Poruke: 146
Jezik: English
LyzTyphone (Prikaz profila) 1. rujna 2009. 16:10:04
Thank you again for your useful advice!
Right, there are many ways to sound authoritative or formal, but according to the PMEG the displacement of "estas" is not a readily acceptable way.
However, our task is probably a bit more demanding than expressing the tone. In Japanese mangas, there is usually the practice of assigning an unusual habit of speech to character, the purpose of which is probably to make him/her more unique, and to make it easier to identify the speaker. Wilhelmina's unusual and overly formal "de arimasu" is no exception. It doesn't only appear in this sentence, but in fact also in so many others that to a reader "de arimasu" makes an automatic "by Wilhelmina" marker.
Establishing a "by Wilhelmina" marker means that my rendition has to be general enough to appear in different sentences (at least "de arimasu" is used only in declaratives), and also special enough so other characters don't easily pick up the use. It doesn't have to sound very natural, because the original doesn't either.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Below is my 2nd attempt:
a. Tio, kion vi faris plurfoje, estas tute neakceptebla por Flamnebulo.
Experiment with "tio, kio" emphasis. General enough, and seems stronger. I know however this is quite a liberal translation because I assumed it's "you" who committed the actions.
b. Tiaj agoj por Flamnebulo neniel ajn estus akcepteblaj
Experiment with "neni-" word negation. To express affirmation I may have to do double negating
(like "Tiaj agoj neniel ajn ne estus akcepteblaj")
I personally feel both sound stronger and more official, but pray tell me what you think as my perception isn't guaranteed to be correct.
Oŝo-Jabe (Prikaz profila) 2. rujna 2009. 03:27:49
LyzTyphone:A grammar rule of Esperanto specifically forbids double negatives, or at least using both ne and a nen- word for the same phrase. So the second one doesn't work. (The closest equivalent of English sentences where more and more negatives are jokingly piled on, is probably the use of more than one mal-.)
Below is my 2nd attempt:
a. Tio, kion vi faris plurfoje, estas tute neakceptebla por Flamnebulo.
Experiment with "tio, kio" emphasis. General enough, and seems stronger. I know however this is quite a liberal translation because I assumed it's "you" who committed the actions.
b. Tiaj agoj por Flamnebulo neniel ajn estus akcepteblaj
Experiment with "neni-" word negation. To express affirmation I may have to do double negating
(like "Tiaj agoj neniel ajn ne estus akcepteblaj")
I personally feel both sound stronger and more official, but pray tell me what you think as my perception isn't guaranteed to be correct.
Maybe, she could end all her sentences with "malfi," and add "ja" whenever is makes sense. ("Malfi" is an interjection that expresses satisfaction.) The combined effect hopefully being that the phrase is strengthened, but the emotion behind it is more subdued.
Tiaj agoj ja estas tute neakcepteblaj por Flamnebulo, malfi.
---
How will we represent people who speak in the third person about themselves? Maybe something like:
Sakon will punish you!
Mi, Sakon, punos vin!
Maverynthia (Prikaz profila) 2. rujna 2009. 05:12:56
erinja:Translations always give less information than the original language. If you are so serious about manga that you can't bear the loss of your Japanese suffixes, then you should just learn Japanese and read it in the original, because the very fact of putting it into another language gives you a loss of information, even if you do try to preserve suffixes or grammatical forms.Ohhhh that reminds me! Don't forget to flip it left to right, wouldn't want anyone to get confused as to why it's right to left... Japanese culture and language is so hard to understand you know? Oh, you might want to get a decent artist too because your going to have to redraw all the art to make it more Western, people might get puzzled as to why the characters have big eyes and small mouths.
I think it's shear Western arrogance to to want EVERYTHING in English. I thought Esperanto was about bridging cultures and having people learn about each other. I can see however in some people's eyes it's about stamping out culture and replacing it. What's wrong with people learning another culture's language and mannerisms. As far as I know, all the GOOD manga companies over here LEAVE THEM IN and explain them with a small page in the front or back.
I'm sorry erinja that your such a xenophobe to Asian cultures that the thought of seeing one makes you say these things and cringe at the very thought of having them in your mind.
Oŝo-Jabe (Prikaz profila) 2. rujna 2009. 06:18:45
Maverynthia:Um... okay. Wow. I really hope you're joking. Personal attacks are never a good route to take.erinja:Translations always give less information than the original language. If you are so serious about manga that you can't bear the loss of your Japanese suffixes, then you should just learn Japanese and read it in the original, because the very fact of putting it into another language gives you a loss of information, even if you do try to preserve suffixes or grammatical forms.Ohhhh that reminds me! Don't forget to flip it left to right, wouldn't want anyone to get confused as to why it's right to left... Japanese culture and language is so hard to understand you know? Oh, you might want to get a decent artist too because your going to have to redraw all the art to make it more Western, people might get puzzled as to why the characters have big eyes and small mouths.
I think it's shear Western arrogance to to want EVERYTHING in English. I thought Esperanto was about bridging cultures and having people learn about each other. I can see however in some people's eyes it's about stamping out culture and replacing it. What's wrong with people learning another culture's language and mannerisms. As far as I know, all the GOOD manga companies over here LEAVE THEM IN and explain them with a small page in the front or back.
I'm sorry erinja that your such a xenophobe to Asian cultures that the thought of seeing one makes you say these things and cringe at the very thought of having them in your mind.
In the translation of Alice in Wonderland, the phrase "Your majesty" becomes "Reĝo moŝto." CLEARLY, it would be much better to leave that phrase as "Your majesty," after all it's impossible to get the exact nuance of the English phrase into Esperanto, so why even try? In fact it lets people learn English, and hey isn't cultural bridging the whole point of Esperanto? Why stop there!? Let's leave in "mister," and "doctor!" I'm sure the casual reader who doesn't speak English will appreciate how authentic our translation is! We'll just explain all those words in footnotes, or glossaries in the back.
Translation is all about compromises. Japanese has many features, grammatical or otherwise which are impossible to express in Esperanto. A skilled translator will do his best to make the target audience get almost the same experience as those who read the original.
LyzTyphone (Prikaz profila) 2. rujna 2009. 07:26:15
Wow, hot words.
Oŝo-Jabe:Translation is all about compromises. Japanese has many features, grammatical or otherwise which are impossible to express in Esperanto. A skilled translator will do his best to make the target audience get almost the same experience as those who read the original.Although I don't like to easily admit that Esperanto has its limit too, I guess you may be right about that.
The most important task for translators is, that they should translate. It is hard in some cases (being a Chinese, I have read many translations of foreign literature. I know it.) but to leave in something from the source language (as in "Such actions are very unbecoming of a Flame Haze de arimasu") really strikes me as an act of surrender. In the metaphor of "Bridging", that will be like building a bridge just half way across the strait and telling people to swim onto the bridge first.
@Maverynthia
And I don't think erinja "wants everything in English". She just want the translation in an Esperanto understandable to everyone all over the world.
Yes, as a language Esperanto is malleable, but there is also a limit to its flexibility, as shown here (note that BAGHY wrote a piece of literature so there is some exaggeration). So basically what we translators have to try to do is to minimize the damage and achieve an effect as close to the original as possible. And that is too how you judge the skill of a translator.
By the way, manga companies here in China never leave in anything, although you can argue that it's because the two cultures are similar in the first place. But be careful because some people in Japan and China may not be happy about that~
-----------------------------------------------------
@Oŝo-Jabe
Thank you for your advice!
I actually have never heard of "malfi", so that makes it unusual. Is that supposed to sound official, formal and authoritave though?
Thank you for pointing out the problem with double-nagative! Do you think, then, "ĉi-" word will do?
2. (if affirmative) Tiaj agoj ja ĉiel estas akcepteblaj por Flamnebulo.
How about this?
mnlg (Prikaz profila) 2. rujna 2009. 11:19:57
LyzTyphone:but to leave in something from the source language [...] really strikes me as an act of surrender.I wouldn't condemn the whole practice. I read Tolstoj in Italian, and in my version there were a few russian words sprinkled here and there (I remember batjuska). Upon their first appearance, a footnote would explain what they mean and why it was a much better choice to leave them in their original language. I wouldn't say the final translation became tainted or less worthy because of that. On the contrary, it gave me a better feel of the story. What do you think, LyzTyphone-san?
ceigered (Prikaz profila) 2. rujna 2009. 14:14:05
Maverynthia:Ohhhh that reminds me! Don't forget to flip it left to right, wouldn't want anyone to get confused as to why it's right to left... Japanese culture and language is so hard to understand you know? Oh, you might want to get a decent artist too because your going to have to redraw all the art to make it more Western, people might get puzzled as to why the characters have big eyes and small mouths.Don't joke about this lol I know MANY people who have done that before.
Interesting note though is that Manhwa (Korean manga) is written in the same direction as US comics.
I think it's shear Western arrogance to to want EVERYTHING in English. I thought Esperanto was about bridging cultures and having people learn about each other. I can see however in some people's eyes it's about stamping out culture and replacing it. What's wrong with people learning another culture's language and mannerisms. As far as I know, all the GOOD manga companies over here LEAVE THEM IN and explain them with a small page in the front or back.You're true that the good manga companies (and bad ones too) leave them in. However Erinja probably doesn't know these things as she said it's not an interest of hers, and she's more concerned about helping us make a good translation if we so choose to do so, as a problem with translation is where people put lots of good work into something and in the end only they really get it - so don't confuse it for xenophobia (absolutely the coolest word in the dictionary), she's just looking out for us and trying to be helpful. Oh and she's also a moderator and also contributed time to translating Lernu to English.
I'm sorry erinja that your such a xenophobe to Asian cultures that the thought of seeing one makes you say these things and cringe at the very thought of having them in your mind.
Basically Maverynthia some of what you said is right but you need to ask questions first then shoot - go and understand Erinja's view point first
In the metaphor of "Bridging", that will be like building a bridge just half way across the strait and telling people to swim onto the bridge first.Some people like swimming though
Like me, for example, who loves the small trickle of Japanese culture entering my veins. Unfortunately I haven't had the same experience with Chinese, so far my chs and qs are confused and my zhs and js are also confused, can't do good tones for the life of me and I can only remember some characters (你好和你 mingzi 是 shenme?)... We need more Chinese manga
ceigered (Prikaz profila) 2. rujna 2009. 14:15:36
patrik (Prikaz profila) 2. rujna 2009. 14:28:23
The question is whether to Esperantize Japanese words [particularly the honorifics] or not. My answer is that it would depend on the approach the translator takes: either mere transliteration or full Esperantization.
Transliteration is just rendering the spelling of a word into a different writing system. Esperantization goes beyond that by converting that word into an Esperanto word. Now, if we start putting "-o"'s into the names, that's Esperantization. If not, those names remains Japanese.
Now, full Esperantization would demand translation of those honorifics, because when Japanese words become Esperanto words [by putting those "-o"'s], these are now fully subject to Esperanto's morphological rules. If that's the case, then we can freely affix "-ĉjo/-njo" to those names, for instance. But when it's otherwise, there's no point in putting Esperanto affixes into Japanese words, just because the names are still Japanese words and thus are only subject to the morphological rules of Japanese.
I hope this would clarify things.
mnlg (Prikaz profila) 2. rujna 2009. 14:33:35
ceigered:xenophobia (absolutely the coolest word in the dictionary)I'm partial to obnoxious.