A certain subset of anime fans would be very angry right now if they could read!
Punch Time
Submitted 15 hours ago by fossilesque@mander.xyz to science_memes@mander.xyz
https://mander.xyz/pictrs/image/e7fc5391-521c-4806-b742-780170ccfd09.png
Comments
Unboxious@ani.social 4 hours ago
Fiery@lemmy.dbzer0.com 15 hours ago
Clarification vs adaptation makes a huge difference in book translations. I don’t envy the translators having to translate witty jokes/references that really only work in the original language
tiramichu@sh.itjust.works 14 hours ago
The interesting thing about clarifying and localising is that you’re always consciously making a trade-off between multiple competing factors - the original direct meaning, the emotion, tone and intent, and the ease of consumption in the target context.
And so how you choose to translate depends not only on the text, but the, circumstance, the speaker, and who you are translating for.
If in a manga for example a character says (in Japanese) “the child of a frog is a frog,” you could make the choice to localise that with an equivalent English idiom, as “the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree,” or you could perhaps instead take the speaking character’s personality into stronger account and preserve their meaning, such as “He’s a piece shit, just like his old man.”
But it all depends on context. If that idiom showed up in a piece of poetry you might decide to leave it exactly as “the child of a frog is a frog.” - Perhaps there is related symbolism to preserve, and the ‘frog’ metaphor is important. But in that situation you can do it, because the reader will have more time and desire to study it, and preserving the original words is more important than making it easy on the reader.
Context is everything.
Catoblepas@piefed.blahaj.zone 14 hours ago
Translation is as much of an art as writing is.
Business Idiots: let’s destroy translation jobs with LLMs while preserving none of the skill or context needed! 🤑
BananaIsABerry@lemmy.zip 12 hours ago
I read a lot of fan translated content and I always appreciate the translation of “the child of a frog is a frog” (translator note: idiom similar to “the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree”)
I find you get to learn an approximate translation of an idiom and get the intent of the phrase at the same time.
huf@hexbear.net 3 hours ago
the good ones just invent entirely new jokes to replace the untranslatable ones.
captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works 12 hours ago
That’s something that occurred to me playing Breath of the Wild. A lot of the item names like “rushroom” or “armoranth” are pun-based. And this game was written in Japanese and translated to English, along with at least a dozen other languages. Did they have teams of multilingual people sitting around coming up with puns? It occurs to me there are things like “Swift Violet” that aren’t punny…in English at least. But then you’ve got Hot Footed Frog, and the frog model has red feet.
What about…there’s a Gerudo or two that you can rent sand seals from, and there’s a lot of seal-based puns. “Seal ya later” “Let’s Seal The Deal” etc. How was that implemented in Japanese, Russian and Portuguese? I imagine that in some cases you’d just drop it and put straightforward dialog there, but make another character quirky in a language where that does work.
What about in TOTK, the quest about exploring in underpants? That quest outright relies on two sentences that mean two specific things can be mistaken for each other, they would have had to translate “All other paths/in underpants” into like 20 languages. What a pain in the ass that had to be.
WolfLink@sh.itjust.works 10 hours ago
Earlier today I was playing the new Final Fantasy Tactics remake, and I encountered the line: “Then we’ll have two birds… and one stone!” (Referring to capturing two characters and retrieving a magic stone).
That struck me as a particularly witty line in English to the point where I’m wondering if that saying is as common in Japanese. I wonder what the Japanese version of that line is.
whyNotSquirrel@sh.itjust.works 14 hours ago
lvxferre@mander.xyz 10 hours ago
One of my favourite instances of adaptation got to be Ted Woolsey’s “son of a submariner! They’ll pay for this…”, for the English localisation of Final Fantasy III / VI.
In the game, Kefka (the villain) is saying this as the heroes escape him, but the original only says “ヒーーー くっそー！このかりは必ず返しますよ!”; literally “heeee shit! I will definitively return this debt” or similar. However:
- That “ヒーーー” interjection has no meaning on its own. It’s only there to highlight the character’s emotional state. It could be safely removed, without loss of meaning.
- くそ / 糞 kuso “crap! shit!” is vulgar, but by no means as vulgar as English “shit”. Specially given the 90s, and this game being marketed to kids. But it means the villain is being rude towards the heroes (makes sense, right).
So, translating it as simply “hey you!” or similar would mutilate the original, by removing the rudeness. But at the same time, Woolsey couldn’t use “shit” or “crap” or similar. So he looked at the context:
- Kefka is crazy, and the way he uses Japanese in the original is odd. For example, he uses the pronoun “ぼくちん” bokuchin to refer to himself, as if he was a kid - and yet he’s a court mage of an empire dammit. (It’s a bit deeper than that, but let’s focus.)
- a bit before Kefka says this, there’s a city in the desert also fleeing Kefka - by going underground instead, as if it was some sort of “sand submarine”.
So Woolsey went with “son of a submariner!”, something he likely made up on the spot. And you know what? It’s perfect - it’s completely on-character for Kefka to insult people in such a weird way.
vateso5074@lemmy.world 15 hours ago
O.G. San is such a good name.
resipsaloquitur@lemmy.world 13 hours ago
お爺さん怖い。
Rentlar@lemmy.ca 13 hours ago
I will transliterate where I want to preserve the original context of words. Otherwise I generally just go for stage 3 to get the gist of what a writer or speaker means, and usually it’s a combination of the two, I don’t try to use different idioms.
So “I’ll punch your lights out” might likely become “I’ll beat you so that the lights in your eyes go out” if I were to translate to Japanese (transliterated back).
It’s a neat way to show how each person translating has their own style. (And how Japanese news and diplomatic translators have had a rough time with Trump, forced to sanewash a lot).
kkj@lemmy.dbzer0.com 12 hours ago
Transliteration is another thing entirely: it’s translating the sounds. “I’ll beat you so that the lights in your eyes go out” translated to Japanese is “君の目の光が消えるまで殴ってやる”. Transliterated back, it’s “Kimi no me no hikari ga kieru made nagutte yaru”.
lvxferre@mander.xyz 11 hours ago
It’s a bit more complicated: if you’re dealing with the sounds it’s transcription, if you’re converting from writing system into another it’s transliteration.
So for example, what you did is transliteration. But if you were to record some Japanese guy speaking and wrote it down (in kanji+kana, Latin, or even IPA), it would be transcription.
Rentlar@lemmy.ca 11 hours ago
Oh yeah you are right… let me edit it
MurrayL@lemmy.world 14 hours ago
This is exactly why lazily throwing your game’s text into a machine translation tool is not the same as hiring an actual localisation specialist.
Aeao@lemmy.world 13 hours ago
I watch everything with subtitles on and it’s clear when someone used a machine vs an actual person.
kkj@lemmy.dbzer0.com 12 hours ago
Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth did a good job with localization. I remember one character speaking with a thick Southern US accent, and at one point mentioning that she was from Kansai. I didn’t previously know that Kansai was rural, but I was able to get that from the context.
samus12345@sh.itjust.works 11 hours ago
I’ll take the machine translation if nothing else is available, but it pales in comparison to a real person doing it. You have to translate the machine translation in your head in realtime.
aeronmelon@lemmy.world 14 hours ago
“How ‘bout a nice Hawaiian Punch?”
“Sure!”
assault
kibiz0r@midwest.social 13 hours ago
assault
Actually, I think it’s made with a sugar
niktemadur@lemmy.world 13 hours ago
HEY KOOL AID! HERE!
fascicle@leminal.space 12 hours ago
I got so confused, I thought this was trying to show how bad llm’s translated things
Kolanaki@pawb.social 13 hours ago
“Here’s a knuckle sandwich!” --> “I hope you have enough room in your stomach, because I am going to ram my fist into it and break your goddamn spine!”
Meh@hexbear.net 14 hours ago
O.G. San really tickles me
LodeMike@lemmy.today 12 hours ago
This is not a “raw” translation it is a bad translation
huf@hexbear.net 3 hours ago
a raw translation is a bad translation, this is trying to demonstrate translation without actually translating, using just one language, which is why it fails to demonstrate much of anything.
eg:
- original: ez egy vérgeci
- raw: this is a blood cum
- translation that carries the meaning: this person is thoroughly unpleasant and mean
- idiomatic translation: he’s a fucking asshole
Malgas@beehaw.org 12 hours ago
It’s a decent enough illustration of the sort of thing that can happen when you translate an idiom literally. To be truly accurate that panel would have to be in a language other than English, but then it would be useless to anyone who doesn’t also understand that second language.
LeeeroooyJeeenkiiins@hexbear.net 14 hours ago
“I hope you’re thirsty because I brought some punch” is an even more idiomatic way to phrase things than “I’m going to punch your lights out”
gnu@piefed.zip 3 hours ago
It’s not a translation, it’s demonstrating different ways of approaching a translation. Note how the first panel is telling you to assume it is in a foreign language - it is supposed to be an idiom that needs to be translated into English. The ‘foreign’ idiom also being written in English is to allow the English speaking intended audience to understand the differences between what the the following panels are saying and the original text.
Bronstein_Tardigrade@lemmygrad.ml 8 hours ago
Can you imagine what the foreign press must go thru trying to interpret the shit that comes out of Trump’s mouth. Then, having translated his garbage, explaining that it is all a lie. He’s a nightmare in US English.
AtariDump@lemmy.world 11 hours ago
DO NOT WANT!
samus12345@sh.itjust.works 11 hours ago
One of my favorite bad translations ever has to be Jubei of Samurai Shodown’s win quote: “All creature will die and all the things will be broken. That’s the law of samurai.” I sometimes like to think of any kind of massive destruction as “all the things will be broken.”
Godort@lemmy.ca 14 hours ago
This is a way better threat than "Im gonna punh your lights out
Wilco@lemmy.zip 13 hours ago
The “I hope you’re thirsty” one is classy imo.
emuspawn@geostationary.orbiting.observer 9 hours ago
The art of diplomacy is making em love you while you knock their punch out.
abbadon420@sh.itjust.works 13 hours ago
All you base are belong to me
Tar_alcaran@sh.itjust.works 14 hours ago
Much more impressive too!
tdawg@lemmy.world 14 hours ago
Oh no don’t slightly inconvenience me. Darn you cut your hands & wrists bad enough to go to the ER? Whatever shall I do
pigup@lemmy.world 14 hours ago
Hypersonic
Assault and
Neutralization
Device