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nnozomiI’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.
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.
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Date: 2020-11-16 06:14 pm (UTC)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. 😊
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Date: 2020-11-16 08:09 pm (UTC)*nodnod* It's pretty unwieldy to use repeatedly in narration, though. :-)
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.)
Hee! Well, there's a limited range of options within the fandom.
♥ ♥ ♥
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Date: 2020-11-16 08:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-11-16 08:17 pm (UTC)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. :-)
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Date: 2020-11-17 01:50 am (UTC)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?).
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Date: 2020-11-17 01:54 am (UTC)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.)
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Date: 2020-11-17 02:00 am (UTC)(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.)
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Date: 2020-11-17 02:03 am (UTC)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...
Re: Long comment is long
Date: 2020-11-17 02:16 am (UTC)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.
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Date: 2020-11-17 09:08 am (UTC)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 ...
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Date: 2020-11-17 09:09 am (UTC)And I so envy you the ability to read the Chinese subs! (Are there Chinese softsubs around somewhere, do you know?)
Re: Long comment is long
Date: 2020-11-17 09:13 am (UTC)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. ;-)
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Date: 2020-11-17 10:34 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-11-17 10:38 am (UTC)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
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Date: 2020-11-17 10:38 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-11-17 10:43 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-11-17 10:46 am (UTC)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. ;)
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Date: 2020-11-17 04:29 pm (UTC)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. :)
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Date: 2020-11-17 04:50 pm (UTC)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. :)
Re: Long comment is long
Date: 2020-11-17 09:29 pm (UTC)Yes! I like this way of thinking of it.
Thinking out loud at you
Date: 2020-11-18 02:43 am (UTC)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.
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Date: 2020-11-18 03:43 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-11-18 03:44 am (UTC)Too true, sigh. you are fighting (as it were) the good fight, though! the more languages the better.
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Date: 2020-11-18 03:50 am (UTC)Re: Thinking out loud at you
Date: 2020-11-18 04:03 am (UTC)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!