Over-localization

jampodevral

@paulnamida Tsunderes are fine as long as they arent hyper violent.
Yanderes are never fine in my book. I've been in a relationship with a violently obsesive partner who fit the term. I now get super nervous and squick when I see that trope, having experienced it myself.

Shiroi Hane

Not all translators work for 4Kids. Especially hard given they haven’t existed for years.

Chi C

I'd prefer something over-localized to something under-translated.

Case in point...
alt text

zchronos

@chi-c

I'd prefer something under-localized to something over-translated.
Case in point... IN LIGHT NOVELS

Tate no Yuusha (The Rising of the Shield Hero)
The official translation is over-translated and it is very bad, the webnovel fan-translation is better.

Bookwalker:
Mr. Naofumi
Ms. Rapthalia / Rapthalia
Raph-chan ( LOL )

Many parts of the story are broken because this translation.

Fan-translation:
Iwatani-sama / Naofumi-san / Naofumi-chan
Rapthalia-san / Rapthalia-chan / Rapthalia
Raph-chan

Guspaz

Honorifics are a general ongoing debate. Some people prefer to keep them, some people prefer not to keep them. It's hard to argue that the story is broken because of the presence or lack of honorifics.

IIRC the normal JNC approach is to remove them unless the setting is Japan? I know that for Smartphone, Steiner decided to remove honorifics except for people from Eashen, since that's pseudo-Japan, which helps to lend Eashen a nice flavour.

Paul Nebeling

@guspaz Agree it's an ongoing debate. Heck, I'll occasionally toss on the honorific when I post in the forum. (Most common example: Minori-san from Outbreak Company) I like the way that Steiner localizes in Smartphone. I guess if it's unobtrusive, I like it.

DTTA

I tend to think that you should only keep language in if there's an actual need for it and it conveys information. So as an example, "X-san" can, and should usually be dropped. It's just a polite marker, you can just translate how they speak as polite.

Just don't give me Little Washu or Mr. Welf and I'm happy. ;)

Then again, I think some fans get weirdly obsessive about how underlocalizing is good, somehow. :)

Drone205

@zchronos said in Over-localization:

@chi-c

I'd prefer something under-localized to something over-translated.
Case in point... IN LIGHT NOVELS

Tate no Yuusha (The Rising of the Shield Hero)
The official translation is over-translated and it is very bad, the webnovel fan-translation is better.

I think the Official English Title is actually great. I think when it comes to professional Official Translations I would rather get Over-Translation then Under-Translation.

Aruseus493

As long as shit like "Mr/Miss" isn't used instead of honorifics, I can stomach a lot of stuff. I can survive without honorifics, but their straight up replacement bothers the fuck out of me and has completely killed my immersion before. Otaku-terms like Tsundere, Yandere, Kuudere (The best one), should be left as is. I don't want to see Weeaboo translations though at all. If something has a very easily translatable word, use it. If you use "hai" instead of yea/yes/sure, I will take a finger off you for every offense.

Rahul Balaggan

I don’t wanna see Sissy, is Sis

I don’t wanna see brah

I also don’t wanna see new age terms at all, I saw YOLO once in a LN and I cringed...

Drone205

@rahul-balaggan said in Over-localization:

I also don’t wanna see new age terms at all, I saw YOLO once in a LN and I cringed...

Which LN? Also, it is very possible that YOLO was actually was said, or its Japanese equivalent (I am pretty sure 88 is the Chinese equivalent of "lol")

Rahul Balaggan

@drone205 All I remember is that it was an isekai (that should narrow it down), I remember cause after that was said they made the “well i am an exception joke”, I read it last year so I will just start flipping through various books to see if I can find it again.

I do remember that it actually said YOLO in the book, of it said you only live once, I wouldn’t have minded.

paulnamida

@rahul-balaggan if the character was an otaku or a 2chaneler, it is entirely possible he used it's Japanese equivalent in the original text. For example in Steins;Gate they changed a few of Kurisu/Amadeus' lines into memes (that Never gonna give you up on episode 10 of SG0 was so on point xD), which is pretty much proper since she was using actual memes, just japanese memes.

Arawn

@dtta "Then again, I think some fans get weirdly obsessive about how underlocalizing is good, somehow. :)"

Think it got more to do with how bad the localization of some terms can get. We kinda got use to the idea of just leaving some stuff alone instead of a bad translation.

sniper_samurai

@paulnamida Pretty sure that use of YOLO was in No Game No Life so would probably be appropriate.

unsynchedcheese

And there are the cases where the translator just kinds of gives up, and decides to leave the Japanese cultural reference in and explain it all in translator's notes at the end.

Which might get a little distressing, depending on how much they really want to convey the sheer nuance of the concept.

FFXIV

Sam Pinansky

@unsynchedcheese The whole "aoi" can mean green or blue thing is really annoying.
Basically the color words Japanese has don't match up to the same color words in english exactly and aoi is the perfect example of this. (I bet some research could be done genetically to figure out why this is... I bet Japanese people are more naturally blue/green colorblind than western races, for example)
Streetlights in Japanese for example are "aoi" to mean "go". Obviously we usually use "green" as the translation in that case, but this confusion actually came up in Smartphone with the "Blue/Green Dragon" issue that ended up inconsistent......

myskaros

@sam-pinansky Not just Japanese, but many East Asian languages, and apparently many languages worldwide do not originally have a distinction between green and blue.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue–green_distinction_in_language

Lex

@aruseus493 said in Over-localization:

As long as shit like "Mr/Miss" isn't used instead of honorifics, I can stomach a lot of stuff. I can survive without honorifics, but their straight up replacement bothers the fuck out of me and has completely killed my immersion before. Otaku-terms like Tsundere, Yandere, Kuudere (The best one), should be left as is. I don't want to see Weeaboo translations though at all. If something has a very easily translatable word, use it. If you use "hai" instead of yea/yes/sure, I will take a finger off you for every offense.

I pretty much agree. If a word as an easy translation just use it. If a term can be translated but the result is not commonly used in speech either keep the Japanese word or find another way to express it (like the honorifics or senpai). In romance series never translate the way people address each other with first names because the inevitable plot point of two lovers wanting to call each other by name will be ruined. In general, I prefer a little bit of under localization than too much over localization.

Thomask

@lex said in Over-localization:

@aruseus493 said in Over-localization:

As long as shit like "Mr/Miss" isn't used instead of honorifics, I can stomach a lot of stuff. I can survive without honorifics, but their straight up replacement bothers the fuck out of me and has completely killed my immersion before. Otaku-terms like Tsundere, Yandere, Kuudere (The best one), should be left as is. I don't want to see Weeaboo translations though at all. If something has a very easily translatable word, use it. If you use "hai" instead of yea/yes/sure, I will take a finger off you for every offense.

I pretty much agree. If a word as an easy translation just use it. If a term can be translated but the result is not commonly used in speech either keep the Japanese word or find another way to express it (like the honorifics or senpai). In romance series never translate the way people address each other with first names because the inevitable plot point of two lovers wanting to call each other by name will be ruined. In general, I prefer a little bit of under localization than too much over localization.

The problem with dropping the japanese honourifics is, it takes some of the meaning out of the dialog.

Call me george

Sure thing george

no, call me george

yes...

we really do need the honorifics.

Call me george

Sure thing george-san

no, call me george

yes...

You either then need to figure out a way to rewrite x number of volumes/pages previously published or do away with the interaction entirely which could be damaging to it IMO.

It also allows us at a glance to say 'okay, they are at 'that level' of intimacy.

Otherwise I can agree with you, some localization is nescessary, and most of it can be stomached easily. Like contractions...