I saw this article and thought of this.
I knew about the term "traduttore traditore", but I dislike it since people usually use it to say all translators are traitors and all translations are treasons.
While "belles infidèles" is how people call translations they think are too disloyal for the sake of beauty or fluidity.
I haven't read all of the article but, before I reply to your post, I'll reply to some of the things Kate Gray wrote.
Accusations of censorship are particularly loud at the moment.
That's because there is a lot of censorship.
"A good localisation... will be truer to the intentions of the original creators than a strict translation," says Ace Attorney translator Janet Hsu. "By allowing a Western player to be entertained by it in the same way the creators intended their Japanese players to be entertained by the original – you're laughing at the same points, and crying your eyes out at the same points, too."
The most important thing I have against translators that does "localisation" is they assume too many things about their target audience based only on the fact that they all use the same language. People use English all around the world but have vastly different cultural backgrounds.
There will always be differences – linguistic, cultural and otherwise – between countries, just as there are between eras. It is a localisation team's job to bridge these differences so that people can share and delight in the same things, in roughly the same way. Even though their work can often change the meaning and setting of a game in such a way that it ends up being quite different from the original, I still see localisation as being something that can bring people closer. It means that people who don't speak the same languages have a shared connection through being able to love something together. Localisation is a tough, taxing and often thankless job, but it's because of their work that we can enjoy games that otherwise would have been lost to us.
I think what brings fans of Japanese works together are their common knowledge of Japanese pop culture.
If you take too much of these elements away from the works you're translating, you are cutting bridges not building them.
It takes a lot of work to find out the differences between the original and the translation – years of study in the language and an in-depth knowledge of the country and its culture. Sadly, we can't all speak other languages fluently. And yes, it sounds harsh to say that you should either learn a language or learn to appreciate a translation, along with all its flaws and downsides, but it's true.
No, it's wrong.
You don't need in-depth knowledge of the language and culture to understand what are the japanese honorifics or what a bento box is.
There is a golden-mean. If you are too lazy to try and find it, you can go ahead and change everything, but don't cry when I say your translation is bad.
Translation is never, ever perfect. The translator will always be a traitor, and the best thing they can do is what they're already trying to do – offer you a different, but still enjoyable piece of entertainment. They might be traitors, but at least they're on your side.
Don't lump me together with them please.
I'm not a professional but when I translate I tend to be very literal and more knowledge based. But I can see why localizing is more popular. Or if I read something based in a language/culture I know little about it does help me when they dumb it down or just localize it completely.
At some point the best is to have many translations. But we're not always that fortunate...
I don't think localizers are more rushed but I think sometimes there is a lack of foresight. They need to guess what's going to be relevant later or if there is a hidden meaning.
Some of them think about the repercussions of their changes but some of them don't. And that's if the translator didn't change in between those times.
But while a more literal translator might spend sleepless hours thinking about how to translate one especially tricky sentence, a pro-localisation one may very likely just go ahead and change it to something completely different without a second thought. Their imagination is sometimes admirable, but I still don't think that's what they should be doing.
Although I am skeptical of translators bias (when you can tell a translator favors a ship or character).
Yeah, that's a difficult matter especially because people often don't see their own bias.
I always try to talk to many fans and non-fans to see different points of view.
^(haha speaking of such I though the english translation I saw of ch80 really made Toudou's comment very platonic).
That's a shame. What did they write?
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