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.”
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2020-11-15 04:03 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
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