[957] Official Translation, brought to you by pixiebell and piro

Fred has asked me to post up the translation/script for the current strip. As I have said before in previous threads, Fred wanted you guys to be able to experience being in Largo's shoes, being lost in translation, and thus, he purposedly had this translation delayed for a few days.

This is not to say that any of the fan translations were at all wrong. Most were very good. As most people are aware, there are many ways to translate a word and there is no one "correct" translation. (Though, anime fandom has taught us that there are plenty of incorrect translations out there...) But having this script, you can see what Fred and I worked with and then there are no surprises when this is printed in the next book.

We realize that there were a few errors in the original strip, due in part to communication errors. Fred will have these fixed in the strip. The translation here has the script already corrected.

K:what's wrong?
P:Hayasaka-san told him to come over, but he's being an idiot!
K:Erika has been wanting to see you all day.
K:She's waiting for you.
K: I think you should go to her.

(Originally, I included a kana script, but I thought that would be too distracting to the purpose of this translation and have deleted it. This is about what Largo is hearing, and thus, there would be no real reason to include a kana script.)

There were three changes made to this script as discussed by me and Fred.

1) the romanization for ha was changed to wa. Ha is not incorrect (it's actually the correct romanization as far as word processing goes). However, because this is supposed to be about the sounds that Largo is hearing, we have changed it to wa.

2) Erika's name has been changed to Hayasaka-san. Being that I am not a regular reader of the comic, this was my mistake, as I did not know what he called her and just placed in Erika. (And forgot about it...)

3) The last phrase said by Kimiko was on a list of alternative suggestions that I gave Fred for the last line. And since I did not think he would use suggestions from this alternative list, I did not conjugate these into formal tones. We have changed it into the proper tone, which would use "omoimasu" instead of "omou."

There has been a lot of questioning by people regarding the fact that this couple uses formal tones around each other. I was actually VERY impressed by Fred's choice to do this. It told me that Fred really understands how these types of dynamics work in Japan. We have two people who don't really know each other and who are extremely nervous around each other still. They're not ready to move onto more familiar speech yet.

Also, many foreigners who had any formal education in Japanese tend to speak more formal than their Japanese counterparts. So I thought the choice was very apt for several reasons.

For those of you who commented that he seems to speak effeminately, the more formal one speaks, the more feminine it may sound. A female generally has to be much more formal than a male to reach the same tone of formality. However, "koitsu" is far from a ladylike word. So I wouldn't say that Piro speaks femininely. He simply speaks politely, for the most part.

(I'm also home with a cold, so if I'm incoherent, I will edit this post once I get better.)

Thanks, pixie! Especially for the explanation, it's nice to get the thought processes behind the translation.

I've been led to believe that his Japanese is supposed to sound like a girl--something to do with the fact that he learned it from dating sims and the like...

That doesn't even make sense...

I've definitely heard that around; I think it was because Piro (The MT Piro, obviously) is supposed to have, at least partially, self-taught himself by watching anime and playing games.

It may not make sense, it may not be true, but it's what has, generally, been accepted as canon.

EDIT: Shoka proves me wrong, apparently.

This post has been edited by Eltargrim on Jan 22 2007, 11:58 PM

Well, first, it was something Fred said in the old character bios, and second, it does make sense, as most of the interaction in a dating sim is going to be with female characters is it not? Since they'd have the better part of the dialog, their speech would be the main influence on how he understands Japanese to function.

That opinion is a relic of Fred's original text reached from the "Characters" link, back when he started the comic. He changed his mind later on, and although he's long since deleted that page, the idea continues to circulate. This may explain in part his reluctance to update that page.

Uhm... do you guys not play bishoujo games?

I'm almost certain 99% of SD does not. Your character DOES TALK in Bishoujo games... and your character talks more than any other character in them. Why? Because you see how he thinks, talks, and everything else...

Then again, you guys are the experts on Bishoujo games.

I suspect that by "talking" they're referrring to the fact that (in all but a tiny number of cases) male characters - especially the protagonist - aren't voiced in the games.

The page is here. As you can see, it dates back to chapter 0. To the best of my knowledge, Fred hasn't commented on that tidbit, so unless and until he does, the question of whether it's still canon or not remains unresolved.

Unless we consider this to supersede it. In that case, pixiebell has specifically said she didn't write Piro's line as a girl would say it, so yeah. (And thanks again.)

That applies... how? If you can only go by what is voiced... you can't really play 99% of the games.

It is interesting to read about the dynamics involved. Especially that Kimiko and Piro still are not at a intimate level.

The page that Shay guy references makes the point that he learned his Japanese (which is not a high level anyway) by watching anime. If one's source of information is Cardcapter Sakura and Kodocha he might sound a bit more feminine that he intends. I would guess.

I doubt anyone could learn much of the language through anime. I can barely distinguish where words seperate out in the conversation.

Anyway, thanks for the cool culture note.

Well the voiced text would be a much more useful learning tool, because it teaches you pronunciation. I doubt Japanese is particularly phonetic.

But yeah, that appears to have been retconed.

I've just finished playing X-Change (Increasingly silly, but great fun by the way), and my understanding of the language has shot up, simply by matching the audio to the text. I'm already beginning to forget it all though.

This post has been edited by Philweasel on Jan 23 2007, 01:12 AM

I'd amend that to "through anime alone".

With some kind of critical mass of grammar and vocabulary (knowing short, common words, and verb/adjective endings) it's easier to pick out and pick up other words (given context and/or subtitles).

And it's a pretty good source of native speech and pronociation examples (if one pays attention to the question of politeness). (I also have to beware of talking like Usagi or Ranma... )

Early on, I spent time rewatching the same anime with and without subtitles, and listening to the audio alone, to train my "ear" to hear the spoken words. and not get distracted by what I was reading. After a while felt like I could read subtitles and listen at the same time.

The kind of learning I get from watching anime isn't big breakthroughs, but of gradually making connections and hearing more words that I sort of know used in different contexts.

The obsessive attention given to subtitling opening themes and the fact they repeat every episode has taught me a number of words, though in a limited range.

Thank you, pixiebell, for clearing up the issue of formal tone and all. This doesn't change much my view of the growing complicity between Erika, Kimi and Piro, just sets the shade right. I did forget there's been a very short time in 'MT real time' since this ball started rolling. It just dawned on me that Piro hasn't got a clue how intimate is Kimiko's friendship with Erika. All he knows is that Erika once broke Kimi's nose because the latter was insisting on being a true friend (he doesn't know it was in a love hotel). We can only wonder what he made of that information.

Sorry to hear about the cold. Here's a get well note

Japanese is ENTIRELY phoenetic.

Also, A game... where you turn into a girl, and get raped by a bunch of guys, isn't exactly a good game to match English translation to voice.

Just to let you know, the translation in X-change were terrible. It was super overly simplified and there is absolutely nothing in terms of emotion or depth into how they translated it. Awww, so you incorrectly learned a bunch of Japanese by comparing terribly translated text to Japanese voice. AWESOME~

I actually disagree with this. Most anime characters do not speak very naturally. And people who pick up their Japanese primarily through anime speak rather funny. If you're going to learn Japanese through tv, I highly recommend doing so via shows targetting a more general audience, preferably with real actors.

I know everyone likes to clown on how English dubs are so bad, but how bad an English dub sounds to you is about as bad as some of these Japanese originals sound to me. Many of these voice actors seriously need acting lessons, or maybe better directors or better scripts. I've had tv running in the background as I cook, and I know when an animated show is on, because it doesn't sound like normal people conversing. Something sounds unnatural.

There is nothing phonetic about kanji's

I'm guessing, you don't know what kanji are.

Parts of kanji show the root words of the Kanji leading to the pronounciation, and meaning.

And im guessing you don't know what phonetic means.

How can a symbol for a word be phonetic? Hiragana & katakana i count as phonetic.

This post has been edited by 8051 on Jan 23 2007, 03:08 AM

English dubs mostly suck when they replace the content of the dialogues. I can understand translation and editing, but taking a crap on the content is offensive. In my own experience, at least one anime became hateful because they removed the Japanese cultural context and made the heroine into a complete clueless bimbo. I mean, 'Zoey' ?!

OTOH, yeah, anime language is chokeful of stereotypes. Comedy-based series can benefit from that, but ... after hearing it the first hundred times, hidoi suxor. All that 'I will not forgive you' becomes megaboring. And you must learn to ignore all that screaming, too. The Laws Of Anime, indeed. Murphy revisited.

Which, in my view at least, invites the question: how do either compare to the quality of voice acting in American animation? It's certainly not an exact parallel, given the differences between the two fields, but still...

Really, unless you work in translation, you really don't see how/why changes are made. Frankly Wordwarrior, everything you say is so ignorant that it's rather quite annoying.

You honestly don't think people at companies look at these series and go "HEY GUYS... let's totally change everything just to piss off a bunch of fans that have already seen this series, because that is the smartest thing to do"... do you?

For the most part, all changes are discussed... to death. If the translator is good, he will explain the context with liner notes when he makes his translations before it goes into editing. The editors need to find a balance based on, the target audience of the product, as well as keeping it realistic to the original content to where the original creator doesn't feel offended with what they're looking at. For the most part, companies now DO run by every change they make to the original company they got it from, and get their okay with major changes.

Really, culture jokes are fucking hard to translate. When I worked on Super Robot Wars/Taisen for US release. We would spend hours discussing lines and how to translate them(not even edit... just translate) them in a way the editors would even understand what the fuck was the joke trying to be portrayed.

Here was the funnest one I could think of. A move where you shoot a heat ray out. Literally translated, the line would be...

"I can see your back is covered in ash".

This is a reference and a joke based on an old mahjong term meaning "I can see read you, and know your hand". Basically, you can find a "tell" and caught it, reading them and getting the upperhand.

Now we deal with the type of character who said it, and then you have to deal with the alotted time, space, and amount of text you can fit onto the screen at once.

Now please, let me in, how does one translate that, and display the reference of the heat beam "burning" the enemy, but get the reference in of that you predicted his move...

with 24 characters a line, and a three line limit.

That... was one of the easier-hard things to translate.

How do you translate "feminine" language, and "masculine language" WHILE "polite language" and "informal" language is being used, with a character who has a speech impedement to mispronounce words ONLY when they are "polite language".

You can't. Culturally, language wise, you cannot do it. And when you have deadlines to get about 800 pages of text translated in under a month, you have to do your best to allow it to fit the culture.

All while keeping in mind... the 100% most important thing. Target audience. I bitch a lot about translation jobs, but that's because I know what they go through, and I know when something is a bad translation job compared to a good one, and to as why. You got to remember, with a lot of the shit coming out in the states, you are not the target audience. People in their mid-teens, and in a lot of cases eleventeen yearolds or younger are the target audience. I hate how much people bitch about how horrible "One-Piece" or "Pokemon" is in the US. Because GOD FORBID 4KIDS animation translate and edit things "FOR KIDS". They tone things down, they water the fuck out of it, so kids can relate.

So you can't always accept "translated work" as 100% accurate to the original. Hell, even things translated for older adults. Here's something I know Cortana used to do, and I've done it a lot myself with R1 DVD's.

Set the settings, to DUB and set the subtitles on. A lot of times, even in one single episode, they will say totally different things than the subtitles and sometimes they will be slightly changed just to make it sound better in English. Frankly, the reason why those changes are there varies, but most of them are probably justified. Maybe it's just because of a retarded editor(and I know all about retarded editors).

Pixiebell says something super important though... if you're learning Japanese from comics or cartoons, you're a fucking idiot. It'll help for basics like recognizing characters and what not, but how they speak in these are not how "adults" speak in Japan. If you want to talk like a retarded 12 yo, then by all means, that's all you.

My Japanese teacher was sorta offended that I learned almost all the Japanese I know from friends, who all speak in slang. I told her, that's how I was taught, so she asked me why I was in that class. I said "Because I want to learn how to speak properly". She was really suprised and thought a lot of me when I said that.

Parts of the symbols mean different things and sounds, hence... phoenetics

Not to add fuel to the fire or anything...but written English is nothing more than a string of symbols that are supposed to represent words...

Granted, English isn't always phonetic--it's not always anything as pretty much every rule has at least one exception--but the point is, we may not understand the rules as to how the symbols are put together to represent sound, but that doesn't mean that the symbols don't...

This post has been edited by Shotoman on Jan 23 2007, 03:34 AM

Well, I think it is hard to compare to Disney and other high budget works. Those sound much better than anything you have on tv here. Most US animation runs on a much higher budget, so they can hire better actors. The only thing really comparable I suppose would be Ghibli, but Ghibli is limited to the small pool of talent here in Japan. For example, the Disney dub of Howl was better acted than the original. Christian Bale is an actor. Kimutaku is the most popular male idol in Japan, but it doesn't mean he can act. Some people felt that that the role calls for a more "sissy" voice, making Kimutaku a better fit, even if not a very good actor.

The thinking among many US fans though seems to be that the Japanese acting is better in general. It's hard to agree with that. Some of the voice acting in Japanese animation is just so poor, especially in very low budget shows. Granted, some are also very good, but you could say that about US dubs as well.

Miyazaki supposedly said that his favorite version of Porco Rosso was the French version. That he likes this version better than his own. I saw Beauty and the Beast dubbed in French for French class in high school, and thought this was the best dub I had ever seen.

So. inspired by this, I bought the Disney soundtrack collection in Japanese. Most of our beloved princesses sound very . . middle aged. And snippets I have seen at the stores here and there suggest that watching the entire movie in Japanese would not be a constructive use of time.

The most painful Japanese voice acting jobs are not limited to animation though. If you want to watch a painful dub, watch Full House in Japanese. This show was really popular here for a while and if you wanted to murder the Olsen twins in English, that desire will only get stronger in Japanese....



As for the argument regarding kanji going on, a majority of kanji have a phonetic element that lets you know one of its readings. (Many kanji have more than one reading, but as long as you know one reading for the kanji, you can look up the rest.) It is easier for me to guess how a kanji is read than it is for me to guess its meaning. In that sense, I would say that to say that kanji is not at least somewhat phonetic is incorrect.