Let me say first that I’m totally fine if you watch English subtitled anime.
However, there is something that has been bothering me for awhile and it wasn’t until my reviews for today that I’ve finally had it. Everytime the word 安心 comes up on WaniKani, my brain is conditioned to think the word “relax”. I’ve heard this word many times, mainly in anime, and subtitling sometimes use the word “relax” for 安心. In WaniKani, the word is defined in English as “Relief” or “Peace of Mind”.
The more I keep learning Japanese is the more I realize that when it comes to watching Anime, there are THREE different scripts. There is the original script of the Japanese dub, the English subtitles, and the English dub. I’m sure many of you are aware that there have been anime recently that have been changing the meaning of the original Japanese script when writing the English subtitle or English dub script that the final product is a less direct translation. Some might call it “localization”, although I don’t think that exactly fits.
Regardless, Japanese seems to have a thing where there are many vocabulary that are used for specific uses or situations. I’ve seen words on WaniKani in later levels that seem to share the same English meanings as the words I’ve learned before, but if you look into their web pages further, you can see that they mean differently. After learning to appreciate this as I learn grammar, I’ve come to dislike English subtitles more. This has been one of my prime motivators in learning Japanese as it also has the chance of exposing you to cultural contexts that get lost in translation.
If I were to give advice to anyone here starting out on learning Japanese, I think one thing you can consider is putting aside anything you’ve seen, read or heard that has been translated from Japanese to English subtitles/dubs, so that the next time you come back to English subtitles and become keen to listening to spoken Japanese, you may read and hear differences as you become more exposed to a different perspective or context from the original Japanese dub compared to what most people read or watch in English.
And I can’t say that’s a bad thing. It’s one of the best feelings you can have when learning a language.
Don’t let my WaniKani level deceive you; lately, I’ve been doing more listening comprehension (listening to the news, watching anime without subtitles or with Japanese subtitles), learning vocabulary beyond my level and doing additional research on various language-related material. I’m not saying that I’m smarter than what my WaniKani level appears to be; I’ve just been doing A LOT of research related to Japanese language and culture and it’s the most fun I’ve had since finally being caught up with my studies. Also, writing Japanese is fun, don’t miss out on that.
EDIT: Also, I hope you found this reading interesting. For the record I’m always excited to learn more differences because it’s always a learning opportunity to see, understand and feel from a different perspective.
I don’t at all disagree with the overall point that translation is going to be different – it’s a necessarily transformative act and that only becomes more true the more different two languages are. If I could be devil’s advocate for a second though, I’m not sure I agree with the example that anything here is changing. I think it’s just related to them being different parts of speech and saying the same general idea with somewhat different structures. 安心する is very common phrasing and I would imagine that’s what you’re seeing when they choose “relax.” There aren’t great ways to say “do relief” other than “find peace of mind” which is certainly unwieldy as a replacement for a simple 安心する. Always good to keep in mind Wanikani glosses aren’t going to be perfect, too.
It is, except when they say local, they don’t mean geographic area, they mean the English language itself.
It’s less cultural and more the fact that the way you express the meaning behind the words is different for different languages and literal translations can stray very far from that meaning.
Yeah, for sure. That’s one of the first things you notice when you learn the language.
I suppose I should add a personal anecdote even though it will come off as old fogey “you kids today have it easy”.
I grew up watching Robotech’s original run in the 80’s and didn’t find out until many years later that it was really 3 shows smashed together through voice dubs and editing. The same for Transformers and Voltron. What you’re seeing now is mild in comparison.
As it turns out, the subtitles more closely match what’s said in the original English script, whereas the spoken dialogue (which I’ve added into a word balloon here) is more natural-sounding for a Japanese audience and/or a better fit for the mouth movements.
Back then, my vocabulary was small enough, my kanji recognition meager enough, and my grammar understanding non-existent enough that watching the movie with subtitles that didn’t match the spoken dialogue got me nowhere in picking out the words being spoken =P
I’m sure if I were to watch it today, I’d find areas where the subtitles—even though closer to the English script—don’t quite capture some things right, due to limitations of language and cultural differences.
Oh yeah, I forgot about that. I think that has a lot of bearing on what the English localization can be as well, like the infamous Jelly Doughnut from Pokémon.
I actually liked the way Robotech wrote things to be honest…that’s a really, REALLY hot take. But back in the day, Harmony Gold actually did an English dub for Megazone 23 Part II. They originally used footage from the first Megazone 23 for the now non-canon Robotech The Movie. I got a chance through Retrocrush to listen to the English dub of Megazone 23 Part II, then compared it to the Harmony Gold dub. Yeah there are some shortcomings to the Harmony Gold dub, but MAN it’s so nice to hear Shogo not sound weird. I heard the English dub for Megazone 23 Part II and cringed.
On top of that, the Harmony Gold dub (which wasn’t dubbed and edited as a Robotech adaption) changed some parts like the dialogue and they sounded great too.
No, I’m aware of that. Or at least that’s meant to be the supposed intention. I feel like audiences in western pop culture and some of the individuals who bring media overseas to English speaking markets are leaving a touch of politics into the English language scripts of Japanese media. This worries me because I’m aware that there are those in the English-speaking markets that may disagree with how something or someone is written so they’ll change it to mean something else entirely. It robs us of judging the intentions of those who work on a media for ourselves through the original Japanese dub or English language localization. Instead, we get someone else’s self-inserted narrative or personal views, political or not.
I actually loved the first season, so I guess it’s not that hot. But that really means I liked Macross and was totally not into the other two series they redid.
Fair point. Although I don’t think you can ever remove subjectivity from translation. And judging from some of the discussions in the Daily Senryuu thread, even well intentioned people doing it for fun can have very strong opinions on what something should be translated as.
i was watching something recently with japanese subtitles for an english show and they had completely different names for characters etc that just got me so confused. i realized later they must’ve been two different translations for the japanese voice dub versus a translation from english for the jp subtitles. so listening in jp voice dub with jp subtitles isn’t always a great experience lol.
(I haven’t seen the movie, but considering the change was done by the original creators to preserve the feel of the scene in a different culture, I consider this “done right”. Others may feel differently, though!)
Although the reason was a little different, this reminds me of Saint Tail’s dub, which started out removing all references to God.
You can tell the main character’s school teacher wasn’t so enthusiastic about it:
I would make an argument that localization does take geographic area into account. A localizer from the UK will likely choose a different way or wording something than a localizer from the US. Even within the US, localizers on the east and west coasts could easily choose two different ways of phrasing. While most of the language is the same there are different ways of saying the same thing.
For example. お茶のカップ someone localizing for a US audience would likely choose to translate it as a cup of tea whereas for a UK audience they may choose to use the word cuppa. Translation forgoes the artistic licenses in order to keep the language true to the original meaning and intent as possible.
This is true, but I don’t think anybody currently does it with this level of precision, at best you’ll get a separate translation for North America and the UK/Europe. And that would also mean you’d have to dub it twice, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen a region specific dub for English. Although it would be cool to see a UK specific dub.
Bit of a tangent, but this reminded me of how cool I think The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles’ translation is, and I wish there was more attention on when localizers do good things! Since that game primarily takes place in London, they committed to filling it with appropriate accents for various flavors of Irish slang, the expected cockney stuff, etc. It’s all stuff the Japanese version wouldn’t have had, but does so much to enhance the sense of location. I’ve more or less never seen a game go as far as they did there, as there’s loads of stuff I had to infer from context and had never heard in my life.
They talk a lot about it here, if anyone wants to read some interesting stuff about what localizers are considering when making these choices!
