Re: Translation Preferences

In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
Hand-of-Omega <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> 1) Change the characters' names or leave them as is?

Leave.  Occasonally translate when the meaning is more important than
the sound.  (If you've got "Reemon", "Orenji", and "Ichigo" as
characters, go ahead and translate them to "Lemon", "Orange", and
"Strawberry".)

> 2) Translate honorifics, prefixes and suffixes or leave them as is?

Remove under almost all circumstances.  Sometimes they work if left in
place, but usually leaving them is just lazy translation.

In certain cases when the honorific is critical to a story point,
leaving it in makes more sense.  ("Call me Washuu-chan!")  People can
pick up the meaning from context.

Don't translate something when the audience can hear that the
characters said something different.  (Not a problem in manga, of
course.)  If someone said "Tanaka", don't translate it to "Ichiro" just
because they'd be on a first-name basis in the US.  Unless you have a
good reason to do so, of course.

> 3) Change topical references to Western ones or leave them as is?

Leave, but frame in familiar terms if at all possible.

> 4) Leave some Japanese exclamations/phrases that don't really
> translate or change them into some kind of English equivalent? e.g.
> "Oh!" for "Ah!"

Translate into the appropriate English.

                             - Damien