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 Words of Truth and Wisdom: Translating Is Like...
Written by Alethea and Athena Nibley
I think I'll pick up this column where I left off two weeks ago. Or somewhere around where I left off two weeks ago. Remember that literal translation we posted, with the “first ear” and the “my stomach is diminished” and all that fun stuff? Let's talk about that some more. What I said last time was that you can't tell how well or poorly written the dialogue was from reading a translation like that... or from reading any translation, come to think of it. But anyway, the problems come up when people start to think of that translation from our last column as a “good” translation. Then they'll probably either think that A)the original dialogue was bad, or B)Japanese people aren't very bright.
I think most people reading this column are already into manga and all that stuff enough to know that B is purely false. It's just that with a different language and culture, they have different ways of getting messages across (obviously). Take “my stomach is diminished” for example. It probably doesn't take a whole lot of thought to realize that an American would say “I'm hungry.” We actually did find out the other day that there is a Japanese word for “hungry,” but it doesn't get used a whole lot. Instead, they usually say, “My stomach is empty” (or diminished, which actually seems to be, from our translation experience, the least polite way to say it), just like when someone is thirsty, they usually say, “My throat is dry.”
It actually kind of reminds me of our little sister, and how she'd come up to us and whine that she was hungry, and expect us to do something about it. Most really nice people actually would do something about it, I think, but big sisters aren't so kind to little sisters. I was going to say I think it happens with even more phrases in Japan, but come to think of it, only one comes to mind, and that phrase is “urusai.” “Urusai” basically means “loud, noisy, and annoying,” and manga characters say it a lot. But in English, it usually gets translated to “shut up,” because while the character is saying “you're loud and annoying,” the unspoken continuation of that is “and I want you to stop it,” or “shut up.”
It doesn't always have to be translated to “shut up,” though. For example, there might be a character who uses very polite, girly speech, who would say “urusai desu wa.” (The “desu” makes it polite and the “wa” makes it girly.) A character like that would be more likely to say “Be quiet!” Unless she was really breaking character, but then she'd probably say it differently anyway. Athena points out that one time, in the subtitles to Outlaw Star, she saw “urusai” translated to “bite me.” But here you really have to look at the context, because it only works in certain ones, and I can't come up with an example, or I'd give it.
Anyway, I think my main point here is that Japanese words don't usually have “one true English translation.” Let's use another example: baka. Even our little sisters who don't watch anime or have any other interest in the Japanese language know that “baka” means “stupid.” But it doesn't only mean “stupid.” It means any other synonym for stupid you can think of. It can also mean “ridiculous” or “silly,” and in some contexts translates nicely to “impossible,” like when a villain's just been defeated, he says, “Baka na...!” just before he dies, meaning “That's ridiculous! How could I possibly be beaten by these people!?” But that's a little wordy, so “Impossible...!” works much better. In that sense, translating is a lot like acting--you have to get into the characters' heads to do it right.
I think the most common translation of “baka” that I've seen is “idiot,” but our personal preference is “stupid.” It just sounds funnier. I think we finally thought to start using it one time when we were remembering funny quotes from Space Ghost: Coast to Coast, and there was that one episode where Space Ghost and Zorak kept telling Moltar to shut up, only one time they didn't, so he asked, “Isn't anybody gonna tell me to shut up?” and Space Ghost says, “You don't deserve it!” and Zorak says, “Yeah, so just shut up, stupid!” I also think that translating is a really good job for people who like quoting movies and stuff, because that's basically what it is: quoting the Japanese lines in English (in our case). Anyway, “Shut up, idiot!” doesn't sound as funny, so we prefer to use “stupid.” And man, this column has some vicious vocabulary.
Let's try and think of some happier vocabulary. The first thing I thought was, “What's Japanese for 'love' again?” and that brings up an interesting point: while sometimes one word in Japanese has a bunch of different meanings in English, the same can happen in reverse. I can think of a bunch of different words for “love” in Japanese, but not so many in English. Maybe I just need to get better English vocabulary. For example, from our experience, “ai” is a general love that covers about everything, and “koi” is romantic love that you get in a lot of shojo manga. Then there's “suki,” which is a translator's bane, because it can mean “love” or just “like,” and fans can get very picky about which one they think should be used. Usually we try to go with what we think is in the character's head plus what sounds best in the context, and a lot of the time it just flows onto the word file, but sometimes there's a lot of discussion.
So that was a lot of rambling, but I hope it was at least interesting and/or informative. The main point is this: it's really easy to get a bunch of different translations of the exact same thing, the tricky part is choosing the best one. And there's a lot to consider in making that choice. I think that with experience, it comes more and more naturally--like how a pianist doesn't have to take the time to say, “Okay, so that note is a C, so I want to hit this key, and then it goes to...” They just look at the page and translate the notes into music. I think translation is kind of the same way.
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