a translator's philosophy

...or, alternatively, what you should know before emailing me about the translations on this site. ^v~ since this is somewhat lengthy, you can use the following links to jump to particular sections:

overview

the ayashi no ceres translation project is a volunteer effort. a lot of people seem to miss the volunteer part, and it's a crucial distinction. we're doing this, each of us, for many different reasons, but we all have at least two things in common: we enjoy it, and we're not getting paid to do it. that means that we can stop at any time, and are under no obligation to do any of this. it means that we're not on any particular schedule, nor is there any kind of pressure on us that we don't place upon ourselves.

what does this mean in plain english? it means 'be nice'. at any given time, most of us in this project have any number of things that our time would likely be better spent on. we have jobs, school, hobbies, husbands, wives, and significant others, but we do this because it's fun and we enjoy it, and most of us learn from it as well. if people get impolite, demanding, or otherwise start treating us as if we have this obligation to be translating for them, it ceases to fun, and when it ceases to be fun, we stop translating.

furthermore, since we are all different people from different walks of life at different levels of japanese and english literacy, each of us will have a different style to our translations, and varying degrees of accuracy. my comments in this section refer only to the translations done by mari and myself, and should not be construed to reflect on anyone else's.

literal versus colloquial

possibly one of the most heated areas of disagreement in the realm of translation is just how literally you want something translated. some people prefer the precise literal wording of the original, while others prefer to sacrifice some of the literal wording in order to capture the intent and meaning of the original. i, myself, am of the latter school of thought.

the truth is, between colloquialisms, politeness levels, and a radically different grammatical structure, japanese and english are so fundamentally different that literal translation is often next to impossible. trying for it is fine if you're translating a scientific text or business document, but let's face it: our job is to translate a story, and at least half of the enjoyment in a story is in how it's told. therefore, i'm of the opinion that it's best to strive for the original meaning and intent, and i don't feel bad about fudging the original wording or adding/removing bits and pieces to be able to convey this in natural everyday english. otherwise, you run into serious problems from a storytelling standpoint.

first of all, you lose the flavor of the original entirely. for instance, me no doku (poison for [one's] eyes), translated literally, comes across fairly well, especially in reference to the sight of a beautiful woman--but what about the kanji quartet of shinshutsu kibotsu (god comes out and the devil disappears = slippery, fleeting, elusive), the common idiom ki ni naru (become to spirit/mind = worry about, obsess over), or the extremely common sonna! ("[a thing] such as that" = oh my god, it can't be, oh my, oh no, etc)? the only way to capture this sort of thing is to replace it with a natural english idiom that a native english speaker will empathize with.

the second problem you run into is redundancy. english is a hodgepodge of hundreds of different languages over a period of many centuries, and because of this there is an incredible variety of ways to express the most common, everyday things. japanese--both the language and the society--is very formalized and structured, and there are certain phrases which occur again and again and again in manga/anime, simply because you'll hear them countless times in everyday japanese life. whereas in america a person might say "catch you later", "seeya", "bye", or any number of things when leaving the house, a typical japanese will say ittekimasu almost every time (prompting the ritual response of itterasshai). translate this literally, and you'll have a character saying "i'm going to go" and "you're welcome to go" every time. i frankly can't stand literally translated japanese stories because the dialogue is redundant as all hell, so i don't translate that way either.

the bottom line is, if you want to know the literal translation--and i mean exactly what they're saying--then learn japanese. i wanted to once, and so i did. otherwise, sit back and enjoy the ride. ^v~ when i've had to make a really radical change (or often simply because i find something about the original to be linguistically interesting), i usually leave a translation note to that effect.

profanity

profanity is a subject of particular contention among japanese <-> english translators, primarily because it's as much a linguistic argument as a moral one.

let's examine the purpose of profanity, shall we? in general, when one uses profanity, it has one of the following purposes:

to be rude
to be colloquial/casual
to express strong feelings/emotions (expletives)

the japanese language contains very little of what we, as native english speakers, know as profanity, but nearly all of its functions are filled by politeness levels. verb conjugation, pronouns, and many other elements of grammar have their own built-in levels of politeness. using a casual tense might be okay with your friends, but using that same verb form with your boss would be likely to get you fired. on the other hand, being too formal with someone you're on a casual level with might be construed as being distant or even sarcastic.

most of these are simply impossible to properly translate if taken literally--especially pronouns. anata and teme both mean "you", but using the former is more or less widely acceptable, whereas the latter is a real quick way to get into a fistfight.

since my approach towards translation is to translate the original meaning as closely as possible, rather than the literal translation, i tend to translate rude/improperly casual tenses of speech as profanity. although i don't take it to the kind of extremes that will bring back memories of the shinsengumi ruroken subs, i do believe that it is often the only way to properly convey the original meaning and intent of the japanese version.

if seeing profanity, even when appropriate to the story, upsets you, i'm sorry. if you want something sanitized for a general audience, go here.