Thoughts on translation: subtitles and fic practices

[nnozomi]

I’ve been meaning to put up something about translation, and lately I was talking with china_shop about titles in Guardian fic (titles for people, that is, not fics) and with nineveh_uk and azdak about weird subtitle translations, so I figure now is the time. Come and talk to me about problems (or solutions) with subtitles in C- or K- or J-dramas, and how you deal with, or prefer writers to deal with, similar issues in fic. (Not necessarily limited to Chinese/Korean/Japanese etc.! Anything goes.)
I think what I do in fic, and would prefer in other people’s fic and in subtitles, is to translate when I feel like it can be done without losing anything, and otherwise to romanize—Momokan to Coach Momo, Hei Pao Shi to the Black-Cloaked Envoy and so on, versus Chu-ge, Chiaki-sempai, Abe-kun, Xiao Bai (also known as Si-mei, but that’s harder, see below). (I turned on the English subtitles for the Lost Tomb thing to check a particular line, and was somewhat horrified to find “Xiao San-ye” translated as “Mr. Third Junior.” Which is…not actually wrong, but irredeemably clunky, and it’s a shame because that particular nickname/title is an amazing shorthand for Wu Xie’s local prestige/authority, his…to-be-protectedness?, and his connection to Sanshu.)

The sibling words are a headache all their own, especially in Chinese, somewhat in Korean, slightly in Japanese. Even though period/fantasy gives you some leeway, Wei Wuxian might tease Lan Wangji with “Lan-er-gege” but no one will take him seriously if he starts saying “Second Big Brother Lan”; Lan Wangji’s own register is so formal that he could probably get away with calling Lan Xichen “Brother” or “Older Brother” in English, but it still sounds a lot more natural to me for him to say “Xiongzhang.” And that’s before you get into “didi” and “da-ge” and “a-jie” and so on and so forth, and those are people who are related, more or less. Guo Changcheng is characterized in part by his tendency to call his coworkers “ge” and “jie,” but if there’s a way to do that in English, I sure don’t know it. (Even in Japanese, he would quite possibly use “sempai” but he wouldn’t use “oniisan” or “aneki” or whatever in the workplace; not a pan-Northeast-Asian thing.)

Honorific language, pronoun use, dialects. The classic thing in Guardian is in the bomb episode when Zhao Yunlan, annoyed with Shen Wei (for absolutely justifiable reasons, granted), nastily calls him the honorific 您 instead of the usual 你 second person, making Shen Wei protest “Don’t be that way.” There must be a lot of other incidences of this, probably even more in Korean and Japanese, but I can't think of any just now, ideas?

Translation into Japanese etc.—I always like seeing what people do with the pronouns. (My go-to explanation for non-Japanese speakers about the difference between the two male first-person pronouns “boku” and “ore” is “Luke Skywalker versus Han Solo,” and it usually gets through.) For readers of The Westing Game, in the scene where 17-year-old Theo is giving a semi-formal speech, he says “I’d like to explain why my partner and me…my partner and I…called this meeting,” and the Japanese translation has him say 俺、じゃなくて僕… switching from “ore,” teenage casual speech, to “boku,” more formal and polite. Brilliant. Years and years ago I read a Japanese translation of Anne McCaffrey’s Dragonquest in which F’lar uses 私 in a formal meeting, 僕 to Lessa and 俺 to his dragon; hat off to translator.

(Almost completely unrelated: I saw an Untamed fic summary recently about how Nie Huaisang basically invents the fantasy-ancient-China makeup industry, and I am so regretful that the author didn’t choose to call it “The Rouge Cultivator.”)
Tell me how you think about all this! Any languages, any context.

Comments

[falkner]

> “The Rouge Cultivator.”

You're an absolute genius.

[nnozomi]

:) I mean, the author might not have wanted to give in to the silly pun? I wouldn't have been able to resist...

[china_shop]

Yay for this post! I'm too tired to be entirely sensible right now, so I'll come back tomorrow with more thoughts, but I just wanted to say:

I think what I do in fic, and would prefer in other people’s fic and in subtitles, is to translate when I feel like it can be done without losing anything, and otherwise to romanize—Momokan to Coach Momo, Hei Pao Shi to the Black-Cloaked Envoy and so on

Black-Cloaked Envoy works okay for me in narration,[1] but once I get into dialogue, I usually want a way to distinguish between Hei Pao Shi and Hei Lao-ge that doesn't involve "bro" -- though, granted, now I come to think of it, I could probably use Lord Hei Pao Shi rather than Hei Pao Shi Daren. (Note to self!) And once I'm using Hei Lao-ge, it seems wrong to alternate that with Black-Cloaked Envoy, at least in dialogue. If you know what I mean?

Similarly, it's useful to use -ge so you can distinguish it from -xiong. I love all the nuance and inferred meaning behind the different address forms (even if I only understand a fraction of them), and translation tends to flatten.


ETA: [1] But even in narration, I find Black-Cloaked Envoy a little unwieldy. It doesn't flow in English, the way it does in Chinese, you know? Hei Pao Shi, which is in the same form as a name (at least wrt its three-characterness) becomes this clunky, hard to pronounce collection of consonant clusters: Black-cloaked. (Imagine transliterating that into Korean! 블래크 클로크드!) Which is why I keep abbreviating it to the Envoy, even though that's less accurate and inappropriately informal.

And as I said to you the other day, I keep thinking about -- *checks* yes, teaotter talking to a Chinese-translating friend about it, and saying that one possible conclusion is that Hei Pao Shi is a name, just like Batman is, and therefore shouldn't be translated. I mean, it's not like there have been a series of Envoys, all with the same title. It's not like Chief of the SID. And Batman gets transliterated, not converted to [word for bat]+[word for person/man], right? So in some ways, I'd probably prefer if it we called him Hei Pao Shi more in narration, and mostly I don't because of conventions in the fandom.

I also think that in fandom we can get away with more transliterations because we're all familiar with and share the same source material (the various versions of the subs, notwithstanding). If you were writing original fic for a general audience, and you had Hei Pao Shi as a character, there'd be a lot more implicit pressure to translate, because otherwise you'd need a glossary. But in fanfic, the reader brings a lot of tacit knowledge about/from the source to the fic, even for those of us who don't know a single character of Chinese. And using those Chinese address terms like lao- and xiao- is a useful reminder that this is a Chinese drama fandom when, in this corner of online fandom, the gravitational pull of North American norms can be mighty. :-)

Also, separate point, I'm most likely to use "my Black-Cloaked Friend" or "his younger brother" (rather than Didi) in fanfic when I'm trying to obscure my identity for the purposes of anon periods in exchanges. Heh.

[nnozomi]

I usually want a way to distinguish between Hei Pao Shi and Hei Lao-ge that doesn't involve "bro" -- though, granted, now I come to think of it, I could probably use Lord Hei Pao Shi rather than Hei Pao Shi Daren. (Note to self!) And once I'm using Hei Lao-ge, it seems wrong to alternate that with Black-Cloaked Envoy, at least in dialogue. If you know what I mean?
That makes a lot of sense. I tend to want to use the English because I find the word "Envoy" evocative, but who knows whether that's the right reaction? I've used "Brother Black" for "Hei Lao-ge" once or twice, but as you say I think that depends on the reader having a sense of the source word, otherwise it just sounds monk-like... . (The only characters in Guardian I would allow to use "bro" are the college boys who attack Zhang Ruonan, it is not a word I care for much.)
lol, that Hangul, I see what you mean. I almost like the unwieldiness of the English "Black-Cloaked Envoy," though, just because you have to slow down and pronounce it formally; it's a little bit removed from everyday language. Also, we tend to say "the Regent" instead of 摂政官？forgotten his Chinese? and "the Lord Guardian" instead of 領主 (likewise), so I like the titles as exceptions. All that said, I've never been bothered by finding Hei Pao Shi in a fic...

Similarly, it's useful to use -ge so you can distinguish it from -xiong. I love all the nuance and inferred meaning behind the different address forms (even if I only understand a fraction of them), and translation tends to flatten.
Yes! I was thinking while writing other comments as well that this whole conversation is by definition biased, because we're all language fanciers who are likely to find source-language words interesting and engaging when used in subtitles or fic, as a source of linguistic/cultural pleasure as well as the rest; presumably not everyone reacts that way, but you couldn't prove it by me. :)

Also, separate point, I'm most likely to use "my Black-Cloaked Friend" or "his younger brother" (rather than Didi) in fanfic when I'm trying to obscure my identity for the purposes of anon periods in exchanges. Heh.
ha! You have now given yourself away, of course, and will have to find new synonyms :) I know what you mean, though. It can be kind of fun searching for those particular linguistic habits...

Edited (so much blather
I will happily chatter back and forth about this kind of thing for ever, so please feel free to go on at length any time!

[china_shop]

I almost like the unwieldiness of the English "Black-Cloaked Envoy," though, just because you have to slow down and pronounce it formally; it's a little bit removed from everyday language.

*nodnod* It's pretty unwieldy to use repeatedly in narration, though. :-)

Also, we tend to say "the Regent" instead of 摂政官？forgotten his Chinese? and "the Lord Guardian" instead of 領主 (likewise), so I like the titles as exceptions.

Oh, interesting point. Personally I'd almost prefer a transliteration for the Regent, because I have issues with "Regent" (given the king is technically on the throne), but I don't know it and I'm not sure anyone would recognise it. (I quite liked Justiciar, from the original subs -- has a great archaic ring and seems more accurate. Maybe I should go back to that. *g*) Anyway, the Regent and the Lord Guardian seem more title-ish than the Black-Cloaked Envoy to me. Shen Wei had the epithet before he had the role, and if he were to be replaced as Envoy for some reason, I don't think the replacement would dress the same or be addressed the same, unless it was a deliberate attempt to fool people.[1] They'd just be the Dixing Ambassador. Whereas the Lord Guardian title is (I assume) automatically bestowed on SID chiefs.

[1] Oh, now I want angsty post-canon fic where Chu Shuzhi is promoted to the position of Dixing Ambassador and has to decide how he wants to be addressed and how to present himself... whether he'd change his outfit/title in homage or reinvent the role... (Though I presume his usual mode of dress is already an homage.)

ha! You have now given yourself away, of course, and will have to find new synonyms :)

Hee! Well, there's a limited range of options within the fandom.

I will happily chatter back and forth about this kind of thing for ever, so please feel free to go on at length any time!

♥ ♥ ♥

[nnozomi]

"Justiciar" is good, I like that. I'll have to look up how close etymologically it is to "dispenser of justice," which does not seem to be the Regent's strong point...

angsty post-canon fic where Chu Shuzhi is promoted to the position of Dixing Ambassador and has to decide how he wants to be addressed and how to present himself
ooh, interesting, I would definitely read that. One reason I like "Envoy" in English is because it can mean "ambassador" but also suggests more possible nuances...

[trobadora]

But even in narration, I find Black-Cloaked Envoy a little unwieldy. It doesn't flow in English, the way it does in Chinese, you know? Hei Pao Shi, which is in the same form as a name (at least wrt its three-characterness) becomes this clunky, hard to pronounce collection of consonant cluster

That's so weird to me, becasue "Black-Cloaked Envoy" sounds so beautiful to me!

[umadoshi]

but once I get into dialogue, I usually want a way to distinguish between Hei Pao Shi and Hei Lao-ge that doesn't involve "bro" -- though, granted, now I come to think of it, I could probably use Lord Hei Pao Shi rather than Hei Pao Shi Daren. (Note to self!) And once I'm using Hei Lao-ge, it seems wrong to alternate that with Black-Cloaked Envoy, at least in dialogue. If you know what I mean?

I'm wrestling with this right now in the fic I'm about to send to beta--I've been using "Black-Cloaked Envoy" (although I think it may have only come up once in fics I've already posted, so depending on what I do in this current one, I may go change it in the posted one), but I have a line that relies on ZYL's casual nickname. So now I have to settle on "Hei Lao-ge" vs. "Brother Black", and I really don't like the "Brother Black" translation but don't have anything better. Gah.

[china_shop]

If I have to translate, my preferred option is "my Black-Cloaked Friend", which I think carries the spirit of Hei Lao-ge, in English, better than "Brother Black" does. But I tend to prefer transliteration, given the fannish context. /my 2 cents :-)

[cyphomandra]

My go-to explanation for non-Japanese speakers about the difference between the two male first-person pronouns “boku” and “ore” is “Luke Skywalker versus Han Solo,” and it usually gets through.

I remember reading a discussion about a character in a manga (I think Atobe in Prince of Tennis, one of those fandoms I only encountered via fic) who used “ore-sama”, which was described as “thinking you were all that and a bag of chips”, which I loved as an explanation :D

If I’m reading something translated from Japanese that’s set in Japan I do like having pronouns, but I’m not sure I notice if they aren’t there, especially if it’s another setting.

[nnozomi]

“ore-sama”, which was described as “thinking you were all that and a bag of chips”, which I loved as an explanation :D
Excellent! I'm pretty sure I've never heard anyone use it unironically in real life, because wow would people side-eye you; maybe as a joke once in a while.
(I can occasionally tell that my husband is getting around to asking a favor when he switches from "ore" to "boku"...)

[azdak]

Thinking about it, this particular issue perfectly encapsulates the difference between the "find the closest equivalent in the target language" and the "bend the target language to fit the mould of the original language" schools of translation theory. There is obviously a huge amount of cultural and emotional information conveyed by the use of honorifics and, equally obviously, English simply can't do that, so the translator is faced with a choice: do I just lose all this information for the sake of a translation that flows seamlessly, or am I willing to interrupt the flow in order to keep at least some of the information? Indeed, do I regard throwing the reader slightly off keel as a positive advantage because it opens their mind to linguistic and cultural possibilities outside the scope of the target language? I must admit that in my own fic (Nirvana in Fire fandom) I tend to come down on the side of finding the closest equivalent in English - in one, I opted for "cousin Jingyan" as the term used by close-ish relatives because (a) I don't think we ever hear anyone in canon call him any thing but Jingyan, so there isn't a pre-existing association with, say Jingyan-gege, and (b) I didn't feel up to navigating the minefield of who would have called him dage, gege, whatever the Chinese term for little brother is, and so on. It gets a bit harder where in canon a particular honorific is part of the characterisation (eg Nihuang's use of Lin Shu-gege and Fei Liu's of Su-gege), and here I would stick with not translating at all, because that particular form of address is already in the reader's ear and feels almost like a name. But what I absolutely don't want to do is scatter a sheen of minimal knowledge of Chinese honorifics over a fic in a way that makes them distract from the actual story (and would probably end being not quite right anyway. Many years ago I used to be in The Man from UNCLE fandom, and I've lost count of the number of fics I've read where "Illya Nickovetch" would be used as an affectionate mode of address, whereas in fact first name + patronymic is the equivalent of "Mr Kuryakin" in Russian. It would be so embarrassing to commit a similar error with Chinese and I simply don't know enough to be able to tell if I've got it wrong).

[nnozomi]

so the translator is faced with a choice: do I just lose all this information for the sake of a translation that flows seamlessly, or am I willing to interrupt the flow in order to keep at least some of the information?
Excellent way to put it. It's also probably even harder in subtitling, where everything is time-dependent, like a midway point between translation and interpretation...at least in a fic you can say the hell with it and put footnotes/endnotes in if needed.

do I regard throwing the reader slightly off keel as a positive advantage because it opens their mind to linguistic and cultural possibilities outside the scope of the target language?
In a way I have a hard time being objective about this, because my reaction is usually "ooh! language stuff I can learn about!", so I'm not sure how more use of source-language words in fic would come off to someone who is more inclined to feel "stop throwing me out of the story with words I don't know."

I am saving Nirvana in Fire for a rainy day (it's high on my list of C-dramas to watch one day, but I'm a very slow and hesitant watcher of visual canons), so I don't know the details, but your logic makes sense to me, especially distinguishing between familiar titles used in canon and making them up out of the blue.

Many years ago I used to be in The Man from UNCLE fandom, and I've lost count of the number of fics I've read where "Illya Nickovetch" would be used as an affectionate mode of address, whereas in fact first name + patronymic is the equivalent of "Mr Kuryakin" in Russian
Oh dear! I know just enough to pick that one up. I've occasionally just been too tempted to play with Chinese etc. to resist, and stuck in an author's note saying "please let me know if I've got it wrong..."

[marycrawford]

I know, the Lost Tomb subs drive me crazy - I SO WANT all the nicknames and it would be better not to translate them for me, especially if it means WX doesn't get called "Naive" and "Mr Third Junior". The translations are so clunky and do nothing to get the flavor - and I don't speak any Chinese but what I want is that nuance. I love hearing WX's uncle call him "Xiao Xie" and the subs don't even mention it, sigh.

I like using "Black Cloaked Envoy" because it feels like a title, but when it comes to ZYL's unique variations - well, then I'm back at "Hei Lao-ge" because I see no way to translate that and keep the flavor.

I wish English had formal you versus informal you - my own language has that, and I really miss it. It would give so much more intimacy when a character switches from one to the other...

[tinny]

There are subs that at least have the worst parts auto-replaced. So Wu Xie is Wu Xie always, and Xiaoge is Xiaoge, and Pangzi is Pangzi.

I forget what we agreed on for Mr. Third Junior... I think it was Third Young Master. Still clunky, but we couldn't come up with anything better.

The viki subs at least have some of that, but not all, sadly.

[nnozomi]

omigod, honestly they use "Naive"? Oh dear. And "Tianzhen" is such a great nickname as it is.

but what I want is that nuance. I love hearing WX's uncle call him "Xiao Xie" and the subs don't even mention it, sigh.
Yes! I mean, the Lost Tomb thing is probably a subtitler's nightmare because it's all nicknames (I'm afraid to wonder what they do with "Xiazi")--and nicknames of nicknames! Huo Daofu is "Xiao Huo" to Wu Xie and "Dr. Youtiao" to Pangzi (yet another one--"Youtiao Yisheng"? "Dr. Fried Dough"? oy). Pangzi himself gets called Pang-ge and Pang-shu and Pang-ye and si-Pangzi and once in a while Wang Yueban depending on who's talking to him in what context, and Wu Xie is Tianzhen and Xiao Xie and Xiao San-ye (and Pangzi tries to get Xiao Bai to call them er-ge and san-ge, only she doesn't bite), and...a pain to reflect in English but SO WORTH IT.

I like using "Black Cloaked Envoy" because it feels like a title, but when it comes to ZYL's unique variations - well, then I'm back at "Hei Lao-ge" because I see no way to translate that and keep the flavor.
Yes, I think I've basically avoided "Hei Lao-ge" because it's so hard that way--"Brother Black" a couple of times, although that sounds like a monk...

I wish English had formal you versus informal you - my own language has that, and I really miss it. It would give so much more intimacy when a character switches from one to the other...
you know what, I did not know English wasn't your first language. Now I'm curious about which version of the formal/informal divide you have. (Also I was reminded of something from the Japanese writer I used to study, Chujo Yuriko, writing in 1929 to her Russian-speaking girlfriend: "You know, I hear people in London say “you” to anyone, no matter how intimate they may be, as if they were reciting something by heart; I miss [Russian informal] t’i or [Japanese informal] omae.")

[trobadora]

Question: Are these changed subtitles available somewhere?

[marycrawford]

I didn't make them, so I don't want to presume...

[trobadora]

It's so difficult! I don't know what I'm doing half the time. And when I first got into Guardian fandom I was so frustrated that there seemed to be no established translation conventions for these things.

I think what I do in fic, and would prefer in other people’s fic and in subtitles, is to translate when I feel like it can be done without losing anything, and otherwise to romanize

Yes, totally agreed! Not a clear line at all, alas - when do you start losing something? how much loss is acceptable? Hell if I know. Like, I'm totally for "Black-Cloaked Envoy", except when I'm not, and I still don't know when exactly I use Hei Pao Shi instead. Or when I go for something like "Lord Envoy" as a form of address, which doesn't even have a full equivalent in canon, but just works so well in English! Ugh.

and was somewhat horrified to find “Xiao San-ye” translated as “Mr. Third Junior.” Which is…not actually wrong, but irredeemably clunky

Right???? Also, the many times the subtitles just entirely gloss over what the characters call each other, like ever time someone says "Xiaoge" and it's subtitled as "Kylin". (Which in turn is already a transcription of his name - 起灵, Qiling, not Qilin - that I'm not sure I'm on board with ...)

Totally agreed on the sibling words, and when you get to things like "shijie" it becomes totally hopeless. "Older martial sister"? No, thanks. But it matters that that's what Wei Wuxian calls her, and shows his position in that family. (And is part of the reason, no doubt, why people don't take Jiang Yanli seriously when she claims him as her didi.)

I'm not sure even about completely (non-clunkily) translatable titles/forms of address either. I mean, in German translations we often use "Mr" etc. when something is set in the US/UK, and English texts use "Monsieur/Madame" sometimes, etc., and I don't know where to draw the line. So I go by what feels right, which may change from one day or text to the next. *g*

The classic thing in Guardian is in the bomb episode when Zhao Yunlan, annoyed with Shen Wei (for absolutely justifiable reasons, granted), nastily calls him the honorific 您 instead of the usual 你 second person

That is such a great detail in a great scene! And so difficult to translate.

Like, German has formal and informal "you", but you couldn't map those onto the Chinese pronouns, and my first instinct would be to go for something more archaic in this case (Ihr rather than Sie, maybe a mocking "Euer Gnaden"), but then you introduce another element that's not present in the original.

and I am so regretful that the author didn’t choose to call it “The Rouge Cultivator.”

OMG!!!!! :D :D :D

[nnozomi]

And when I first got into Guardian fandom I was so frustrated that there seemed to be no established translation conventions for these things.
Now that you mention it, this is true. I was a little bit used to that from short forays into manga-based fic writing, but in Japanese I'm confident enough to pick and choose my own translation conventions, not so in Chinese, God knows.

Also, the many times the subtitles just entirely gloss over what the characters call each other, like ever time someone says "Xiaoge" and it's subtitled as "Kylin"
I chattered at marycrawford above a LOT about nicknames in the Lost Tomb thing, but basically everyone has one, don't they? Sometimes three (six! nine!). Definitely a subtitler's headache, although that said they could have done so much better, especially because the wealth of nicknames is part of the fun and a lot of the characterization of the relationships. (Bai Haotian = Xiao Bai, Bai-jingli, si-mei and so on depending on who's talking to her, just for one, plus once when Wu Xie gets annoyed and says "Haotian-tongzhi!").

and when you get to things like "shijie" it becomes totally hopeless.
As you say--it looks like most fics just say "shijie" and people know what it means, and I can't imagine a translation that would be both effective and natural; I feel like that applies to a lot of the xianxia stuff.

my first instinct would be to go for something more archaic in this case (Ihr rather than Sie, maybe a mocking "Euer Gnaden"), but then you introduce another element that's not present in the original.
still, it would be closer than you can get in English, I think--translating the spirit of the thing. That one is particularly tough because he has to be saying something specific there for Shen Wei to react to in his next line. I might do something like "After you, honored Professor," which is not great either... Interesting to hear how German and other languages might cope.

[trobadora]

Haha, yes, TLTR is all nicknames, all the time! Lots of people only have nicknames! Which makes it especially tragic when the subtitles are bad about them.

[nnozomi]

Too true. (I really want to know if Chuchu's real name is Chu Chu, first and last name, like the pianist Lang Lang, or if she has a last name we never hear about, or... aargh.)
(also I have no idea what the deal with various subtitle versions is, hopefully at some point everybody can have nice things? no clue. I'm sticking to the Chinese ones for the moment myself.)

[trobadora]

Oh, yeah, good point about Chuchu! No clue.

And I so envy you the ability to read the Chinese subs! (Are there Chinese softsubs around somewhere, do you know?)

[tinny]

Yes, the iqiyi version has Chinese softsubs (among a lot of other languages). You can download them with a subtitle downloader. Although the only one I got to work was downsub.com, which is not the nicest site. But it works.

[trobadora]

Oh, cool, I knew iQiyi had them but I didn't know you could download them!

[tinny]

I'm pretty sure Chuchu is a nickname (it means "cute"), although I guess with the propensity for Chinese people to name their girls with cutesy double-syllable names, one could imagine that it is her real name.

The author didn't bother giving her one. :( Afaik, her canon name is "mute girl" - which is at least in line with "Glasses" and "Sleeveless Jacket" as character names.

hopefully at some point everybody can have nice things?

This! Made me laugh! :D

[nnozomi]

I think the glimpse of Chuchu's company we got said its name was Chu-something Corporation (Chuyun?), which I guessed might be a mix of her name and her brother's, but it could just as well be her nickname. aagh, Nanpai Sanshu, have more sympathy for people writing fic, please!

[umadoshi]

I have SO MANY FEELINGS about this, and not enough time right to comment properly. But. SO MANY FEELINGS. I'll try to remember to stop by again later!

[nnozomi]

No hurry/no pressure, I'll look forward to hearing your ideas any time that works for you :)

Long comment is long

[umadoshi]

^_^

(I'm focusing entirely on things like honorifics/titles here; in terms of regular nouns and whatnot, I'm generally in favor of translating them whenever reasonably possible, but even that's very much a spectrum. Like, I would say "hot spring" instead of "onsen", sure, but do we then use "raw fish" instead of "sashimi"? Clearly not. But there's a lot of gray area between those things where we don't necessarily have a tidy corresponding word and also haven't adopted the loanword.)

So first off, I think of translation choices and fic practices (when writing fic for a canon where I don't speak the source language) as distinct things, although obviously they're very closely related and overlap heavily. One is "how can I convey what the writer wanted to say?" and the other is "how can I convey what I want to say as a writer?" To me, the former is far more complex because there's a whole extra layer of responsibility in there (to both the writer and the audience) and because there's going to be so much nuance and potential for playfulness the language use that there just won't be in anything I write myself in English.

Like, as a fic writer I make similar choices to the ones I would in working on a subtitle script, because I personally believe that a lot of honorifics just don't translate well/smoothly, but I'm also not going to be trying to do anything especially subtle with the Chinese or Japanese nuances in my own fic.

(I hope this all makes sense--I have time to write a comment now, but am not quite awake yet!)

In terms of translation, this is all something I wrestle with professionally as a manga rewriter. (Emphasis on NOT A TRANSLATOR; I don't speak Japanese, which on the one hand sucks, but on the other hand means I'm very much approaching my own work with an eye to how it'll read to an English-speaking audience, while doing all I can to retain nuance [I ask the translators a lot of questions].) Since I've worked for multiple publishers and their various house style guides are very different, I have a lot of hands-on experience with both approaches to honorifics--some publishers always retain them (in series that are actually set in Japan) and others only keep them if they're "necessary" (which is a call made by the editorial department).

And coming from that perspective, my personal feeling both on the creative side and the audience side is that I generally have an extremely strong preference for retaining things like honorifics from the source language. Often the basic everyday honorifics/titles can be approximated in English, or dropped entirely (as in stories set in high schools, where it reads much more naturally in English to drop the students' use of "-san" or "-kun" etc. entirely rather than try to turn it into them addressing each other as "Miss [x]"...but as soon as you get into any kind of playfulness or characters changing how they address each other, which happens ALL THE TIME in manga, at least, your nuance is out the window, because English rarely happens to conveniently have anything natural-sounding that corresponds to the specific change.

Without going into specific examples, I can say that, when house style dictates not generally retaining honorifics, I've dealt with situations where:

a) characters switch how they address each other late in the story in ways that can't just be reflected by tweaking the form of address in the English version, resulting in a fairly significant change from the literal meaning of their original dialogue (in just a couple of scenes, fortunately) in order to convey the emotional shift and what the change actually reflects about their relationships

and/or b) characters use cutesy or clever variations on everyday honorifics to indicate playfulness or subtle roleplay or any manner of things and we wind up retaining those specific honorifics and footnoting them even though the overall dialogue doesn't have the everyday ones at all, because there HAS to be something there in the English.

(IMO, manga is a pretty extreme example for this sort of discussion, but for reasons that are relevant to any episodic source material. If someone's translating a standalone novel, they can read the entire thing first and see where potential pitfalls or tricky bits are and do the work with that in mind all along; if you know that characters are going to make significant changes to how they address each other, you can make all your decisions in advance. But that's frequently impossible in episodic stories, and retaining at least a reasonable set of honorifics/titles/etc. makes it much less likely that you'll have to do damage control partway through when it's too late to go back and change what you did in the first half.)

(And then there're other similar challenges, like when a character refers to themselves in third person in Japanese, which happens a lot in manga. Is it going to "mean something" later? Is there a rhyme or reason to when they suddenly drop in and out of it and use first person? Is there, heaven forbid, a multi-page conversation in your final volume where a character is asked and then explains WHY they use third person, and God help you if you switched that character to speaking in first person all along? Because there's almost always going to be SOMETHING. But is there any way for a character to refer to themselves in third person that sounds at all natural in English? Nope.

For myself, I will absolutely keep the stilted feel of that third-person speech in English in order to hang onto the significance of it fluctuating and to avoid needing to massively tweak major emotional scenes to work around our own translation choices. But it's frustrating, because there's that constant reminder to the reader that they're ~reading a translation~, when my job is literally to make things read so naturally in English that you can almost forget it's not the original version.)

Re: Long comment is long

[nnozomi]

Long comment is much appreciated! :)

One is "how can I convey what the writer wanted to say?" and the other is "how can I convey what I want to say as a writer?" To me, the former is far more complex because there's a whole extra layer of responsibility in there (to both the writer and the audience) and because there's going to be so much nuance and potential for playfulness the language use that there just won't be in anything I write myself in English.
Yes, that makes sense to me as a translator (although most of my professional work is a lot more boring ;)). I've only once or twice written fic in English for Japanese canons, where theoretically I could know what they would be saying in Japanese, if that makes sense, and it's kind of a balancing act between "what flows naturally in English" and "what would not be outside the bounds of possibility in Japanese."

Often the basic everyday honorifics/titles can be approximated in English, or dropped entirely (as in stories set in high schools, where it reads much more naturally in English to drop the students' use of "-san" or "-kun" etc. entirely rather than try to turn it into them addressing each other as "Miss [x]"...but as soon as you get into any kind of playfulness or characters changing how they address each other, which happens ALL THE TIME in manga, at least, your nuance is out the window
"-san" "-kun" are so simple and such a nightmare for the translator :) I never thought about dealing with changes over a long-running manga etc., but yeah, that does suggest that sticking relatively close to the original forms would be safer whenever possible, oh dear.

there's that constant reminder to the reader that they're ~reading a translation~, when my job is literally to make things read so naturally in English that you can almost forget it's not the original version.)
I suppose one way to think of it is kind of as a dialect of English, so that the English of the translated manga is not necessarily exactly the same as that of something originally written in English for English-language readers, but is still readable and engaging English with its own slightly different conventions...

We could probably swap examples of this for ever, and they're all interesting. For a long time I've been messing around with a translation of some diaries and letters from the 1920s, for which I would really need to read a lot more actual original-English texts from that era so that I can get the voice right in English as well as translating the content accurately, for instance. So much going on.

Re: Long comment is long

[china_shop]

I suppose one way to think of it is kind of as a dialect of English, so that the English of the translated manga is not necessarily exactly the same as that of something originally written in English for English-language readers, but is still readable and engaging English with its own slightly different conventions...

Oh, I love that idea (though I'm mentally applying it to fanfic, rather than manga)! Plus it makes me feel better about the fact that some of my dialogue reads like subtitles. ;-)

Re: Long comment is long

[trobadora]

I suppose one way to think of it is kind of as a dialect of English, so that the English of the translated manga is not necessarily exactly the same as that of something originally written in English for English-language readers, but is still readable and engaging English with its own slightly different conventions...

Yes! I like this way of thinking of it.

Thinking out loud at you

[umadoshi]

(*g* I would like to belatedly say, for the record, that the "character is directly asked why they use third person for themself in the final volume and OOPS that had been changed" is an actual thing that happened to me, and in possibly the greatest stroke of luck I've ever had as an adapter, I'd done a quirky thing earlier on that let me salvage it. But my blood FROZE when I first read that translation. O_O)

I've only once or twice written fic in English for Japanese canons, where theoretically I could know what they would be saying in Japanese, if that makes sense, and it's kind of a balancing act between "what flows naturally in English" and "what would not be outside the bounds of possibility in Japanese."

That makes total sense! A lot of my fic has been for Japanese canons, and as you know, I don't speak Japanese, so my approach in that situation has been "avoid doing anything I know would violate the reasonable possibilities of Japanese" (with my extremely limited knowledge) and otherwise go with "if this character were a native English speaker instead of a native Japanese speaker, how would they express the emotional core of what they're trying to convey?"

I never thought about dealing with changes over a long-running manga etc., but yeah, that does suggest that sticking relatively close to the original forms would be safer whenever possible, oh dear.

It happens a LOT, and I find it frustrating that when the "should we keep honorifics in manga???" debate inevitably cycles around, it rarely if ever gets mentioned as a consideration. (I've been wanting for years to write a proper lengthy post laying out why I believe in keeping them, but: anxiety. Especially since I know a lot of industry folks disagree just as strongly.)

Years ago I was reading a shoujo romance series (no recollection of what; not something I worked on) and one of the sidebar creator notes talked about the manga-ka realizing that honorifics often got taken out and saying they'd asked their editor what would happen when the English version of the series reached the point where the leads switched up what they called each other, and the editor was like "I guess they'll make up a nickname and substitute that."

I suppose one way to think of it is kind of as a dialect of English

Ooh! Hmm. I'll give that some thought. ^_^

for which I would really need to read a lot more actual original-English texts from that era so that I can get the voice right in English

I always wonder about this sort of thing! (And dread the thought of ever being asked to do some sort of period-typical voice in any of my scripts, because I think I'd suck at it.) I absolutely think that's a valid approach, but OTOH, I always think "but English documents from that time are written in their own modern vernacular, and read as dated to us because we know how the language has changed". Matching the general writing style etc. from the time between languages feels a bit like...artificially making it sound old-fashioned when it would've sounded perfectly modern to its original readers? And part of me would rather have it sound as fresh as it would have originally.* Like, if teenage girl's diary is written in the style of her youth but that gives readers the feeling that they're reading something by an old maiden aunt because that's who a reader associates that style of writing with...yeah. I'm rambling. (And still tired.)

Anyway, despite how this may sound, this isn't something I feel strongly about in the sense of "THIS is how I would do it"; I honestly don't know what I'd prefer as a reader, and I'm quite sure that the careful voice-matching you're describing is a daunting, subtle art that impresses the hell out of me. It's just that I feel like there's no way not to lose something either way, and that makes me sad, or at least wistful. (Sorry for the thinking-out-loud at you here. I'll probably look back at this tomorrow and want to carefully rephrase half of it. >.< Because, again, anxiety.)

*Although I wouldn't include any blatantly modern slang--I mean, not in the sense of date-checking every word to see when it came into use, but so often you can get a sense of when a word is likely to only be in use for a few years at most. I try hard to avoid that sort of thing in my modern-day manga series, too, because I don't want someone picking a volume up in ten years and being able to date when I did the rewrite at a glance.

Re: Thinking out loud at you

[nnozomi]

my blood FROZE when I first read that translation.
oh dear, I can imagine that feeling. NOBODY SAID THIS WAS GOING TO HAPPEN ;)

I've been wanting for years to write a proper lengthy post laying out why I believe in keeping them, but: anxiety
I'll definitely keep an eye out if you ever feel like doing so.

I suppose one way to think of it is kind of as a dialect of English
>Ooh! Hmm. I'll give that some thought. ^_^
It occurred to me after the fact that this sounds like me telling you what to think about your job, which obviously you don't need me doing; apologies! It's one thing I tell myself...

I always think "but English documents from that time are written in their own modern vernacular, and read as dated to us because we know how the language has changed". Matching the general writing style etc. from the time between languages feels a bit like...artificially making it sound old-fashioned when it would've sounded perfectly modern to its original readers? And part of me would rather have it sound as fresh as it would have originally.*
This is a really great comment, including the parts I didn't quote, and I have very mixed feelings about it--we could have a whole thread, and possibly a whole book or two, on this point alone. In this particular case the letters are super grounded in a particular place and time and sociopolitical milieu, and in some ways I feel like clearly modern touches would detract from the effect of Yuriko's (the writer's) left-wing-inflected travelogue of 1929 London. (For instance.) On the other hand I'm not moved to scrutinize them word-for-word to make SURE there's nothing there that isn't precisely period, as long as the general sense is right. I think this is also period- and style-dependent in a way; I'm a little bit obsessed with English-language diaries etc. of roughly this period (1930s-1940s), and while there are stylistic quirks and phrasings that are obviously not 21st-century, there mostly isn't such an "old-fashioned" divide that it's distracting. Something from an older period, or absolutely laden with slang of a given moment (new or old), etc., would want a different treatment again.
As you say, anyway, I'm just thinking out loud at you here, and basically I don't think there's any one right answer for any of this, as long as the final result reads well. Please come talk to me about this kind of thing any time, I love it!

Re: Thinking out loud at you

[umadoshi]

It occurred to me after the fact that this sounds like me telling you what to think about your job, which obviously you don't need me doing; apologies!

That literally did not cross my mind. ^_^

basically I don't think there's any one right answer for any of this, as long as the final result reads well.

Indeed. And it sounds like a really cool project!

Re: Thinking out loud at you

[nnozomi]

♡
They are very cool letters! I'll post some excerpts some time.

[tinny]

Okay so nobody is going to be interested in this, but German has that polite address "Sie", and it's such a pain for translation. Because you need to know who addresses whom as what, and how familiar everyone is with each other. (Of course, people can get more familiar with each other over the course of a drama and change that address.)

So, on one hand, this is one more level that the German language can use to get the different addresses in Chinese across (the easiest example is 您 vs. 你 but of course there are a lot more with the -ge's and the -jie's etc).

On the other hand, the team documents for the German viki teams are full of lists like "this person addresses these persons as X" "this person addresses other persons as Y". Which is a pain.

[china_shop]

Okay so nobody is going to be interested in this, but German has that polite address "Sie", and it's such a pain for translation. Because you need to know who addresses whom as what, and how familiar everyone is with each other. (Of course, people can get more familiar with each other over the course of a drama and change that address.)

No, that's fascinating! That's like Korean having different formality levels, and I'm so curious to know how they translated Guardian wrt who's being polite/casual with whom, when. The question of importing/creating information by necessity, to make it make sense. It's like the flipside of translating into English and losing a bunch of nuance.

[nnozomi]

Okay so nobody is going to be interested in this, but
are you kidding? This is a post expressly for people who are interested in this kind of thing, like me! My translation work is almost exclusively into English, so I've rarely had cause to think about translating into a language with more rather than fewer levels of formality/familiarity etc. As china_shop says above, fascinating to think about, and if you have any specific examples of going from Chinese to German in Guardian etc. I'd love to hear about it.

On the other hand, the team documents for the German viki teams are full of lists like "this person addresses these persons as X" "this person addresses other persons as Y". Which is a pain.
I don't know, probably a pain but good for consistency? It sounds like the drama version of the glossaries I use for technical translation...

[tinny]

Well, it has nothing directly to do with Chinese or the honorifics used in Asian languages... but if you're interested in any kind of translation issue, then I guess it's relevant. :)

I don't know, probably a pain but good for consistency?

Sure, that's why they have them. They're absolutely necessary. But they take up a good part of the document. Otoh, the other languages I know all distinguish between formal and informal address, only English doesn't, which makes it doubly frustrating that all the viki translation goes through English.

if you have any specific examples of going from Chinese to German in Guardian etc. I'd love to hear about it.

I don't think so. I never translate directly from Chinese to German. What annoys me on viki is that the brother/sister thing is kept a lot of the time, which sounds terrible in German. I guess it sounds terrible in English as well, but I think I've just gotten used to it?

The only thing that comes to mind now at all is "jia you!" which is always translated into "fighting!" in English, which is already bad enough and i hate it so much. The German teams often just leave it as "jia you", which is sad, because there is a German idiom "Gib Gas!" which *literally* means "add fuel". There are lots and lots of fitting idioms in German that one could use. But so far I haven't had much luck convincing team leaders to get a little more free with that. Again, this has nothing to do with forms of address. :) It's just one of my pet peeves when working on viki.

[nnozomi]

if you're interested in any kind of translation issue, then I guess it's relevant. :)
I am always interested in translation issues! One thing I like about these discussions is the way they spread out in all directions.

which makes it doubly frustrating that all the viki translation goes through English.
Ah, yeah, I can see that. (Technical translation between Japanese and other languages often uses English as a go-between (translating from Japanese to English and then to German or Vietnamese or whatever), so if the English text isn't well done, it screws up the final target language too. Same in this context, I suppose...)

there is a German idiom "Gib Gas!" which *literally* means "add fuel"
oh my god, why don't they use it, that would be perfect! Translating it to "fighting" in English sounds as if somebody's been watching too many K-dramas, because I think of that entirely as a Korean-ism. (I don't think there is a single decent English translation for 加油, it has to be context-dependent, "go for it" or "good luck" or "give it your all" or "you can do it" or whatever, like 頑張って in Japanese.)

[trobadora]

Translating it to "fighting" in English sounds as if somebody's been watching too many K-dramas, because I think of that entirely as a Korean-ism.

Oh, is that where it comes from?! As someone who knows zero Korean or kdramas, that has always been totally baffling to me. And if I didn't know what 加油 means I sure as hell wouldn't be able to guess it from that ...

[tinny]

Same here! I did not know it came from Korean.

[tinny]

so if the English text isn't well done, it screws up the final target language too. Same in this context, I suppose...

Yes. Viki has structures in place to minimize that, with extra editors for English, and making absolutely sure the English translation is fine before allowing the other language teams to start. It's still not always perfect, and the problem remains that English is too simple for a lot of the nuances, and the more steps you add the more potential for error.

Ah, well. I tell myself that nobody needs those other languages anyway - certainly not German - so I don't bother getting annoyed over it. ;)

[nnozomi]

the problem remains that English is too simple for a lot of the nuances
Too true, sigh. you are fighting (as it were) the good fight, though! the more languages the better.

[maggie33]

This is a fascinating post, and a fascinating discussion in the comments.

I think what I do in fic, and would prefer in other people’s fic and in subtitles, is to translate when I feel like it can be done without losing anything, and otherwise to romanize—Momokan to Coach Momo, Hei Pao Shi to the Black-Cloaked Envoy and so on, versus Chu-ge, Chiaki-sempai, Abe-kun, Xiao Bai (also known as Si-mei, but that’s harder, see below).

I prefer it like that, too. I always use Black-Cloaked Envoy in my fics, although I don’t mind when writers use Hei Pao Shi. But yes, it’s a much harder decision with for instance Hei Lao-ge as china-shop mentioned above. I’ve seen people write Hei Lao-ge, but I’ve also seen Old Brother Black, or even Old Bro Black. I don’t mind that, too, but if I had to write it I would still probably use Hei Lao-ge, despite preferring Black-Cloaked Envoy to Hei Pao Shi.

Funny thing is that I prefer it in an completely opposite way in The King Eternal Monarch fanfic. Lee Gon, the king in the drama is usually called “pyeha” by the people in the palace. It means “Your majesty”. Pretty straightforward translation, but still fanfic writer usually use “pyeha” in English language fics, and I prefer it that way. I don’t know why, really. It’s just sounds nice, I guess, and I love the way my favorite character keep saying that word in the drama. 😊

And I definitely prefer to leave honorifics untranslated. I don’t want to have Brother Chu or Sister Hong instead of Chu-ge and Hong-jie. IMO it’s easy to check if you’re watching Chinese or Korean drama for the first time and don’t understand what it means. And I love to learn new things like that and pondering subtleties of translating them to other languages. And comparing how different streaming services do that.

For instance I admit that when I watch Korean dramas on Netflix I prefer to watch them with Polish subtitles, because IMO they are better than English subtitles. I watched The King Eternal Monarch on Netflix first with Polish subtitles and then with re-watched it with English subtitles out of curiosity and I think the Polish ones flowed better. Even though they just omitted honorifics a lot of times. But the English subtitles on Netflix did that, too.

I watch most of my Korean dramas on VKI, and they leave honorifics as they are, and don’t translate them to English. I’m quite well versed in Korean honorifics already, and I still learn so much with every new drama I watch on VIKI, and I love it. 😊

[china_shop]

It means “Your majesty”. Pretty straightforward translation, but still fanfic writer usually use “pyeha” in English language fics, and I prefer it that way. I don’t know why, really. It’s just sounds nice, I guess, and I love the way my favorite character keep saying that word in the drama. 😊

Yes! I love hearing the echo of the characters saying the term. I think that's why I like Hei Lao-ge, now that you mention it: when I see it written, I hear it, just like when I read Shen Wei saying, "Zhao Yunlan," I know exactly what that sounds like. :-)

(I'm pretty sure I kept the transliterated terms in my historical Kdrama fics, for much that reason. :-)

[maggie33]

Yes! I love hearing the echo of the characters saying the term. I think that's why I like Hei Lao-ge, now that you mention it: when I see it written, I hear it, just like when I read Shen Wei saying, "Zhao Yunlan," I know exactly what that sounds like. :-)


Oh, I haven't thought about it like that in the context on fanfic, but yes, you're right. When I read "pyeha"in TKEM fanfic I can hear Jo Yeong saying that name. :)

[nnozomi]

I love the way my favorite character keeps saying that word in the drama.
Yes! The words themselves get kind of associated with the characters. (I can't imagine translating "Chu-ge," for instance, even if there were a decent English translation, because it wouldn't sound like Guo Changcheng.)

And I love to learn new things like that and pondering subtleties of translating them to other languages.
Absolutely. I bet everyone in this post feels this way--I definitely do, it's one of the great pleasures of watching something in or adjacent to a different language/culture, you get not just the drama itself but also the linguistic interest, and once you learn something in one context it informs what you can understand in other scenes/dramas/etc. too.

when I watch Korean dramas on Netflix I prefer to watch them with Polish subtitles, because IMO they are better than English subtitles.
Now I'm really curious about the Korean-Polish interaction and how the two languages relate (also the romanization of names must be a lot different in Polish?).

[maggie33]

also the romanization of names must be a lot different in Polish?

From what I remember romanization of names is the same in English and Polish subtitles on Netflix for The King Eternal Monarch. But I only watched this one drama twice with two different subtitles. Other Korean dramas on Netflix I watched only once with Polish subtitles, so I don't have a lot of comparative material. :)

[nnozomi]

Fair enough! Maybe they just pulled the names straight from the English version...

[solo]

Very late to this party but hey, you linked! :)

Wei Wuxian might tease Lan Wangji with “Lan-er-gege” but no one will take him seriously if he starts saying “Second Big Brother Lan”; Lan Wangji’s own register is so formal that he could probably get away with calling Lan Xichen “Brother” or “Older Brother” in English, but it still sounds a lot more natural to me for him to say “Xiongzhang.”

Seconded the WWX part, but for Lan Wangji, the jury in my head is still out, precisely because 'Brother' conveys his formality so well, and non-Chinese readers would pick up on that easily.

Zhao Yunlan, annoyed with Shen Wei (for absolutely justifiable reasons, granted), nastily calls him the honorific 您 instead of the usual 你 second person, making Shen Wei protest “Don’t be that way.”

I had to deal with that when going over the subs, and I resorted to ZYL facetiously calling him 'Sir' because there was just no way... Now if I'd translated into German, and they were on the informal 'you' by that episode (which I think they would be from ep 14 onwards), he could just easily switch to the formal version. Alas, English...

My go-to explanation for non-Japanese speakers about the difference between the two male first-person pronouns “boku” and “ore” is “Luke Skywalker versus Han Solo,” and it usually gets through.

That's a great way to explain it!

[nnozomi]

Very late to this party but hey, you linked! :)
It's nice of you to come by! I love it that there are so many conversations happening about this stuff.

for Lan Wangji, the jury in my head is still out, precisely because 'Brother' conveys his formality so well, and non-Chinese readers would pick up on that easily.
that's a good point. Maybe using the formal-sounding "Brother" instead of "Xichen" helps convey the added layer of formality in Chinese, "xiongzhang" instead of "gege" or similar?

Alas, English...
English is so pronoun-poor, it's a shame. Interesting to think about all the possibilities in other languages. (I suppose in Japanese in that scene, rather than switching pronouns he would switch into desu/masu or into super sonkeigo or whatever...)

Looking forward to more discussions of this kind :)

[solo]

LOL super sonkeigo would be hilarious!!!