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Touhou 15.5: 東方憑依華 (Eastern Blooms of Possession) ~ Antinomy of Common Flowers
Despatche:
--- Quote from: mauve on April 25, 2018, 02:03:04 AM ---ideally, for an english translation, you want to translate names in such a way that someone who does not know japanese will know how to pronounce it correctly
the correct translation in that case is Jo'on. for a speaker unaccustomed to Japanese, Joon will likely be pronounced as a single syllable, like June. Jyoon will be spoken as, well, Jyoon, which isn't right. maybe that'll sound like Jiyuna for fighting game power. And Zyoon is only fine if you're reading it, not speaking it, and know the romanization methodology.
Know who you are translating for is a very important part of translating. it's not enough for things to be technically correct, especially once they are out of a controlled environment. you can't just point people at a wiki and go "this is how you say this!"
in other news i'm a fan of just ignoring the official translations for being nonsense.
--- End quote ---
It's not a translation. This is actually a really important distinction because labeling transliterations as translations ties into a lot of baggage surrounding whether a term is actually Japanese or not.
This name probably doesn't really have a "correct" transliteration, but it's likely a battle between "Jyoon" and "Zyoon". Macrons and apostrophes are non-starters, always.
It literally never matters what's "correct". What's actually correct is what's actually used, no matter how much anyone else might hate it. Joon is used in the game itself, so that takes precedence over a text file outside of the game, as well as literally everything else anyone could ever say about it.
Knowing who you're translating for is a very tiny part of translating, because the vast majority of time you're translating for yourself (especially if it's your job to translate weird Japanese games), and the rest of the time you're having to adhere to nonsense tradition like this apostrophe garbage. This is why it really never matters what's "correct", because this "correctness" is a maze of made-up bullshit with no internal logic.
But yes localizations are basically always nonsense. Very rarely is anyone willing to make a localization that doesn't suck somehow, and it's got nothing to do with being hyperliteral or whatever. Fortunately we have the very topic of this thread as a fantastic example of just how little most people really care about this stuff.
N-Forza:
You seem oddly upset for someone who doesn't seem to care about the quality of this patch.
--- Quote from: Despatche on April 25, 2018, 02:42:25 AM ---Knowing who you're translating for is a very tiny part of translating, because the vast majority of time you're translating for yourself (especially if it's your job to translate weird Japanese games),
--- End quote ---
Oh, okay.
mauve:
despatche just does that. ignore and move on.
anyway i read more of this translation and ehhhhh. I don't think it's up to the level of quality we are used to, and the questionable and unnatural choices of wordings to use. which is kind of the saddest part, I think. It's not that it goes against fan convention that has existed for well over a decade at this point (god it has been awhile), but that it does so with choices that simply don't fit as naturally or clearly in English. and it would really be sad if that is what they decide they want to stick with, overall.
i'm super happy that they are finally translating officially, but it puzzles me that they couldn't find someone who is a native speaker or who would be willing to understand what it is both fans and newcomers to the series would like to hear, because I think they missed both marks there.
Lebon14:
--- Quote from: Despatche ---This name probably doesn't really have a "correct" transliteration, but it's likely a battle between "Jyoon" and "Zyoon". Macrons and apostrophes are non-starters, always.
--- End quote ---
I disagree Despatche. Romanization standards exist for a reason. Hepburn was especially made for a non-Japanese reader perspective. Zun being inconsistent is because, well, he's clearly doing a favor to us for giving us a hint on the reading but otherwise he doesn't have to and not his forte. But somebody not knowing how Japanese works will take it at face value which is pretty bad. A translator or us the community have to take care to make sure anybody could come and understand how to read it properly. Because "Jyoon" could be read in very unorthodex ways such as "Ji-un" (un as in June), "J'yo-on", "Jai-o-n", "Jai-un", etc. All of which is far from the intended "Joe on" or Joon in hepburn. The other romanization standards makes more sense to the Japanese themselves more than foreigners except wapuro, which is closer to hepburn than the other two (wapuro is literal after all - は is "ha" no matter the context).
Yes, Zun said "Jyoon". Was it correct by the today's standards for what he intends to be read as? No. And it's not the first time Zun has made incorrect romaji.
Is it a good job from the translator to take Zun's romaji to the letter without looking at the kanji first? No. That's just laziness.
However, it is true that any translation is bound to leave some meaning and flavor behind. That goes for any translation but things like reading じょ incorrectly and interpret it "jyo" is a beginner's mistake.
N-Forza:
I don't want to sound like I'm bragging but I've met the Tasogare guys at a number of events and made it clear I wanted to help, and there's also a friend of mine who's been friend with them for a while and even joined ZUN as an interpreter to events in the US, and both of us would've been glad to take the job, but this other guy had an "in" of some sort so he got it. It's just how the business goes sometimes.
That being said, it's also likely some of the stranger naming choices were made on Tasogare's side despite the translator wanting to go another way, although it doesn't excuse the weird writing elsewhere.