Fansubs, Translation, Editing, Common No-No

[windy_lea]

This is actually a rather random thing to discuss, but here goes: Subbing quality on Asian dramas, movies, etc.

Let me preface what I have to say with a bit of a... disclaimer of sorts. I, of course, respect that people who do fansubbing are doing hard work, without receiving compensation. Even having studied Japanese for nearly three years, without

Comments

[breyzyyin]

I've noticed these types of errors in a lot of the shows we watch (although it depends on the group, really). I liked reading your list though! :D

[windy_lea]

Well, there is definitely a variation in quality depending on the group, and sometimes groups purposefully keep quality down in order to encourage peeps to buy the licensed version once it becomes available. I just... If this means shortened terms like "smth" instead of "something", then I can put it up with it better than when I have people replacing "you're" with "your"

pssst, I am a grammar nazi. Yea!

[chibi_plum]

I, of course, don't know as much about the language as you do, but there are certain things that really piss me off while listening/reading subs that I know are absolutely incorrect and give it the wrong connotation. I completely agree with you.

[windy_lea]

Yeah. I am more likely to catch grammar errors than translation errors because my brain sometimes goes as far as to completely replace the Japanese with the English. I mean, I hear the Japanese, but it becomes background noise, rather than words, because I am concentrating that much on what I am reading. Now, though, that my ears can pick out a lot more Japanese than it used to, I do hear a lot more Japanese while reading the ENglish. It's kind of awesome when the subbed sentence pops up just a second after the speaking has actually started because it's not TOO late, but it's perfect for comparing what I hear to what I read.

And missing cultural cues and the like in translation is annoying *nods*

[dcbueller]

Oh, I could go on forever about the kind of things I've noticed in translation texts while watching films, especially Asian ones. Where sometimes there's a short reply to someone's question and instead of noting 'yes' or 'no,' they end up typing something completely different, almost like an explanation instead of the actual answer. Something that kind of makes me go...eh.

[windy_lea]

Yeah. Sometimes I think people really do get SO caught up in trying to be exact that they forget that the language they're translating into would not use what they're using. It's hilarious when they explain things as, say "A way in Japanese to affirm something without actually saying 'yes'", when they could have translated it as "uh-huh"