Onomatopoeia and Sound Effects

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Sometimes, Japanese translators and subtitlers have opted to retain English expressions rather than to translate them. For instance, the linguist who subtitled the Terminator 2 movie didn’t translate Arnold Schwarzenegger’s famous line “I’ll be back” into Japanese. They retained the English phrase which then went viral in Japan.

Sarcasm is particularly problematic in Japan as it isn’t usually well-received and may be taken too literally. colombia mobile database If a character in a Western production was to say “Excellent!” when receiving bad news, a Japanese translation would read something like “how terrible”.


Japanese subtitles are more likely to feature interpretations of dialogue rather than the literal translations that are generally created in the West.


4. Focus on Visual Context

Japanese subtitles are crafted with the assumption that viewers are highly attentive to visual and contextual cues. This often leads to selective subtitling, where only the most critical lines are translated, relying on the audience to infer the rest from the visuals. In contrast, Western subtitles tend to feature translations of nearly every spoken line, aiming for comprehensive accessibility.


5.

onomatopoeia and sound effects

Japanese media, especially anime and manga, heavily incorporates onomatopoeia and sound effects into its narrative style. Subtitles in Japan often include translations or adaptations of these sounds, even when they don’t directly correlate to dialogue. This differs from Western subtitling, which usually focuses on speech and occasionally closed-caption subtitles relevant to sound effects and background noises.