(*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.
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timeasmymeasure
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.