Are there THAT many diff. ways to translate from Jap. to Eng.?

[Casyle]

hehe, haven't started taking a Japanese class yet, so I still have to watch English dubs. I've noticed, though... Every-single-time that I try an episode by another translater, the translation has a lot of changes. Is that, what do they call it.... uh, artistic changes or something? haha. I was just curious..

I've heard that sometimes certain words don't translate well, but so much seems to change based on translater.

[Ninjacowboy]

hehe, haven't started taking a Japanese class yet, so I still have to watch English dubs. I've noticed, though... Every-single-time that I try an episode by another translater, the translation has a lot of changes. Is that, what do they call it.... uh, artistic changes or something? haha. I was just curious..

I've heard that sometimes certain words don't translate well, but so much seems to change based on translater.
Because it's a very ... vague way of speaking. Japanese is. As with almost all ways of speaking. There are ways you can say things in english that you can't in others. Theres words in others that have no meaning in english.

Like. to enjoy something fondly. Is there a word for that emotion in english? no, but you can mash words together to get the idea. But there might be a word in some weird language that has that exact emotion. So translating it might be up to the person.

The apple is red.

Might be.

The red apple.
The apple, it is red.

See? Three ways to say the same thing.

[negativzero]

Well let me try to explain this since I've done translations before.
Translations I would have to say are a really iffy thing to talk about. Its not all about the red apples that nincow is talking about. More often than not, there is no one word-for-word exchange between Japanese and English. And more often than not, Japanese rely on the nuances to bring about their emotions. So usually, the way translators do translate is by relying on listening to the way the conversation is carried out, and hence translated accordingly.
If you did bother to download a single fansub episode from two different groups, you will notice that the translations are markedly different. It usually doesn't come off too often in simple to translate animes or dramas, but materialise themselves in the much more complex stuff.
And of course, there are different ways to translate, by either using literal dialogue, or by trying to translate word for word an entire script to Japanese. If you ask me, the best bet would be to do a literal translation, since mose direct translations tend to lose a lot of meaning.
Hope this helps explain things a little ^__^

[Casyle]

Thanks :)

Yeah, I'd heard once that there's no word for "dam*" in Japanese, but there's no word in English that'd properly translate, so ya see "dam*" a lot. Stuff like that, eh...

Oohhh, also heard that Japanese can, how to put it... I guess you'd say I guess with slight nuances in the wording something said can be made nice, formal, or rude. Another thing that I guess is difficult to deal with in translations....

Sweet... Sounds like learning Japanese is gonna be fun! Hope I can learn it.. I have a hell of a time learning different languages.... Nearly flunked Spanish, had a hard time with German, but thrived in Romanian.... Weird.

Thanks for the info!

[negativzero]

Good luck learning Japanese tho. It can be a fun subject if you get a really good sensei.

[Ninjacowboy]

Tsk, I don't know any Japanese. I was going for all spoken languages okay. >:\ What I said holds true to all of them. >:B

[Casyle]

Sweet! :) Our local community college has a , from what I've heard, really good Japanese professor, or sensei. Do you actually call your teacher a sensei?

[negativzero]

yes you do. and trust me, the lessons are really fun. at least mine were ^__^

[uranai]

As an example of how hard it is to translate...

In english you say:

I love my wife.
I love my friends.
I love beer.


However in spanish there are different for those situations:

Yo amo a mi esposa.
Yo quiero a mis amigos.
Me encanta la cerveza.

So for the word "love" (and derivates) there are the words "amar", "querer", "encantar" and you can change the 3 of them but each has its own specific meaning.

"Amar" is more for a extremly deep, ultimate and mature love, like husband and wife.

"Querer" is more like cute affection, like friends.

"Encantar" is more like pleasing senses, a bit more lusty (applies to stuff and food too).



So in an english-spanish translation, the translator will have to infere which is the relationship between the speaker and what he is talking about to choose the right word.

However, sometimes people prefer to just tranlsate directly the word "love" into "amar" , which result in some confusing, and sometimes embarrasing moments...

[Casyle]

Ah, neat. Sensei eh... I'm confident it'll be fun :) Everyone I've ever talked to that was in his class loved it, though I guess he can be a bit hard to understand haha.

Ah, yeah. *Nodnod* I understand, cool. :) I think I struggled in Spanish because I really didn't want to learn it. I can be so bullheaded and stubborn... Hopefully I can pick up on Japanese even a third as fast as I did Romanian. *Laughs* From barely being able to understand a single word in Spanish to practically memorizing every word I learned in Romanian off the bat. haha.

Figures, I'd get interested in the one language I'd likely never have a use for! haha!

hehe I bet. Wouldn't want to use "amar" or "encantar" when talking to a friend hehe

Cool, looking forward to this...