[ SECRET POST #4887 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #4887 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

01.



__________________________________________________



02.


__________________________________________________



03.


__________________________________________________



04.


__________________________________________________



05.


__________________________________________________



06.


__________________________________________________



07.



__________________________________________________



08.


__________________________________________________



09.














Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 03 pages, 61 secrets from Secret Submission Post #700.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 - too big ], [ 1 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[fscom]

05. https://i.imgur.com/4VNy8jC.jpg

[(Anonymous)]

I agree using random words is one thing but keeping in honorifics is IMO valid especially when you yourself admit there isn't a one-to-one translation. I mean, fuck, the official professional translations for a lot of manga leave in honorifics. You can't say you have sympathy for newer writers/fans and such and then go on to call people lazy hacks for doing something even professional translators often leave in for cultural context.

Not OP

[(Anonymous)]

IMO, just because it's "official" doesn't make it less weird. I've seen characters referring to themselves in the third person in the official, professional translation of a video game, and it just came off as very awkward. It's probably fine in eastern countries, idk, but in western countries, referring to yourself in the third person gives the impression you're weird or that you have a big ego.

On the topic of honorifics, I think it would be best to use the closest equivalent of whatever language it's being translated to. I suppose if a story were set in Japan, you might get away with "Tsukino-san." But when the story is set in, say, London? If I hear "Layton-kyōju" instead of "Professor Layton" then I will ask what the translators were smoking.

Re: Not OP

[(Anonymous)]

Oh, yeah, totally the context is important. If the characters and setting aren't meant to be Japanese that's one thing. But I think leaving them out when it's Japanese characters talking to each other in a Japanese setting it's perfectly valid to leave it in since it's an important aspect of the culture and because we know they're talking to each other in Japanese in-universe just fanfic/translation is written in English for our benefit.

How can you translate a scene where the characters decide to switch to first-name basis if you changed it to always referring to each other that way? Things like that.

Re: Not OP

[(Anonymous)]

+1 Where there IS a one-to-one translation, sure, it should be used, but in some cases, there ISN'T, and the translation genuinely loses something if it's ignored.

Re: Not OP

[(Anonymous)]

I don't know how common it is to refer to oneself in the third person in eastern languages either (granted, I don't speak all of them). Are you sure that character isn't meant to have a big ego or be somewhat unusual even in the original?

[(Anonymous)]

Personally, I think this approach would be wrong for fandom writing. Reading Japanese literature translated into English, I often feel like the translators make a lot of the dialogue too informal for what the context implies, or else go to great lengths to preserve formalities at the risk of creating awkward English sentences. Much of this is simply a convention of translated literature and we're used to it, but in bite-sized media meant to be quickly consumed like fanfic, it would wreck immersion.

[(Anonymous)]

There's a character in Fate/Grand Order, Mash, who uses senpai towards the MC and it's actually a big part of her character that she decides to call the MC this. There's even a scene where she explains why she chooses to refer to him this way. If we follow OPs logic then that aspect of her character and relationship to the MC would be entirely nerfed. So I don't really agree with them.

[(Anonymous)]

AYRT

I think professional translators would probably find ways to get around that situation (to... varying degrees of success) but honestly, I'd only put up with that kind of maneuvering in a book, where they would have room to wiggle. I'd extend what I said about fanfic to translations of games, manga, anime and whatnot as well. Especially if it's in the subtitles. Just get the point across, I don't have time.

[type_wild]

1. I hate, hate, HATE it when people write Hercule Poirot dialogue

2. Depending on canon and which version of it I came here from, I'll leave the honorifics in fic. It SAYS something that Banba calls him "Lin-chan" instead of just "Lin", and it's a distinction that can't really be replicated in English, at least not without a lot of tedious workarounds and awkwardness. I 100% think honorifics should be let out of dubs and professional translations, but in fic, there's a good chance your readers will have heard the same speech patterns and honorifics in use already.

[(Anonymous)]

This 100%. There's also the fact that in written text it doesn't look as awkward or clumsy or out of place as hearing someone butcher the pronunciation in a dub. But I think it's fine for written work like fanfic, especially since fanfic focuses so much on the relationships between characters and honorifics and such create a lot of context for those relationships.

[type_wild]

Exactly. I went over to my manga collection just to see how prevalent the honorifics usage was anyway (seems like Tokyopop did it but no-one else, so...), and it struck me that wow, there would been something almost tangible lost from Tokyo Babylon if they hadn't made the distinction between "Seishirou-san" and "Sei-chan". I'm very certain I'd prefer to LISTEN to the weirdass "Mr. Seishirou", but writing lets you imagine what the characters sound like. Honorifics doesn't detract from that, at least not to a reader who has watched enough anime to know how they carry IRL.

[(Anonymous)]

You were doing so well, and then you got to the last paragraph and revealed you're just a judgemental dickhead.

[(Anonymous)]

My thoughts exactly.

[(Anonymous)]

I lived in Japan for years and most people I know there use Japanese honorifics even when speaking English, so I don't feel like that would throw me in an English-language fic (although I've not really ever been in any anime fandoms, so I'm just guessing here). Depends what the setting is of course, but for something set in Japan it would seem more natural to me to use them, especially when there are connotations to the honorifics that are lost if you just leave them off or try to translate them.

Other random phrases or words I can see being distracting though (but even then wouldn't necessarily seem out of place to me in an actual conversation).

[(Anonymous)]

Same. All my coworkers would call me "[Name]-san" even when they were speaking to me in English, so that part doesn't feel weird to me at all.

[(Anonymous)]

Heh. If it's something that's largely understood like Japanese honorifics I'd much rather just see it than some convoluted workaround to try and convey the same thing.

[(Anonymous)]

I agree in certain cases. A lot of the fighting anime it doesn't really matter, but there are some where formality and honorifics are so very key that even official translations have them in.

For example, Rurouni Kenshin (which I do love but cannot reread now because of the author) and Fruits Basket. There's something lost in translation with at least Fruits Basket's English (albeit the new one, since I never watched the first series) dub of Tohru. It doesn't get that extreme politeness across.

That said, as someone who reads a lot of fan translations of novels/light novels, it is used as a HUGE crutch. To the point where some don't even try to translate certain phrases/do machine translation and you're just left confused.

A good translator could recognize when this is necessary and when it isn't. And a lot of fic writers don't necessarily get that. They just scatter it in, along with random phrases that do have good translations/woolyisms. So I can handle a little of it (especially in Fruits Basket fic), but am so glad it's gone down in the years since I've been in fandom.

[(Anonymous)]

I'd argue even in the shounen fighting anime while it's not as necessary it would be nice if the translators at least tried to preserve some of how the characters refer to each other because it gives insight on their personalities. One of the things that always bugged me in Viz's Bleach translations, for example, is literally all the high school characters refer to each other by their first names whereas in the original there is a noted difference between things like Ichigo bluntly using everyone's last names without honorifics vs Ishida's constant politeness to everyone *but* Ichigo, or how only Ichigo actually calls Chad 'Chad' instead of using 'Sado' (also super annoying in the subs because you can clearly tell that's not what the characters are saying. This also bugs me in Inuyasha too, it's just distracting when the subs say 'Miroku!' even though Sango clearly isn't calling him by his name and never does).

[(Anonymous)]

I agree with this a bit, but so often characters that tend toward use of "-kun" are mocked/bashed (for example Orihime's breakdown when Ichigo got totally recked with Ulquiorra and probably though he and Ishida were gonna die) and it's used for a lot of sexist bashing (mostly female characters). So I have a jerk reaction to it, even though it's important in the sense of how Ichigo relates to characters (though I feel indifference to social standings/brashness/being impolite is easier to convey in English than the opposite) and how certain characters distance or get closer. So part of me is like "yes" and part of me is like "eeeeeh."

[(Anonymous)]

Every time I see someone say that honorifics are 'basic' to translate and such the examples they always give are simple ones like '-san' or '-sensei.' Those do have perfectly functional English equivalents and yes, leaving them in can be awkward when there's a functional equivalent. But I would be interested to hear how exactly someone would translate one character suddenly using '-chan' for another, or where one character decides to stop using '-kun' to denote their relationship getting closer. The only equivalents I can think of would be even more awkward to me than keeping the honorifics. Like for the 'kun' example, I suppose you could have them switch from using the character's last name to first name, but calling someone by just their last name doesn't really have the same connotations because it's just not the same concept in english, in high school I knew plenty of guys who were called by their last names by close friends and it was a sign of affection rather than distance. Whereas dropping the 'kun' is a deliberate and unmistakable sign of the relationship status changing that just switching from last to first name doesn't really convey in the same way.

[(Anonymous)]

Exactly. Another example is the use of san and kun by school students. It's not like they're going to call another student Mr (surname).

[meadowphoenix]

not all translations are regionalized OP. prioritizing regional understandings is just as valid as prioritizing meaning (which might require leaving in location specific terms if context gives the audience enough understanding) and no they are not the same.

[(Anonymous)]

Personally, I don't mind honorifics being left untranslated, and it doesn't break my reader immersion or anything. Tangentially, I prefer Russian diminutives being kept in translations to English, too— I was surprised when I read a newer translation of a book I'd read before (in a translation that had not kept the diminutives) because it was like a whole new aspect of the characters' relationships.

[mudousetsuna]

I respectfully disagree. I don't enjoy when it is omitted, if it's in a canon culture that the honorifics are shown. Now it wouldn't make sense in a magical series in another world, but if the characters are Japanese or an equivalent of such, to me it feels off and jars me out of the immersion of the characters. I feel it loses a nuance that yes, I can feel and hear when I listen in Japanese. The fact that I speak and read English doesn't mean that I'm incapable of understanding the equivalent, it is purely my preference to stick to it.