[ SECRET POST #5479 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #5479 ⌋

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


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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 12 secrets from Secret Submission Post #784.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[fscom]

02. https://i.imgur.com/2ADA2V2.jpg

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah, I don't think you're wrong.

[(Anonymous)]

I don't doubt you but there are still people who understand the source language and prefer genuine honorifics because, yes, they do convey a nuance that many western naming customs don't cover. Chinese style names are, as far as I can tell, even more nuanced and subtle than ye old sama/san/kun distinction so if that nuance is important, keep it and include notes on why the character is using it that way. there's nothing wrong with people in other cultures learning things.

[(Anonymous)]

Exactly. All languages have words and phrases that simply don't translate well, often because there are very specific cultural nuances attached to them. Rather than translating it and losing the nuance, it's usually better to just leave the word or phrase as it is and put in a note explaining the significance.

+1

[(Anonymous)]

I don't speak Chinese, but if a honorific or term of address has a nuance you cannot easily render in English, I'd rather it be kept in the original language and explained in a glossary or a footnote, because the other way loses nuance. If I can learn and remember what the fuck mithril or a silmaril are, or what a daemon is, I sure as hell can remember what "shijie" or "daozhang" mean. Christ.

Re: +1

[(Anonymous)]

Additionally, if I can remember the two to three names every character each goes by, I can remember one or two honorifics as well.

[(Anonymous)]

Shrug. Sometimes those short-syllable honorifics convey a *lot* of information about how characters feel they relate to each other. While there are times when there's an easy English equivalent, sometimes translating is clunky at best. (Alternatively, I can use other markers - formality of language etc. - but, well. That can get clunky, too.)

When I'm writing fic, 'how characters feel they relate to each other' comes up a good deal. If there's an easy English equivalent I'll use it, sure - but if the fandom is already familiar with these terms, then senpai, shixiong, and gege are all fair game.

[(Anonymous)]

It's also a really good way to subtly convey a change in relationship whether it be closer or further away. Like, in English, you'd just say Name no matter what. But Name-chan, Name-kun, Name-san, and just Name all have varying levels of closeness.

[(Anonymous)]

da but exactly. Something like dropping an honorific is a big deal in terms of relationship closeness, for example.

[(Anonymous)]

If the only way you show your audience that a relationship has changed is by changing what the characters call each other, you're a terrible writer.

[(Anonymous)]

Following a different culture's conventions for addressing people is not being a terrible writer. Names are a big fucking deal in a lot of cultures and how people use them matters a lot.

[(Anonymous)]

This. Feels a bit weird that my preference might make someone assume I'm a cultural appropriating fetishist, LOL!

[(Anonymous)]

I don't think it's fetishism for the majority of the people who get insistent about honorifics, I think their lack of understanding of the language and the explanations they hear, often from native speakers, make them believe for real that the words are more unique than they really are.

And I've seen many cases where a native speaker may not consider the word necessary to keep in a translation, but at the same time they'll explain their reason as "Well it means *explanation of the meaning* but there's no word for that in English and you wouldn't understand it," almost in this patronizing tone of "This word is too deep for you, so just make do without it in your English translation, which will inevitably lose a big part of the original nuance, but that's just how it has to be, siiigh." TBH this happens with words in all kinds of languages, not just honorifics in East Asian languages.

SA

[(Anonymous)]

Oh look, my point has been proven by the comments that got posted as I was typing this lmao

Re: SA

[(Anonymous)]

Has it?

Re: SA

[(Anonymous)]

No it hasn't. Some honorifics do in fact carry a boatload of nuance that can get lost in translation. No amount of you thinking someone pointing this out is pretentious will change that.

[(Anonymous)]

I mean, honestly? I think it's because once you've experienced a couple translations that keep them, you pick them up like you would any new word (i.e., enthusiastically, naturally, and not entirely accurately.) And once you've adopted them into your personal lexicon, it seems pointless and awkward to try to work around them. People don't think about it that way so the justifications are usually bad, but I've read plenty of books and watched plenty of shows in English that expected me to pick up new honorifics and naming customs on the fly, so why not.

[(Anonymous)]

This isn't just limited to Asian languages though. Just take the tons of international noble titles that sometimes can't be translated into English because they never existed in Britain. Or have different meanings than their English counterparts re:standing in society or function depending on the country. You wouldn't just drop them in a translation, nor would you just translate them with something kinda similar but not the exactly correct title.

Do translators that work with historical texts set in Europe fetishize those titles as well in you opinion or do you reserve that derision for Asian languages? Because that just sounds like you are the one putting those Asian languages on a pedestal and othering them unnecessarily.

[(Anonymous)]

Non-English titles do get translated imperfectly into English, and so do other words to something that someone deemed their closest English equivalent. What makes it work is context. Translations can and do, for example, use the word "king" to describe the ruler of any country or collection of people with some form of lineage-based rulership, even if it doesn't really match the rules of the British monarchy. They don't have to, but it's worked and been understood without confusion because people know it's not talking about a British king and the rules are bound to be different. Using the exact word in its native language wouldn't add or take anything from the translation.

[(Anonymous)]

Depends a LOT on whether this is a literary translation or an academic one.

[(Anonymous)]

You know, a good way to tell could be to see how they feel about it from the other direction-- translations of English or other non-East Asian works into one of those languages. Do they care if a high school freshman who called their upperclassman by their first name addresses them as Name-senpai or just Senpai in the translation? After all, American culture doesn't have "senpai" as a concept, right? So wouldn't that be changing the nuance of the original too? Or does it make it better than the original, in their opinion?

[(Anonymous)]

Also if you're wondering, yes, this does happen and it's normal. Younger siblings also get rewritten as addressing their older siblings by titles like Onee-san instead of their names.

[(Anonymous)]

Not an Asian language but we have this issue in my country a lot: The decision when to make two characters use the formal version of "you" when talking to each other, and when not to do it when translating from a language that doesn't have a formal version of "you". Which can be pretty hit-and-miss.

The thing is: There is no real 100 % fixed rule for everything and even (or rather especially) professional translators actually disagree on a lot of these things as well. Translation is not only a technically difficult craft, it also massively depends on the translator's personal opinions and taste.

[(Anonymous)]

that was my first thought, back when i still consumed translated stuff i often felt bothered by what i felt was inappropriate translation of "you" a lot. the way a person uses formal/informal "you" can convey a lot about their personality, about what they think of the person they're talking to, in what context they know the person etc. so it's inevitable that it will depend on the translator's interpretation of all of these things.

like, i've been going to the same grocery store for 10 years and i still get tripped up on whether i address the cashiers as formal or informal! it's a really hard thing to decide for a translation

[(Anonymous)]

I find that quite often the point of a translation - as in making something understandable for non-native speakers and communicating in a way they can understand - gets lost in the need to be 'accurate' which I guess is near to your point.

This often leads to wordy, barely intelligible translations that do nothing to meet the goals of communication. And it's not helped by the people who continually harp on about language limitations in English, especially those I've never seen demonstrate any kind of extensive vocabulary that even indicates they understand the richness of the English lexicon.