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I've seen Let's Plays of the Japanese translation of Portal and felt that it misses the sardonic notes of GLaDOS' script, and as a result falls completely flat.

I've seen Let's Plays of the Japanese translation of Portal and felt that it misses the sardonic notes of GLaDOS' script, and as a result falls completely flat. In my opinion, this aspect is essential to the Portal experience. It's not that I couldn't think of how to express certain lines in Japanese, rather it just seemed that the translation team didn't get the jokes at all. That said, translating jokes can be very, very difficult. Sometimes you're lucky and there's a low hanging fruit to grab, a pun that works in both source and target languages, or a similar idiom that's recognizable if you switch out a word with another one in the same category. All too often with language pairs as distant as English and Japanese, you just end up writing your own joke. Having grown up with "spoony bard", "this guy are sick" and many other memorable zingers, it is somehow ironic, somehow comforting, to know that bad translations aren't a one-way street.

reificator 7y ago
Ouch. Portal is one of my favorites, but partly because I really loved GLaDOS. (Genetic Lifeform and Disk Operating System) Without her constant prodding at you, I think the game would lose both charm and player motivation. I'd imagine the pacing takes a hit as a result. Here's one of my favorite examples of a bad translation to English: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFg6QOlV-EE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFg6QOlV-EE It's an NES game, but before I spoil it for you, try to figure out which one by letting the music play out.
- JimiofEden 7y ago
  I quote that Congalturation screen when my wife completes a game (great or otherwise.) In return, she got me a book of bad translations/localizations for our anniversary.
- gnarbarian 7y ago
  GHOST BUSTERS
ibatindev 7y ago
Totally! I thought Portal 2 was going to be the perfect game to play when I had spare time in the office but without GLaDOS's clever lines -and the way it says them- it wasn't even enjoyable.
AnIdiotOnTheNet 7y ago
I'm not entirely sure you meant it that way, but "spoony bard" is not a bad translation, as evidenced by its inclusion in every official translation of FF4 since Woolsey's. The bard is indeed spoony[0], and it is the kind of archaic language you might expect from an old man like Tellah. [0]https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/spoony https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/spoony
- hapless 7y ago
  It's a correct translation, but funny because of its stilted language. It would have been merely old-timey in Japanese, but in English it's rendered as centuries-old vernacular. "Spoony" ceased to be common language in the 19th century. "Bard" in the 18th, except in limited senses referencing archaic usage. No one is that old! It's not wrong, just a little too far.
  - AnIdiotOnTheNet 7y ago
    You'll note that in the fantasy genre, such archaic words as bard are actually quite common, so I don't think 'spoony' is ridiculous at all. It is not uncommon for media to use completely made up words, why is pulling a single instance of an archaic one "too far"?
- PhasmaFelis 7y ago
  Unless you're actually writing a Shakespeare send-up, using a centuries-obsolete word is definitely bad translation. Just because a word is in the dictionary doesn't mean it means it means anything to your audience. It's still included because it's an iconic gag at this point. It's still a bad translation, but they know fans love it, and that's okay.
- fenomas 7y ago
  The dialog in question is being said in a fit of rage, to someone that the speaker believes has seduced and stolen his daughter, leading to her death. Using a comically archaic term for "unduly sentimental" in a spot like that is certainly a bad translation.
- 7y ago
xii22 7y ago
On your Portal point, the reason for that is that sarcasm as humor is not really a 'thing' in Japan, in general terms. Some people go as far as saying that the Japanese do not understand sarcasm, but that's an exaggeration
- fiblye 7y ago
  Yeah, it’s generally just regarded as mean. On the contrary, I’ve found it’s something that most other Asian countries get really well, so the difficulty seems to mostly be limited to Japan.
gambiting 7y ago
I remember being shocked when I watched Shrek for the first time in English - all the jokes were different than how I remembered it(I watched it in Polish for the first time)! But well, thinking about it, that makes perfect sense - English jokes translated literally into Polish wouldn't have been anywhere near as funny - so the translators took a bit of a creative liberty and changed them to work with Polish audiences, even inserting some Polish pop-culture references where appropriate. And yeah, I remember it being incredibly funny and in comparison the English version is just....different(not to mention all the voices are just....wrong lol). It brings up an interesting question though - do we care about the outcome(the film being funny) or about being "correct". After all, Polish translation of Shakespeare doesn't change the meaning just to be more relatable to Poles. But then again, books like Harry Potter had plenty of changes to work in Polish(like the Sphinx's riddle being completely different in Polish just so it would make any sense - I would argue that one was kind of necessary though).
- iainmerrick 7y ago
  Douglas Hofstadter's Le Ton beau de Marot is a great read, and discusses these issues in depth. (Hofstadter is strongly on the side of creative rather than literal translations.)
- sersi 7y ago
  I remember as a kid seeing an representation of Shakespeare's Twelfth's night in French as a kid and the meaning was changed so that the jokes would work in French. Likewise, it was made to rhyme in French. I do believe that even in older works, it makes more sense to translate in a creative way. After all, those works were written to convey comedy or poetry and if a translation fails to convey that, then the translation failed. Likewise, when Baudelaire translated Edgar Poe, the translation literal as it would have been a failure to convey the poetry of the text.
  - shawabawa3 7y ago
    I've actually heard that french translations of shakespeare are "better" than the english originals, as they modernise it a bit, whereas the english version is left in an archaic form of english where a lot of the rhymes and puns no longer work
pdpi 7y ago
> All too often with language pairs as distant as English and Japanese, you just end up writing your own joke. There's a few specific cases of this that I quite like — the English translations of Asterix did a tremendous job of renaming all the characters in a way that's consistent with the spirit of the (idiomatically french) original jokes. A personal favourite of mine, though, is a particular dialogue from Austin Powers[1] where the Portuguese subtitles found a joke that was just not there in the original. "It's a bit nutty" doesn't have a good idiomatic translation, so they instead translated it as "Tem muita borra" — Literally, "there's a lot of grounds in this", but "borra" can be read as either "grounds" or "poop". 1. https://www.moviequotedb.com/movies/austin-powers-the-spy-who-shagged-me/quote_2493.html https://www.moviequotedb.com/movies/austin-powers-the-spy-wh...
- eru 7y ago
  The German names for the Asterix characters are also great. And you can get translations of some of the comics into various German dialects as well.

reificator 7y ago

Ouch. Portal is one of my favorites, but partly because I really loved GLaDOS. (Genetic Lifeform and Disk Operating System) Without her constant prodding at you, I think the game would lose both charm and player motivation. I'd imagine the pacing takes a hit as a result. Here's one of my favorite examples of a bad translation to English: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFg6QOlV-EE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFg6QOlV-EE It's an NES game, but before I spoil it for you, try to figure out which one by letting the music play out.

JimiofEden 7y ago
I quote that Congalturation screen when my wife completes a game (great or otherwise.) In return, she got me a book of bad translations/localizations for our anniversary.
gnarbarian 7y ago
GHOST BUSTERS

ibatindev 7y ago

Totally! I thought Portal 2 was going to be the perfect game to play when I had spare time in the office but without GLaDOS's clever lines -and the way it says them- it wasn't even enjoyable.

AnIdiotOnTheNet 7y ago

I'm not entirely sure you meant it that way, but "spoony bard" is not a bad translation, as evidenced by its inclusion in every official translation of FF4 since Woolsey's. The bard is indeed spoony[0], and it is the kind of archaic language you might expect from an old man like Tellah. [0]https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/spoony https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/spoony

hapless 7y ago
It's a correct translation, but funny because of its stilted language. It would have been merely old-timey in Japanese, but in English it's rendered as centuries-old vernacular. "Spoony" ceased to be common language in the 19th century. "Bard" in the 18th, except in limited senses referencing archaic usage. No one is that old! It's not wrong, just a little too far.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 7y ago
  You'll note that in the fantasy genre, such archaic words as bard are actually quite common, so I don't think 'spoony' is ridiculous at all. It is not uncommon for media to use completely made up words, why is pulling a single instance of an archaic one "too far"?
PhasmaFelis 7y ago
Unless you're actually writing a Shakespeare send-up, using a centuries-obsolete word is definitely bad translation. Just because a word is in the dictionary doesn't mean it means it means anything to your audience. It's still included because it's an iconic gag at this point. It's still a bad translation, but they know fans love it, and that's okay.
fenomas 7y ago
The dialog in question is being said in a fit of rage, to someone that the speaker believes has seduced and stolen his daughter, leading to her death. Using a comically archaic term for "unduly sentimental" in a spot like that is certainly a bad translation.
7y ago

xii22 7y ago

On your Portal point, the reason for that is that sarcasm as humor is not really a 'thing' in Japan, in general terms. Some people go as far as saying that the Japanese do not understand sarcasm, but that's an exaggeration

fiblye 7y ago
Yeah, it’s generally just regarded as mean. On the contrary, I’ve found it’s something that most other Asian countries get really well, so the difficulty seems to mostly be limited to Japan.

gambiting 7y ago

I remember being shocked when I watched Shrek for the first time in English - all the jokes were different than how I remembered it(I watched it in Polish for the first time)! But well, thinking about it, that makes perfect sense - English jokes translated literally into Polish wouldn't have been anywhere near as funny - so the translators took a bit of a creative liberty and changed them to work with Polish audiences, even inserting some Polish pop-culture references where appropriate. And yeah, I remember it being incredibly funny and in comparison the English version is just....different(not to mention all the voices are just....wrong lol). It brings up an interesting question though - do we care about the outcome(the film being funny) or about being "correct". After all, Polish translation of Shakespeare doesn't change the meaning just to be more relatable to Poles. But then again, books like Harry Potter had plenty of changes to work in Polish(like the Sphinx's riddle being completely different in Polish just so it would make any sense - I would argue that one was kind of necessary though).

iainmerrick 7y ago
Douglas Hofstadter's Le Ton beau de Marot is a great read, and discusses these issues in depth. (Hofstadter is strongly on the side of creative rather than literal translations.)
sersi 7y ago
I remember as a kid seeing an representation of Shakespeare's Twelfth's night in French as a kid and the meaning was changed so that the jokes would work in French. Likewise, it was made to rhyme in French. I do believe that even in older works, it makes more sense to translate in a creative way. After all, those works were written to convey comedy or poetry and if a translation fails to convey that, then the translation failed. Likewise, when Baudelaire translated Edgar Poe, the translation literal as it would have been a failure to convey the poetry of the text.
- shawabawa3 7y ago
  I've actually heard that french translations of shakespeare are "better" than the english originals, as they modernise it a bit, whereas the english version is left in an archaic form of english where a lot of the rhymes and puns no longer work

pdpi 7y ago

> All too often with language pairs as distant as English and Japanese, you just end up writing your own joke. There's a few specific cases of this that I quite like — the English translations of Asterix did a tremendous job of renaming all the characters in a way that's consistent with the spirit of the (idiomatically french) original jokes. A personal favourite of mine, though, is a particular dialogue from Austin Powers[1] where the Portuguese subtitles found a joke that was just not there in the original. "It's a bit nutty" doesn't have a good idiomatic translation, so they instead translated it as "Tem muita borra" — Literally, "there's a lot of grounds in this", but "borra" can be read as either "grounds" or "poop". 1. https://www.moviequotedb.com/movies/austin-powers-the-spy-who-shagged-me/quote_2493.html https://www.moviequotedb.com/movies/austin-powers-the-spy-wh...

eru 7y ago
The German names for the Asterix characters are also great. And you can get translations of some of the comics into various German dialects as well.