Inaka ni Kaeru to Yakeni Natsuita Kasshoku Ponytail Shota ga Iru - Vol. 3 Ch. 23

[sirflimflam]

@trapsarebetter Onii-chan and Onee-chan have almost always been special in the translated manga scene. So much so that whenever I see manga actually translate it to "brother" it weirds me out.

 

[Neushaartje]

@sirflimflam I think it's arbitrary and silly — same with the honorifics.

I see nothing wrong with translating it to “coz”.

 

[sirflimflam]

@trapsarebetter Honorifics at least carry somewhat important nuances that don't translate at all into English if you want the character to sound human. The Onii-chan and Onee-chan carryover was probably a similar holdout, since Onii-chan can mean so many different things, plus it's just one of those sets of endearing words that can make the character cuter when they use them, given the right mindset of the reader (who is supposed to be Japanese)

Honestly, translating it to "coz" sounds just about as arbitrary to me since we don't typically call people by their familial titles in English outside a few exceptions (usually older relatives a generation higher than the speaker). Sure, it happens, but it's not incredibly common. He might as well just call him by his first name. But then you're getting into the territorial debate between translation vs. localization. Everyone wants something different. The translators have to pick something and stick to it.

 

[Hikaruji1973]

@trapsarebetter

There's subtext and nuance involved. Kei could call Kouhei any number of variations ranging from (o)nii-san/chan and it would all get sublimated into something that doesn't carry said meaning. Onii-san and its variants are sometimes used to refer to older male cousins (as in this case), but it implies a connection and a sense of familiarity that "coz" wouldn't. And for all those who don't live in a country where "coz" is a thing, I would have to leave a translator's note explaining "coz" anyway. For that matter, had I had no context and someone asked me to define "coz" I would be at a loss, because that's just not used where I am, even if it's an English-speaking country. Nii-chan in this case is more universally understood *and* more faithful to the original. Grandma was called "Baa-chan" because (a) that isn't anywhere as common as Nii-chan and (b) it's not the focus of the manga, whereas the relationship between Kei and Kouhei is literally the point of the manga.
@sirflimflam is also correct because "Nii-chan" is endearing and cute in a way "coz" isn't.

No matter the translation, I expect people to recognise that you're reading about people living in Japan speaking Japanese. If there's something that doesn't translate well, I will leave it as is and it's the reader's job, as a consumer of Japanese media, to adapt, especially if it's one of the most commonly-seen things. Same how the official subs for Railgun translate Kuroko's Onee-sama into "Sissy" and everyone just wants to puke at that.

 

[Neushaartje]

@sirflimflam
There are far more concepts in Japanese that are far harder to translate than honorifics which very often have a very easy translations.
The reason they, and some other things like “sensei” even when it have a very obvious and natural translation are not translated is the same reason that in many W.W.II films Germans say “Jawohl!” and other suck stock phrases, otherwise speaking English — it's because they're the few phrases that everyone knows and they're left untranslated to make it feel more Japanese and German respectively.

You point to objections, but many other aspects of Japanese that the audience cannot be expected to be familiar with are translated just so, and often quaintly. I notice that in translations from Japanese, phrases such as “unforgivable”, “look my way”, “fight”, “go home” and other things that sound unnatural in the English context surface that are clear translations of Japanese idioms.

 

[sirflimflam]

@trapsarebetter I mean, I don't work in public scanlation groups anymore, but I am also a translator. I'm sufficiently familiar with the general rationale and difficulties of translating from Japanese into English. That said, sure, you can "easily" translate honorifics and other such things to English (same for Onii/nee), but it almost always makes forced, stiff, archaic, or otherwise bad dialogue. If you don't intend to preserve honorifics, you're almost always better off completely omitting them from the work than attempting to work it into the script. You lose the interpersonal nuance baked into the dialogue but it's better than people calling girls "m'lady" unironically or "miss" all the time, though you're boned when a character suddenly gets pissed off you're adding -chan to her name and have to completely rewrite their line to something unfaithful to the true dialogue, like having the opposing character suddenly giving her a weird nickname or something.

Anyway, I digress. I feel like I'm driving the topic way too far away from this adorable story.

 

[Neushaartje]

@sirflimflam

I disagree; I feel this is caused by thinking inside of a box that they must be translated to what is commonly called a “honorific” in English.

In Attack on Titan when Sieg refers to Annie as “Annie-tyan”, the subtitles say “little Annie”; this is captures the nuance very well; it both sounds more formal and distant than simply “Annie” but also speaks with a certain sense of affection.

Apart from that there are instances where they do find a way, such as “okyaku-sama”, they never use “customer-sama”, they only do that with names, but they typically find something like “dear, valued customer” or “sir” which is quite appropriate a translation.

There are many series, typically those with official translations or those intended for a more general audience where they do not leave things untranslated and they almost always find a way that sounds natural in English. In the subtitles of Dororo that I watched there was no undertranslation and they managed to translate such differences as between “titiue” vs. “otoutyan” very well.

 

[sirflimflam]

@trapsarebetter Okay, last response because I do agree with you, situationally, it's totally possible. I think the problem is the nature of honorifics being so common because they're just a natural part of Japanese dialogue, that any attempt to utilize translations for them throughout the entire dialogue starts to look awkward if you intend to translate them all. For instance, your "little Annie" Sieg uses is definitely not terrible and works but it's more of a one-off/infrequent affair. If anyone who used -chan or its variations would prefix little to the name for example (I've seen this happen), it would start to look awkward and quite forced. That's kind of the point I'm trying to make. Stripping out honorifics until there's a chance to make their use stand out seems like the best way to go if you don't intend to just keep honorifics. But even when you do that, you're still losing a little pinch of valuable information you might otherwise have. It doesn't necessarily take a huge part out of the story, it's just a little detail the original author had considered enough to put in, and we may miss it.

Translating otou-san and okaa-san is totally normal and expected, and the cutsie versions with different honorifics (-chan, -tan (I laughed when I saw a grown man call his mom お母たん before)) therein again, are definitely expected. When I'm speaking about honorifics, it's more speaking about the basic post-fixes names get rather than familial titles and the like. Things like okyaku-sama getting translated to sir or ma'am is a completely natural translation and doesn't rely on the honorific in the same way calling someone youko-chan might. That's about as direct a translation as you can have, where okyaku-san is more like a guest, than a customer. The distinction is in the honorific, so it must be translated to make sense, but it's almost more part of the word than an honorific of its own.

Onii-chan and Onee-chan are of course the exceptions, as we've already gone into.

 

[Benjababe]

What the fuck is going on with the blogging essay writers

 

[regumia]

lol

 

[elefantine97]

what is this adorable creature

 

[HoangDinh]

Cute

 

[JasonRed]

For a moment there I thought Kei was going to wake up Kouhei with a kiss.