on film translations (cont.)

Roger Macy macyroger at yahoo.co.uk
Wed Jun 30 04:49:40 EDT 2010


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
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