"Why Don't Translators Sub Anime The Way I Like?"
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- Опубликовано: 14 окт 2021
- The answer is actually much simpler than you think: they aren't you.
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Развлечения
Moist.
I like the word for the same reason, I link moist to food and that is a positive most of the time.
Moist and delicious
Weirdly enough, I dislike ‘juicy’ more than ‘moist’.
That "wow, they summed it up in 3 words" part reminded me of "I've been working on this story for a year and he just... he just tweeted it out" 🤣 Great video!
I feel as if it's oftentimes beginners or intermediate learners that are quick to judge translations because they want to feel as if they are smart for interpreting some random specific thing in a way that they felt was "more correct" than the translation given. I know I was guilty of this in my early stages of learning Japanese because it gave me a twisted sense of pride. Now, however, I've come to the same conclusion that you have on this topic. There are countless words that simply *do not translate neatly* when switching from Japanese to English (and probably most languages), so it is inevitable that the translator will constantly be made to settle for words or phrases that will sound a bit off to somebody. If someone's Japanese is good enough that they consider themselves smart enough to critique anime subs (and they aren't a professional translator), why are they watching subbed anime in the first place, when they could literally just disable the subs and avoid being annoyed altogether? (...because they probably aren't actually good at Japanese, but desperately want to put up a front as if they are...)
Yeah there jumping way to ahead of the game don't realize there gonna cause there whole team to fail the football game championship league to put it this way and there overibflating there ego's as a result of jumping way to ahead of the game
I’ve never even realised this was an issue until some random racist, sexist, transphobic Twitter dude decided to create drama about it. It’s weird how people get angry about translators using slang terms, or if they translate it differently so it’s easier to interpret in English.
Good video! I think the phrase "there always exists a perfect translation" has done so much more harm to the translation community than good. Since everybody is different, there is no true way to 100% get meanings across, even with literal translations. Although there are some objectively incorrect translations out there ( calling an onigiri a donut ffs), I do think there is a lot of work that needs to be done to improve how consumers view the work that goes into translation. There is a line of trust there I believe that tends to be crossed, especially when someone is learning Japanese for example. "Learn japanese from Anime!" is a good example of this because people forget that the translation will never be 100% literal and applicable to the learning experience. I imagine this is where these frustrations comes from mostly. "Hey they said that 'word' and I know it means 'this', but the english subtitles say 'this'! What gives?! Bad translation!" Who knows how the community will evolve in the future as machine translations start to become more 'reliable'. *shrug*
TLDR the squid game translation wasn't bad #hottake
The hard thing about being a jp to eng translator is not only do you need to get the information and feeling across, you also need to be good at writing in the english language! I think this is why translated novels sound super weird to me, as an native english author would not write in that way. Btw i’m not a writer by any means but i would have written that moist line like “the autumn air was damp, and it clung to my dry, flaking skin as I stepped outside” or something. I really love your videos btw
I love many of your videos, but this is a really cool one to be part of!
I wonder how much of my work could be summed up in a three word tweet.
It's a chilling thought.
Be kind. Do Socialism. (dang. 4 words. well, that was close)
I get why ‘confess’ would make sense: it is, essentially, exposing an emotional vulnerability, something uncomfortable to say to someone else, similarly to disliking Jim’s cooking. I can also see why ‘ask out’ wouldn’t work, because ‘confessing’ one’s feelings indicates fairly strong pre-existing feelings, while you can ask someone out if you just find them attractive without much emotional engagement. Still, I get what you’re saying, so I realize it’s a bit of a bind; my solution would be to say ‘confess his/her feelings’ once or twice and then ‘confess’ as an abbreviation that’s clear from context.
I always go on a case by case basis.
In summary: They aren't moist.
I laughed out loud in my kitchen at that last word in the video. You just had to slip it in one more time. 🤣
It's a beautiful word!
love to see a little cameo from Neil the Liberal cook :D
It was such a pleasure!
Thank you. If they don't know Japanese, how can people even judge a translation. No matter what, they are basing their judgement off of someone's translation.
To be fair, they can judge how the English prose sounds to them. It's valid if they don't like the way something is worded--it's just wrong to claim it's a bad translation or that the translator worded it badly on purpose.
Why are translators not mind readers? Same with retail or food workers? They should understand what I want! So lazy!
I think many people do not realize that people have a variety of ideas and backgrounds therefore there is not one answer to many things. I used to work with a person who was bilingual and thought all languages had alphabets. She said if you can read the alphabet you can understand the language. Her background was European languages and was not aware of how Chinese worked so made broad strokes about language.
It's funny how people can be so passionate about this. I recently was talking about this very subject with my Korean boss. Fans say the translations on k-dramas are pretty bad and tend to destroy the characterization. And he said the same, something along the lines of "I have to frequently stop the show and say 'that's NOT what he said.'" But translators are working on impossibly tight deadlines. Maybe with infinite time you could come up with the perfect line-for-line translation that would be coherent in English, but at some point you have to get the translation out the door.
I'll leave you with a thought from the ending to Samurai Pizza Cats, a beloved "translation" among weebs, where (if you're unfamiliar) they had absolutely no notes or anything to work with other than the animation, so they just kinda goofed around and made words up to match the mouth flaps of an otherwise unremarkable anime, to great effect. "If you could do better, then we'd leave it up to you!" (edit: I'm vastly oversimplifying, obviously the translators knew Japanese at the very least, but the main thrust behind what I'm saying is that the idea that a translation MUST convey the original intent and somehow be coherent in the target language is a malleable one)
Yeah sometimes people can get too passionate about the things they like
I've been watching anime since I was a kid and have seen/heard some of the worst translations. I've had my understanding of characters and entire stories changed by finding better TLs.
I've also taken a ton of time to look at the translator's and localizer's sides and come to understand the list of complications and nuances that come with the job. I've learned from your channel and a ton of posts from TLs and localizers. Even though I don't agree with Katrina on a lot of her takes I don't dismiss her completely because she has pointed out a few things that I've come to understand and agree with. I also completely agree with this video and have seen a bunch of examples where different fan TL groups have had different TLs of the same work. I'd argue in those cases most of them were done well and it came down to what this video talks.
And there are always going to be bad translations due to interpretation. Using the more recent controversy of The Dangers in My Heart as an example, all I would want is for the TL to be corrected and the translators to use it as a learning experience.
On that same example, it's also my biggest issue with TLs, what I consider over-localization, where the language used sounds far too western and it doesn't feel like I'm getting what the creator wrote. This is a personal preference, but as a customer who's paying for a product, and has struggled to learn Japanese, I don't want my money to go to what I feel is an inferior product. And after talking with a lot of "anti-loc" people deep down they feel the same way. Most of the "little gripes" and "it's a few examples out of hours of dialog" come from years of frustration of feeling ignored by translators who often come off to us as "we know better because translation theory, etc, etc, we're right" and seeing localizers talk about changes they made because of personal politics or wanting to appeal to a different audience. And for every example where it doesn't change the story or characters there's an example where it has.
I also get that a lot of recent examples feel like a drop in the ocean, but for someone like me seeing "yeet" and "resting bitch face" in a sub, or hearing a character in a dub sound like a wannabe gangsta/thug from the mid 2000s genuinely takes me out of the experience. In the current TL/loc situation I see two sides, one that's fine with the way things are, and one that wants as little as possible changed in the translation. Even taking into account the point made in this video I think there is a way, in a general sense, to get a translation that's very close and authentic to what's originally written, but it involves going against the grain of general translation theory and drastically minimizes the localization steps of translation.
Anyway, that's my Ted Talk.
Perfection.
Translation is always going to be someones interpretation of the work in the end. The only way you can get an “unfiltered” experience is to learn the language yourself
And in that case, that's because you can interpret the words yourself.
Even learning still won't get you all of it either! Some of japanese is learned experiences too I feel like.
i think sometimes the subjectivity of translation can be frustrating for beginner-intermediate Japanese learners. because you’re not very confident in your own skills, you want there to be a Correct Answer for every J->E translation. we beginners always want language to be way simpler than it actually is, haha
True though in real life there's alot of stuff put there that are a challenge and hard work is the only way to make things possible
There is a difference between "not liking it" and translators doing it objectively wrong on purpose (like the Kobayashi translation that you support)
The epitome of this has to be when I asked a Portuguese speaker to translate "COSA FEIA! UMA CRIANCA FUMANDO" and then the response "E So Pra Tirar Gosta Da Cachaca" into Spanish... But since Spanish and Portuguese are so similar I got an entirely different translation out of it than THE ACTUAL SPEAKER of the language did. I am a Native Spanish Speaker and sorta get Portuguese because its so similar to Spanish,.
My advice to these “critics” is if they know enough Japanese to watch it without subs, then just don’t watch it without subs. If not, learn Japanese yourself enough to watch it without subs.
Yeah and to also tell those "critics" as well and stop going around making everything a hissy fit and attacking translators and attacking people who like those said translators translations and making everyone miserable and making the things we all love hard to try to enjoy without b.s. from you
@@alastor-yw7og yeah, that was subliminally my point
I think the attitude of the complainers comes from this weird heightened sense of entitlement fans seem to have nowadays - like because they watch the show (and let's face it how many of these folks are actually spending money on the anime and not just pirating it) they have the right to demand changes whenever they want, and creators (and anyone else caught up like translators) are supposed to immediately apologize and do whatever the fans want, even if it makes the product objectively worse.
And there are people who wanted Japanese companies handle localization or translators should be replaced with machine translations.
They're making a big mistake.
There is a bigger conversation to be had there with how the internet and social media have changed the creator-fan dynamic with all media.
@meg yeah alot of internet geeks have a privaliged mentality and a Hindenburg sized ego and think there owed everything and think that it's the fans job to make the choice making of how things should go even though that's not how it works only the creators and owners are the only ones that make the choices and the only job fans have is either support it or not support it and if they're bothered by the things that bother them they should either find something else to support and don't bother with the things they don't like anymore or like some people in the comment section here said turn of the subtitles if they have a problem with the subs "not following there idea of what the characters are saying and what the context is"
There's one more aspect to it though, which only happens in subtitles, rarely in dub, never in written art. I'm not fluent in Japanese but I noticed it many times in movies. Professional subtitles are simplified version of what is said. I guess it makes sense from producer point of view. It makes it easier, especially for English speaking audience, not accustomed to subtitles to quickly glimpse over them, understand what is being said, without having every single word and nuance translated.
In Your example it'd be something like "it was humid" or "my skin got moist due to humidity". It takes away all poetry to it. In other examples someone gives an elaborate insult and subtitles say 'you idiot' (omitting swears as well). Add localization eg. someone in Spanish movie calls another character Francoist bastard as he's subscribing to the ideology of Franco years after he's gone and that's why the word bastard was used instead of something else + lengthy complicated sentence and we get 'you fascist' or the insult is omitted because the sentence gets too long for subtitles to fit nicely in the timeframe and on a screen.
Now I don't need to be fluent in a language to understand some parts are omitted, but what's worse it makes me wonder what else was omitted so it'll be easier to read. Meanwhile in amateur subtitles they sometimes put too much text on a screen, sometimes they add explanation to terms used etc and I know it's not suitable for official release, but for someone who enjoys foreign art for being foreign, I prefer the amateur work. And I guess it's similar to many anime fans. Let's face it, if someone watches anime and it's not the newest hit from Ghibli then they're probably are interested in Japanese culture anyway.
Eg. sometimes I had to pause Sailor Moon when Minako was twisting proverbs again because in subtitles they were giving me a detailed explanation of what was being said and why it was wrong. I do like that, as probably many fans. In official release it's impractical and difficult to do and obviously the translator will opt for replacing her proverb with western one.
Fascinating vid, I actually don't find confess unnatural at all but I can't stand "can't be helped", "as expected of..." and "stop messing around". But I'm not you!
Haha, yeah, I was never really bothered by "it can't be helped" (probably bc I grew up watching a lot of British TV and reading a lot of Brit lit) but it's become a meme and now I can't use it. Guess it can't be helped, tho.
Who did the reading of that Tweet?
At what point will you admit the way a lot of anime fans use confess is one of the correct ways of using the word? When more than 50% of Americans start using it that way? Or will you never accept it?
I gotta agree with Michelle just like all art translations are subjective some people will like them and others won't but that's a normal thing we humans do don't like something that's fine and if you do that's fine to and to add my own spice on this aslong as we respect what other people like and as long as we respect all the hard work translators put in to translating and making it the best they can then everything will be fine though sadly all of the toxic weebs on the internet and alot of other toxic geeks on the internet nowadays don't get that and think everything should go there way when that's not how the real world works but hopefully maybe one day at some point in there life they would realize what there doing and start seeing the way of respecting other's
(Okay but I'd still like to hear your thoughts on 告白)
I've never complained about nonliteral translation and I think making it sound natural is cool. What seems less cool is being unkind to the fans, even if some of them started it.
This is well thought out however, when it comes to language, it isn't about me or anyone else. It's about staying true to the language. It seems to be a very Western entitled perspective to want to change a language to suit me or my culture when the original work is not of my culture. That is what many have an issue with. If the word CONFESS is only known as confessing a crime, it is up to us the viewers to broaden our understanding of the various uses of that word which also means: admit or acknowledge something reluctantly, typically because one feels slightly ashamed or embarrassed. That definition falls into admitting you love someone.
Anime subtitles: *aren't translated the way the anime fans want them to be translated*
Anime fans: Wait, that's illegal.
There are weebs say that "sub is better than dub" because you will get what the characters actually say but never wanted to admit that subtitles localize more than they expect.
@@TheSHIELDCap I find that to be rather ironic. Weebs prefer anime subs over dubs, but they don't wanna admit that the subs themselves localize more than they expect. I've never thought of it that way before.
@@chocovelvetcake
Weebs say "Fansubs are the best!" yet they don't want to admit that most fan translations are 50% translation notes and the rest are unnecessary swearing.
I'm a bit confused about the "confess" thing sounding unnatural. Even when I was a kid long before I knew anime was even a thing the whole idea of "confessing your love" was a normal phrase. I heard it in American cartoons all the time. I feel like asking someone out is absolutely not the same thing as expressing feelings either, at least in the US it's not unusual for people to go out on a date without any strong feelings involved. Go asking someone out on a date isn't the same thing as telling someone you love them and want to be their romantic partner. I think a better more direct comparison would be asking to "go steady" but that's also an old-timey term so that likely would be bad for translation purposes unless a particular character tends to use more outdated language.
Though your overall point was good. I find translation in general fascinating as well as how the same thing can be said in so many different ways within the same language. Another thing I do have to wonder about is cases where good faith criticism would be warranted. I know you were talking about subs so it's a little different, but I can't help but think about some of the older-style dubs where it was less of a translation and more of a full script rewrite. I don't think that is even inherently bad, but it is interesting to look at things like that and think about what was done well and what could have been done better. For example I feel that 4Kids' dub of Pokemon, for all its significant flaws, was better than TPCi's despite the latter being technically more accurate. TPCi does things like just writing out jokes and puns entirely if they can't be translated instead of even trying to localize them into something that would make some sense in English. I've also seen otherwise good dubs that seem to keep them in even if it doesn't make any sense, that seems to be a more modern trend and possibly a side effect of simuldubs. But imagine critiquing subs would be a bit more difficult though because of what you mentioned, it's unlikely that two different subs of the same thing would end up exactly the same just due to the nature of language.
moist
Huh. I’m from Israel and I’d never heard of Itamar Even-Zohar… 0:45 sent me Duck-Duck-Going lol
The people complaining about literal translations didn't found Math and formulas literal enough.
Never try to equate mathematics to language.
But the problem is not that they wrote purple instead of violet. The problem is that translators are becoming too power hungry. Why are they putting memes in the dialigue? Why they ask to ANN to put they names beside the producers and directors? Why are in Twitter if they not get by now that fans are emotionals and they never have a college writting class?
Just not put memes in the dialogue and not make crossdessers into transgenders like in I Think I Turned My Childhood Friend into a Girl.