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Anime Weekend Atlanta - Day Two - Translators
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We all know what translators do on anime projects - or do we? The group
on hand at Anime Weekend Atlanta said there's more work to be done than
just switching the dialogue from Japanese to English. Shin Kurokawa (left)
and Anna Exter (right) told how they have to also "time" the dialogue:
they make a list of each line of speech, marking down the time from the
beginning of the show when the line appears. That list is used to set up
the subtitles and dub script. |
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| In theory, the translators are supposed to produce a first draft of
a script, which is supposed to be refined and rewritten by scriptwriters.
In practice, that first draft sometimes ends up on screen. "On Trigun,
I was pleasantly surprised to see that my translation was used word-for-word,"
noted Exter. "I thought, `I never meant for that to be read aloud.'" |
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Nadelman, who may be the busiest freelance translator in the business,
said that translators have to be careful that they put the translation
into context because the original Japanese can have multiple meanings.
And "Stuff that sounds natural in Japanese sounds strange in English,"
he noted. That context item meant that Nadelman had to defend his Fushigi
Yuugi translation against fans who thought he got it wrong and censored
a character. That character speaks in what's considered a "rough" fashion
in Japanese, and a fan subber interpreted that to mean that the character's
speech was laced with obscenities. Nadelman's interpretation was that the
character was more gruff and direct than profane. |
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