Translating East Asian Cultural terms to the West

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Shadowys
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Translating East Asian Cultural terms to the West

Post by Shadowys »

This has happened quite often during translations. Due to the nature of the the Chinese and Japanese language, many of the terms or the way character speak just sounds strange in English because people in the west simply don't do it.
One example would be the moe culture, where girls act cutesy (撒娇 etc, but not really this.) to get the attention of another person. I can't find any reference to something similar in the West.
So, I'll list out some of the terms (Chinese or Japanese) that I hope someone in the west can help me to translate or correct to the culturally-correct terms.

Term, translation, context, notes

1, "笨蛋!" , "You're so stupid! / Don't be a fool!" ,
spoken by a tsundere female character when she is in dere mode to the opposite sex when he does something that is difficult to do that she likes, what do poeple actually say to their boyfriends/girlfriends when they want to convey the same meaning?

2, "讨厌啦!" , "Oh go on, you flatterer!" ,
spoken by a tsundere female character, it would work if the character was dere, but picture a tsundere, with red cheeks, a frown, a pout and turning her face aside, saying this in English.

3. "睡相", "sleeping face",
Actually the term 睡相 would refer to the entire body, not just the face, so is there something in the West that people use to refer to how the other person looks like when he or she is sleeping?
Winter's the time of the year,
when the cold chill the skin,
from the very within,
but you grasped my hand,
your eyes shedding a frozen tear.
Our eyes met,
and warmth filled the air.
Cthaeh
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Re: Translating East Asian Cultural terms to the West

Post by Cthaeh »

From the perspective of a native English speaker (without any knowledge of the JP/CH source language):

For 1, "Don't be a(n) fool/idiot" sounds natural, but I'm not sure it fits your context perfectly. I can't think of anything else, I must not know enough tsunderes.

For 2, I think "You're just saying that" might be a good fit.

For 3, I can't think of any better term than "sleeping face." I don't think there is a broader term that explicitly encompasses all of the sleeping person, other than explicitly saying it (ie "s/he watched him/her sleep" or "you're cute when you're sleeping").
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Shadowys
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Posts: 246
Joined: Sun Dec 30, 2012 5:15 am
Favourite Light Novel: Zero No Tsukaima
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Re: Translating East Asian Cultural terms to the West

Post by Shadowys »

For 2, would adding a few "~" to indicate a longer "that" feel more natural? like "you're just saying that~~"
I did some research on how taiwan girls do their "dere" mode and one of the things was the use of various sentence-final particles(e.g. "la", "ya") with a drawn-out voice (coupled with looking above from below, large eyes blinking, sometimes avoiding eye contact while raising the tone of the voice by one pitch). Do girls in the west do that?
Winter's the time of the year,
when the cold chill the skin,
from the very within,
but you grasped my hand,
your eyes shedding a frozen tear.
Our eyes met,
and warmth filled the air.
Cthaeh
Yuki-Nagator
Posts: 647
Joined: Sun Nov 11, 2012 6:54 pm
Favourite Light Novel:

Re: Translating East Asian Cultural terms to the West

Post by Cthaeh »

Shadowys wrote:For 2, would adding a few "~" to indicate a longer "that" feel more natural? like "you're just saying that~~"
I'm don't think I'm very good working with written dialogue, so I'm not as sure, but I feel like "~" isn't really used much in English, or at least not the non-LN things I read; though I can recognize it as being reasonably common in the translated LNs. But also, the image(?) of that line being spoken in my head doesn't extend the "that," trhough maybe that's just me.
Shadowys wrote:... Do girls in the west do that?
I'm going to have to plead ignorance. I'm assume that behavior, or the Western equivalent, is mostly occurs among teenage girls, and my memories of how teenage girls act are pretty faded (and I don't consume a lot of Western TV shows these days to know from there). Maybe someone else with a sharper (or more recent) memory can chime in...
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