Translated from French/Chinese/Other?
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Recently, I've been reading scanlations of Yu Yu Hakusho, and some of the chapters were done by a group that didn't translate the Japanese volumes but the French volumes of the series. A couple of months ago, I read Dragonhead, which was also scanlated using the French volumes instead of the original Japanese.
I felt a little cheated. Hmm, "cheated" may not be the right word, but it felt weird. I kept thinking, "What if the French translation changed a lot?" If the French translation did change things, the changes would of course come through in the English translation. Furthermore, if you take something and translate it into another language, and then translate that into another language, the final translation is going to be quite different than if you just translated it from the original language into the final one.
Does that make sense? Or does it seem petty?
Would you want to read a manga series if you knew the translation had come from a Spanish translation of the Japanese text, or something similar? Would it irk you at all? Or would you be perfectly fine with it?
Now, I want to say that I'm glad the people who translate the series from French do what they can. I don't think they should stop, because there are a lot of manga series out there that aren't translated into English at all, and an English translation from the French version is better than nothing. It just makes me wonder. I've seen some English translations of Japanese that have been far too liberal, and I wouldn't want someone translating that into another language because it would mess things up royally. I hope the French versions (or Spanish or Russian or whatever) didn't translate too liberally or else the English translation from that version wouldn't be as accurate.
I felt a little cheated. Hmm, "cheated" may not be the right word, but it felt weird. I kept thinking, "What if the French translation changed a lot?" If the French translation did change things, the changes would of course come through in the English translation. Furthermore, if you take something and translate it into another language, and then translate that into another language, the final translation is going to be quite different than if you just translated it from the original language into the final one.
Does that make sense? Or does it seem petty?
Would you want to read a manga series if you knew the translation had come from a Spanish translation of the Japanese text, or something similar? Would it irk you at all? Or would you be perfectly fine with it?
Now, I want to say that I'm glad the people who translate the series from French do what they can. I don't think they should stop, because there are a lot of manga series out there that aren't translated into English at all, and an English translation from the French version is better than nothing. It just makes me wonder. I've seen some English translations of Japanese that have been far too liberal, and I wouldn't want someone translating that into another language because it would mess things up royally. I hope the French versions (or Spanish or Russian or whatever) didn't translate too liberally or else the English translation from that version wouldn't be as accurate.
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I got lost for a moment with what you really were implying...
I don't like that idea of translating the manga into another language such as French for example, then that exact French translation would become the base for when it is translated to English!
That would TOTALLY mess things up! The difference in culture would definitely show, as you've said for example is being "far too liberal" from the original context. That's what most likely is going to happen, Japanese of course as we know are very CULTURAL people and most of that are shown in their works, if you know what I mean.
Well, I'd agree with you though that it's better than having no translations at all, but I'd still prefer reading an English translated manga which was directly translated from its original Japanese context. Unless if, I'm that desperate...
I don't like that idea of translating the manga into another language such as French for example, then that exact French translation would become the base for when it is translated to English!
That would TOTALLY mess things up! The difference in culture would definitely show, as you've said for example is being "far too liberal" from the original context. That's what most likely is going to happen, Japanese of course as we know are very CULTURAL people and most of that are shown in their works, if you know what I mean.
Well, I'd agree with you though that it's better than having no translations at all, but I'd still prefer reading an English translated manga which was directly translated from its original Japanese context. Unless if, I'm that desperate...