Cultural Translation Quirks in Media

[Glaurung26]

What odd things have you all noticed in games, anime or movies, etc. that occur from translation? I'm primarily coming from not-English to English translation because that's what I know. I'm curious to hear the other direction as well. One thing that seems to get really goofy, aside from grammatical structure, is slang and colloquialisms. Heck it even happens within the same language. A couple weird ones (to me) I noticed were hihihi and huhuhu. I'm guessing those are onomatopoeias for laughing and giggling. Jajaja is from Spanish speaking cultures where J is pronounced like the English 'H'.

[FauxFurry]

Mistranslations or substitutions of loan words originating from the language that a work is being translated into is one of the more peculiar examples of this.

[Priest Kitty]

The darn hentais never translate oniichan. I guess it's because nobody wants to crank it to Hulk Hogan, smh.

[FauxFurry]

14 minutes ago, Priest Kitty said:

The darn hentais never translate oniichan. I guess it's because nobody wants to crank it to Hulk Hogan, smh.

Someone wanted to watch his leaked sex tape enough for it to end up on Gawker.

[landess]

On 11/30/2019 at 4:06 PM, Glaurung26 said:

What odd things have you all noticed in games, anime or movies, etc. that occur from translation?

This may be more of a translation in time than language, but my recent foray into Red Dead Redemption 2 has on more than one occasion made me think about the common use of contractions. While in the past, fewer contractions were used, resulting in a more eloquent sounding speech.

[FauxFurry]

10 minutes ago, landess said:

This may be more of a translation in time than language, but my recent foray into Red Dead Redemption 2 has on more than one occasion made me think about the common use of contractions. While in the past, fewer contractions were used, resulting in a more eloquent sounding speech.

If we are going to be considering changes to languages that occur over time, then we'd be looking at updates to ancient works updated for a modern audience more than translations that occur when a work crosses borders in the time they are intended for. For example, the transposition of Why and Where (as in Wherefore and Whyfore) in definition in English since the Victorian era or for that matter, the transition from Old English to Classical Victorian English in old translations of Reynart Fuchs.

[Mr. Otaku]

When they dub an anime but make the english VA's use san, chan and sama in the character dialogues, it grinds my gears the wrong way. It just sounds stupid. These kinds of honorifics make no sense when speaking in english.

 

Another thing would be when the pronunciation is way off the mark. Come on man, you guys are professional VAs, it's kinda your job to get these things at least right. But no it's not Kaioken, it's Kayokane! Cause Beta Schemmel was too busy being a total dipshit. This kinda segues into the dubbers changing the dialogue scripts altogether. It's when they change the original lines for fuck all reasons and mask it under the "localization" excuse. Or when they add bullshit lines where there were no lines at all, for no reason.

(Those that know of the funimation debacle with Kobayashi-san Chi no Maid Dragon and Hajimete No Gal agenda line change would know what i'm talking about, that's just straight up disgusting)

[Grey Cloud]

9 hours ago, FauxFurry said:

For example, the transposition of Why and Where (as in Wherefore and Whyfore) in definition in English since the Victorian era or for that matter,

Good example.

As a concrete example: "Romeo, Romeo wherefore art though, Romeo" means why are you Romeo* not "where the fuck have you got to".

*As in, of all the men in the world why did I have to fall in love with the scion of my family's arch-enemies?

 

One of my in-game favourites is from Honeypopcorn's Skyrim Overhaul. One of the follower's, Pei, will decide to tell someone to 'fuck off' in the middle of a fight. Not sure if Honeypopcorn quite understands that that is not the sort of thing parents want their children to be getting from a computer game.

 

9 hours ago, landess said:

While in the past, fewer contractions were used, resulting in a more eloquent sounding speech.

Well said. My personal favourite is Edwardian English, the words just flow of the page.

[gregathit]

Trying to convert Japanese slang to English.  I finally freaking gave up and just started making shit up.