When fansubbers get cute

[prillalar]

Character A hands something to Character B.

Character B (speaking): Oh, sankyuu.

Character B (subtitle): Oh, domo.


This brings up a good question, though. If you're writing fanfic in English about characters who speak Japanese, do you try to render the occasional bits of English they use in some special way to show that it's English and not Japanese? There doesn't seem to be a straightforward way to do that and I usually just don't try.

Comments

[biggersandwich.livejournal.com]

I must say that putting that in the subtitles is kinda... but, about your actual point, I'd say that, unless it's supposed to be a definite language switch and they actually talk in another language as opposed to using one word/phrase, I wouldn't try to make it stand out. It looks weird, the same way it does if you try to recreate an accent by typing out every letter you hear when it's spoken.

Besides, if the person reading the fic is probably going to be a fan and they'll know what the characters sound like and will basically "hear" it the way the character would say it (or at least I do...).

[prillalar]

Besides, if the person reading the fic is probably going to be a fan and they'll know what the characters sound like and will basically "hear" it the way the character would say it (or at least I do...).

Sometimes I do, but I often find it hard to give the characters the same "voice" in English. For instance, it's really difficult to do that thing Momo does where he repeats the last part of his sentence and make it sound not too weird.

I guess that's all part of the fun, though -- the challenge. :)

[biggersandwich.livejournal.com]

Well, it doesn't always work (and especially not for long complicated dialogue) but when they say something simple like "think you" I'm likely to "hear" it as "sankyuu" or however they would literally say it.

I'm also less likely to "hear" the voice if the dialogue is OOC but that's a different issue...

(and what thing Momo does? I seem to have missed it...)