Before we go into this, what I'm going to be discussing will contain some elements not suitable for those under the age of 18. Reader discretion is advised.
Have you ever watched something that is dubbed in a language you don't speak and read the subtitles and found that some word choices are a bit odd? What about sentences that don't make a lot of sense when you read them in those subtitles but make a lot more sense when you watch the version dubbed in your language? Well, this is the issue with localization.
For those who don't know, localization is a tricky business. Regardless of whether you're an American watching anime, a Japanese citizen watching Friends reruns, or someone who just likes entertainment from cultures outside your own in general, you find that localization is tricky in a few ways. Firstly, when you translate a product, you need to be fluent enough in both the language it's from and the language you're translating it to be able to provide a proper translation. You then need to make that translation make sense in the new language. And if you're dubbing over something in particular, you have the added challenge of doing that while also matching mouth movements and keeping the timing of everything in sync. This isn't easy and many people who disagree have taken it upon themselves to translate foreign media in the form of fansubs. And boy do they suck at it.
Regardless of what era of fansubs you're talking about they all generally suffer from a common problem: literal translation. The stance many fansubbers take and that many who dislike English dubs take is that the best translation is the most accurate translation. Along these lines, it'd make sense that you'd want to go for the most literal translation possible, as the literal translation is the most accurate one. The problem with this though is that language in general is not restricted simply to the words we use.
Now, keep in mind, for the purpose of full disclosure, I'm not fluent in any language other than English. I know a lot of Japanese words but I can't write in Japanese, my kana needs a lot of work, and I only know one Kanji. However, what I'm going to be saying doesn't require anyone to know many languages, unless you're an actual localiser somewhere. This is just me pointing out my understanding of the flaws with fansubbing in its current state. Also, this isn't just about fansubbed anime, this can also be applied to manga, light novels, visual novels, and pretty much anything else that exists primarily in one language that some rando in the world decides to translate for people in other countries.
Now, one obvious problem that isn't as common to my knowledge but still does happen occasionally is where someone doesn't translate at all. What I mean by that is when you're reading something and you find that a certain word is kept in its original language and then in a translator's note somewhere on screen it tells you what that word roughly means.
The most famous example of this is the Death Note anime where Light is famous for saying "Keikakudori" which translates into English as "All according to plan." However, for some mad reason that no true mortal can understand, a fansubber looked at that and decided to translate Keikakudori as "All according to Keikaku" and then in a translator's note said "Keikaku means plan."
So if you're a normal person, your first question is probably going to be "If keikaku means plan, why didn't you just put 'all according to plan'?" And if you're a longtime Death Note fan with access to Netflix your second question is probably going to be "Is that why they had that stupid scene in the live action movie where Light Turner brings up Keikaku?" And the short answer is, yes it is.
A similar example comes in One Piece, where many fantranslations of the manga and anime will leave the word Nakama untranslated as a reference to Luffy's crew. The thing is, Luffy is just using a Japanese term that refers to a group of people you'd do anything for, so a good translation for that word is comrades, or friends, or brethren. As KaiserNeko has said in the past "There is always a better translation than just leaving a word untranslated. Leaving a word untranslated is just bad translation."
I am aware of one exception, however, that did leave a translator's note but got around this issue. It was during the Inuyasha manga when Byakuya sends a thousand demons after Sesshomaru and he kills them all in a single strike. In the text, Byakuya responds "Um, owned." But in the translator's note, that person put "This word has no direct English translation but refers to a difficult task completed with ease."
This works on a few levels. Firstly, the translator's note works here because he's specifying that the translation he used was the best he could come up with but that it's there anyway for anyone who's confused. Especially in the setting, which is in Japan's Feudal era, a word like "owned" doesn't make a lot of sense in the setting but neither would things like "Well, that was easy" or anything like that. He could've chosen the response "Oh dear." That would fit Byakuya's character better but, at the same time, that's a response that works better with voice acting than with text.
Additionally, he still translated the word. He didn't leave it untranslated for no reason. That said, there are times where you may not want to translate a word from the initial language. Say for example, you have something that is the name of a character, you don't really want to translate that into English, that would be like taking my name Dominick and translating it as "The chosen of God" or something.
This is why it bugs me a lot with people who are so adamant about calling My Hero Academia "Boku no Hero Academia." Because both of these titles are effectively the same in terms of overall meaning, one just has slightly more Japanese in it. Granted if Japanese is your native language, then pronounce whichever you think is easier but it almost never plays out that way. Most of the time, it's Western or American anime fans calling it Boku no Hero Academia because it's closer to the original language. It's not and if you do that while speaking English to an actual person of Asian descent, they'll accuse you of having "Yellow Fever."
The other way this manifests is by taking words that do have some form of English translation and translating it overly literally to the point that what's being said doesn't make a lot of sense. A very common example of this comes in Hentai, where when a male character is being pleasured with a part of a female character's body that is not her vagina, it'll be translated as "This body part"-pussy. Like "ass-pussy" or "mouth-pussy" or "tits-pussy." I've always found this annoying but more recently I've thought about why this even happens in the first place, and this has to do with how the Japanese language puts together its words.
Okay, so let's say you have a word that means something on its own but when attached to another word as a suffix it changes the meaning of the other word. Like say you have the Japanese word "Iro." Iro refers to a color and you can commonly find it on the end of many color based words like akairo which means red, kuroiro which means black, aoiro which means blue, and so on and so forth. However, if you then take iro and attach it to a non-color word, it's saying that you're referring to the color of that object. For example, sora refers to the sky but sorairo refers specifically to the color of the sky. Gin refers to the metal silver but gin-iro refers to the color of that metal. And so on and so forth.
With that previous example from hentai, the Japanese word "Manko" is very frequently translated into English as pussy but is used in general to refer to something you can stick a penis into. So when a character says kuchimanko, although the word translates literally as mouth-pussy, all they're really saying is that a dick is going into a mouth. Paimanko, same thing, just with breasts, and so on and so forth you get the idea.
However, this is still poor translation. If you are a man who is with a woman and you suddenly called her mouth a mouth-pussy, she'd probably get offended that you're turning every part of her body into a sex toy verbally. And if you're a woman who's doing that with a man, it'll probably just come off as annoying on a general level.
However, overly literal translation doesn't have to be restricted to a single word. It can be an entire sentence that doesn't really work if not altered somewhat. The most famous examples of this all come from Fate/Stay Night the visual novel. We have such classics as:
"People die when they are killed,"
"The Archer class really is made up of archers,"
And my personal favorite, "Just because you're correct doesn't mean you're right."
The thing is, there are much better translations to be used in place of these three. And I'll do so while providing context so that everyone's on the same page.
Firstly, when Shiro says "People die when they are killed" he's referring specifically to the final battle against Kirei and Gilgamesh where Saber is going to need the scabbard Avalon to be able to defeat Gilgamesh but Saber was worried that Shiro might be overwhelmed by Kirei. So she asked him if he's really comfortable with his healing ability being removed. And this statement is intended to express that he's perfectly fine with it. So a better way to translate this would be "I'm sure, death is a part of life after all."
Secondly, when Rin says "The Archer class really is made up of Archers" she's referring to a previous interaction with her servant who states that though he lost his memory he believes he's of the Archer class and after this he shows that he has to ability to see across vast distances. So Rin was commenting on the fact that, yeah, he's probably an Archer. So a better translation would be "I guess you really are an Archer."
Thirdly, Shiro is going up against Rin's Archer who is himself from the future who is trying to convince him that he needs to abandon his self-sacrificing ways so that he can live a normal life and not be tormented for eternity. Here, Shiro is expressing to Archer that it doesn't matter to him because helping people is what he wants to do. So a better translation would be "Just because evil will always exist doesn't mean we shouldn't do anything about it."
Now do you see what I've done here? I've taken poorly translated quotes and made them make sense within the context they're being said. That's really the key here, context. You can't just translate words literally and hope it makes sense, that's what sentences and context are for. You have to look at the situation the words are used in and try to find the best way for them to be translated for it to make sense.
You can't just leave a word untranslated and hope nobody minds. Just because nobody minds that you're doing a bad job doesn't mean you're not doing a bad job. Remember that next time you decide you want to translate something into another language. Have a good day.
No comments:
Post a Comment