[Kagemaru]

Some of you know I'm working on Pururun Seminar, but I confess I've never translated a manga before.  I've only read manga in Japanese, never in English, and I'm not sure what to do.  There's these parts, where because of the differences between Japanese and English grammar, word order, verb conjugation, etc., they're just pretty much impossible to translate correctly.  Does anyone know what translators do about this stuff?  Do they put asterisks on it and then put translator's footnotes at the bottom of the page?  Or do they just say "fuk it" and make up something else entirely, even if it's totally different from what they're really saying?
Please to advice me, so very thank you.

[humblefool]

Try and get the gist of it.  Don't attempt to be literal, that's not translating it, it's being silly.  The job of the translator is to take an idea from one language and attempt to express that idea in another language, not to directly change one language to another; a machine can do that.

[Tendrak]

Humblefool said it the best.

In Azu Manga Daioh, I somehow doubt people from Osaka have a southern accent. Or a New Yorker accent for that matter.

Just one of many cases where they just do the best equivilance as they can.

[Kagemaru]

I guess my question really is just if there are ever explanatory footnotes, is that standard practice-- because if not, I'm gonna have to just make something up... believe me, getting the gist of it, and in some cases even trying to have a remotely similar meaning, is im-fuckin-possible

[MaxBigfoot]

Just do the best you can.  Get as close to the gist as you can, and if you do have to go far afield, I would say footnotes aren't going to be that badly received.  I've seen it done before by many of the good translation teams.
It's been used for both explaining why the translation veers off the true meaning, and for explaining things that occur in the manga that are only known in Japan.

[__sb__]

This cooperation is nice.

[TheHerald]

As long as you can find room for footnotes, I don't see a problem with them. As for not translating literally, I'll use an example that Neil Gaiman described when he discussed translating for the English dub of "Princess Mononoke".

In the original Japanese, the "spy" (can't remember his name) complained that "my soup tastes like water", which is a high insult of someone's soup in Japan. Since the original meaning translated literally would not have the same effect in English, Gaiman changed it to "my soup tastes like donkey piss". Not the original words, but it gets the intended meaning across for an audience from a different culture.

[Kagemaru]

Let me ask this: If there's a place where I had to change the meaning entirely, would you guys want a footnote explanation of what they really said?  Or do you not care that much? Cuz you know, I'm just doing this for the fans, of course.

[ZoD]

I think it would be good to have footnotes. An interesting side note on translation wouldnt be a bad thing.  

[__sb__]

Kage, Do whatever you feel is the best. I have faith that you'll do fine. A lot better than I can do. I can't read Japenese.

[MaxBigfoot]

I would also be interested in seeing the footnotes, Kagemaru.

[MystressCyn]

I'd say, if you can't translate it properly, but you know what they are trying to say, go ahead and change it to something that westerners can understand and relate to in order to get the origional meaning accross. I've seen alot of anime do this...Like Trigun. It's not funny in Japanesse because they have a diffrent sence of humor. But when they dubbed it in english they changed alot of the diolog and how the characters acted in order for westerners to understand the overall mood and point better.

[turtle21]

Quote:
In the original Japanese, the "spy" (can't remember his name) complained that "my soup tastes like water", which is a high insult of someone's soup in Japan. Since the original meaning translated literally would not have the same effect in English, Gaiman changed it to "my soup tastes like donkey piss". Not the original words, but it gets the intended meaning across for an audience from a different culture.

Yeah but I never bought that explanation. If I sold soup, it's not like I would feel happy someone told me it tasted like soap water. (not to mention I didn't even know he was telling it to the guy) Plus it reminds me of the "fifteening" that went on for a long while where they would add swear words for the sake of adding swear words. You want a good example see the English dub for "Demon City Shinjuku"...dear God, the dub writer had a serious fascinating with the f-word...

I think footnotes are fine. I see that in some subtitled movies and I do see it in some comics. Stan Sakai himself said that he has notes at the end of all his stories so he can teach people Japanese culture and history. You can try to reword things to help western readers understand, so long as it's not something weird like calling riceballs "donuts."