Author Topic: No. 6 translations  (Read 2200 times)

Ahiku

  • Administrator
  • No. 6 - Wall Breaker
  • *
  • Posts: 1798
  • Location: Germany
    • View Profile
    • Tumblr
No. 6 translations
« on: December 17, 2014, 12:15:35 pm »
Hello… ^^

I want to start a new thread. If they’re publishing No. 6 in your country please let us know how they handle for example proper names. I think this could be a very interesting topic.

Ok, I can tell you something about the German version.

Volume 1

The person names are like in the original. (Nezumi, Shion, Karan, Safu etc.) I’m really glad that they didn’t use „Ratte“(rat) for Nezumi.

---

Westblock, Chronos, Lost Town and Violence Chip are still English terms.

---

Moondrop is literally translated. (Mondtropfen) It bugged me a bit, but @listenforthelove said that it’s Tsuki no Shizuku in the Japanese version. So it’s very accurate to translate it like that.

---

The term for Correctional Facility could be better. They use “Besserungsanstalt” (reformatory) instead of “Justizvollzugsanstalt”. But I guess it’s still okay.

---

Ok, the next one is Security Bureau. They use “Ordnungsamt” in the German version, which is pretty funny in my opinion, because it is something like a regulatory agency. They normally monitor diners and fries stands to make sure they are hygienic… and they make sure that you’ve an allowance when you want to run a little stall during a weekly market. I mean when you’ve a diner or something or you have problems with the license of your car it might be a scary instance, but in No. 6 the Bureau of Safety is more like a police and regulatory agency in one. I don’t know why they didn’t translate it just literally, something like. “Sicherheitsbüro”, Bureau of Safety and Health, (Sicherheits- und Gesundheitsbüro). I mean it’s very inviting to translate it literally. So I don’t really get it. ^^°

---

Forest Park is “Stadtpark” in the German translation. That’s rather something like a city park. I guess “Waldpark” would probably have been a better choice. (Forest = Wald)

---

Safu’s first love declaration when she talks to Shion via ID card also bugged me a bit, but I also learned that it is way more accurate than in the English version.

@listenforthelove translated it for us:

Quote
- What did Safu tell Shion back in volume 1 - daisuki, ai ****eru?

Safu’s words are: 好きよ、紫苑. 誰よりあなたのことが好き
suki yo, shion - dare yori anata no koto ga suki
‘I love you, Shion - more than anyone else, I love you’
So actually just ‘suki’! Which is more ‘like’ than love, though ‘suki na hito’ is ‘the one I love’, so it does imply love and not just fondness. But you also use suki/daisuki to say you really like a thing, not just a person. So translating as ‘love’ might actually be a bit strong in this case, especially since she does say ai ****eta (‘I loved you’) later on in volume 8.

So in the beginning, she uses “like” instead of “love” and used the stronger form later. In the German version, she’s also saying: “Ich mag dich, Shion.” (I like you, Shion.) I thought it was wrong, because they used: “I love you” in the English version.

Volume 2

Cleaner is “Wegräumer”. Well, I guess that’s okay. Better than “Putzmann” / “Reiniger” or something. But “Wegräumer” is a neologism. It’s something like “put away guy/woman”.

---

Inukashi is still Inukashi. I’m not really sure how they’re going to handle the matter concerning Inukashi’s gender. There’s just one scene in volume 2 where it is necessary and they found a nice solution.

Nezumi says: “Das ist der Bewohner dieses Gebäudes. Seinen wirklichen Namen kenne ich nicht. Wir nennen ihn Inukashi.“

“This is the inhabitant (der Bewohner) of this building. I don’t know “his” (seinen) real name. We call “him” (ihn) Inukashi.”

There are two possibilities. The first one is that they use the male form for Inukashi (his, him). The other possibility is, that “seinen” and “ihn” refers to the word “der Bewohner”. It’s a male noun. But it’s not clear. It could be both. ^^° I think they go for a male version in the beginning and tried to leave out everything that could reveal Inukashi’s gender.

It’s fact that we also have a female version for these sencentes: “Das ist die Bewohnerin dieses Gebäudes. Ihren wirklichen Namen kenne ich nicht. Wie nennen sie Inukashi.”

They didn’t use it, so they go for “he and him” or they tried to be gender-neutral and made it inconclusive… But reading it, you rather think Inukashi is a boy.

---

Rikiga is still Rikiga. Shion addresses him formally with “Sie” and “Herr Rikiga” (Mr. Rikiga). He’s pretty polite… but when Nezumi is insulted by Rikiga and Shion freaks out and yells at him, he’s using “du” instead of “Sie” and is on first name terms with him, pretty informally.  Nezumi is pretty rude to Rikiga. XD He’s always calling him “du” and his typical “old man” (alter Mann, alter Knacker) is just “Alter”. It’s pretty common term among teenagers… (Something like: “Hey dude!”), but it’s pretty rude when you’re a teen and you’re calling a middle-aged man like that. ^^° In my opinion it’s even more rude than “alter Mann” (old man)…

---

Ok, last but not least Eve… (;_;) They made “Yves” out of it. I mean… yes イヴ could supposedly also be „Yves”… And I guess they thought: “Uh, he’s a guy, why should he call himself Eve.”

Really, I contacted the publisher and told him that they should use “Eve”… I don’t think it’s still possible to change it, but it really bugged me. XD Just why…? This is a ****ing boy’s name. There’s a reason why Nezumi’s stage name is a female name. Ahhhrgh!  Well, even if they can’t change it… I tried to improve it. X’D
« Last Edit: December 17, 2014, 12:22:19 pm by Ahiku »

Share on Facebook Share on Twitter


lawlya

  • Global Moderator
  • No. 6 - Wall Breaker
  • *
  • Posts: 634
  • Location: Berlin
    • View Profile
    • Tumblr
Re: No. 6 translations
« Reply #1 on: December 17, 2014, 01:36:40 pm »
I just thought of "Yves Rocher" and could barely hold back my laughter ... until I realized how horrible that name really is ...

Ahiku

  • Administrator
  • No. 6 - Wall Breaker
  • *
  • Posts: 1798
  • Location: Germany
    • View Profile
    • Tumblr
Re: No. 6 translations
« Reply #2 on: December 17, 2014, 02:27:45 pm »
Quote
I just thought of "Yves Rocher" and could barely hold back my laughter ... until I realized how horrible that name really is ...

Ok, this made me laugh... but also just for a moment. XD I thought my eyes are gonna plop out.
If I remember it correctly, @Yuneyn said that they also named him Yves in the French version. But the French version is pretty awful, with Nezumi as "le rat" and Shion is "aster" or something like that. (x_X)

Really... Why! Lawlya, why don't you also send an e-mail to Egmont. When a lot of people tell them that his stage name is "Eve" and not Yves... maybe they'll change it. X'D Maybe... (I mean they want critical reviews... X'D)


listenforthelove

  • Restructural Committee
  • No. 6 - Wall Breaker
  • *
  • Posts: 752
  • Location: The Netherlands
    • View Profile
    • @tumblr
Re: No. 6 translations
« Reply #3 on: December 17, 2014, 02:49:42 pm »
Ah, this is super interesting! A Dutch translation would probably never happen (unless I do it I guess), so I don't have a lot to contribute here, but it's super interesting to read these! Thank you, @Ahiku~

'Stadtpark' for Forest Park is really a strange choice... Hm. Fairly sure it's literally 'Forest Park' in Japanese. I'll need to look up Security Bureau to tell you what that is in Japanese exactly, but I can do that this weekend. If memory serves, it wasn't as straightforward with only one possible interpretation, though...

Makes sense they kept Inukashi as Inukashi if they also kept Nezumi, but it's interesting they are sort of going with gendered pronouns anyway. I paid attention to it in English, and they kept clear of any pronouns until the very last pages of volume 9, so I can't help but wonder if the German version couldn't have rephrased it a little to avoid the pronouns altogether.

Addressing Rikiga like that sounds accurate, haha. Guess German (and Dutch too, we also have two forms of politeness for second person) lends itself pretty well for some Japanese politeness levels.


Eve to Yves is... eh, wow. I'll freely admit it never dawned on me as I read the novels that Eve was used as the female name (I sincerely thought it was short for 'evening' because with mice being nocturnal and all...), but why would they go with 'Yves' over 'Eve'? Yves is a French name, right? There's not a lot of French to be spotted in No. 6 aside from the cravats, all loan words for new terms are English (Lost Town, violence chip etc)... イヴ is indeed used for Yves in Japanese, but still. Especially considering that the manga does clearly show Eve is in female attire... and Yves is a male name. Huh. I mean, not to push everyone into gender boxes, but still. They have the entire manga to work from, it's not like they don't know what will be shown later on XD; (and that one bonus comic in volume 3 (? I think?) won't work in German, then, with Shion asking 'Eve' to read from the Bible...)



To how many languages has No. 6 now been translated, anyway? I know the manga also got translated to Polish recently, and the novels got partially translated into French, I think - how many other languages, does anyone know?

Ahiku

  • Administrator
  • No. 6 - Wall Breaker
  • *
  • Posts: 1798
  • Location: Germany
    • View Profile
    • Tumblr
Re: No. 6 translations
« Reply #4 on: December 17, 2014, 04:41:13 pm »
Quote
Makes sense they kept Inukashi as Inukashi if they also kept Nezumi, but it's interesting they are sort of going with gendered pronouns anyway. I paid attention to it in English, and they kept clear of any pronouns until the very last pages of volume 9, so I can't help but wonder if the German version couldn't have rephrased it a little to avoid the pronouns altogether.

Hm. It's really, really difficult. Because you always need a female or male gender to define certain things. So you have to change a lot when you want to make it genderless. ^^°
If you want to keep it genderless, you always have to use the name, but that's pretty weird. XD

"Das ist Inukashi. Inukashi gehört das Gebäude. Ich kenne Inukashis richtigen Namen nicht."

This is Inukashi. This building belongs to Inukashi. I don't know Inukashi's real name.

You just need personal pronouns. If you don't wanna reveal the gender, the only possibility is to find some words which could paraphrase it, but that's probably just possible when you write a story, but it's hard to leave it out in a dialogue, especially when two people talk about a certain person.

Hm...the only possibility would be to use gender-neutral words, something like child. Child is neutral in German. (Das Kind) But if you refer to a neutral word, you also have to use "sein", "seinem", "ihm" which is normally for the male gender, but it's also for the neutral gender... ^^° "Ihm" and "sein" refers to "das Kind" (the child). Jesus, German is ****ing difficult. X'D

"Das Kind wird Inukashi genannt. Ihm gehört das Hotel. Ich kenne seinen wirklichen Namen nicht."
(This child is called Inukashi. The hotel belongs to it. I don't know its real name.)

Same thing would work with "Teenager". It's a male word, but there's no female form for it, so the teenager could be a boy or a girl. ^^° But you'd also use "his"/"he" in German...

It's nearly impossible to leave personal pronouns out when you don't find words to paraphrase it, so that the personal pronouns refer to a certain word and not to the person, or you always have to use the person's name. ^^°
I guess it's easier for them when they just use "he" instead of trying not to reveal Inukashi's gender.

Quote
Huh. I mean, not to push everyone into gender boxes, but still. They have the entire manga to work from, it's not like they don't know what will be shown later on XD; (and that one bonus comic in volume 3 (? I think?) won't work in German, then, with Shion asking 'Eve' to read from the Bible...

Ah right, I totally forgot the little bonus comic. o_o Meh, I really don't get it. But I also argued with volume 3 (I told them I own them in English...) and said that Nezumi is dressed like a girl in Volume 3. There's this picture: http://z.mfcdn.net/store/manga/8949/03-009.0/compressed/p009_021.jpg and tried to explain that his voice can sound like a woman's...

Yves... really, I just wanna vomit. X'D


« Last Edit: December 17, 2014, 05:55:49 pm by Ahiku »

listenforthelove

  • Restructural Committee
  • No. 6 - Wall Breaker
  • *
  • Posts: 752
  • Location: The Netherlands
    • View Profile
    • @tumblr
Re: No. 6 translations
« Reply #5 on: December 17, 2014, 05:30:02 pm »
@Ahiku: Hm, but doesn't English have similar problems with pronouns? Though I guess English is usually a more flexible language... Still, the English translation did not use 'they' for Inukashi (except for one instance in Kino's notes in the back of the volume), and as said steered clear from using pronouns until the very end. It is possible at least, but it requires some creativity, and maybe they wanted to stick to the source as closely as possible. (I can only speak for English and Dutch though since those are the languages I write in, but Dutch and German are rather similar linguistically I guess...)
Hm, can't remember how the English translation solved that particular instance. Maybe that was indeed because English allows for more flexibility.

'Kind' would have actually been a sort of good solution, as Inukashi is indeed quite young from what we know and Nezumi is not exactly the most polite guy around when it comes to Inukashi XD;

Yves, though. Why. Whyyyyy. Who looks at Yves and goes 'yes that is definitely a name that fits right into this story'.

Ahiku

  • Administrator
  • No. 6 - Wall Breaker
  • *
  • Posts: 1798
  • Location: Germany
    • View Profile
    • Tumblr
Re: No. 6 translations
« Reply #6 on: December 17, 2014, 06:33:12 pm »
@listenforthelove
Yeah, English is more flexible. Of course you have some points where you definitely need some personal pronouns, but you have way more possibilities from the beginning, because nouns are genderless. That’s a huge advantage.

Words like “inhabitant”, “lender”, “singer”, “owner” etc. are genderless. (They have all male and female versions in German... Bewohner/Bewohnerin, Verleiher/Verleiherin, Sänger/Sängerin, Besitzer/Besitzerin...)
And if you’re able to play with words it should be possible to express whatever you like without using personal pronouns. But you have more possibilities when you can use nouns, at least.

Well, let’s check out the English translation.

“Let me introduce the owner. Real name unknown. So everyone settled on dogkeeper.”

Loosley translated: „Lass mich dir den Besitzer vorstellen. Richtiger Name (ist) unbekannt. Daher haben sich alle auf Inukashi festgelegt.“

Ok, not that bad. The second and the third sentence would be fine, even though the second one is a bit weird, because it’s more like a sentence fragment. Normally people would rather say: Ihr/Sein richtiger Name (ist) unbekannt. (His/Her real name is unknown.)
And Nezumi is normally very eloquent, so he shouldn’t use sentence fragments and tell Shion that his linguistic ability is worse than a Chimpanzee’s. ^^°
But the big problem is the first sentence, because “den Besitzer”/”der Besitzer” is the male form of owner… He could say: “Lass mich dir den Besitzer (male)/die Besitzerin (female) vorstellen.“
I mean, I also sometimes use the male form when I speak about myself. ^^° Something like. “Hey, I’m the owner of a new laptop.” (“Hey, ich bin der Besitzer eines neuen Laptops!” even though the grammatically correct form would be: “Hey, ich bin die Besitzerin eines neuen Laptops.”)
And yet…the sentence still implies that Inukashi is a guy, or that Nezumi is pretty rude because he doesn’t use the female form when he’s talking about her.
(I mean he IS rude when it comes to Inukashi… XD But on the other side you witnessed just a couple of pages ago that he’s quite the charmer when he kisses that prostitute.  Hmmm…but he’s also teasing Inukashi. I’m not sure… does he know Inukashi is probably a girl? He doesn’t seem to care at all when it comes to them.)
Okay, it just implies that Inukashi is a guy, because the reader doesn’t know that much about Nezumi, it’s just the second volume. So it’s too early to analyze Nezumi’s behavior concerning Inukashi. X’D

Ah, but I think they could have used something like: “Inukashi gehört das Hotel. Richtiger Name (ist) unbekannt.  Alle haben sich daher auf diesen Namen festgelegt.” (Inukashi owns the hotel. Real name unknown. So everyone settled on this name.)

The second sentence is still not very nice, and it’s probably not very close to the original, but well… it’s still better than using words which imply a male gender. XD It’s so complicated.
« Last Edit: December 17, 2014, 06:38:21 pm by Ahiku »

Vox

  • Administrator
  • No. 6 - Wall Breaker
  • *
  • Posts: 844
    • View Profile
    • My tumblr o3o
Re: No. 6 translations
« Reply #7 on: December 17, 2014, 09:43:41 pm »
this is all very interesting but i think i'll be over here crying about "yves"

(sorry, i'm a bit sick and loopy, i hope this reply doesn't seem flippant. i really did read the whole thing. i just kinda got stuck on the yves thing.)

lawlya

  • Global Moderator
  • No. 6 - Wall Breaker
  • *
  • Posts: 634
  • Location: Berlin
    • View Profile
    • Tumblr
Re: No. 6 translations
« Reply #8 on: December 18, 2014, 04:09:50 am »
@Ahiku: Gonna do this asap. Egmont asked for a little analyze why it's "Eve" and why that's important? Okay, they can have that xD

As for Inukashi's 'gendered' words ... I think the problem really is that German just doesn't have any genderless pronouns. They just don't exist (and frankly, Wikipedia says that English was like that in the past too until someone changed the grammatical structure of it; and nearly all languages in Europe have problems similar to those in German ...)
The convention is that the male pronouns are also considered genderless. It's actually the same in English with the difference that the English language has other pronouns you could use (like the 'singular they'). There's actually a really nice Wikipedia article about this.

But "Yves" is horrible ... gonna change that and if it's the last thing I do xD
« Last Edit: December 18, 2014, 07:51:46 am by lawlya »

Ahiku

  • Administrator
  • No. 6 - Wall Breaker
  • *
  • Posts: 1798
  • Location: Germany
    • View Profile
    • Tumblr
Re: No. 6 translations
« Reply #9 on: December 18, 2014, 07:50:05 am »
Quote
sorry, i'm a bit sick and loopy, i hope this reply doesn't seem flippant. i really did read the whole thing. i just kinda got stuck on the yves thing.)

Ah, don't worry. It's maybe a not so interesting conversation for you guys... o.o° But I remembered that we had some interested parties... I'm probably going to post a part of it on my private blog, but I als wanted to share it here. ^^

Ah, I really wonder if we have No. 6 in any other languages apart from English, French, Polish and German. (And of course Japanese...)
The French one is the worst, so far. The official English one is "okay" in my opinion... Would have been better with their original names, though...
The German one is really not bad. They really try hard. But Yves is just a no go. X'D Dame! Dame yo! >,<

Quote
But "Yves" is horrible ... gonna change that and if it's the last thing I do xD

Oh yes! Let's go to animexx, we have to start a petition. XD I hope our e-mails will help.


Yuneyn

  • Administrator
  • CF - Intruder
  • *
  • Posts: 262
  • 再会を必ず
    • View Profile
    • Tumblr
Re: No. 6 translations
« Reply #10 on: December 18, 2014, 07:55:12 am »
Asdfghjkl don't even get me started on the French translation.......

...Ok, I'll go back on those wretched Amazon pages where I saw those awful summaries. Damn.

- Shion = Aster  >:(

- Nezumi = "le Rat"  >:(  (like, seriously, why? It's exactly as if he was called "the Rat" in English, just plain STUPID)

- Inukashi = Loueur-de-chiens....


...
...
...

Brb, I need to kill myself very quickly.

...
...

Ok no, BUT STILL. "Loueur de chiens"... ("Dog renter" I guess) THIS IS ABSOLUTELY HORRIBLE MY EYES ARE IN PAIN. (And not only because of my trip to the eye doctor- haha- bad translations imply bad puns from me, sorry)

I'm not saying it would have been easy to come up with something like "Dogkeeper" though, it's not like French can stick words together to make new ones, it's a very stupid language. Maybe something like "Garde-chiens" (...Dogkeeper, actually), but there's no way to make it in one word. So really, they should have stuck with Inukashi and put a footnote to explain, because the actual translation looks super ridiculous.
I can't tell about the gender they decided to use for Inukashi though, but I suspect it would be super hard to keep Inukashi genderless in French... we only have masculine and feminine so...

Ok so that's all the amazon summaries would give me (they stopped at Volume 5, not enough sales, and I'm not about to help them continue selling this horrible thing)
Anyway, in the interest of science, I also subjected myself to a French fanfiction in order to find more information. I searched for one using "Aster" instead of Shion so that I'd know the person was using the Novel translation as a basis...

- Eve = Yves ; no comment as you've already talked about it, let's just all have a minute of silence for this horror. (Yves Rocher, haha, I also thought of that... LET'S HAVE NEZUMI SELL COSMETICS IN HIS NAME)

- The fic author uses "Lost Town" in English, but then "Bloc Ouest" instead of "West Block" so I have to wonder if the translators just put names and places in a hat and picked the ones that were going to be translated.

- Again, the author says "il était un VC, un criminel recherché", I'm sorry but "VC" aren't the initials for "criminel recherché", so WHAT THE HELL.

(I'm not really nitpicking, I hate reading fics in my own language and my eyes hurt like hell so I'm randomly stopping on some sentences- I could have waited until my eyes didn't hurt, but I started thinking of the French translation and got angry)

Actually a fan started the translation after the 6th volume on ff.net, based on the ones from 9th avenue, and that person is keeping the original names so it's much less painful to the eyes. Ah well.


So here you have it people, the horrendous French translation of the No.6 novel. I'm just hoping the massacre will stop here.


(I apologise if my writing is weird, I had this eye exam this morning and my pupils are still super dilated, and also my eyes are still irritated from that big lens they put on it, so I can't see very well)
“How do you pick up the threads of an old life? How do you go on, when in your heart, you begin to understand, there is no going back?
There are some things that time cannot mend. Some hurts that go too deep... that have taken hold.”

Ahiku

  • Administrator
  • No. 6 - Wall Breaker
  • *
  • Posts: 1798
  • Location: Germany
    • View Profile
    • Tumblr
Re: No. 6 translations
« Reply #11 on: December 18, 2014, 08:08:49 am »
@Yuneyn
Oh no, get well soon o.o *puts eye medicine in your eyes*

@Vox
Ah, I didn't tell you to get well soon in my last post, so I'll do it now. Please get well soon. *puts human medicine in your mouth*
*strokes Yuneyn's and Vox's heads* (._.)

...

@Yuneyn
OMG... this is really horrible. XD And I get the feeling I'll get a knot in my tongue when I try to say "loueur de chiens" I mean hello, it's some kind of name... x_X Try to yell it when you're in danger. XD "Au secours! LOEEUGZDUER DE CHIENS, aidez-moi s’il vous plaît! Merci beaucoup."

(But hey, Yves is at least a French name... XDD So I can understand it a bit when they use it for their weird French version... but not in the German one. X'D)

Quote
(Yves Rocher, haha, I also thought of that... LET'S HAVE NEZUMI SELL COSMETICS IN HIS NAME)

Ah, yes!!! XD Also thought that. I just messaged Lawl that selling beauty products is Nezumi's secret second job. He's walking from door to door... and just like: "Bonjour monsieur... my name is Yves...and this is my product line... Beautiful with me - Yves Rocher! You want to be as beautiful as me? Buy this lipstick. 100% made from melted butter and the blood of our enemies. [I slit my boyfriend so you better buy you ugly old hag!])


lawlya

  • Global Moderator
  • No. 6 - Wall Breaker
  • *
  • Posts: 634
  • Location: Berlin
    • View Profile
    • Tumblr
Re: No. 6 translations
« Reply #12 on: December 18, 2014, 09:07:55 am »
Okay, you two ... THIS is something that should be published xD A No.6 parodie based on several translations x'D God, this is **** awesome lol

I don't have as much problems pronouncing the name but ... you're right, it's a bit long to shout - you'll be dead before you're finished ^^"

Vox

  • Administrator
  • No. 6 - Wall Breaker
  • *
  • Posts: 844
    • View Profile
    • My tumblr o3o
Re: No. 6 translations
« Reply #13 on: December 18, 2014, 10:00:26 am »
oh my gog please can we write a parody

Ahiku

  • Administrator
  • No. 6 - Wall Breaker
  • *
  • Posts: 1798
  • Location: Germany
    • View Profile
    • Tumblr
Re: No. 6 translations
« Reply #14 on: December 19, 2014, 03:12:16 pm »
Yeah, why not. XD We could do this for our next No. 6 day. o.o