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Inside The Translations
of Marmalade Boy
KD: As a 6/5/95,
there have been 3 teams of translators working on early part
of Marmalade Boy. They are as follows:
Bruce Duffy and Mika Hippen
Mika Hippen and Karen Duffy
Chris Raymer and Sasagu Yamaguchi
(as a favor to us)
(Marmalade Boy
was intended to be Karen's Project from the beginning. However,
the timing and editing was by Bruce on the first 3 volumes (episode
1-12). The rest of the 16 volumes (episodes 13-76 and the MB
Movie were by Karen)
Later in June 1995, we added...
Yamazaki Masatomo and Karen Duffy have take over the project
completely
(While Mika attended summer classes out of town, Bruce needed
a rest, and Chris Raymer's life went into a new direction, and
Sasagu? I don't know....grin)
THE
DIFFICULTY OF TRANSLATING:
Translating
from Japanese to English is sometimes like trying to put two
legs into one leg of your pants! Things just don't always fit
right. As a result, the mental gymnastics can be excruciating.
Regardless, we believe that having a native born Japanese translator
WITH an American is probably the best way to cross the barrier
between countries. Both Mika Hippen (married to an American doctor,
that's why the last name "Hippen") Sasagu were so invaluable
to the project.
THE
AMERICANS INVOLVED IN TRANSLATIONS ARE AS IMPORTANT AS THE JAPANESE
COUNTERPARTS:
Yet,
translating also takes some savvy on the part of the American
portion of the teams. The Japanese counterparts tend to speak
more formal English than what would be spoken by teenagers, as
the show depicts. In addition, foreigners can't possibly pick
up all the American idioms that drench our culture, let alone
know which of those belong to the deep south, the ghettos, or
those used mainly by teens.
The
real exercise comes when a Japanese idiom means absolute nothing
when translated into English. The next best option seems to be
either to use the MEANING of the words as the translation rather
than the statement directly OR try to find a similar American
idiom that conveys the same feelings and emotions. Both techniques
are used in these translation according to what "feels"
right in the setting.
WHEN
JAPANESE AND AMERICAN USE THE SAME WORD TO MEAN DIFFERENT
THINGS:
Some
common words convey different meanings in English and Japanese.
For instance, the famous Toryo medallion. In English, this trinket
would be called a locket. The Japanese have borrowed the English
word "medallion" but are using it where we use the
word "locket". At first, we used the word locket for
the Toryo medallion but got so used to hearing the voice actors
say "medallion" in English that, we went back and changed
the translation "locket"
back to "medallion" to match the Japanese attempt at
English.
Masatomo
tells me that this is one that got him after coming to the US.
To say "I'll think it over" in Japan means "No".
In the US, it means "I'll consider it and get back to you".
So he'd get asked "Do you want to be a Christian?"
Answer: "I'll think it over." It took him a while to
figure out that the statement doesn't mean the same thing in
both countries.
CONNOTATIONS
(examples...just a few of many)
It's Like A Dream...
Both our culture and theirs are drenched with connotations. In
episode #45, Meiko says "It's like a dream." In our
culture we have a saying "It's like a dream come true."
meaning "a wish fulfilled". But actually she was saying
that the situation didn't feel real...just as a dream ISN'T real.
The situation was that she hadn't had time to adjust to a new
situation that had come on her all at once! Her sentence had
to completely be rewritten to convey the CORRECT
MEANING.
Making
A Confession...
In the Japanese vernacular, to tell someone you love them is
to made a "confession". To many of us here, making
a confession is done if you're heading off to jail OR you're
Catholic. This confession-thing is used quite a lot in Marmalade
Boy since it's a romantic/comedy. Our connotations of the word
make it difficult to use too often. It's there in our translations
when
we can get away with it (determined by what else is in the context
of the sentence) and at other times saying it differently altogether
was found to come across better.
In
episode 46, Miki says that Meiko is even prettier than usual.
She's "frighteningly" beautiful. All that we could
come up with on that is that Japanese ghosts are often depicted
as beautiful until they're upset, then they become ghastly. Symbolically
speaking, it seemed the connotations were built upon that and
that Miki was saying that Meiko is composed on the outside, but
full of turmoil on the inside.
We
can't possibly put notes on the screen to explain all the connotations
so the only option is to change the wording to convey the correct
feeling.
FILLING TIME
SLOTS:
The
scripts are required to fit certain time slots. This means that
sometimes sentences may be edited to fill the space. In Japanese,
a line may say something and IMPLY a whole lot more. There's
no way, absolutely NO WAY to convey these extra feelings. By
trying it both ways; wordy sentences with more meanings as opposed
to shorter sentences that stick directly to the main thought,
we found that the show gained FAR MORE DEPTH from the latter.
We do make exceptions. We translate to fit the situation. So
the our rules of translating are NOT set in blood. We take each
line as it comes.
LIST
OF VARIABLES:
About the
final translations: The original translations are ALWAYS very
rough. It takes seeing the scripts over and over, making a slew
of adjustments before a script is ready to use.
Some of the considerations are: Voice tone
Length of sentence
A comparison of previous and following
statements.
The question of whether the specific
character would say it that way.
Matching the English to the Japanese in
direct order.
Time allotment.
Redundancy.
Does the translation convey the true intent
of what was said.
Does the correct translation have the same
connotations as intended by the writers.
ARTISTIC
INTERPRETATION:
It
is a fact true, that not all translators for American anime will
choose the same wording. Considering all the possible options
for saying the same thing in English, this would be impossible.
A great many personal preferences will be a part of every translator's
efforts. Therefore, translating for anime is somewhat like artists
painting in their own style.
WHO'S
RESPONSIBLE FOR WHAT:
On a final note, the translators are only responsible for the
interpretation of the words that the final product is based upon.
The EDITORS make the final decisions. This means that would-be
experts should not lay blame for anything they might not agree
with on the interpreters.
COULD
THERE BE MISTAKES:
You
bet! And sometimes we'll catch them and sometimes we won't. Sometimes
there's a lack of understanding of concepts between the Japanese
interpreter and the American trying to rewrite for clarity in
English.
With
American interpreters a tense or verb can be off. And also with
Americans interpreting alone without a Japanese counterpart looking
over the shoulder, connotations can be lost. Remember the connotations
can often tell the story better than the straight words can.
Like "Get off it" meaning in our slang, "quit
it" not literally "to remove oneself from". What
a difference in meaning, huh?!
Long
distance interpreters, ones not working directly with Bruce and
I here, cannot answer our questions about what they really mean
by what they say in their scripts. We are left to guess-work
or asking the Japanese translators IF they have time.
Also
when translations are shipped in rather than translated line
by line with us at the computer, we have to hope we've lined
up the correct translation with the correct line.
Overall
though, translating with a native Japanese looking over ones
shoulder right at the computer, seems to be the most accurate
way to perform the feat of translating.
FINAL
NOTE:
All
in all, those involved with the Marmalade Boy project have a
passion for the show. Mika and Masatomo are primarily paid translators,
rather than fans, but each says that they love doing it this
job because it's fun!
I,
myself, have devoted every single day to it frequently spending
hours through the night working on it as well. Why? Um...well...
I'll leave that to your imagination.
At
any rate, nothing is perfect. BUT...I want to say that no matter
what, we have done the best we could.
THE
TRANSLATOR STATS: (From 1995)
Bruce
Duffy: Bruce
has been studying Japanese for a year and a half with private
tutors. It used to be rather dull studying the old fashioned
way...until he discovered he could use Marmalade Boy for his
lessons.
Chris
Raymer: Chris
has been studying college Japanese for a couple of years. He
is planning to live in Japan and to be a teacher. He's ESPECIALLY
good at formal dialog because of so much experience writing college
papers. Examples of his ability to do this are in volume 4 (MB
#13-16) where the teachers are all up in arms about Namura-sensei
and Akizuki Meiko.
Sasagu
Yamaguchi:
The other half of the men's team. I've never actually talked
to Sasagu. But, from what I've been told, Chris does as much
translating as he can on his own. Sasagu then looks over any
dialog that Chris has questions about...in order to clarify them.
This appears to be the best arrangement for them. Sasagu and
Chris apparently have a good relationship in which they play
with their language skills.
Mika
Hippen: A
very unusual Japanese woman. I say "unusual" for this
reason - There are a lot of Americans, who are really intelligent
but can NOT read subtitles. I have personally seen native born
Japanese, Mika, read the English subtitles, listen to the Japanese,
and make a comparison all at the same time without me stopping
the tape! She's good, absolute irreplaceable!
Karen
Duffy: Used
to living with teens around, and usually talks that way herself.
This is used to the advantage when editing scripts to common
usage. Has some Japanese language skills but they're simplistic
at best probably understands about 200 words at most. Is the
largest contributor time-wise and work wise to the project.
NEWS!
(6/20/95) We now have a NEW Japanese translator added to the
project. His name is
Yamazaki Masatomo.
Masatomo is currently helping with translation holes and errors
to enable me to prime the episodes for mastering. Welcome Masatomo!
NEWS! (6/30/95) Masatomo and I (Karen) are handling all translations
now that the show is nearing an end. All of the shows from the
60's, a goodly portion from the 50's plus some in the 40's have
been done with the aid of Masatomo.
Yamazaki
Masatomo:
Masatomo is often called "Tom" by Americans who can't
figure out how to pronounce his name. He seems to actually like
his nick-name. He likes America because Americans appreciate
his sense of humor. It wasn't exactly in Japan. Women here are
very open and free speaking. He wants to marry a brunette!
Masatomo is a college graduate but is continuing his education.
One of his favorite subjects is English writing classes. This
comes to our advantage at times because although his English
isn't perfect, he has a fair grasp of it for a non-native born
speaker. Now , if we could only dump the accent so that he doesn't
sound like he's from South America! (His dialect is from the
Konsai area which means his accent is different from Mika's or
any of our Japanese Foreign Exchange students'.) (^_^)
Inside The Translations
of the Marmalade Boy Series
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