Over-localization
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@nosgoroth I feel like for repetive use of a certain kind of phrase should be more against the japanese author and editors and not the translators. Also repetition is not a bad thing, in fact I have a bit of a gripe with this kind of thing on how teachers tell you not to use the same word twice.
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I personally am in the 'under-translated' preference group, which is why even when I own the official version, I usually prefer the fan-translated version.
There are a few areas especially that I consider this important and as a few examples:
- Local references such as local legends, local games, etc.: There are a few ways to do this, but two methods I like are:
** Some translators put the meaning in footnotes
** Some translators put the original text in footnotes
** Both of those methods allow you to understand what is actually happening, which is sometimes very important for later interactions as otherwise you start getting either translations that don't quite make sense or translations where as the story progresses, it starts warping from a translation to a rewrite.
** Another method I've seen is where the original meaning is part of the text along with the translated version, but this can feel odd if done poorly. - Words that have a very key meaning behind them. (For example, names and chants and wordplay)
** As someone who does a lot of very odd tricks with my stories, it is somewhat sad when wordplay is lost through translation. This has a bit to do with local references at times and often has the same methods of dealing with them, but...
** Take a four square spell as an example or even a simpler four character square spell.
*** With a 'Four Character' 'Square' Spell, the key to the spell is that you can read it in any direction and it will have a meaning. In other words, reading it from up to down, down to up, left to right, right to left, and even diagonally all have different meanings and ALL of the meanings apply at once. This is basically impossible to translate into English because English does not use words as characters. - Riddles and puzzles
** Sometimes puzzles rely heavily on wording in order to solve. Clues are sometimes scattered throughout the text leading up to a puzzle that requires understanding of the words involved. This is basically impossible to translate properly because if you made a special note of all the key points, you basically gave the answer away, but if you don't, the puzzle can become impossible to solve.
** Sometimes the puzzle is based on the appearance of a character: Take SAO as an example. There was an unsolvable puzzle (you had to brute force it) because the puzzle relied on the appearance of the character and that meant to solve it properly, you needed to know the original text.
** Sometimes the puzzle relies on pronunciation. Take this joke as an example:
*** A group four, comprising of English, French, Spanish, and German speaking individuals, watched a performer. Noticing that the group could not see the performer, the performer found a platform and stood upon it. Calling out to the four, the performer asked "Can you see me now?"
***The four responded politely:
***"Yes"
***"Oui"
***"Sí"
***"Ja"
**And of course, some puzzles and riddles rely on a variety of wording, character appearance, and pronunciation.
** These sorts of puzzles are effectively impossible to localize properly.
@drone205 I think the repetition is bad is more of a modern concept. Quite a few older literary works used repetition heavily. Sometimes as a result of how the work was passed on, but sometimes in order to convey a certain mood/concept/etc.
But as to what some people are saying, yeah, the proper noun translation that some translators do (Looking at P*k*m*n and 4k*** in particular) is a bit annoying. There are some cases where the author wants it to be translated, but otherwise... You wouldn't talk about Rasputin and give him an American name. You /usually/ wouldn't go: Oh, let's localize Ghengis Khan into Ruler. Could you imagine the confusion if you started naming like Alric, Harold, Ghenghis, etc. into Ruler? "So comparing Ruler's rule to Ruler's...." Yeah.... That is going to go well...
- Local references such as local legends, local games, etc.: There are a few ways to do this, but two methods I like are:
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@drone205 said in Over-localization:
I feel like for repetive use of a certain kind of phrase should be more against the japanese author and editors and not the translators.
This is an interesting issue, because as always, some of it comes back to how exactly you think a translation should function. A lot of Japanese texts include more repetition than would be considered acceptable in English, but it doesn't seem to bother Japanese readers. So here's the question as the translator: do you slavishly follow the repetition because this seems to be more "faithful" to the original? Or do you take what is a smooth reading experience in the original (in a language where such repetition is not considered jarring) and try to make it a smooth reading experience in the target language, which involves reducing the repetition because of reader reaction to that particular feature of the language? Similarly, is it always necessary to translate a given word in the same way? Or is it acceptable to translate the same word in slightly different ways depending on the nuance and context?
While I agree that it's possible to get too dogmatic about anything, I think there's a difference between repetition and redundancy, and if I'm reading a book in English and see the same word for the twenty-fourth time, my eyes start to glaze over.
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when I keep reading the translate novel I feel frustrate with the translators, because they would not keep the translated novel close to the original. Keeping the translated work close to the original and try to make the reader see the culture of literature works is what make the most books interesting. over-localization of the work would make the reader who's love for the culture that work original came feels as if the translator throw the mud on their faces. A good example is; you're an American and someone call you a Canadian (apologize if people who take offense to this racist like example), or you call football as rugby, this declaring it would make you fell anger if that person love of what they originally is. My point is that people who love the culture where the book/novel come from would prefer the translator to keep everything close to the original as much as possible like the fan translation where these people love the japanese culture and keep the naming and quoting the same as it is.
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@Piyarad-Supinee I agree, although I think that your last sentence makes it sound like fan translations are mostly/only Japanese texts.
I definitely don't care what the original language or culture is - I want it to stay true to the original one way or another.
If I wanted a rewrite, I can easily do it myself. I want a translation, not a rewrite. I can't translate some things due to how I translate (I'm trying to learn how to translate properly). I'm basically double converting from the original to my native to English (Think of it like using google to translate Japanese to Old English (The dead language, not Shakespearean), then to English). That is why I rely on translations to give me the proper translation.
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yes I also prefer the novel to stay the as the original as much as possible like the naming, the addressing to an person, or the quote that they have I just read In other works with smartphone today and the naming of a cat character has change from Nyantaro to Mitten which sound more westernize than Japaneses since this IS a japanese novel.
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@sinnoaria I see, thanks for your hard work.
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My gosh again with the Nyantaro? Both Steiner and Sam have explained why an untranslated name would not make sense to English readers. This has been brought up so many times.
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@sinnoaria said in Over-localization:
Take my username as an example. How would you translate it?
Does your username have literary significance on the JNC forums beyond the fact that it's your chosen name? No? Then there's no need to translate it. The cat's name "Nyantaro" has a contextual meaning beyond "it's a random name," this specific name was chosen to make a specific point. That's why there's value in translating it to convey that.
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@myskaros said in Over-localization:
@sinnoaria said in Over-localization:
Take my username as an example. How would you translate it?
Does your username have literary significance on the JNC forums beyond the fact that it's your chosen name? No? Then there's no need to translate it. The cat's name "Nyantaro" has a contextual meaning beyond "it's a random name," this specific name was chosen to make a specific point. That's why there's value in translating it to convey that.
Even if it has a literary significance of meaning, there is also a literary significance of name choice. Remember that foreign languages will use names in different ways.
Take English as an example. You have last names which are Job titles. You don't see people killing over a last name (usually).
Take Vietnamese as an example. You have last names that largely don't matter to commoners. I've yet to find a Vietnamese person who would kill someone over their last name.
Take Chinese as an example. You had mass murder for the sake of keeping a last name because it is the family name and is considered to be preserving the family line.
There is a meaning for many last names as a result of using actual words for those last names, but the meaning of the name isn't the only significance.
Then you have languages and literature that use the names for a literary purpose. This can differ from the direct meaning. (Such as combining words to form a new word with a different meaning than the words by themselves). This can become rather complex at times as well. I believe I explained that part earlier in this thread.
I've also explained elsewhere that not localizing a name doesn't necessarily mean the translation won't sell. Whether you localize or not, there are people who won't buy a translation because it was localized or because it wasn't localized. The question for official translations becomes which side will give more money. Do you ostracize the purist fans or do you ostracize the ones that insist on localization.
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Translated works will always carry a bit of the people involved in translating it. Their culture, their voice. Good localization will keep the spirit of the work, even if needing to sacrifice some of the actual word.
For an example, since it keeps getting brought up, the whole cat summons thing. The original Japanese name is obviously and intuitively, to a native Japanese speaker, a dumb, silly name. To your average English speaking person, that is not going to be the case. So the goal is to pick a name that is equally silly to a native English speaker, while keeping it something that doesn't stick out in the setting.
If you want to learn the culture and such, your first step is going to be learning the language yourself, not relying on others to translate for you. Then learning the culture through immersion.
Or, well, that's all my opinion. Me, I just want to read some fun stories. Japanese LNs are more enjoyable than much of the Western stuff I read. Unless the translation is butchered, I probably wouldn't notice - all this stuff is, though interesting, academic trivia.
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@sinnoaria said in Over-localization:
Even if it has a literary significance of meaning, there is also a literary significance of name choice.
Yes... that's literally what I said... so there is a fork in the road here. Do you leave the name as-is and completely lose the cultural message behind that name choice, or do you translate the name to convey that message to your audience? There's no correct answer, and you're not gaining any fans by trying to pretend there is.
Do you ostracize the purist fans or do you ostracize the ones that insist on localization.
It's cute that you think either of these sides are a big enough piece of the pie to be worth specifically catering to. Most people honestly could not care less whether the name is Nyantaro or Mittens or Garfield, they might be annoyed that the pun wasn't translated or that it was "overlocalized," but they're still going to enjoy the book. Anyone who truly feels ostracized because of Nyantaro-->Mittens, or for any other book where the name is left as-is and the pun makes no sense, is going to stop reading your books at some point anyway, so it's simply not worth worrying about.
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@sinnoaria said in Over-localization:
Then that is even less reason to translate the name if it doesn't matter. The only real reason why it should be localized would be due to sales. If localizing won't increase sales, why do it?
Because it's up to the translator and he clearly felt this was worth translating?
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@sinnoaria said in Over-localization:
I know more people that won't buy due to localization that wouldn't buy due to lack of localization
If we take this whole localization to the extreme and say some ppl will not buy something due to localization, then they should not be reading LN in English as that is a form of localization but they will probably say something like "Oh but I can't read Japanese!" Well then if they refuse to buy something because of localization then theu should learn to read Japanese and never go outside because the world ia filled with it. In Canada McDonalds has Poutine, this would be localization as Poutine is a Canadian thing (there is even an Indian restaurant that has Poutine too).
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When I translate, I translate for an English-speaking audience. Knowing rudimentary Japanese isn't a free ticket in my book, so I'm not going to leave stuff half-translated so a smaller portion of the audience can be like 'oh I recognize that, the Japanese-ness of this book is truly preserved'. I can't cater to the individual, so when I make the judgment call on my translations, I opt for creating a book that would be naturally read in English, just as the original was naturally read in Japanese.
Encapsulating the nuance entirely is a difficult thing to do, but I still try my best to replicate the experience. if I just leave things in so you can see how Japanese the book is, that's not me preserving anything, that's me giving you, the reader, a completely different experience to the one the original readers would've had. Localization isn't censorship or an attempt to obscure a work's origin. At the end of the day, it's kind of messed up to desire the 'exoticism' of something foreign than actually wanting to read something that makes clear sense in your natural language. Even so, you'll never have the cultural context of the Japanese reader to begin with, most of the traditional Japanese historical references in Smartphone (which I retain, as there's no reason to change them), wouldn't be as readily known to the average westerner. Either way, when it comes to something like a minor character's nickname, I see no harm in changing that if it better reflects the author's original intent. If you want the original book, go all the way and learn Japanese, I'd encourage you to chase those dreams.
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@readingsteiner said in Over-localization:
Knowing rudimentary Japanese isn't a free ticket in my book, so I'm not going to leave stuff half-translated so a smaller portion of the audience can be like 'oh I recognize that, the Japanese-ness of this book is truly preserved'
I would actually be quite interested to see a poll of all the readers of Isekai Smartphone to get an idea of the extent to which they skew weeaboo compared to the general population. It's very likely that a significant proportion, if not a majority, of them are probably consumers of WN translations, manga scanlation readers, and even Crunchyroll sub viewers who are "used" to seeing honorifics and "nyaa~" and the like, and "expect" to see them in translations. Even if the audience is objectively wrong for being memed into preferring bad translation practice, it's ultimately them who make purchasing decisions.
In such a scenario, an argument could at least be made (even if it is ultimately disagreed with) for pandering to your core audience of utter weeaboos, with the aim of growing it further within the weeaboo population who might be more likely to buy a product if it conforms to their expectations. This, as opposed to taking the orthodox approach of, in search of greater growth and inclusiveness, aiming for the lowest common denominator with zero weeaboo "common sense" who make up a minority of people who would be likely to read Isekai Smartphone in the first place, which could potentially drive off the core potential audience of hardcore weeaboo honorific purists.
I still trust the judgment of the translator to make the right call in context, of course. And I do think that those who are in the absolute hardcore camp of weeabooism purists that would refuse to buy a well translated product, and instead prefer to read a headache-inducing massacre of a machine translation, purely over a lack of honorifics, are a tiny minority.
