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this post was submitted on 11 Sep 2023
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Many European language versions of anime and games are being localized not by translating the original Japanese, but the English.
Lots of translators also seem to use Google or DeepL, which makes the issue even worse.
The English language version often don't even translate, they write their own version, calling it "creative liberty". This leads to a completely different version than what was intended, with others, such as the German or Spanish version, being even further from the original.
That's why claims of people of having "learnt Japanese from anime" are dubious in the best of cases.
Source: Am Japanese, working in game translation in Tokyo. I'm also trilingual, which makes it even worse to watch this. Ignorance is bliss.
The flip side of this is the Samurai Pizza Cats, where they completely rewrote the dialogue to make the English version way more entertaining.
Not mentioning the absolute gold mine that is Ghost Stories dub
IIRC they did this with Crayon Shin-Chan since a bunch of that show's humour was based on cultural nuances and taboos that simply wouldn't translate outside of Japan.
Well that just sucks. So if you’re a die hard fan of [anime name] and happen to be European how would you find something close to the source material?
I noticed that “creative liberty” first with the Dragonball series. I grew up watching the dubbed versions then one day discovered a little import store that sold tapes of the series with the original dialogue subtitled into English. There were a noticeable amount of differences in the story and it was slightly mind blowing to me at the time.
It's not exactly what you're looking for but the website https://animelon.com lets you use English and Japanese subtitles at the same time. And you can look at definitions of individual words. It is probably only useful if you are beyond a beginner level though.
I think using Japanese subtitles would be the way to go in general assuming you can read them but have trouble with listening.
So I’m old as fuck… did the horriblesubs scene die? They were a bunch of die hard fans encoding subs with direct translations. I appreciated them so much for Knocking on Heavens Door and the complete Cowboy Bebop series 🥹
All HorribleSubs did was rip directly from Crunchyroll, they didn't do any encoding or translations themselves. And yes they shutdown a few years ago but were immediately replaced by SubsPlease who do the same thing.
Well shit TIL… thanks for the intel friend 🙏🏾
I don't think it's possible to get close to the original other than learning the original source language. I'd think this goes for English books/movies translated to Japanese, too.
I'm currently learning Japanese at the moment and if I could tell my younger self that it's stupidity learn Japanese from English substitutes then I would
Shout out to Banjo Kazooie, an older platformer from the Nintendo 64 game era, where the antagonist always speaks in silly rhymes. So the translators needed to translate and also make it rhyme while also keeping the context and humor intact. They took creative freedom of course because there simply isn't a good match but it actually enhances the game in a way. So if you played the game in French before and now switch to English you'll get a fresh set of jokes and rhymes.
Do you have any tips on learning languages?
One of my friends who is really good at learning languages watches a lot of crappy daytime TV in the language they are trying to learn. He tells me that those shows present a lot of bullshit situations that you can understand with your eyes while you can try and put together with the dialog. I have heard of more then one person learning english by watching TV game shows
Printed comics (in native language are also really good), paticularly those aimed at a younger audience (think Walt Disney classics like Mickey Mouse or Donald Duck). The phrases are usually short and use everyday language. The graphical design (colors, postures, framing, fonts, panel alignment, etc) are all in support of conveying the action.
Thanks!
I'm sorry, I don't have any recommendations. Maybe there are useful communities for this on Lemmy?
If you've fucked up 1 to 3, plug away at it for a long time, then at some point, before you think you're ready, live somewhere where you'll have no choice but to use that language.
This also applies to a lot of subtitling in general. Shows that are in a different language than English are usually first translated into English, and then that file is used as a template for the other languages it's translated into. It's easier and cheaper.
Also using AI to translate and companies firing real translators because of this bro ☠️
RIP proper translations.
At least dlsite is being open about it, if the game has an AI translation, that translation is always free and tagged as AI.
Proper translation is really, really hard, especially for something like Anime.
Not only do you have to get across the same message in a language that works completely differently, you have to time what's being said so it matches the timing from the original language. And then there's the fact that there are many cultural differences. If you just translate the words, sometimes the meaning doesn't make sense to the new audience because what's happening relies on a cultural understanding that's different.
Too much "creative liberty" is a problem, but it's just as bad to get rid of it entirely. That's why it's so refreshing when someone makes the effort to do it right. Doing it right is really hard and takes a long time. It's often a labor of love because doing it acceptably well is much faster and normally pays the same.
Absolutely. The problem arises when the source material then gets translated from English, which already suffers from losing nuances.
It's also often debatable if something counts as liberty or is really a lazy shortcut, when it's clear that something could have been done in better ways.