Moogy’s Guide to Editing (v1)
By Moogy | December 6, 2009
Or rather, guide to localization, I suppose.
Figured I’d write this up in hopes of increasing the quality of various fan translations for otaku stuff. Maybe it’ll have some effect.
This is mainly written from the perspective of one editing a visual novel, but most of the tenets within should be able to be applied to fansubs relatively easily.
Also, if you’re a translator, you might find some of the principles outlined within rather useful as well.
Labeled version 1 because I’ll make a version 2 with extensive examples later. I just wanted to get the main tenets out the door for now.
Before You Begin
All right, so you’ve decided that you’re enough of a badass to turn literally translated Japanese into a semblance of the English language.
Good for you.
But, before you get started on that, you should ask yourself a few questions first.
- Do you understand what you’re trying to do? Editing is not the same as proofreading, at least not in this particular “discipline.” Rather than correcting grammatical mistakes or poring over scripts to locate typos, you will be tasked with presenting the original content in a way that makes sense in English. In other words, you’re going to need to possess skills in the field of creative writing, not merely a keen eye for mechanics.
- Do you remember all that shit you learned in your high school English courses? Anime and visual novels are, in fact, written by professionals. This means that an adequate localization of either (even if produced by a fan) will not fall prey to amateurish mistakes such as overuse of passive tense, reliance on being verbs, basic mechanical mistakes, etc. This really goes hand-in-hand with the above.
- Do you understand how concepts are expressed in Japanese and how it differs from the way they are expressed in English? From a straight localization standpoint, this is by far the most important point to consider. I am well aware that the position of editor need not require Japanese fluency, but a more fundamental understanding of the differences between the two languages is not hard to pick up somewhere along the way. If nothing else, use your common sense – express things in a way that is comfortable to you.
- Are you a native speaker of the English language? If not, are you considerably fluent in the English language? Needless to say, if you cannot answer yes to one of these questions, you have no business being an editor. Personally, I would say that native speakers are always preferable.
Simple enough, right?
Oh, and there’s one more thing you should be aware of: You are dealing with someone else’s writing, not your own. It is of absolute importance that you endeavor not only to express the author’s concepts in English, but to express the author’s concepts in English in the manner that he or she would have done so were he or she to have written his or her work in English in the first place.
Quite a sentence there. And yes, I’m well aware that this is perhaps an unrealistic goal for many, especially since editors are removed from the original text by… well, worlds, really. Nevertheless, if you have a competent translator and a basic comprehension of the Japanese language, you should be able to work something out. Keep in mind that this is the ideal, not necessarily the reality, as well.
So, anyway, you’ve signed up to edit something and the translator has handed you the first script file. What do you do?
The Outset
You can probably ignore this section if you’re coming at this guide from a fansubbing perspective.
The beginning of any localization requires perhaps more effort than any other. There are quite a few things that you will need to do in order to ensure a smooth process for the rest of the project:
- You’ll need to get to know the characters. I feel that maintaining a consistent voice for the characters across the entire project is paramount to the “success” of the localization. You may wish to go through the first few scripts several times a piece in order to accomplish this. Trust me, if you can understand how each character speaks, thinks, and reacts, you’ll have a much easier time editing the rest of the game.
- Understand how the narration of the game works. This could really be part of the above point, but I feel that it’s important enough to mention separately. Remember that the narration of the game is (most likely) being conducted by one of the characters; thus, you’ll need to keep your head in the game and write as if you were the character him or herself. This is probably the easiest way to accomplish the ideal localization I described in the above section, by the way.
- Talk with the translator and make sure you both agree on the guidelines you’re laying down. The first few meters after the starting line are where you set your stride for the rest of the race, and if the translator disagrees with the way you’re running, things could get messy.
- Immerse yourself. Visual novels contain incredible amounts of text; the best way to avoid burnout is to possess a true passion and drive for your work. Make sure you genuinely enjoy the material you’re working on and the people you’re working on it with. (I suppose this piece of advice is rather general, but I saw fit to include it anyway, so screw you.)
But Moogy, you say, I didn’t come here to listen to your absurd pontifications! I want concrete advice I can apply to specific situations!
Well, your complaint is certainly valid. Everything up to this point is, to some degree, hogwash; the ranch dressing one spreads upon the caesar salad to make it more palatable, shall we say. Why don’t we cast such pretensions aside and proceed to the leafy nourishment they are so capably obscuring?
The Nitty-Gritty
Prior to scarfing down some lettuce, though, please allow me to be blunt. Very blunt.
Simply put, there’s not much I can do for you if you’re incapable of constructing a coherent English sentence. I’m not here to teach you English, I’m here to teach you strategies for dealing with the process of localization.
As such, I will be outlining tenets I adhere to when dealing with my own projects. I find them very helpful in accomplishing my goals, and it is my sincere hope that you will find some merit in applying them to your own work.
Without further ado:
- The Rewrite Rule. This is my “secret weapon,” as it were, and I think it’s probably the most important part of my approach to editing. Basically, The Rewrite Rule states that you must rewrite every sentence you come across from scratch, so as to ensure that you are dealing with sentences constructed from an English standpoint, as opposed to a Japanese one. It’s okay if you end up typing the same thing as the translator originally put – that just means that you have confirmed that it was fine to begin with. If you end up with something considerably different, then congratulations, you’ve just turned Engrish into English. Gives me a warm, fuzzy feeling.
- For the love of god, avoid Japanese garbage like subjunctive spam, excessive usage of commas, ridiculous adjectival phrases, etc. There’s a ton of shit that works fine in Japanese, but just doesn’t fly in English. Complimenting a girl for her big eyes? Change it to something else. Using “as if” for every damn instance of ように? Fuck no. Basically, if the literal translation sounds completely fucking bizarre in English, you are under no obligation to follow it. Make shit up that gets the same point across without sounding like it was translated by Babelfish.
- Minor details count. If you force yourself to use “her” instead of “that girl” (or, even worse, “that child,” which is usually a mistranslation anyway) for あの子 or to avoid having people use names for direct address (“Naruto-kun is looking genki this morning” instead of “You’re looking genki this morning,” basically. Since names are valid as referential pronouns in Japanese, people tend to accidentally transpose them into the translation as such as well.), you’ll start working your brain in ways that will enable you to more effectively recognize and deal with things like the elimination of third-person speech or extremely fucked up sentences in general.
- Remember that the original wording and sentence structure is not something sacrosanct. The ideas themselves may be, sure, but you mustn’t be afraid of radically restructuring a sentence in order to get the same point across. I recently spoke to a self-professed editor who said, as a student of language, he despaired at taking the Japanese out of Japanese, so to speak. However, this is a wonderfully myopic viewpoint – one language’s quirks and subtleties cannot be reproduced in another, no matter how hard you may try. And yes, this entire bullet point is rather a restatement of others, but it can’t be helped.
- Which gives us a nice segue into our next lesson: Do not ever employ cliche phrases such as “it can’t be helped,” “even if you say that,” “as expected of (blank),” and so on and so forth. Phrases such as 仕方ない are rather versatile in Japanese and may be applied to a wide variety of situations; unfortunately, this is not the case for their Engrish (I label them as Engrish because I find that the odds of one actually encountering their usage in a native English scenario or publication to be exceedingly low) equivalents. So, instead of mindlessly plugging in a cliche, step back a bit and think about the context the phrase is being used in. Come up with a fitting, natural equivalent for the context in which the phrase is used, not the phrase itself. This will improve both the readability (no one enjoys seeing these damn phrases) and accuracy of your final product.
- In general, you should avoid translating katakana Engrish words such as テンション, アンニュイ, and the like into the English words that they are supposedly representing. Here’s a tip: Their meanings are usually only vaguely related to their origin word, if they are indeed related.
- If you’re going to localize honorifics, do it in a sane manner. Drop -san, -kun, -chan, etc. entirely as a basic rule and only localize them in situations where it is necessary to do so. Never, ever translate onee-san, onee-chan, onii-san, onii-chan, etc. to “Brother” or “Sister,” as those are substantially awkward forms of direct address in English. Come up with something that doesn’t sound like a sentence from a Victorian-era novel about illicit incestuous relationships, please. (Unless you happen to be localizing the equivalent of one, I suppose. That dude in Wild ARMs 2 and his sister come to mind…) Honestly, honorifics are such a pain to deal with (assuming that you are localizing them globally) that no one will ride you too hard for just leaving them in – after all, it’s a fan product. You’ve gotta keep your audience in mind; if 99% of people will accept their inclusion, then it’s most likely more cost-effective to leave them in. On the other hand, if you’re working on a professional product that necessitates their localization… Well, good luck.
- Don’t be afraid to swear when it is appropriate. People swear in English, do they not? Don’t be put off from the prospect of including some foulmouthed dialogue just because of those awful DBZ and Kenshin fansubs from the 1990s where every other word was “fuck.”
- Though you should generally stick to the guideline you’ve been given in the form of the original text, you should at least try to include a little flavor of your own. Nuance is inevitably lost in the transition between two languages, so you might as well make up for it by including some nuance of your own. This is a pretty advanced concept, I admit, so it’s okay if you shelve this one for now.
- In-line translation notes are generally a bad idea. I don’t have a problem with them when they are used (sparingly) in anime, as they more closely resemble actual footnotes there. However, in visual novels, their inclusion quite often breaks the flow of the writing, which is rather a problem, wouldn’t you say? If you really must leave some bit of Japanese culture or humor (which is not common knowledge, of course) unlocalized, then note it in an external document. NNL had a system of footnotes in their release of Wind, where the reader referred to a PDF based on numbers specified in the game text, but I’m really not sure how well that worked… Perhaps it would be best to leave translation notes completely optional? In any case, I disapprove of the practice of including specific translation notes (general information about your localization process as a whole is quite welcome, as far as I’m concerned), as I feel that they represent laziness on the part of the localization team. I’m guilty of being lazy myself in this regard, though, so don’t feel too bad if you need to leave in a kanji pun or something. Remember, gotta keep it cost-effective, even if the only cost is your free time.
- I generally prefer Japanese name order over Western order, simply because it may get confusing when characters say a name in the reverse order of which it is written. However, I don’t really care if you want to localize the order.
- I’d generally avoid translating the title of the game you’re working on. For every smooth localization like “Saya’s Song,” you’ll get a nasty one like… whatever the hell you would translate Wanko to Kurasou to. “Live together with a dog girl?” Come on, man. We supplied a translation of Sharin no Kuni’s title since it’s a rather important concept in the game, but you will notice that we did not actually change the title in-game – an important distinction!
Well, I can’t think of anything else to say at the moment.
I may quietly edit this post to update it, or I may post a million different versions of it, clogging your RSS feeds. It all remains to be seen!
For now, though, I shall bid you adieu. Please ruminate upon my brilliance.
Specific Examples
Coming soon. And by soon, I mean no sooner than 2010.
Topics: Other, Ramble, Visual Novels | 10 Comments »
December 6th, 2009 at 10:27 pm
Thanks, Moogy. I found that to be a rather informative post. I’ll be waiting for the specific examples soon.
Also, an added tip: When you’re getting rid of those Japanese-isms during your localization process, be careful. One specific example comes to mind: I was once watching an episode of Chi’s New Address on Crunchyroll, and a character picked up a stuffed doll (which was obviously not the least bit old) and said “Ah, natsukashii…” and some idiot decided to translate it as “This sure is old.” Point being, don’t lose sight of the context in which the character is saying something. Also, I would highly recommend at least skimming through whatever game/show/manga you happen to be working on, because in my experience knowing the context/situation in which a Japanese sentence is said is usually really helpful.
Now if only everyone would localize stuff with your tips in mind. I must admit, just from working on the Fatal Frame 4 Translation project (done in a Wiki style with many contributors), if I ever hear something like “That time” (あのとき) or “That woman” (あのおんあ) again, I will strangle… someone. The worst offenders in that game were “Ano onna ga kuru” and “Ano kao ga wakaranai.” …Ugh. People did NOT do a good job of translating these. So, for the sake of the sanity of all us otaku out there, I say: Localizers, please take these points into consideration (I’m looking at you, Manga Gamer).
December 7th, 2009 at 2:08 am
This is excellent advice that simply can’t be stressed enough to anyone who attempts the role of an editor. In particular, the “Rewrite Rule” is an essential principle; anyone who thinks their job is to look for typos and correct things here and there is *not an editor*. Forcing yourself to re-write every line may take considerable time, but it’s a very practical way to avoid complacency and to remind yourself that the way the meaning is conveyed is entirely in your hands.
I would say that editing in this context is the tireless obsession with perfecting the delivery of meaning through natural-sounding narrative and dialog. Of course this perfectionism is countered by the “cost”, so everything will end up being a compromise to some degree. But I really think that if you haven’t struggled or agonized to some degree over every single line, you probably haven’t given it a close enough look. (But this is why I haven’t dared tackle a visual novel project; the amount of work involved is absolutely daunting.)
One thing that I find helps me a great deal is to read the dialog aloud, or at least read it “aloud in my head”. Acting it out like a play really helps to improve the flow and determine if lines are, in fact, natural to an English speaker. And yes, being a native English speaker (or having an extremely high level of fluency) is critical.
I also want to say that not translating English loanwords written in katakana is an excellent observation on your part. Even though the meaning of the loanword is probably not very related to the real use of the word in English, it’s rather grating to the audience when they hear a word they recognize but don’t see it used in the translation. This is actually the same reason that I prefer not to localize honorifics, especially when there’s audio involved. To the extent possible, the script should be a seamless vehicle to convey the original meaning to the English reader, so anything that “sticks out” probably needs to be ironed out.
Anyway, excellent advice all around, and I sincerely hope that all who approach this task will take it under serious consideration.
December 7th, 2009 at 9:34 pm
Ha, I don’t think the editor of Sharin should be giving advice after that shitstorm.
December 7th, 2009 at 10:18 pm
Do you get paid for doing this?
Because you should :V
December 8th, 2009 at 12:13 am
@Alex Burgos
What shitstorm? I thought Sharin’s tl quality was fine.
December 8th, 2009 at 12:27 am
I agree with Alex. I read it both in Japanese and English and noticed a lot of the most memorable quotes were basically taken out. It could have been a lot better than it turned out.
December 8th, 2009 at 2:14 am
@Humane
I really wouldn’t blame the editor for that. I would think that it was mostly the translator’s fault. Though I still think that the quality was fine.
December 10th, 2009 at 1:59 am
The pointers seem reasonable. One thing I would want to inquire is that visual novels clearly can vary by difficulty of language use. Could you provide on your examples on certain games that use different levels of lines that require different perspectives in editing? Although I do feel like the scaling doesn’t differ too greatly, although you want to keep the same accurate approach, the way you tackle one game will still differ than another one, particularly if the genre or plot type is structured differently.
Well, due to many repetitions of context and the fact that characters have day to day things, it’s not surprising certain phrases almost automatically turn into a literal translation.
I remembered battling sentence ordering and discussing how to convey it reasonably. Even for sentences not that difficult that are easy to convey can be cumbersome.
Oh, you mentioned the sentence flow should maintain what the author was presenting. As you’re fully aware, some games definitely have more than one writer. In this regard, even the perspective of the protagonist changes. So even though the characters are the same base, clearly running a different route would present even possibly different personalities.
April 9th, 2010 at 7:26 am
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