshin TV series, all the names of the fighting techniques were left in their original Japanese pronunciations. Even the title was left untranslated. In their defense, the Japanese pronunciations sound cool while a translation would had made them sound a little silly, especially a direct translation. Also, its not really an issue of being lazy as its harder on the voice actors to say it in Japanese, especially "Amakakeru Ryū no Hirameki."
** It also makes more since when you think about it considering it takes place in Japan during the Meji Era.

* As a rule of thumb, in almost every single Latin American Spanish-language translation of almost every single anime (but not Manga), both in official form and fansubs, the name of the United States is always rendered as ''America'' or sometimes ''North America'' since in Japanese media, this is the common way to spell the name of the country in Japanese, despise the legal name of the U.S.A in Japanese is アメリカ合衆国 ''(America Gasshukoku)'' but it's RARELY used in Anime and Manga. This is justified, because in Spanish, the name of the United States is ''Estados Unidos'', ''Estados Unidos de America'' or ''Norte America'' and normally that name doesn't fit during the lip-synch in dubs, since it uses more words than "America" does in Japanese, not to mention that many Spanish-speaking fansubbers leave "America" as it in the final translation since they're trying to keep the Japanese nuance about the use of the word ''America'' instead of ''United States of America.'' Oddly enough, European Spanish dubs did translate ''America'' as ''United States'' in many Anime dubs, but Spaniard fansubbers keeps ''America'' just like their Latin American peers.

* The vast majority of English translations, fansubs and official translations alike, of Japanese works based on classic Chinese works like ''Literature/RomanceOfTheThreeKingdoms'' ({{Ikkitousen}}, KoihimeMusou, etc), ''Literature/WaterMargin'' (Akaboshi - Ibun Suikoden, etc) and ''Literature/JourneyToTheWest'' ({{Saiyuki}}, DragonBall, etc), will leave names of characters, places and terminology in their Japanese equivalents rather than the Chinese names the entire rest of the world uses. This is presumably some combination of bad research, lazyness and "it's-what-they're-saying-so-it's-what-the-subs-should-say"-ism, but it'll still lead to the vast majority of watchers having no clue the series is based on a Chinese work and the characters actually have Chinese names. Even if they are familiar with the original works (video games like ''DynastyWarriors'' definitely means a lot of anime watchers are familiar with Three Kingdoms on a basic level), it's still hard to figure out the connection between these "Japanese" names and the original Chinese.

* Literature/TheBible provides an interesting example of this: Hebrew scripts only contain consonants, leaving the vowels out. God's name is spelled as YHWH, and its vowels and pronunciation were deliberately withheld from post-exilic Jews, since speaking it came to be considered blasphemy. Only a select few priests knew how it was pronounced, and this knowledge is now lost to us (although Yahweh or Jehovah are commonly accepted).
** Although 'Jehovah' is actually a mis-translation in itself. Ancient Jews, instead of saying the Lord's name would substitute with the word 'adonai' (meaning Lord) . As stated above Hebrew was originally written without vowels, later symbols (known as pointing; jots and tittles) were added above the words to indicate the vowels. To remind those reading from the text to say 'adonai' instead of...however YHWH was pronounced...the vowels of 'adoni' were placed over the consonants of 'YHWH'. Some of the first translators of the Bible from Hebrew didn't realise that this was the convention and so considered the vowels above YHWH to simply belonged with it. This created 'Yahowah', which over time (thanks partially to Latin) became Jehovah in English.

** An occurrence where it may have been better not to have translated the word is the use of words like "fool" and "simple," which don't actually mean "person with low intelligence" and "easy, not complicated." They actually have moral points; a fool is someone who actively abhors morality, whereas a simple person is someone who is more amoral, having no sense of morality. (Could use verification.)

* Quite a few European languages call the Big Bang just that -- [[GratuitousEnglish in English]], even though it could be translated rather easily. There is no reason for this, and it doesn't sound right, especially in something like Spanish or French.
** Possibly because the term was probably originally ''meant'' to sound ridiculous, as it was coined by Fred Hoyle, who was an ''opposer'' of the theory (although he apparently denies meaning to sound pejorative). Seriously, pretend you've never heard the term before; without the cultural associations it sounds like something out of a little kid's mouth. No wonder that it sounds silly when translated.

* Many Latin terms, especially abbreviations ([[http://public.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/e.g.html e.g., i.e.,]] [[SelfDemonstratingArticle etc.]]), are commonly used by English speakers, presumably because [[AltumVidetur they sound cool.]] The legal world is rife with these: de jure, de facto, habeas corpus.... There's also the graduation honor ''cum laude,'' which is invariably pronounced incorrectly.
** This trope is averted, however, with ''pietas,'' which students are told not to translate. The definition of the concept is roughly a paragraph long (at its shortest).

** This is not unusual for any religion with an important holy book. While most common in Islam, Jews are generally expected to learn Hebrew. Given that the Old and New Testament were written in different languages, this is less common in Christianity. Generally speaking, Christians treat Bible translations as they would treat translations of anything else. As such, they'll only worry about the translation when there is the possibility of a severe misunderstanding of the passage. There is a certain type of Christians, however, which treat the King James Translation as inspired by God, and believe it is just as good (if not better) than the original versions.
** Latin is sometimes regarded in a similar way by Catholics; veering back in the direction of this trope, the latest translation of the Nicene Creed renders ''consubstantialem Patri'' as the barely-English "consubstantial with the Father" instead of the vaguer "one in being with the Father." The earliest Catholic Bibles in English (translated from Latin) do this sometimes, too: notice the use of ''depositum'' [[http://seemytongue.wordpress.com/2009/11/24/i-giue-thankes-to-god/ here]].

** It also makes more since when you think about it considering it takes place in Japan anything else would make less sense..

** It also makes more since when you think about it considering it takes place in Japan.