EPTOn April 14 2010 15:10 KurtistheTurtle wrote:
I've taken japanese for...6 years now. I've watched anime longer. English dubs typically take out a lot of the subtlety of the dialogue. The japanese language operates on different ideas and cultural values. Often times if you directly translate what they're saying to english it means something different than the intended meaning (in bleach they often say "warui na" which literally means, "some recently referenced situation/noun is bad," and the intended meaning is "I'm sorry" in a very casual way)
the language is contextual; there are more meanings added onto what is said and what groups they're in/regard eachother in and all kinds of stuff that usually gets completely lost in the dubbed version. In the subbed version, the people who do it have to be versed in japanese which implies an awareness of this. because subs don't have to be in perfect english, the translations can at least grasp at it
I've taken japanese for...6 years now. I've watched anime longer. English dubs typically take out a lot of the subtlety of the dialogue. The japanese language operates on different ideas and cultural values. Often times if you directly translate what they're saying to english it means something different than the intended meaning (in bleach they often say "warui na" which literally means, "some recently referenced situation/noun is bad," and the intended meaning is "I'm sorry" in a very casual way)
the language is contextual; there are more meanings added onto what is said and what groups they're in/regard eachother in and all kinds of stuff that usually gets completely lost in the dubbed version. In the subbed version, the people who do it have to be versed in japanese which implies an awareness of this. because subs don't have to be in perfect english, the translations can at least grasp at it
Yeah but the point is that subtlety is lost on those of us who don't speak Japanese. In other words, decent English dub work communicates better than excellent Japanese voice work just because only a certain amount of the Japanese skills can be transmitted to a non-speaker.
