on film translations (cont.)

[Eija Niskanen]

Yes Roger, I think this cross-reference style you talk about is often
used on reverse examples, for ex. a Finnish person doing subtitles on
a Chinese film, but not being sure of all the expressions...then an
English translation, even a rough one, from the Chinese production
office is useful.

Eija

On Wed, Jun 30, 2010 at 5:49 PM, Roger Macy <macyroger at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
> Eija,
> You may be the first person to write on the subject of checking of
> subtitles.
> The obvious question it raises is what happens when the checker decides a
> subtitle is 'wrong'.  I think there is a world of difference between an
> author or collaborator inviting a check from a native-speaker of the target
> language, or a reverse translation back to the original (neither of which
> seems to be the case in the example you give) - and someone else
> second-guessing a translation.
> One can admit that there are some errors that might be corrected without
> referral, such as when a subtitle appears in a scene preceding its dialogue,
> but it is vanishingly rare for such gross errors to appear in authored
> subtitles.  Rogue-checking takes us even from further from authorship and
> responsibility.
>
> Even on the question of spotting (or timing) there can be differences of
> style.  For example, If a non-Japanese speaker buys a Digital Meme DVD with
> alternative benshi interpretations of the same master-script, one is
> effectively choosing between two different spotting lists.
>
> If, however, the subtitlers were translating from the original Finnish, but
> using the English list as a checking reference on the degree of compression
> and the director's choices on elision, then I could begin to see a
> justification and I wouldn't resist a signed subtitler trying to justify a
> living wage on that tactic.
> Roger
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Eija Niskanen" <eija.niskanen at gmail.com>
> To: <KineJapan at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu>
> Sent: Wednesday, June 30, 2010 7:39 AM
> Subject: Re: on film translations (cont.)
>> Thanks Elke. I am still curious on why they would wanna check the
>> Finnish-English, as according to the logic you give, there are far
>> more professional Finnish-English movie subtitlers in Finland (where
>> they already once made a translation), than in Japan. I have a
>> suspicion that the Japanese translation company is just trying to cash
>> the movie distributor by doing all these extra maneuvers. Not to
>> mention that nowadays actually many movie subtitles are done in
>> schools as part of the class work, meaning that the actual translators
>> might not get paid at all. Still, the average subtitling cost per a
>> feature film in Japan is 30-40% higher than in Finland, although the
>> translator does get paid in Finland (not greatly, these days, but
>> still some).
>>
>> Eija
>>
>> On Wed, Jun 30, 2010 at 3:13 PM, Eike Exner <eexner at usc.edu> wrote:
>>> According to Diaz Cintas and Remael in Audiovisual Translation:
>>> Subtitling,
>>> indirect translation between two languages via English is relatively
>>> common
>>> in the global film industry. There are far more English/Finnish and
>>> English/Japanese translators than Finnish/Japanese ones, especially
>>> within
>>> the film industry (I mean, how many Finnish films make it to Japan each
>>> year?).
>>>
>>> Of course it would be better by far to translate directly from Finnish to
>>> Japanese (since indirect translation only increases the inevitable losses
>>> that come with translation), but film distributors mostly care about
>>> their
>>> bottom line, and not what academics and critics will say. (Diaz Cintas
>>> and
>>> Remael make the argument that a better translation is better for
>>> business,
>>> btw, but either distributors don't understand this or the additional
>>> revenue
>>> does not offset the additional costs of direct translation).
>>>
>>> So considering that the translator doesn't know Finnish, the Japanese
>>> distributor of course is only interested in making sure that the English
>>> translation (that the Japanese translation is based on) is accurate. From
>>> the logic of capitalism that makes perfect sense, unfortunately.
>>>
>>> Best,
>>> Eike
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Tue, Jun 29, 2010 at 10:54 AM, Eija Niskanen <eija.niskanen at gmail.com>
>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> It is not of course an official one, but I wonder, why the practice of
>>>> re-checking and comparing a former translation, if the Japanese decide
>>>> to do the translations based on the English translation of the Finnish
>>>> movie, or a Serbian movie or a Norwegian movie or whatever? I am just
>>>> curious if anybody knows a reason for this practice? I myself would
>>>> consider far more vital to to compare the Japanese translation with
>>>> the original Finnish dialogue, once the translation via English is
>>>> completed. Of course, in an ideal situation they would do the Japanese
>>>> subtitles directly from the Finnish dialogue list...
>>>>
>>>> Eija
>>>>
>>>> On Tue, Jun 29, 2010 at 10:37 AM, Mark Nornes <amnornes at umich.edu>
>>>> wrote:
>>>> > I don't quite understand. So the Japanese subtitlers are working of of
>>>> > (translated) English scripts? And these are the versions the Finish
>>>> > producers are considering "official"?
>>>> >
>>>> > M
>>>> >
>>>> > (Sent from my iPod, so please excuse the brevity and mistakes.)
>>>> >
>>>> > On Jun 28, 2010, at 8:46 AM, "Eija Niskanen" <eija.niskanen at gmail.com>
>>>> > wrote:
>>>> >
>>>> >> I am adding to the previous, very interesting discussions on film
>>>> >> translations a practical question: why do the Japanese translation
>>>> >> offices want to do an additional checking on native language -
>>>> >> English, before the translate from English to Japanese? For ex. there
>>>> >> are some Finnish movies coming to Japan, and the Finnish distributor
>>>> >> has provided Finnish and English dialogue lists, of which the English
>>>> >> translation is already producer-approved. Why do an additional check
>>>> >> in Japan?
>>>> >>
>>>> >> Eija
>>>> >
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> Eija Niskanen
>>>> Baltic Sea - Japan Film Project
>>>> Kichijoji Honcho 4-12-6
>>>> Musashino-shi
>>>> Tokyo 180-0004
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Eija Niskanen
>> Baltic Sea - Japan Film Project
>> Kichijoji Honcho 4-12-6
>> Musashino-shi
>> Tokyo 180-0004



-- 
Eija Niskanen
Baltic Sea - Japan Film Project
Kichijoji Honcho 4-12-6
Musashino-shi
Tokyo 180-0004