Discussion: Liberalization VS Literalization

Discuss all translation related problems here or just help your fellow comrade to improve their lingual skills

Moderators: Fringe Security Bureau, Senior Editors, Senior Translators, Alt. Language Translator/Editor, Executive Council, Project Translators, Project Editors

User avatar
larethian
I.D.S.E Humanoid Interface [LSB]
Posts: 2191
Joined: Tue Aug 31, 2010 10:50 pm
Favourite Light Novel:

Discussion: Liberalization VS Literalization

Post by larethian »

This has always been a topic of discussion creating much heated debates between translators (whether experienced, inexperienced, proficient in the source or target languages, or a budding learner of one or the other or both), translators of other languages that are not J->E in nature, non-translators/readers who have knowledge of both source and/or target languages of diverse proficiency ranges, and readers who totally or nearly totally clueless of the source language.

Liberalization can either include localization, or just loose translations of the original words or phrase.
Literalization include literally translating words or phrases, retaining ways of addresses, honorifics or gobi (inflections or sentence-end-words), often complete with footnotes.

What are your views on this?
Of course, most would agree that there has to be a balance and one has to draw the line somewhere. But to what extent?
Also, does the same way of doing doings apply equally to all mediums? Anime, manga, LN, etc.

Whether you are a translator, editor, or reader belonging to any of the aforementioned categories, you are welcome to post your views and thoughts. Try to keep this thread civil. While keeping discussions non-specific to any series is preferred, it is not disallowed if one wants to quote certain series as examples to support their views.


P.S: I myself may post my thoughts on this later, when and if I have the time.
User avatar
Gohankuten
Shamisen Wordsmith
Posts: 362
Joined: Tue Jul 10, 2012 9:28 pm
Favourite Light Novel:

Re: Discussion: Liberalization VS Literalization

Post by Gohankuten »

I think one thing that should always be kept no matter what are ways of addressing and honorifics. It just looks so much better to leave in the onii-san and sempai(or is it senpai?) and himi-sama. Also I like some words like baka and others kept in in some places just cause I think it looks nicer though that's just personal preference there. Then you have the de arimasu and others that are important for some characters to denote their personalities which I think are nice to keep in though can be left out in some instances like in anime where you can hear it so don't really need it written out in the subs.
User avatar
mada
Mikuru's Master
Posts: 27
Joined: Tue Jan 29, 2013 7:02 am
Favourite Light Novel: Ahouka!
Location: Osia

Re: Discussion: Liberalization VS Literalization

Post by mada »

Excuse me,
Currently perhaps I'm in the category of "readers who totally or nearly totally clueless of the source language"

First, about the "translation". Wasn't it refer to trans-literature-tion?

Second, perhaps almost everyone have read at least one ancient script(ure)/literature of the old era which originated in East Asia Nation(I said this since it was known that they often share the similar or even same philology/humanities/literature such as poems) that had been translated into English. Aren't there also the standard of translating a literature? I thought it just about a minor differences just like the differences in English which is used in Great Britain, Australia, an United States of America. Or is it not?

Third, it is just about what I've read. If I'm not mistaken, they(translators of those scripts) were almost all the time(always, perhaps? I'm not so sure) used notes to explain the terms which were foreign in English, such as explain about the meaning of a certain poem in a certain script.

I think it is alright as long the translator(s) know what he is doing, what standard they used and the reason behind it. I also think that almost everyone wish that it is possible for them to read the works/scripts/literature without loosing much meaning in the translated literature(s) itself.
Greetings! And my apologies due to my bad English.

-mada desu
Catchfraze
Literature Club Member
Posts: 39
Joined: Wed Nov 30, 2011 5:57 pm
Favourite Light Novel:

Re: Discussion: Liberalization VS Literalization

Post by Catchfraze »

http://amaterasu.tindabox.net/blog/?p=771

The above blog post is by Ixrec from Amaterasu Translations, the fine folks who have dedicated a lot of their time towards bringing quality VNs to the western hemisphere and just as much time to doing quality translations. I agree with pretty much every thing in that post, word for word.

I'm a pretty big fan of liberalization. I think translation is about conveying what was said. In some instances, a one for one scenario can work, but language isn't exactly 1:1. The intent of the speaker/author is a huge part of it, and being able to maintain that voice is the true challenge of translating.

In the end, it all comes down to the skill of the translator. This skill is a conglomeration of their fluency in the source language, and their fluency in the language they are translating to.

I haven't done anything in the LN community, but a while back I used to be an editor for manga. I've worked with quite a few translators of varying levels of competency, and by far,t he easiest ones to work with were the ones who were fluent in English. Translators who had English fluency were able to convey the Japanese script in a way that made sense to me as an English speaking person. It may have not been a 1:1 instance, but the intent of the author got through and in a few instances, 1:1 translations worked really well. Aside from editing images/typesetting, my job was to grammar check and every now and then ask for clarification on a translation.

On the other hand, working with translators who were not fluent in English was extremely trying, and part of the reason why I stopped editing manga (as more and more translators started to appear who were either prima donnas or didn't know English and were prima donnas too). The script I would receive would be translated, but it felt more like transration. The script would be filled with alien grammatical structures and phrases from where they were trying to ram the Japanese square pegs into the English round holes (arbitrarily selected, no metaphorical implications in the block selection). Eventually, the corners of the square pegs shaved off a bit, but then they got stuck in the round hole and I was left with a mess to clean up. It basically resulted in me having to translate the translation to make it readable to our leecher audience. Not only was it frustrating for me, but it was frustrating for the translators too, because to quote one of them, "Nobody else complains about my translation, you are one person who does."

Because of this, a lot of the authors original intent would be lost and the translations felt stale. Sure, we knew what was going on because the translations were more or less accurate, but that accuracy was only in the technicalities of the translation, the voice of the author was unfortunately lost.

I still read stuff that I consider to be translated in a manner I wouldn't necessarily agree with, because I'm leecher at heart, but there are a few times I walk away not know what was going on and never revisit the series until a better translation arrives. This is especially true in the LN sector. I take pretty much whatever I can get because even if the language is stiff or nonsensical, I can still get some sort of idea of the overarching story even if I don't fully understand the characters. There are not a lot of light novels that have been "officially" translated on the western side of the world and aside from Yen Press, I've been burned by every other company due to them closing down. (I'll cry if yen press doesn't eventually finish their spice and wolf publications).

tl;dr
Translation is not just converting a language 1:1. It's about taking what was said in a source language, the idea behind the statement, and most importantly the intent, and then conveying it in a secondary language in a manner that manages to do the same. I'm still a leecher at heart though, so for the most part, I take what I can get.
User avatar
NanoDesu
Mikuru's Master
Posts: 26
Joined: Tue May 29, 2012 3:27 pm
Favourite Light Novel:

Re: Discussion: Liberalization VS Literalization

Post by NanoDesu »

I don't think this really is even a debate. It might be a more viable question for languages closer to English, but Japanese is so different in structure that literal translations are almost categorically bad ones. Let me give you an example with a segment of text that I just translated out of oreimo. Here's a literal translation, followed by a more interpretive, and in my opinion correct, translation (I astericked out the spoiler):

-----

LITERAL TRANSLATION (Oreimo Vol 4, Ch. 4):

"O-Ohh. That's true... a-alright. Let's go to the next thing."

They were words meant to quickly change a dangerous topic, but I did not know the meaning of my own words.

"Let's go to the next thing"... in other words, I would see the next forbidden collection... that was the meaning....

"Un. If you ask me, the things I will show you from now on are the main topic..."

What's with that context? Depending on how you interpret it,I could hear the meaning "********? Fu, out of the goods I sealed up, that's the smallest."

... I-Impossible.

I swallowed my saliva with a gulp, and gazed at Kirino taking out a cardboard box that was not Pandora's box*(FOOTNOTE). Kirino put the box in the room's center with a don.

*(FOOTNOTE) This is translated "technically" correctly, but the implication here is that the cardboard box is not Pandora's box, but shares some of the same attributes. This would be rather lost in literal translations.

---

INTERPRETIVE TRANSLATION (Oreimo Vol 4 Ch. 4):

“A-Ahh. Yeah… a-alright, let’s move on.”

Those were words meant to divert the conversation into less dangerous waters, but I didn’t realize what I had just done.

When I said “let’s move on,” it meant she would be showing me more of her forbidden collection…

“Alright. Well, really, what I’m going to show you now is what we came here for…”

What the hell did that mean? You could almost interpret that as her saying “*********? Hmph, compared to what else I have in there, that’s not a big deal at all.”

… Y-You can’t be serious.

I gulped as I watched Kirino take Pandora’s cardboard box out from her secret compartment. Kirino plopped the box down in the middle of the room.

----

Both of those were written by me, but the second one is obviously much, much better (and it should be pretty clear which one I ended up posting on my site). In fact, the only thing going for the first one is that it was produced five times as quickly as the interpretive translation. Honestly, the only reason to go for literal translations is to save time, and that's ultimately not a very good reason at all, considering how much of a detriment literal translations are to translation quality.

This makes it all the more sad that so many translations I read in the past (before learning Japanese) come eerily close to sounding like the first translation I posted above. Or worse.

I am, though, for keeping very cultural terms like "senpai" in Japanese, adding a footnote when necessary. Words that are intricately tied into Japanese culture or Japanese history, that cannot be correctly encapsulated in a concise way in English... those words are fine to keep untranslated. But translating anything else literally is lazy at best.
Image
Catchfraze
Literature Club Member
Posts: 39
Joined: Wed Nov 30, 2011 5:57 pm
Favourite Light Novel:

Re: Discussion: Liberalization VS Literalization

Post by Catchfraze »

NanoDesu, I'm not sure if English your first language or not, but assuming it isn't, you indirectly proved my point when you made the statement
NanoDesu wrote:"Let's go to the next thing"... in other words, I would see the next forbidden collection... that was the meaning....
"...in other words, I would see the next forbidden collection..." does not sound natural as a native speaker of English. The structure of your sentence is for the most part sound, but using the phrase "forbidden collection" as a singular noun is off. It would be more natural to say "...in other words, I would see the next item in the forbidden collection. I realize that this phrase was not tied into your eventual final translation and that you had merely made the statement in order to prove a point, but it perfect way to highlight what I meant when I stated mentioned translating translations in order to get the intent of the original source.

This was an extremely minor example and nothing that an editor wouldn't be able to pick up, but there are some pretty arcane examples out there. Your Oreimo example is actually a good on in this regards as well. If you had continued doing literal translations, there probably would have been a gap in comprehension for the reader. The characters would have shifted conversational topics, but the last sentence would have implied that they were instead going to continue on with other items in the collection.
User avatar
larethian
I.D.S.E Humanoid Interface [LSB]
Posts: 2191
Joined: Tue Aug 31, 2010 10:50 pm
Favourite Light Novel:

Re: Discussion: Liberalization VS Literalization

Post by larethian »

This may not be 100% relevant, but just kind of an old-skool joke and too funny for me to pass it up with regards to this topic:
http://postimage.org/image/6q6wrvo3b/full/
link thanks to Kanon from AS
User avatar
Misogi
Supreme Lord Temporal
Posts: 4119
Joined: Sun Mar 18, 2012 5:19 am
Favourite Light Novel:
Location: France

Re: Discussion: Liberalization VS Literalization

Post by Misogi »

Well, I often have to adapt while translating, since it would give me nonsense or weird sentences if I translated them literally. And I know that I'm losing some of the original intent, even more if the scripts I'm working on are horrible.

So I agree that there must be some balance between faithfulness and localization.
Twitter : @MisogID
----
Sans plume, ni sanité (Without feathers nor sanity), a blog reeking of sickness. Wipe your minds before entering.
User avatar
Hiyono
Shamisen Wordsmith
Posts: 312
Joined: Thu Jul 31, 2008 12:55 am
Favourite Light Novel: Ahouka!
Location: The Internets

Re: Discussion: Liberalization VS Literalization

Post by Hiyono »

There are obviously times when both literal and liberal translations are necessary, and for me, it comes down to defining the boundary of what gets lost in translation. A translator's goal is to convey as much as possible of the original source in the target language. When we talk about fiction, that necessarily includes a lot more than simply words on a page. I see it as the translator's responsibility to preserve the overall mood of the writing, the personalities of the characters, etc. - all the little things that, in aggregate, are the very reason you enjoy the work so much. Accordingly, when you translate too literally, and subsequently, the ensuing translation is both awkwardly phrased and depicts the characters, well, out of character, then far from having "preserved" the feeling of the original, you have destroyed it.

Now, with regards to specific vocabulary or terminology, seeing as that was the root of this discussion, for me it again comes down to ensuring that as little as possible is lost in translation. Certain words or terms carry deep cultural subtext that simply cannot be accurately conveyed in any way in the target language, simply because their equivalents lack that additional meaning. Language is only useful insomuch as it is a shared medium. That's why things can get confusing when we use words loaded with a certain connotation in different contexts; the speaker and the hearer understand two different things. In this case, it should be clear that the use of such terminology hinders, rather than enables. When that is the case, it seems most appropriate to "loan" the word from the source language. At least with regards to English, this is, after all, a traditional practice, and foreign phrases like "je nais se quoi" have often been borrowed from other languages to enhance our ability to describe the world around us. There are those who believe (I fall in this camp) that without the language to describe a concept, you lack the ability to truly reason about and understand that concept. It is at times like these that a "literal" translation is needed.

With that said, I do not see there being a reason to leave a word or phrase from the original language as-is when there is a perfectly equivalent translation in the target language. For me, the perfect examples of these are idioms. There exist many Eastern idioms with 100% equivalent Western equivalents. If you were to use the Eastern idiom in your translation however, it would cause nothing but confusion. For me personally, when I see Chinese idioms used in English, even though I perfectly understand the meaning thereof, it still strikes me as being disruptive of flow and awkwardly phrased! In these circumstances, I feel the act of "translation" necessitates, well, translation.

TL;DR: do whatever conveys the entirety of the original best, while making an honest effort to translate everything if at all possible.
"There is always an easy solution to every problem - neat, plausible and wrong." H.L. Mencken (1971)
User avatar
NanoDesu
Mikuru's Master
Posts: 26
Joined: Tue May 29, 2012 3:27 pm
Favourite Light Novel:

Re: Discussion: Liberalization VS Literalization

Post by NanoDesu »

Catchfraze wrote:NanoDesu, I'm not sure if English your first language or not, but assuming it isn't, you indirectly proved my point when you made the statement

"...in other words, I would see the next forbidden collection..." does not sound natural as a native speaker of English. The structure of your sentence is for the most part sound, but using the phrase "forbidden collection" as a singular noun is off. It would be more natural to say "...in other words, I would see the next item in the forbidden collection. I realize that this phrase was not tied into your eventual final translation and that you had merely made the statement in order to prove a point, but it perfect way to highlight what I meant when I stated mentioned translating translations in order to get the intent of the original source.

This was an extremely minor example and nothing that an editor wouldn't be able to pick up, but there are some pretty arcane examples out there. Your Oreimo example is actually a good on in this regards as well. If you had continued doing literal translations, there probably would have been a gap in comprehension for the reader. The characters would have shifted conversational topics, but the last sentence would have implied that they were instead going to continue on with other items in the collection.
I think you may have misunderstood my post (or didn't read it carefully). The entire point is that the first translation I gave is BAD. In fact, I did the second translation for my site first, and then proceeded to go back and make the first translation just for the sake of posting on this thread. I would sooner eat a pineapple whole than translate anything in the style of the first translation I gave.
Image
Catchfraze
Literature Club Member
Posts: 39
Joined: Wed Nov 30, 2011 5:57 pm
Favourite Light Novel:

Re: Discussion: Liberalization VS Literalization

Post by Catchfraze »

NanoDesu wrote: I think you may have misunderstood my post (or didn't read it carefully). The entire point is that the first translation I gave is BAD. In fact, I did the second translation for my site first, and then proceeded to go back and make the first translation just for the sake of posting on this thread. I would sooner eat a pineapple whole than translate anything in the style of the first translation I gave.
I understand that the first translation is deliberately bad (in the sense of how literal to the source language you made it).

Maybe the confusion came from the fact that I broke up your sentence instead of including the entire thing.
NanoDesu wrote:"Let's go to the next thing"... in other words, I would see the next forbidden collection... that was the meaning....
Based on how I read your sentence/paragraph, the part in bold was the actual translation and what I have put in italics were your thoughts on the translation. Your thoughts on the translation were what I was trying to use in my example of a translator who is fluent in English, but not necessarily a natural speaker.

I hope this clarifies things and I apologize if it seemed like I was attacking your ability as a translator, that was not my intent.
User avatar
Hiyono
Shamisen Wordsmith
Posts: 312
Joined: Thu Jul 31, 2008 12:55 am
Favourite Light Novel: Ahouka!
Location: The Internets

Re: Discussion: Liberalization VS Literalization

Post by Hiyono »

Catchfraze wrote:
NanoDesu wrote:"Let's go to the next thing"... in other words, I would see the next forbidden collection... that was the meaning....
Based on how I read your sentence/paragraph, the part in bold was the actual translation and what I have put in italics were your thoughts on the translation. Your thoughts on the translation were what I was trying to use in my example of a translator who is fluent in English, but not necessarily a natural speaker.

I hope this clarifies things and I apologize if it seemed like I was attacking your ability as a translator, that was not my intent.
You're still misunderstanding. There were no "thoughts on the translation", as you put it. The entire text block, bolded and italicized parts included, was all part of the literal translation.

Edit: Apologies to larethian for the off-topic discussion, but I felt clarification was warranted.
"There is always an easy solution to every problem - neat, plausible and wrong." H.L. Mencken (1971)
User avatar
NanoDesu
Mikuru's Master
Posts: 26
Joined: Tue May 29, 2012 3:27 pm
Favourite Light Novel:

Re: Discussion: Liberalization VS Literalization

Post by NanoDesu »

Catchfraze wrote:
NanoDesu wrote: I think you may have misunderstood my post (or didn't read it carefully). The entire point is that the first translation I gave is BAD. In fact, I did the second translation for my site first, and then proceeded to go back and make the first translation just for the sake of posting on this thread. I would sooner eat a pineapple whole than translate anything in the style of the first translation I gave.
I understand that the first translation is deliberately bad (in the sense of how literal to the source language you made it).

Maybe the confusion came from the fact that I broke up your sentence instead of including the entire thing.
NanoDesu wrote:"Let's go to the next thing"... in other words, I would see the next forbidden collection... that was the meaning....
Based on how I read your sentence/paragraph, the part in bold was the actual translation and what I have put in italics were your thoughts on the translation. Your thoughts on the translation were what I was trying to use in my example of a translator who is fluent in English, but not necessarily a natural speaker.

I hope this clarifies things and I apologize if it seemed like I was attacking your ability as a translator, that was not my intent.
EVERYTHING, except for the portion marked FOOTNOTE, was part of the fake translation. It's good that you are identifying that line as bad English, but you are for some reason misunderstanding the fact that all awkwardness and errors in that sentence were FULLY INTENTIONAL.

But whatever. The point is, literal translations are, except in very exceptional circumstances, very bad.
Image
Catchfraze
Literature Club Member
Posts: 39
Joined: Wed Nov 30, 2011 5:57 pm
Favourite Light Novel:

Re: Discussion: Liberalization VS Literalization

Post by Catchfraze »

Hiyono wrote: You're still misunderstanding. There were no "thoughts on the translation", as you put it. The entire text block, bolded and italicized parts included, was all part of the literal translation.

Edit: Apologies to larethian for the off-topic discussion, but I felt clarification was warranted.
Ah, thank you for clarifying. I reread his post multiple times but I still could not make that connection. My apologies.
User avatar
Mystes
Heaven's Blade Successor
Posts: 15932
Joined: Thu Aug 05, 2010 6:54 am
Favourite Light Novel:
Contact:

Re: Discussion: Liberalization VS Literalization

Post by Mystes »

larethian wrote: Liberalization can either include localization, or just loose translations of the original words or phrase.
Literalization include literally translating words or phrases, retaining ways of addresses, honorifics or gobi (inflections or sentence-end-words), often complete with footnotes.
Depends on what would count as "loose translations". I'd say that I'm more in favor of localization. However, I wouldn't want the translator to rewrite it in his own manner instead of conveying what the author originally meant. I would also think that the translator, no matter how liberal s/he might be, should keep the way characters speak, in the sense that you don't give a monotonous tone to an overexcited girl.

At the same time, I think that for a light novel, there should be as less footnotes to make it as much enjoyable as possible. You won't usually see novels with as much references like The Tale of Genji (which is a pain to read with 2 poetic references in less than 500 words) counted as "light novel", so I would not expect to be many in the bottom of a normal chapter. If there's a pun, you can try doing one with the same structure in English. As for idioms, there should be an equivalent.

As for honorifics, I've read quite a few novels licensed by Yen Press and so far, I'm not crying because -san has been removed or whatever. Considering that the target language is English, there shouldn't be the need to keep them. In gobi's case, well, you can just make it reflect in the character's dialogue.
Kira0802

#campione at rizon for some #campione discussions~~ And other stuffs.
Post Reply

Return to “Lingua Franca Lexicon”