ayu fan subs incorrect and sloppy...

[Machiko]

Originally Posted by douggn

Like how AHS is where ayu fans come to bash her works

I don't know why you're using this argument against me seeing that I am not ever even bashing her work? I'm literally the opposite? If I don't like something, then I just leave it be, and 99% of the time I'm neutral or absolutely love it.

Not to mention Ayu is a professional. She gets paid loads of money for what she does. There is no way you can logically compare her work to FAN art and translations. Or are you paying fans to translate her works? Because I surely am not. They are using their FREE TIME and effort and work hard not alone to LEARN japanese but translate her works into english that we all understand.

It doesn't matter how your "tone" was, it matters that you were bashing the hard work of fans and made a whole topic for it. That seemed like an attack against translators, not you being "honest". This topic doesn't bring anything to the table, the only purpose it has to say how those fan's work are "incorrect and sloppy".

If you disagree with the way other people have translated her songs, you are free to translate them yourself. There's no guarantee avex's subs are perfectly accurate either. I just don't approve how you had to put down those fans who did all this work I'm personally very grateful for.

"I'm just honest" just sounds like an excuse so you wouldn't need to admit this was plain rude and apologize. You don't see anyone compare Ayu's classical album covers to someone's fanart either. Or fanmade covers to the actual covers.

Calling the fan translations sloppy when you didn't even bother to learn a 2nd language to have a grasp of how different 2 languages are is beyond offensive

[Minttulatte]

Most of the fans translations are better than Avex's attempts at them imo. Avex's translations are confusing and weird at times so it makes more sense to use a fanmade translation from a translator with good English.

[adantatu2]

Dear fan-translators, I really appreciate your hard work, I'm studyin' japanese, and Jesus, the language is so confusing sometimes. Please don't stop doing the translations because some of these comments.

And guys you don't have to read the translations by the fans, you can wait for the "official translation" or go to study japanese.

[SunshineSlayer]

Originally Posted by chocopockymaster

If you don't like the translation someone came up with (to share for the benefit of the Ayu fans that don't speak Japanese, by the way) then feel free to go start studying and translate her songs yourself.

It's not as straightforward as you may like to think, and translating between English and Japanese can be especially difficult. So much of it comes down to interpretation and vocabulary choice that you'll practically never see two translators put out an identical translation. It's especially difficult because subjects are rarely used in Japanese and you have to figure out who is being spoken about entirely from context. Is she talking about herself? Is she talking to us, the audience? Her use of "jibun" in Song 4 u is just about as clear as mud because the second stanza CAN accurately be translated as both "if I should ever doubt myself" or "if you should ever doubt yourself". How lucky for avex's staff that they have Ayu to look over the translations and make sure it's in line with what she had in mind when she wrote them in Japanese.

So for you to get up there and suggest that our ~*~incorrect~*~ translations are cheapening Ayu's words? GTFO or go do it yourself and let's have a real conversation about translating as an art form rather than your half-assed couch criticisms.

This pretty much. (though a little less harsh) lol. So much of translation comes down to interpretation and nuance. Being able to interpret the nuance and feeling of a song is extremely difficult especially when you consider that Japanese is a much less descriptive language than English.

I also sometimes have my pet peeves with fansubs. Often times translations are inaccurate because usually the person translating is still learning the language or have never actually been immersed in the culture. Or, sometimes there are translations that are done by Japanese themselves into English - but those often seem to lack the proper nuance. But that's just kind of how it is.

Bottom line though, everyone does them for free and until you are able to actually translate yourself, it's hardly your place to criticize.

I've also gotta say though that I've seen some "official" translations before that I actually think have better fan translations. This goes back to my point above about a lot of translations that are done by Japanese translating from their first language (Japanese) to their second language (English). I almost always find that nuance and flow work a heck of a lot better when you are translating from your second language into your first. Take this for example: Say I have a book of poetry written in Japanese. I'm pretty confident I could make a pretty good translation of it into English. But give me that same poetry book in English and ask me to translate it into Japanese? Uh, no. I could translate the direct meanings, but capturing the nuance would be much more difficult.

Originally Posted by chocopockymaster

And for another thing--Ayu is not a native speaker of English and the best translations IMO are always the ones done by native speakers of the target language. I appreciate everything masa did from the bottom of my heart because his translations are some of the reasons I got a sense of what Ayu was saying and fell so in love with her work, but my god they were awkward.

The best thing I can say at this point is that avex's "official" translations are actually the ones cheapening Ayu's words because they're so simplistic that they don't fully encapsulate everything that she's conveying through her very deliberate Japanese word choices.

Guess I should have read the whole thread first before I posted. lol

[Delirium-Zer0]

Late jumping into this thread lol...

I'm of the opinion that the more people translate things, the better. When you have translations between languages as vastly different as English & Japanese, and what you're translating is art/poetry/lyrics rather than something more literal like a news story, it's incredibly helpful to have multiple people's interpretations on hand so you can find the interpretation that means something to you, that reads smoothly to you, etc.

I think the best translations come from teams - one fluent source language speaker and/or the original writer who can clarify what they mean, and one fluent target language speaker who has a background in writing and has a good grasp of subtext, slang, contextual clues, double meaning, metaphor, etc. as it would be understood by the target language audience. A team made of these two people is going to give you the closest thing to a "definitive" translation you're ever going to get.

With most fan translations you're probably not ever going to even remotely come close to that; even with official translations, you likely only have one side of the equation at best.

So my advice, douggn, is to realize that there is more to Ayu's lyrics than any one translation could possibly ever convey, and read a bunch of translations, and enjoy & appreciate all of them since they were given to you for free.

[Yoake]

Moderator's note: This thread did not begin in what we would consider a productive manner, but due to the useful replies and discussion so far, it'll be kept open for now.

[BlackSilence]

hmm, i can see where OP is coming from an i can understand why someone would say this, but the truth is it's a difficult language to translate into something that would make sense. We would never be able to get the exact thing Ayu is meaning to say unless she herself does translating, or we come to master the language on a native speaker level. I myself at some point tried translating english lyrics to my native language having a pretty decent vocabulary and even THAT was hella difficult! And it takes a crapload of time too!

For example i usually take translations with a grain of salt. If i happen to get the official one then i just mix the two up and well make one for my brain. 'Cuz sometimes some things make more sense in one translation and other things in someone else's. Why do you think they usually hire writers to do translations on books? Because they have the poetic kind of sense of wording into getting the right emotion with words that they translate from. It's all an interpretation rather than literal work. And that especially applies to song lyrics and poetry.

I remember GACKT had his Diabolos album all translated into english himself and a lot of stuff was slightly different than the translations made by fans. Some things get lost in translation too, but all in all they do the job of helping to understand what the artist is trying to say in their song. So i'd say don't take any of them literally.

Are you new to Japanese fandoms and lyrics translations? It sound like it. Cuz if so, i'll say that i'm glad you oppened up this thread, 'cuz, well now you'll know a thing or two about how translating works with all these replies, and what kind of pain in the ass can Japanese language be lol That should also help to bring more appreciation for the work some fans on here do

[tenshi no hane]

Good thing I didn't see this thread before posting my latest translations lol.

I hate when people who don't even know the source language start criticising. You don't even know which translation is "correct". Nice to see so many people in this thread stick up for translators.

Anyway. To add to the discussion:

I see a few mentions of "we won't know unless Ayu translates them herself" but it's not that simple, I think. Even Utada Hikaru, who was raised bilingual and has released Japanese and English albums, said she wouldn't want to translate her own lyrics because it's too difficult. I can't find the source for that quote just now, but these quotes are also interesting:

Utada: "I feel very touched when a fan has taken an English or Japanese song and they subtitled the song and translated the lyrics into a different language. A French fan would put it into French and a Japanese fan for Japanese, etc. And it's so well-made, you can tell how much time and effort they put into making it. I'm just touched, and a little honored. I really appreciate it too, because that language thing, the translation issue is ongoing. I would like to say that for music, it doesn't matter, if you like it, you can listen to it as a foreign language song. I can also understand the feeling that if you're a fan of an artist or a song, you want to know what the song is talking about if it's in a language you don't know. Since I can't do that myself, it's great to have fans who seem to know what I'm talking about translate the song into their own language. It's something I can't do. Thank you!" (source: Japanator 2009)

Utada: [...] And then, so, for this, uh, this contract with Island Def Jam, in the beginning I separated it to this English-language album, and I don’t do Japanese translations. I just, my integrity as an artist just would not take that, could not take that." (source: JQ Interview 2001)

She talks more about lyrics in English vs Japanese in the JQ Interview if anyone's interested.

[stepYOU1234]

I always appreciate your translations tenshi no hane!! And you are always so quick with new translations as well.

[Delirium-Zer0]

Originally Posted by tenshi no hane

Good thing I didn't see this thread before posting my latest translations lol.

I hate when people who don't even know the source language start criticising. You don't even know which translation is "correct". Nice to see so many people in this thread stick up for translators.

Anyway. To add to the discussion:

I see a few mentions of "we won't know unless Ayu translates them herself" but it's not that simple, I think. Even Utada Hikaru, who was raised bilingual and has released Japanese and English albums, said she wouldn't want to translate her own lyrics because it's too difficult. I can't find the source for that quote just now, but these quotes are also interesting:

She talks more about lyrics in English vs Japanese in the JQ Interview if anyone's interested.

Utada is a great example of how bilingualism alone doesn't necessarily make you able to translate. Thinking like a translator isn't easy! Knowing the definitions of words doesn't necessarily mean you understand the MEANING of the words. When Utada translated the Emily the Strange books into Japanese, she got a lot of criticism from professional translators for how weak her translations were - they were too literal, basically.