Over-localization

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...

myskaros

@thomask said in Over-localization:

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

Intimacy is addressed via other means in English, so it would be easy to remove honorifics and adjust dialog appropriately to achieve the same effect. Very rarely is the presence or absence of honorifics so integral to the story that expressing important context in other ways risking a complete collapse of some delicate balance of interpersonal Jenga.

Now, changing things around like that might broach on other principles that readers dislike, but I think there really needs to be a reining in of the "honorifics are necessary because of all the meaning!" viewpoint.

Namely, it's a crutch. Unless you are intimately familiar with Japanese, believing you can accurately identify the level of intimacy between two people because she said "George-san" versus "George" versus "George-chan" without any other context is a delusion. Maybe he's American and doesn't care. Maybe she's American and doesn't get the meaning. Maybe they're just close friends with no romantic spark. All of these factoids and more should be present in the thing you are reading and should all tell you far more about how two people relate to each other without needing a -san or lack thereof to clue you in. And if they're two characters you're meeting for the first time... should you really be assuming any amount of their shared history based solely on what they call each other?

the green death

@myskaros Good points. I’m very much a beginner in my Japanese language studies but I know enough to know tons of Japanese is contextual and it goes well beyond san and chan and a good translator should be able to convey much of that in English alone. Outside of Otaku circles in other Japanese fiction no one seems too fussed with “under localization” and I’ve read some amazing and insightful Japanese fiction that conveyed a broad range of cultural insight without the use of honorifics.

DTTA

@thomask That is a horrible example as it is simply a -bad translation-. Translating is more than simply literal transposing words. Hell, there's a reason that translating is sometimes considered an art. Have you read up on the process of how things are translated -anywhere-, not just Japanese? :)

Guspaz

@thomask said in 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

You don't need the honorifics, you just need to translate it differently. For example:

Call me George
Sure thing, Mister George
No, just George.

Of course you're going to lose the meaning if you just do a word-for-word translation and then strip off the honorifics. But that wouldn't be how a translator would approach the problem.

DTTA

Yeah. Though I'd phrase it more like this:

"Call me George."

"Okay, sir, I'll call you George."

"No, just George, no need to be polite."

Same thing - emphasizing politeness, without the rough "Mister", nor the literal transliteration.

Lex

@dtta said in Over-localization:

Yeah. Though I'd phrase it more like this:

"Call me George."

"Okay, sir, I'll call you George."

"No, just George, no need to be polite."

Same thing - emphasizing politeness, without the rough "Mister", nor the literal transliteration.

In my country this would work if George is in a position of authority, otherwise it would sound extremely unnatural.
In a dialogue between two lovers, it can be localized by making one asking to be called dear instead of dropping the honorific. In the more generic case of two aquaintances that become friends, maybe the switch could be from using surnames to first names...assuming they were using the surnames and we know the first names of the characters (I've read manga in which they were never revealed).
Truly, a translator's job isn't an easy task.

DTTA

Yup, thus why I said it's an art. We all might disagree on specifics, but it's important to not literally translate the work. You either miss cues or haphazardly leave them in in a weird manner.

It's why I said it's an art, not a science.

Shiroi Hane

@myskaros @Sam-Pinansky Welsh is another one, with glas (blue) being used for green things in nature (and possibly also traffic lights? I may be mixing that up with Japanese which I’ve studied a lot more recently).
There’s something about how language shapes how you “see” colours; QI talked about how in Homer’s time there was no word for blue in Greek, but the sky was abviously the same colour. Either on the show or podcast, they’ve also mentioned a tribe somewhere with many more words for green but none for blue who can distinguish between green swatches that look identical to westerners, but cannot identify between blue and green.

zchronos

@guspaz

Add "Mr". is very weird....

@DTTA

Yes, "Sir" is much better (but only in some cases)

OK, another example. (This case is real, now I don't remember when or where I read it).

Can I call you by your name?
Sure
Thanks Guspaz.
Hmm... at last add -san.
OK, Guspaz-san
(Me) Good.
Can I call you by your name?
Sure
Thanks Guspaz.
Hmm... at last add Mr.
OK, Mr. Guspaz.
(Me) Arrggghhhhh.......

In some cases the traductor is able to adapt the story very well without using honorifics, but in my opinion it is an unnecessary extra work, even worse as in the case of Tateyuu, in later volumes there are names that use honorific as part of the story (and some jokes) and if they have the localized names, they ruin the immersion.

Bookwalker (English translations rights arranged by One piece Books)

Rapthalia-chan is translated as "Raphtalia"
Raph-chan is translated as "Raph-chan"
(really, this is very bad)

GHDpro

Most of the "over localization" examples mentioned so far don't bother me too much. There is one thing (as non-American) that does however: changing units from metric to imperial during translation.

"The room was about 16 feet high" ... Like hell it was. Japan uses the metric system, so imperial units should never be used in translations (except for maybe in footnotes or parentheses).

Fortunately J-Novel Club doesn't do this. Yen Press however is definitely guilty of doing this.

Kevin S

@ghdpro said in Over-localization:

"The room was about 16 feet high" ... Like hell it was. Japan uses the metric system, so imperial units should never be used in translations

I think it's interesting that this bothers you when you say that a lot of these other examples don't. A room is going to be the size that it is regardless of the units used to measure it, so I'm curious why you feel it makes so much difference that the measurement be presented in one system versus another.

If a company thinks their translations are mainly being read by people in the USA, they may convert measurements as a convenience for their readers. You might argue that's not as precise as retaining the metric measurements, but then again, translating the book into English is not as precise as leaving it in Japanese, either. The questions are how much access you want to provide target-language readers to the text, and what you think the best form is for that access to take.

DTTA

The only time that changing metric to imperial would bother me is when it deals with scientific notation. I can take or leave "X tatami mats' => size, they both have positive or negatives.

But changing meters per second to feet when a scientist is talking is a big ow for me. :)