How translators translate polite Japanese conversation?


I am asking about translation of written conversations between two or more
persons in Japanese language, that we can find in books, novels, manga, etc.
As we know, in Japanese language there are polite forms such as 丁寧語、敬語 and so
on. In a conversation, from how the speakers speak/converse, we can guess the
speakers's personalities and how good their relationship are with each other.

Since English language probably does not have the polite forms to the level of
the Japanese's, what do translators keep in mind during translating as not to
lose the original nuance?




I've worked on and off for a number of years as a freelance JPN-ENG
translator, and I'm well-read in both Japanese and English. I also have plenty
of friends who have been through the service economy in the US ;)

On that basis, I'm compelled to say that English absolutely has the degree of
politeness required to match Japanese pragmatics in its corpus. James Clavell
in the novel Shogun highlights this with different forms, most notably "thou"
and "you"--dubious Orientalism in the storyline aside, the grammar he chooses
to make this clear [bears out in academic examinations of early modern
English](http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/%7Eeng121-c/politenessin%20AME.htm).

You don't even need to dig that deep, even. Compare:

> A: Yeah? You need something? うん？なんか用？
>
> A: May I help you? はい、ご用は?／どうぞ。
>
> A: How may I assist you today? なにかお力になれることがございますでしょうか?

(Apologies for the clumsiness of the above examples; I'm a little tired at the
moment.)

When my Japanese friends ask me about _keigo_ in English, my stock answer is
that English doesn't have _systematized_ grammatical forms that constitute an
equivalent, but we most definitely have pragmatics that match up.

In other words, the short answer is to look for the language that matches the
_usage_ and the situation when translating. It may be instructive to note that
"pragmatics" as a linguistic term, is 語用 (the use of words) in Japanese.




I've worked on and off for a number of years as a freelance JPN-ENG
translator, and I'm well-read in both Japanese and English. I also have plenty
of friends who have been through the service economy in the US ;)

On that basis, I'm compelled to say that English absolutely has the degree of
politeness required to match Japanese pragmatics in its corpus. James Clavell
in the novel Shogun highlights this with different forms, most notably "thou"
and "you"--dubious Orientalism in the storyline aside, the grammar he chooses
to make this clear [bears out in academic examinations of early modern
English](http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/%7Eeng121-c/politenessin%20AME.htm).

You don't even need to dig that deep, even. Compare:

> A: Yeah? You need something? うん？なんか用？
>
> A: May I help you? はい、ご用は?／どうぞ。
>
> A: How may I assist you today? なにかお力になれることがございますでしょうか?

(Apologies for the clumsiness of the above examples; I'm a little tired at the
moment.)

When my Japanese friends ask me about _keigo_ in English, my stock answer is
that English doesn't have _systematized_ grammatical forms that constitute an
equivalent, but we most definitely have pragmatics that match up.

In other words, the short answer is to look for the language that matches the
_usage_ and the situation when translating. It may be instructive to note that
"pragmatics" as a linguistic term, is 語用 (the use of words) in Japanese.

