|
|
 Words of Truth and Wisdom: The Return of the Literal Translation
Written by Alethea and Athena Nibley
Last time, we promised that we would further demonstrate how completely different Japanese grammar structure is different than English by presenting the Return of the Literal Translation! Now, to be honest, we were kind of lucky when we did the first Literal Translation, because we happened to open a book of manga to a page with things like “first ear” and “my stomach is diminished.” We're not entirely convinced we'll be so lucky this time, but this time is going to be different anyway.
In the first Literal Translation, we rearranged the sentences so that they would at least fit into the rules of proper English grammar, if not good English writing. This time, we want to present the translation as it would be if you were to look up each word individually and translated them in exactly the same order as they are in Japanese. But we will conjugate the verbs. And adjectives. In Japanese, they conjugate adjectives, too, so if the grammar actually makes sense, that's probably from a translated, conjugated adjective.
We wanted to make it a perfect one-to-one translation, but that's going to be impossible. Japanese has little words known as “particles” that sometimes translate to English prepositions and sometimes translate to things like “too,” but also sometimes are just there to let you know what part of speech the word it modifies is. For example, “o” (or “wo”) doesn't have an English translation--it's just there to let you know that the word before it is the object of a verb. And there are the sentence ending particles that let you know what kind of sentence it is (they roughly translate to ? (ka) and ! (yo)) So we'll be leaving those untranslated.
Anyway, this time, to commemorate the release of volume one of Berry Berry, the newest series by one of our favorite manga artists, Banri Hidaka, we have chosen a page from I Hate You More Than Anyone, on sale now, from CMX! Hidaka-sensei is also the creator of VB Rose and Tears of a Lamb (also on sale now, from TOKYOPOP and CMX, respectively). Sadly (for us), we did not translate any of those last two, but our good friend Barb Lien-Cooper is currently the English adaptation writer for VB Rose. And we do hope that whenever Berry Berry gets licensed, we get to translate it, because it's about twins and everything! Surely we would be well-suited for such a project, with our experience not only as translators, but as twins.
Right, moving on. The context for this scene is that the main character, Kazuha, has taken her brother to go shopping with her, to buy a gift for the guy she likes. Of course her brother hates the guy. And... I think that about covers it. This is from volume 6, starting on page 56 (of the Japanese version).
Kazuha: Man recieve happy thing what??
Chizuru: Him to give thing?
Chizuru: What even good is not?
Kazuha (aside): Ehh?
Kazuha: So say don't.
Kazuha: Chii man child right?
Chizuru: Then Dad to ask. Keh.
Kazuha: Disagreeable is! Embarrassing.
Kazuha: That too, that person taste weird is.
Chizuru: So is, huh?
Chizuru: Kazu receive happy one--what is!?
Kazuha: Uehhh?
Kazuha: Receive... hmm... hrm, well...
Kazuha: Hat also good. Other day saw clothes also were good.
Chizuru: Trip!?
Author: No... trance...
Hmm... I still don't think it's as classic as the Saiyuki one we did, but I think it gets the message across? If you think it was like, “No, I can totally see where the Japanese word order would still work for emphasis in English dubs!” then e-mail us, and maybe we can find a better example.
Anyway, we thought this would be a good opportunity to discuss the different layers of translation. And now it's time for a shout out to all our fellow math geeks out there, with a math-related analogy! Translating is like finding the derivative. When you're first starting out, they teach you to find the derivative using the quadratic formula, and plug all these numbers into a ridiculously annoying and complex... well, formula (the quadratic one). At least, I think it was the quadratic formula. Wow, was it really ten years ago we took our first calculus class? Now I feel old. Anyway, you have to go step by step because you're not used to it yet, and you have to learn the theory behind it and how it all works. Then when you've got that all down, they teach you the trick, so now you can look at x cubed and say, “The derivative is 3x squared.”
So what we did with that translation up there was plug everything into the metaphorical quadratic formula. And now you're all looking at a quadratic formula, which doesn't make a whole lot more sense than the Japanese itself. The next step would be to put it into proper English grammar (reducing it), and then you keep doing that until it all makes sense and sounds like something somebody would actually say. For some of those lines up there, you could probably figure it out without knowing too much Japanese. But for others, you'd need to be a little more familiar with the language. And thus I have once again reassured myself that our job has purpose (grin).
I still think we might need a better example... Maybe we'll find one for next time. Or maybe we won't. We'll just see what comes up!
: :
|
30 August 2010
MangaLife: On Culture
Share 25 August 2010
Words of Truth and Wisdom: I Put A Spell On You
Share 11 August 2010
Words of Truth and Wisdom: Filters
Share 6 August 2010
Maybe You're Not Using It Right :On Japanese Load Words
Share
|
