Forum - View topicSub-watchers: do you prefer honorifics?
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Hitokiri Kenshin
Posts: 293 |
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Like the title says, to guys who mainly watch subs, do you prefer when they use honorifics or not? And I'm only referring to legal and professional subs, as fansubs use them and Japanese terms because they like or worship them. Myself, while I mainly watch dubs, it depends on the company. Tend to expect them more from Funimation and when they don't use them kinda odd for me at least. Everyone else, don't care.
[EDIT: Changed your thread title and edited a little bit of your post to make more sense from the get-go, since most people already know what honorifics are. -TK] |
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Dessa
 Posts: 4438 |
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What do you mean by "suffixes"? Do you mean honorifics?
IMO, if the characters are Japanese, and/or intended to be speaking Japanese in-story, then honorifics should be left in, because the honorifics used (or lack thereof), can give a lot of insight into the characters and their relationships. Some may argue that you can still hear the honorifics, they don't need to be in the subtitles, but I'll argue back that a) not everyone watching subs can hear them (due to either physical problems, or having enough time reading and watching the action to pay attention to the dialogue), and b) a lot of honorifics can sound similar, depending on what they are, and the dialect being used. Now, if the characters aren't Japanese, and/or the setting is not Japan, I'll give some leeway there, provided that the honorifics are still represented, as much as they can without sounding unnatural in the translated language. For example, "sama" being translated as "Lord" or "Lady", "san" being translated as "Mr" or "Miss." Too much of it gets awkward, but I feel that they should at least try to get represented. On a somewhat related note, something that really bothers me is when the names being used in the dialogue are not the names being used in the subtitles. It's very similar for me to the lack of honorifics, on how they portray characters and relationships. For example, in Blue Exorcist, Rin is called either "Nii-san", "Rin", or "Okumura/Okumura-kun" by many characters. Yet the subtitles almost always simply list his name as "Rin." Given that there are two Okumura's, I could almost understand this, except for that most of the people calling him Okumura call Yukio "Sensei", which means that there wouldn't be a problem. |
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Chiibi
 Posts: 4829 |
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I strongly dislike when honorifics and the like are ignored. I like to read what I'm hearing. So when I'm hearing a character's last name being called but seeing a sub for the first name, it's really really distracting.
Though if you just translate the honorific like "onii-chan" to "Big Brother" etc, that's fine. Just don't act like the honorific isn't there. |
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Bango
 Posts: 1122 |
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I can do without them if absolutely necessary. Not having them won't make me look for a different source. But unlike, say, ending all your sentences with a cute suffix, the honourifics actually serve a purpose so they should be left in whenever possible. While it's technically possible to write the line in such a way to imply the sense of the honourific that isn't preferred and it's needless work that has potential to screw up.
I do pay a bit of attention to the spoken dialogue as well as the subs though, so I can do without and fill in the missing ones mentally. |
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DuskyPredator
 Posts: 15593 Location: Brisbane, Australia |
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I do get a little frustrated when the way a person is getting referred to as in Japanese is not properly communicated in the subtitles as it can change meaning and relationship. I remember one deal where Kuroyukihime was almost always referred to as "senpai", but the subtitles would use "Kuroyukihime", especially strange as this was not actually her name, but her gaming handle.
But more on the honorifics, in a Japanese setting it is important, and creating a difference between what the character is calling them in Japanese and what the subs say is quite annoying. Especially since I have been able to pick up easier what they using, in fact I might say that the sometimes loss in honorifics used pushed me to listen a little harder. |
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Galap
Moderator
 Posts: 2354 |
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No. They aren't a part of the English language, and if you want to know what the speaker used, you can listen to the dialogue.
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Kruszer
 Posts: 7995 Location: Minnesota, USA |
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They aren't part of the English language so they should be translated to something with a similar meaning. If not they seem out of place and can be kind of annoying if you have characters that use them too much.
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CrowLia
 Posts: 5530 Location: Mexico |
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I agree with Dessa, when the characters or context are more Japanese-oriented, I prefer subs that use honorifics because they give insight to the kind of relationship different characters have. And like Dessa, I seriously hate it when, not only the honorifics, but the way the characters are addressed in general. It's not the same to call someone "Lastname-san" to "Firstname-chan" and I hate subs that destroy this distinction by uniforming everything to simply "Firstname". It's the perfect way to miss out all he subtleties of how the characters interact and how they relate to each other
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Galap
Moderator
Posts: 2354 |
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But you can hear what honorifics they say in the Japanese, so I don't really see how it makes you miss anything.
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publicenemy333
 Posts: 563 Location: Los Angeles, CA |
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This. I think the best example of this is Rightstuf's subs of Rose of Versailles, which takes place in France before the revolutionary war, and most of the characters are nobles. A lot of honorifics got translated to proper words for certain people's ranks. Ex: your majesty, Lady, a lot of other better examples I cant think of right now and am too lazy to check but people who have seen it will get what I mean lol but I dont mind honorifics in my subs |
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CrowLia
Posts: 5530 Location: Mexico |
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Which has already been explained by Dessa. Some honorifics sound very similar, and it can be easy to miss them if you're reading the subs, since the reading can trump the hearing. Saying they don't belong in the English language is ridiculous, it's a Japanese product showcasing -usually- a part of Japanese culture and society, of course it has concepts that are hard or impossible to translate, and taking the easy way out of not using them because you don't know what to make of them is just stupid.
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Ignatz
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I think honorifics are very important. Of course, as Dessa pointed out, many of them can be translated very easily, but there are some more complicated ones. For example, how do you translate "-senpai" when the characters are talking about upperclassmen in school? Sure, in situations like this, you can just leave them out, but then there are dialogues that are specifically about honorifics themselves. For example, at the beginning of Paprika there's a scene where Tokita calls Atsuko "At-chan," to which she responds "Don't call me like that." How exacly do you translate such dialogue?
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noigeL
Posts: 149 |
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Depends on the title. More often than not I like seeing them in the subtitles but I always haaaaate hearing them in the dub.
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yoshiyukiblade
Posts: 305 |
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Personally, yeah I very much prefer honorifics. There's much more emphasis and importance in the way people or characters address each other in Japan than in other cultures, so it's very significant to hear honorifics in order to understand character relationships and whatnot. While on the subject, the same goes for family/given names. Some translators like to strictly stick to one name even when other characters are clearly addressing them differently. There also the occasion where full names are written in first/last name format when it's obviously in the other order. I hate it when translators obfuscate information for the sake of localization. We're not idiots!
For dubs, yeah, I can do (and even prefer) without them. IMO, smoothness of dialogue takes priority over accuracy here. |
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SwerveCity
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I believe honorifics should be in the subs but I don't think they should be in the dubs. Subs should be as close as possible to the original because that's what a sub watcher wants. While dubs should try to be a more western version, it just sounds stupid to hear someone speak in perfect english then go "sempai".
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