![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Thoughts on translation: subtitles and fic practices
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.
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.
no subject
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!
no subject
*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.
♥ ♥ ♥
no subject
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...