Posted by Tomato (ip68-3-164-47.ph.ph.cox.net/68.3.164.47) on March 13, 2002 at 13:29:15
In Response to Re: Well, here's some posted by Shih Tzu on March 13, 2002 at 01:08:40:
> Well, it was definitely pretty long. And I suppose it could've been worse. But it doesn't especially strike me as a significant improvement over translations up to that point. Granted, it's been a while since I've played it, so I should probably go and get some firmer reimpressions before making any further claims. Also, sorry to force you into the position of defending it, as though now you have to support it as a shining example of early-90s game translations. :) That's not my intention.
Nah, it's just my opinion. Everybody's got one. Compared to say, FF1, FF2's translation just felt so alive to me (at the time). Hell if I can stand it now though :)
> Heh, yikes. Philosophies do differ. Translation is a terrible balancing act between faithfulness to the source language and effect in the target language. I remember watching some dreadful Magic Knight Rayearth fansubs...well, maybe they weren't dreadful, but the only thing I can recall was that every time one of the characters said, say, "Umi-chan!" (as opposed to "Umi!"), the translator insisted on writing "Umi-ster!" YES, "-ster" happens to be a suffix in English that sometimes approximates the suffix "-chan" in Japanese, but...NO! That SUCKS! Over and over and over again, "Fuu-ster!" "Hikaru-ster!" No one cares whether the girl said "-chan" or not! Gah. That's not what you were saying, I know, but anyway.
Eww, -ster is just wrong. It works good on like maybe 3 or 4 names, but ugh. But yeah -chan can be hard. In this novel I translated I HAD to translate the "chan", what's worse, is the guy's name was "Shin". I've racked my brain over and over and all I can come up with are crappy ideas for it. Urgh.
> Well, I'm going to try to keep the feel of the original, but I'll bend what I need to to get the real meaning and the effect of the original across. I might be too loose with my translating (I'm still working on figuring out when to reign myself in), but I'm willing to justify much larger bends in translation if it's toward something sensitive like humor. Humorous language is arguably THE most sensitive kind to translate; a word or two can make all the difference between "Ahh, that must have been a joke in the original," and the genuine uncontrollable guffaw. Loose and "literal" translations each have their merits in these cases, but, especially when I'm working with a work of art meant to be enjoyed and not an interview or something, I'm strongly in favor of making the end product as appreciable as possible as part of the larger work. My richest experiences playing translated video games (amateur or professional) have been the ones where it either felt like the game was created in English or felt at least like the characters were real and vital and not passing through a filter. Vagrant Story comes to mind.
Well there are lots of theorists out there who say that as a foreign work it should retain its foreignness, so filtering it so that it sounds like the original writers had written it in English originally would be blasphemy. In some instances I agree with that thought. But then we're talking about games here, not literary masterpieces. Even so, I could see people hunting you down for "westernizing" something. But if you don't westernize it, then you'll also get people hunting you down for making it sound like a bad translation. Let's all just quit translating while we're ahead and keep everybody happy ;)
>
> Approach to translation can and should differ depending on the item in question, but my current ideal with video games at least is a translation that has passed through a human being, one who says, "Wow. Okay, here's what this -feels- like to me." The words are important, but they're pointless without the music.
>
> And I'm probably too lax. Anyone want to take me to task? There's still a chance to save Just Breed from a hell of...um...something! Something bad that I'd do to it!
Well, you've been studying in Japan for half a year with months still ahead of you, you seem to have a pretty strong grasp of translation theory, and you know Japanese pretty well, just get a few scripts under your belt and then you can shove people around and not worry about messing up so much ;)