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Dubs or Subtitles?

Enjeru wrote:

Well if you notice most companies like ADV use translators who are from Japan. Also most of the time part of the agreement for an anime to licensed in the US is the english script has top be aproved by the creators of the series. Also, unless you are fluent in Japanese......how do you really know that the fansubbers are even right? I have only been taking Japanese for a little of 3 years and I can with my limited vocabulary I cn tell you that they are not even close to 100%. In terms of cultural jokes, even people who have been watching anime for a while would not get these jokes. Thus minor changes are made to make the show flow smoother. Again, I am not saying one is better than the other. I actually like subs and dubs about 50/50. There are a lot of shows where both are good, some where I don't like the dub, and some where I don't like the sub. It's all about preference baby.

I don't have to be fluent in Japanese; I'm fluent in Korean. Most words I can immediately recognize its derivative in Chinese then translate into Korean. An example I gave before was "unmei" which means "fate" in Japanese. In Korean, it's "un myoung", with the "un" part pronounced exactly the same. I also deduce which Japanese word spoken refers to which english text given by eliminating common words. That's how I'm currently learning more words right now. I hope this is enough bragging to convince you that I know enough to say that the fansubbers are doing a fantastic job, if not a perfect job, in comparison to dubs. I can go and browse through anime dubs, find specific scenes where phrases are lacking translation or mistranslated, and give an entire list of examples. But even without all that I'm sure there are people who agree with me, because they've experienced the same thing.

I'm not taking into account the matter of preference for subs or dubs; I am simply presenting what I've experienced from my viewing of anime in both sub and dub from an objective view. I posted my opinionated view of dubs vs subs in my first post.

As for cultural references, I believe I already said that I'm not talking about Americanization.

More:

So why would companies like ADV hire translators from Japan when the audience are American who are more fluent in English? Is it really that hard to organize a system that would allow a better translation, when fansub groups have been doing the exact same thing? I'm not really looking for an answer here, it'd be the wrong place unless a representative of one of the dubbing companies visited here. But I think it was worth mentioning that dub translations are often poor compared to fansubs, when dub translators are getting paid to do so while fansubbers are not.

So why would companies like ADV hire translators from Japan when the audience are American who are more fluent in English? Is it really that hard to organize a system that would allow a better translation, when fansub groups have been doing the exact same thing? I'm not really looking for an answer here, it'd be the wrong place unless a representative of one of the dubbing companies visited here. But I think it was worth mentioning that dub translations are often poor compared to fansubs, when dub translators are getting paid to do so while fansubbers are not.

Well from my experience when I took my first semester in Japanese I had 4 students who were from Korea.....and they said the 2 have very little in common. If you are refering to Kanji, yes Japan uses Chinese characters for their Kanji. However most of the time the translation and even the way it is pronounced is way different. Like I stated before, I have 3 years of Japanese under my belt and can understand about 3/4 of an episode(rough estimation) without the use of any subtitles. I am sorry to say that fansubbers make mistakes too. More often than most people will ever know.
Another thing you need to take into consideration is the english script has to match the mouth flaps. Even at the cost of the sentence being altered in a small way. What we are really talking about is a very small difference between the english and japanese translation. It is not nearly the huge gulf that most make it out to be.
To answer your question as to why fansubbers don't get paid, its because it is illegal to fansub and send it out to be downloaded. While I know most people don't care about this, I do. Everytime someone downloads a series and refuses to pay for it when it becomes avalible for purchase, it hurts not only the american anime industry, but the japanese as well.
In no way am I trying to say that anyone who likes sub over dub is wrong in their thinking. However when people start talking about which is more "true".....unless you are fluent in Japanese, dub and sub are going to have their mistakes and will never be 100%.

This topic (or something being derailed and turning into it) comes up at least once a month:

Well, as one of those volunteer college students who cranks out fansub translations, I'll indirectly accept that praise (even though I'm one of the ones who's not 100% accurate, because I don't know enough yet :oops: ) Even with fansubs, we still have to do quite a bit of adaptation to make a coherent and interesting subtitle script. Dubs suffer from more problems, like the need for the dub dialogue to match mouth movements and the need for it to be more natural/flowing English compared to subtitle scripts.
But, I believe you that things are left out/mistranslated/"de-culturized" at times in English dubs, and in R1 DVD subtitles as well. As for translators being native Japanese or English speakers, I think most companies have subtitle script writers that edit and adapt the translation to flow better in English, just like the ADR script writer adapts it for spoken English. It would be nice if dubs were more faithful, but I think it's market conditions and not translation failures that cause the problems. The companies probably believe that dub fans aren't ready for fansub-style translation (honorifics and titles left in Japanese, such as senpai/sensei/oniisan/etc.), so they focus on making the English natural and accessible. And honestly, most dub fans aren't the obsessive type (like me) and don't watch dubs with subtitles on to "catch" differences.

This is more off topic but I'm curious to know: Has anyone seen the dub for Genshiken? I wonder if the dubs try to clarify any of the uncommon words used in that series. If it weren't for a certain fansub's dedication to explain every single anime/otaku-like reference in that series, I would've dismissed it as a boring Comic Party 2nd season look-a-like.

Subs where necessery, as most dubs are awful

(but some are OK. What I don't understand is when the subs and the dubs are completely different...)

A) I've also seen cases where either a narration or important text is not subtitled because the subtitles only show one of either at a time. Meaning that some parts were not subtitled at all.

B) Oh, how about names of shop stores or other significant signs written in Japanese? I've rarely seen those translated in dubs either.

C) This is more off topic but I'm curious to know: Has anyone seen the dub for Genshiken? I wonder if the dubs try to clarify any of the uncommon words used in that series. If it weren't for a certain fansub's dedication to explain every single anime/otaku-like reference in that series, I would've dismissed it as a boring Comic Party 2nd season look-a-like.

This topic (or something being derailed and turning into it) comes up at least once a month:

March, February, January, December, November, October, September...

September is rather amusing since, if you read my edit, the whole reason the arguement started was actually completely pointless. My opinion about this can be read on other threads I linked to, but generally I like subs better then dubs.