![]() ADV’s translation of “Yotuba&!” used my preferred translation convention. Personally, I prefer the method of simply writing the English equivalent sound effect right there (without the SFX note or a transliterated version of what the Japanese word is), along with the occasional total replacement (where it is really easy to do). Viz’s translation of “Inuyasha” completely replaced the Japanese sound effects with English. This is easy for some sound effects that are little and kind of to the side of a panel in some white space… but can be very difficult when the sound effect word is written almost as part of the background. For example, if a door is being locked, instead of writing “SFX: gachan (door locking),” just write what an English-speaking person would expect to see in the same circumstance – in other words, just write “click!” ADV’s translation of “Azumanga Daioh” used my preferred sound effect translation convention.Ī final approach is to erase the original Japanese sound effects and replace them with English words completely. Yet another approach (and probably the one I prefer) is to simply write the English-equivalent sound effect word on or near the original Japanese word right in-panel, without prefixing it with “SFX” and without transcribing what the original Japanese would have been if written out phonetically in English. This is a little bit easier to read (you don’t have to keep looking in the margins), but it still feels a little awkward. ![]() (Later occurrences of that same sound effect may not be translated, or may simply appear as “kasha” in the margin without the translation.) More difficult sound effects might simply be written out as what they are describing, e.g., “SFX: sound of chair scooting back.”Īnother approach is to write these same types of translations as above, but put them in-panel, right near the original Japanese sound effect word. ![]() These sound effects (or “SFX”) notes might say “SFX: clink” or they might say “SFX: kasha (clink).” The latter simply transcribes the sound, and then provides a translation in parenthesis. ![]() One way is to leave the Japanese sound effects as-is in the manga, and simply add notes in the margins. Dark Horse’s translation of “Appleseed” put sound effects in the margins.īecause different languages use different words for the same sounds ( e.g., in English “ribbit ribbit” as opposed to Japanese “gerro gerro”) when it comes time to translate manga that has sound effects (and I can’t think of a manga that doesn’t use sound effects) there are several different ways to approach the task. There’s something that’s been bugging me lately, and it has to do with sound effects ( onomatopoeia) in manga that has been translated for an English-speaking audience. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |