Translation Style Choices: Difference between revisions

# '''[[Streamlined]]:''' Somewhere between [[Cut and Paste Translation]] and [[Woolseyism]]. With [[Streamlined]] dubs, the plot is usually kept intact, although almost all dialogue is thrown out the window and replaced. [[Akira|Sometimes]], this works [[Woolseyism|quite well.]] [[Streamline Pictures]], the [[Trope Namer]], and Manga UK were very famous for this style of dubbing.

# '''[[Woolseyism]]:''' Named after Ted Woolsey, who was known for his more pragmatic translations of games. This approach is formally referred to as ''dynamic equivalence''; the general idea is that the translation should give the foreign audience the same experience as the original, even if some details have to be altered and some aspects that would [[Values Dissonance|cause]] [[Unfortunate Implications|controversy]] or fail to translate sensibly just have to be left out. The general guideline when using this method is that the work needs to be self-contained; if the script contains references or connotations that wouldn't be obvious to the target audience, those elements should probably be left out or changed. It's probably the best tool for a ''localization'': the purists get their original storyline intact (more or less), but you don't need an introductory lesson in a foreign language and culture to understand what's going on. Of course, the ''hardcore'' purists will still hate it. But when you get right down to it, [[They Changed It, Now It Sucks|the hardcore purists hate everything]]—they should probably stick to the original language of the production in question.

# '''The same, but with footnotes, liner notes, or captions''' to explain the details. Widely used by fansubbers of anime. [[Don't Explain the Joke|Explaining a joke may make it not be very funny]], but some cultural references work a lot better this way:

# '''[[Blind Idiot Translation]]:''' What happens when the people responsible for the translation [[They Just Didn't Care|just don't care]]. Grammar rules will be violated and homonyms may have the wrong meaning translated. Fortunately, the vast, vast majority of serious commercial releases rarely fall into this category, but there are a depressing number of 1980s video games that were translated in this manner. And let's not even [[Translation Train Wreck|get started on]] [[Blind Idiot Translation|bootlegs]]...

* ''[[Fate/stay night]]'' hovers along the sliding scale here; the anime drifted more toward Woolseyism, while the otherwise appreciated fan translation by Mirror Moon erred on the side of a [[Blind Idiot Translation]].

** For one example, Mirror Moon often literally translates the expression, "the time the date changes", which Western viewers would understand clearer as simply "midnight".

 

== Formal Equivalence with Explanations ==

* Common with notes on the top of the screen among [[Fan Translation|fansubs]].

* Towards the end of its individual novel run, ''[[Azumanga Daioh]]'' had 'Translator Notes' in the back to help explain a few things; they did admit to dipping into method 2 for a couple of very language-dependent jokes. Note that the anime actually kept the jokes as is, for the most part. ''Yotsuba&'' seems to be adding the comments in the gutters between frames in the manga.

** Too bad the people who adapted the dialogue for the first few volumes of Negima [[Gag Dub|didn't get the memo]]...

* The fansub of ''[[Pani Poni Dash!]]'', a [[Widget Series]] with so many in-jokes you have to freeze-frame to get all of them, had a PDF file accompany each episode explaining the references. These files often ran to ''a page a minute'': over 20 pages for a 22-minute episode.

** Also done in the Brazilian edition of ''[[Bleach]]'' with the Zanpakutou of the Espadas when they perform the Ressurrección - even though they came in Spanish names, which would be easy enough to understand, the translating team always appends the meaning of the kanji provided by Tite Kubo for the name (for example, Ulquiorra's would be "Murciélago, Great Demon with Black Wings").

* ''[[Lucky Star]]'' technically falls under this one due to its American release. Considering the abundance of many of the anime and cultural references, Bandai Entertainment had the foresight to include a 4 page pamphlet of liner notes for any particular volume. While some of the references are incredibly obvious and don't need mentioning (they do it anyway), they go so far as to include things that can only be noticed when watching the show with the Japanese language track, even if the dub had used language in such a way that none of the original context was lost.

** Bandai's translation of the manga is the same way.

*** And the first two volumes were a pain to read for anyone who cares about English sentence structure and grammar. Whoever was supposed to be doing the translating (i.e. the anime's translator) wasn't doing a particularly good job, even with the notes at the end, making it almost impossible to know what the joke was supposed to be. The third volume had much better English, and probably because the translator was replaced according to the credits at the end of the three volumes.