yesterday I was tired and sleepy, but I had to make my English language home task which was to translate two paragraphs from a speech in English into Russian so that it would be absolutely grammatically-lexically-etc. correct. even though I was not in my best condition, I made it to the end and the result was almost twice as long as the original text. I wasn't frustrated, nevertheless. I knew I made a readable equivalent which, I hope, was as far from loan translation as it could be in the whole
when I just started watching anime with subtitles, those were of course in Russian and any would do for me, as I was still too inexperienced in translating from Japanese to judge them fully. with time I got to understand what characters say and the first object of my objections (haha, salt is salty) were the honorifics left untranslated. switching to English subtitles enabled me to choose, as the most popular things were and are usually translated by at least 2 groups. at first I thought 'what a waste', as my sense of 'justice' made me feel that translation-and-subtitles-making forces are allocated in an unfair way, because while several subtitles projects for one and the same anime are in process other worthy things are overshadowed
honorifics being the first and the main criteria of me judging which subtitles to leave and which to delete, I started paying attention to other things. in 'Dantalian' only 1 phrase made me change my mind as 'twas translated fully and comprehensively in only 1 variant out of 3 or 4 I downloaded, and then I noticed some other moments were also better in that version. I already imagined that in order to choose the best subtitles for me I need to compare several variants of translation of one moment where the original text contains at least some difficulty or interesting point which shouldn't be ignored in the translation
however, I see now this criteria is too much for the modern translators. sitting here and complaining may seem mean of me while I do no subtitles myself, but at least the process of translation is well-known to me, and I do have my own principles. one of them is, and I believe, would be good for other translators, that the translator's pride and knowledge should be directed to perfecting the translation, but never become the means of showing off
therefore, my new principle of choosing the best subtitles for me is much simpler than the previous ones. 'tis all words that have translatable meaning being translated. 'onii-san' or 'baka' written in romaji in English subtitles piss me off. proper names that obviously MUST be translated but are translated only once in a special note inside the subtitles or in a separate .txt file - piss me off. translating the word using the only meaning you know when 'tis obviously another word, simply being an homonym, or a word that sounds similarly - pisses me off. translating the sentence hearing only half of the words and imagining the others as you like, when the meaning is absolutely the opposite - pisses me off
blog posts and subtitles are different. one can entertain him-/herself as much as he/she wants in private life, like I do, using a few Japanese words I like, but subtitles are made for all people, not for those who know a dozen of widespread words in Japanese and are happy every time they recognise them, never bothering themselves with the idea to sit down and just learn the Japanese language they claim to like so much
I remember 3 years ago I wrote in my former blog - I don't understand 'Sengoku era' or 'miss Kaoru'! I want 'Sengoku Jidai' and 'Kaoru-dono'!
I was exactly at the stage that every learner of a foreign language passes, when 'the more foreign words - the better' seems to be the best thing. silly, foolish, little-girl-ish me
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