Over-localization
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yup - I'd like glossaries or footnotes - I know it adds work for TL and could be a challenge to tag what has notes in a way that doesn't upset the flow of reading (I suggest putting words or phrases that would have a note in the glossary in a different font, and we'd all figure it out soon enough)
example:
we went to a specialty restaurant and shared a Okonomiyaki. It was quite good, good times were had by all..
then in the glossary:
Okonomiyaki: something like a savory pancake, traditional dish in Hiroshima region, often prepared table-side by the diners themselves and shared... -
I prefer food and drink dishes to have the original names wherever possible, unless it’s going to cause confusion, like kombucha which is a Japanese word, but it refers to a different drink in Japan.
I mean, you wouldn’t call arancini “rice balls”, so why call onigiri that? But then you can get onigiri fairly easily in the UK (London at least) - one of the main takeaway Japanese restaurant chainsWasabi has them and calls them onigiri.
Actually I just Googled “rice balls” and found recipes for both onigiri and arancini with one of the recipes for the latter being called “Italian rice balls”, so maybe people do call them that?
As for okonomiyaki, there’s a restaurant in London that does that, and there’s been at least one street food stand that did it as well, though it’s obviously not as well-known.
I just think for food, foreign names eventually become more familiar as food spreads, which it seem to do faster than in the past. It also depends on where you live even within the same country - big cities or areas with immigration from certain countries get “foreign” cuisines faster than smaller towns.
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Would you expect French Fries in an American based story to be called Chips in the localized version for Britain? And call American chips crisps in the localized version?
I think most localizations make the change?
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@lilitu93 said in Over-localization:
I mean, you wouldn’t call arancini “rice balls”, so why call onigiri that? But then you can get onigiri fairly easily in the UK (London at least) - one of the main takeaway Japanese restaurant chainsWasabi has them and calls them onigiri.
That reminds me how weird onigiri were translated with the localised Pokémon anime...
I am convinced, trying to substitute cuisine terms is definitely some over-localised. And it will not stop there in worst case. Imagine a mosque is suddenly called church just for matching regional cultures. You lose far too much when trying to substitute regional customs.
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I think that part of what I enjoy about LN is that that are *Japanese *, food names, place names, cultural references, something about manners, relationships etc.
In the best case, localization pushes the comfort zone so that I *don’t * get all the references, I still learn something new. I need to look something up or *struggle * to figure it out from context. And I enjoy the struggle
I read banned books
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@terrence said in Over-localization:
Would you expect French Fries in an American based story to be called Chips in the localized version for Britain? And call American chips crisps in the localized version?
I think most localizations make the change?
Harry Potter has separate UK edition and US edition.
How often does opposite happen? US English publication localized for UK?
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@jon-mitchell said in Over-localization:
I think that part of what I enjoy about LN is that that are *Japanese *, food names, place names, cultural references, something about manners, relationships etc.
In the best case, localization pushes the comfort zone so that I *don’t * get all the references, I still learn something new. I need to look something up or *struggle * to figure it out from context. And I enjoy the struggle
I agree. A lot of relationship-based stories would not make any sense, if you are not aware of the usage of names and honorifics e.g.
I consider it always as incredibly cute, when two people start shyly calling by their given names, rather than their surnames.
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@zchronos Perhaps, but the fan translation are also... not legal.
On a more serious note, though, fan translations tend to be aimed a a narrower audience: a group of people so eager to read new material that they can't/won't wait for official licensing and releases. Whereas official releases, besides being stories, are also products that need to SELL. And in this day and age, that means appealing to as wide an audience as possible, in many cases. So the reason we translators, until recently, and still, not always, drop Japanese suffixes and things is because we don't want to alienate readers who might be new to Japanese literature/Japanese culture/translated literature. We love these stories, so we want to share them with as many people as possible, and those people need to understand and relate to what they're seeing on the page.
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@mahirsh said in Over-localization:
@zchronos Perhaps, but the fan translation are also... not legal.
On a more serious note, though, fan translations tend to be aimed a a narrower audience: a group of people so eager to read new material that they can't/won't wait for official licensing and releases. Whereas official releases, besides being stories, are also products that need to SELL. And in this day and age, that means appealing to as wide an audience as possible, in many cases. So the reason we translators, until recently, and still, not always, drop Japanese suffixes and things is because we don't want to alienate readers who might be new to Japanese literature/Japanese culture/translated literature. We love these stories, so we want to share them with as many people as possible, and those people need to understand and relate to what they're seeing on the page.
It is very true that people who don't know what honorifics are or mean would find the use of them alienating, but at the same time there are times when they simply cannot be dropped. I think all of us here have encountered manga or LNs where all of a sudden there is a two page scene based entirely on two characters arguing or bonding over the other person choosing to switch to a less formal honorific or to start calling the other person by their first name and it makes absolutely no sense at all because the translator wasn't using any honorifics or had them using first names since the start of the story. I have seen relatively important plot pots and character beats completely wrecked or lost simply because translators hadn't read ahead and planned for the fact that a change in familiarity and honorific usage was itself going to become a topic of contention between characters.
I think terms like tsundere are fine to translate since there are usually western equivalents even if they are a bit wonky, but the problem with completely dropping honorifics is there often is no way to coherently translate the context carried by them without it sounding absolutely ridiculous.
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I also find that when they translate the honorifics (like san to mr/ms and chan/kun to dear/little) it just doesn't sound right. It reads so awkwardly because that isn't how people speak in English.
I find that when ever I read these in Magicmaster (Loki Dear) and Shield Hero (Little Naofumi/Raphtalia) for example, I lose the flow of the reading and it takes me out of the immersion because it is so obvious that something isn't right with the sentence. You just know that something has been forced with the translation and it doesn't flow well.
While there are plenty that do it well enough (for example, Smartphone), that I don't lose the flow of reading. However most of the time I would prefer they get left in because they also help identify who is talking as all the characters have different ways of addressing each other, rather than everyone just calling the MC Touya.
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@mahirsh said in Over-localization:
So the reason we translators, until recently, and still, not always, drop Japanese suffixes and things is because we don't want to alienate readers who might be new to Japanese literature/Japanese culture/translated literature.
I think that a lot of translators, because of the ostensible nature of the job, are absolutely terrified of "not making sense," which can become a major source of "over-localization." And while often times this can simply be chalked up to a certain kind of stylistics, I think it always runs the risk of accidentally eliminating ambiguity, uncertainty, or non-standard usage that is often a highlight of "literary language" (hello Russian Formalism!)
Authors who write stories in English with Japanese characters or settings can often get away with using honorifics freely without needing to explain them, without worrying whether the readers will understand. Not only that, they're often praised for pushing boundaries, for taking readers outside of their comfort zones, and cetera...
But some people will pick over a translation in ways that they won't "original" writing because of what they perceive the task of translation to actually be. If you leave a word untranslated, or if the translated text is awkward or hard to understand, people will accuse you of being a bad translator based solely on the output, without looking at (or even being able to look at) the original and what might have prompted that decision.
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@hosikuzu said in Over-localization:
But some people will pick over a translation in ways that they won't "original" writing because of what they perceive the task of translation to actually be. If you leave a word untranslated, or if the translated text is awkward or hard to understand, people will accuse you of being a bad translator based solely on the output, without looking at (or even being able to look at) the original and what might have prompted that decision.
That logic seems rather weird to me - knowing how many Latin and German words are used in English, not only due a lack of English words but also due the fact that it is intended to preserve the deeper philosophical and scientific meaning of those words. Besides that, English is the only language which comes to me in mind, with a strong "over-localisation". Most books I am reading in German put a high emphasis on keeping especially names the way they are - despite those books are translated from a foreign language.
It seems even weird when you see a name with e.g. Hebrew origin being Americanised in English novels - but then if someone with the English name is mentioned in a localised version, the name is being kept the way how it was estranged.
To be fair - I also have noticed how Japanese interpreter do "over-localisation". There is an anime series about a restaurant in another world on crunchyroll, where one episode was about a noble requiring a Schnitzel. It was hilarious to see, how the protagonist does not know what a Schnitzel is, and the request was fulfilled by a serving of sandwiched pork cutlet tonkatsu-style. I could have cried, considering a Schnitzel is so much more than just a cutlet but more of a refined, with a hammer flattened, calf cutlet.
I definitely do not see why translators who keep those stuff as close as possible should be considered bad. When I do read a book from a foreign author I expect differences in culture and value. The only thing I wish would be more established are truly translator notes to help to learn about the cultures. Nowadays Americans might be surprised how much culture specific stuff are with novels by Dickens, Lee, Twain or Fitzgerald - just to name a few English authors of novels considered classic these days. As a reader who is not used to English or American culture to begin with, it was quite a challenge to get into the mindset and understanding. But in the German version I have not really noticed any over-localisation. It was more a surprise why they are considered so highly, compared with novels from France, Greece, Spain, Italy and Germany... Long story short: over-localisation is surely guilty in limiting horizons at best.
PS: The best example of how over-localisation can ruin thing was my experience with the Tao Te King. I have read interpretations and commentary about it - but when I got my hands on what is closest to the original, I could clearly see how much was lost in translation.
Sorry for my bad English - it is not my native language
As a new member I am sharing my opinion of the membership
Inactive 22.01.20 until I resubscribe -
@timmaaah said in Over-localization:
While there are plenty that do it well enough (for example, Smartphone), that I don't lose the flow of reading. However most of the time I would prefer they get left in because they also help identify who is talking as all the characters have different ways of addressing each other, rather than everyone just calling the MC Touya.
While honorifics might solve that issue, in a fantasy story they present a massive new problem: complete breaking of immersion. Seeing characters in a supposedly fantasy world using obviously-Japanese honorifics in English text looks very out of place. Even "awkward English" like "Little Naofumi" is preferable because at least that can be passed off as "fantasy language speak". There's nothing "fantasy language speak" about "Naofumi-chan"; that's just straight up Japanese.
The only times honorifics in fantasy should be acceptable are: 1. in isekai, if only used by characters originating from or otherwise connected to Japan to help indicate their origins, or 2. if the setting actually has a location/culture clearly inspired by Japan, like Smartphone with Eashen. In both cases, the limited use of honorifics make those characters/locations/cultures distinct and memorable, which makes it all the more important that the rest of the characters/story does not use honorifics.
MAL
Beneath the Tangles (the blog I write for) -
@stardf29 said in Over-localization:
While honorifics might solve that issue, in a fantasy story they present a massive new problem: complete breaking of immersion. Seeing characters in a supposedly fantasy world using obviously-Japanese honorifics in English text looks very out of place. Even "awkward English" like "Little Naofumi" is preferable because at least that can be passed off as "fantasy language speak". There's nothing "fantasy language speak" about "Naofumi-chan"; that's just straight up Japanese.
While I see the point there, I like to say: the immersion-break happens only if you are aware if that is Japanese. Otherwise no one could argue, that the fantasy setting has the same culture as a Japanese one. That would limit your perception of fantasy worlds to non-Japanese-cultures only.
Keeping that in mind, I find it easy to fade out those language specific matter when you get used to it.
Especially with the special usage of honorifics which are important to put emphasis on nuances the English language is unable to. Even translations into German can be weird, with the usage of the English "you" which gives often little to distinguish between a close or distant relationship.
Fun fact: over here some communities seemingly enjoy arguing other the race term Elb/Elf, as a result of the translation of The Lord of the Rings. A good translation still has its own value of worth. Therefore this topic is rather interesting to see what the community prefers - whether more towards an interpretation or more towards keeping it as original as possible.
Sorry for my bad English - it is not my native language
As a new member I am sharing my opinion of the membership
Inactive 22.01.20 until I resubscribe -
One way to solve the "now she's changed from using his last name to his first name / casual name, what do we do" is further localize and have them ask to use pet names for each other. xD
I love you Yummy! I love you too Haru-Pie! Swoon.
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@terrence said in Over-localization:
One way to solve the "now she's changed from using his last name to his first name / casual name, what do we do" is further localize and have them ask to use pet names for each other. xD
I love you Yummy! I love you too Haru-Pie! Swoon.
If a translator ever gets the strange idea to use an (American) madeup pet nickname instead of -chan, I am going to lose faith...
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@serah said in Over-localization:
@stardf29 said in Over-localization:
While honorifics might solve that issue, in a fantasy story they present a massive new problem: complete breaking of immersion. Seeing characters in a supposedly fantasy world using obviously-Japanese honorifics in English text looks very out of place. Even "awkward English" like "Little Naofumi" is preferable because at least that can be passed off as "fantasy language speak". There's nothing "fantasy language speak" about "Naofumi-chan"; that's just straight up Japanese.
While I see the point there, I like to say: the immersion-break happens only if you are aware if that is Japanese. Otherwise no one could argue, that the fantasy setting has the same culture as a Japanese one. That would limit your perception of fantasy worlds to non-Japanese-cultures only.
The problem is, a large part of light novel readership will know it is Japanese. Many light novel readers, including new light novel readers, are already entrenched enough in otaku media to recognize Japanese honorifics, and even a reader who initially doesn't recognize the honorifics as Japanese will likely learn they are such as they get more into otaku media. And just because it might be easy for you to tune such obviously Japanese elements out, doesn't mean others will find it as easy.
You can use clever writing to make up for lost "nuances" from dropping honorifics. You can't make up for lost immersion. To me, it's pretty clear that the cost of keeping honorifics outweighs the benefits too much.
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@stardf29 While I can see where you are coming from, I would then ask that if they are in a fantasy world why are they using honorifics? Shouldn't the author have removed them as it would be out of place in a non Japanese environment?
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@timmaaah
If they are in a fantasy world, why wouldn’t they use honorifics?I seem to recall a lot of “Sir Knight” and other titles in some of the fantasy stories I’ve read.
I read banned books
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@jon-mitchell That's part of the point that I'm making. They are there, and usually have a reason for it. stardf29 said that they feel out of place in a fantasy environment and shouldn't be there, even though they are there in the Japanese release.
