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In general, what are the main problems that harm the accuracy of the english
translation of a manga? After this process, considering that problems,
"shades" and "feelings" in the dialogues, with respect to the same title in
the original japanese language are preserved enough?

Please, can you give me any example and why? many thanks. (:


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2018-09-28T18:45:23.460
48963
2018-10-01T11:21:05.310
2018-10-01T11:21:05.310
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question
manga-production
Accuracy of the translation of English manga?


Given a source material in language A, a translation to language B isn't going
to be the same. For starters, the person translating is usually a different
one, so they may not know the original intent the author had. Also, the
language is different, so things _may not_ carry over.

But this applies to translations of anything, not just manga.

Now, a decent translator should be able to minimize the loss. One could:

  * translate the text to something that results in an equivalent reaction to the reader (e.g. the original text had a pun, so translating it literally would make it so the reader won't laugh at it, so instead we make a _different pun_ , and the reader still laughs) 
  * put in notes that explains why the source language text is written the way it is
  * rewrite the text a bit
  * ...possibly other tricks
  * combination of above

Regarding the example of the first one: there's this text that I'm translating
that relies on that "おっぱ" means _both_ "breast milk" and "breasts". If I were
to translate it literally, the pun would be lost. So instead I make the text
vague with "they" about what a person is actually referring to, and not
revealing it until the last moment. But this, again, loses something on what
was in the source text. On the other hand, if I were to put in a translator
note instead of that, that would have killed the pun (and therefore, the
intended effect on the reader would be lost in translation), but would have
preserved the meaning of the text.

Another example that often is problematic wrt translations to English is the
matter of pronouns: there are different first person pronouns depending on the
gender, or whether it's formal or informal situation. One could make it hard
to translate without putting in a translator note if a character in the source
material uses a different first person pronoun that the social protocol would
expect, and _other characters notice that_.


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2018-09-28T19:31:04.283
48964
2018-09-28T19:53:35.523
2018-09-28T19:53:35.523
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answer


Japanese and English aren't even related languages, so their grammar is
completely different, to the point where the way you would say something in
one language is literally impossible in another.

For example, Japanese is a very contextual language. There is very little in
the way of pronouns, subjects are often omitted entirely, gender is often
ambiguous, and so forth. I've even seen a spoiler in the English translation
of Pandora Hearts, where the Japanese language could be purposefully ambiguous
by omission, but the English, by grammar necessity, revealed the identity of a
particular person from the get-go. Though perhaps a less literal translator
could have avoided that trap.

Another difference that causes translators alot of pain is keigo, or formal
Japanese. Japanese makes very rigid distinctions in what kind of language you
use when you are speaking to a subordinate, a superior, or a peer, and it just
does not come across in English, most of the time.

Even simple nouns between languages of course don't have a consistent meaning,
yet a common mistake many translators will make is to assume they do. For
example, the word hoshi can mean planet or star, but many people very
consistently only translate it as star, even when the text is obviously
talking about a planet.

Good translations also frequently require culture knowledge that the
translator may or may not have. Occasionally I've seen mistakes in
translations simply because the translator was not up to date on pop culture
knowledge, for instance -- I recently saw a mistranslation that "dere" is
short for "tsundere" because the translator was unaware that tsundere is a
slang word made by compounding the sound effects for a disdainful "hmph"
(tsun) and flirting (dere.)

Furthermore, there are some translations out there that are flat out terrible.
Ones in particular I remember are the official subs for the streams of Full
Metal Panic and Beast Player Erin, both had obvious mistakes left and right.
Bodacious Space Pirates, the sub for the stream, also consistently
mistranslated suna no akahoshi as Sand of the Red Star when it literally just
means Red Planet of Sand or just Sandy Red Planet (yet another mistranslation
of hoshi, plus just flat out misunderstanding the function of "no" in that
phrase.)

On the whole though, I'd say the quality of translations these days is
generally at least serviceable, but you still would probably get more out of
it if you understand the original language.


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2018-09-28T23:42:06.207
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2018-09-28T23:55:10.270
2018-09-28T23:55:10.270
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answer