|
|
 Words of Truth and Wisdom: Fixins
Written by Alethea and Athena Nibley
Recently we've been reading some translated manga, and it's gotten us thinking about the English adaptation process, as in, “How is it done, exactly?” We do some of our own adaptation work, but what had us wondering was the fact that the translation and adaptation on these particular titles were done by different people, which would make the process different than how we adapt scripts.
But when we started thinking about it, we also happened to be working on one of the titles that we adapt. Some titles involve more script-fixing than others. This is most likely because when we're going through it for the first time, we don't want to get stuck trying to figure out how to make it sound right when we still have a ton of story to get through, especially because a little more context can do a world of good. Anyway, this title just happened to be one of them, so as we went through fixing it up, we took note of a bunch of the things we fixed, so that we could list them here and explain what kind of thought processes go into the changes we make.
Let's see... (I'm looking at our list and skipping the ones I don't really want to talk about after all.) First, we have a “de gozaru.” Interesting. In our first script, we left it in Japanese. It's a very old fashioned, very humble way of saying “da,” which has been described in some of our text books as “the copula.” Basically it means “is.” But there's only one reason for that character to be making a point of sticking the archaic “de gozaru” at the end of her sentence, and that's that she is a ninja. So while “de gozaru” literally means “[it] is,” in this context, it actually means, “I'm a ninja.”
Now we're faced with a decision: do we leave the “de gozaru” there for the hardcore fans who already know it means “I'm a ninja,” adding a note for the newer fans who haven't learned that yet, or do we translate it to something in English so as not to slow down the newer readers? We tend to side with the newer readers, because we like to share what we like with everybody, and we don't want to scare them off with the prospect of having to learn another language. So then we have to decide what to change the “de gozaru” to. We can't just have it be “I'm a ninja,” after all.
The question we ask ourselves now is this: Why do ninjas say “de gozaru”? Well, I could be wrong, but I think that actually samurai are more well-known for “de gozaru” (or maybe Kenshin has thrown me off). But anyway, ninja are from Japan's history, and, at least according to some ninja manga, aren't considered to exist in modern day. We already know from various anime and our Classical Japanese class that “de gozaru” is old-fashioned, so let's find something old-fashioned in English! In the end, we went with “verily,” because it also fits with the “it is” translation.
That took more discussion than I thought, but I still have some room for more, so let's go on to the next one. There's one part where a character practices some martial arts move that ends up being way more powerful than everyone expected and nearly killing the series' hero. The offender says something to the effect of, “I guess I overdid it a little.” Another character says “Sukoshi dokoro ja nakatta wa yo, zettai!” We originally had a more literal translation of, “That was definitely not 'a little'!”
But as we read through the script a second time, our original translation sounded strange. Like it didn't seem like anyone would talk like that. Of course, it's possible that someone would, but it sounded off anyway. It's not uncommon, when in translation mode, to think something sounds perfectly alright at the time, and then read it again, when you're back in full English mode, and think it sounds weird. (Or maybe it's just common with us.)
What we tend to do in these situations is to replay the dialogue in our heads (and sometimes out loud, too), and go with whatever comes out naturally. It's probably important to point out that we already know the gist of what the character is going to say, so we only go with the line that comes out naturally and conveys what was said in Japanese. In this case, the line got changed to, “That was way beyond 'a little'!”
In that same vein, there was another line that sounded a little strange because of the “reluctantly” that was in there, but when we tried it out loud, it sounded fine, so we left it after all.
We had a pretty long list of changes, but a lot of them were made for similar reasons, so I don't know how many we'll end up going into, but there are some other things we'd like to discuss, so we'll see. In the meantime, I will leave you with one last type of change: typos. It's fascinating what kind of typos can end up in a script. This particular one had a “nysekf” that desperately needed to be changed to “myself.” It's funny when you type faster than you can think.
: :
|
29 July 2010
Words of Truth and Wisdom: Translation Notes
Share 28 July 2010
AFFD 2010 Review: The People I've Slept With
Share 27 July 2010
AFFD Review: Ip Man 2
ShareAFFD Review: Summer Wars
Share 21 July 2010
MangaLife: Why We're Living It
ShareAFDD REVIEW: Au Revoir, Taipei
Share 14 July 2010
Words of Truth and Wisdom: Notes Revisited
Share 13 July 2010
DVD REVIEW: Kaji: The Ultimate Gambler
Share
|
