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I don't understand Japanese Honorifics, please explain them sensei
- Thread starter CraigerGamer
- Start date
- Status
I don't know too much, but I think these are ways to address ninjas
cj_iwakura
Member
Yep. That's my personal rule of thumb.
Hyperactivity
Banned
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_honorifics#Common_honorifics
San
Sama
Kun
Chan
Senpai
Sensei:
No honorific
San
Sama
Kun
Chan
Senpai
Sensei:
No honorific
andrerobot
Member
ugu~~
TheBryanJZX90
Member
First post fucking nails it.
The only real effect all this -san and -chan and god help me freaking -tan is for the player to get a smug sense of superiority because they are an expert on Japanese culture and shame and honor are big parts of it, and any English localization would be shooting itself in the foot to leave out such important parts of the superior nihongo text.
ShadyLurker
Member
I was following well enough and then you threw in two new ones. What are -chi and -tan for then? I don't think I've ever seen those in the Persona games.
Truth.
Inquisitive_Ghost
Member
-tan is in P3: Junpei calls Yukari "Yuka-tan." According to my dictionary, "(cute) suffix for a familiar person." Not getting a hit in it for "-chi."
cj_iwakura
Member
Except Atlus themselves are inconsistent. SMTIV and Soul Hackers don't use them(thank god).
You can make a close approximation out of any honorific with some effort. That's what localization means.
Slayer-33
Liverpool-2
Sakura
Member
In Japanese you can attach pretty much anything to someone's name.
-chi is just like, hmmm, changing Mike into Mikey or something. It's just like a playful nickname kinda.
They're inconsistent within Persona 4 even. Keep senpai but change oniichan to big bro? Yosuke calls Yukiko by her last name, with no honorific, in the Japanese version, but calls her Yukiko-san in the English version? yare yare da ze
Unmasked Ferret
Member
Teach me Senpai, teach me the ways of Gaf.
I hope Frozenprince Senpai notices me.
There is no way this would get awkward.
They're saying -desu ka.
-desu being a way to say "is/are" and ka is a sentence ender that turns the sentence into a question.
"waifu-desk" -> "(they are a) waifu?"
milkham
Member
firehawk12
Subete no aware
-tan is a really cutesy way of saying -chan, because little kids sometimes have trouble pronouncing some sounds (English equivalent would be toddler's saying "widdle" instead of "little") so -tan originates as an appropriation from kids trying to say -chan.
FelixOrion
Poet Centuriate
TheBryanJZX90
Member
What anime-GAF has to realize is that it's entirely possible to convey degrees of respect and familiarity in languages other than Japanese. No, there isn't a direct translation of -chan to a single English word. But that's entirely besides the point. An actual localization should never be focused on finding a one-to-one equivalent for every single word in the Japanese text.
My Fandom has invaded GAF. Lord help us all.
Sakura
Member
While it is certainly possible, given the general quality of most translations/localisations, I believe it is beyond their ability.
Generally the removal of honorifics and stuff means just that, and nothing is put in place to make up for them.
SargerusBR
I love Pokken!
Sugoi desu ne!
timetokill
Banned
That is much better than the alternative. Sticking chan or san or whatever onto an English translation is just...well...it is hard to describe. It is basically the feeling that you get when you see translators doing that "All according to Keikaku shit"
Yes, congratulations, you love Japanese culture and language. Stop sticking Japanese language into an English translation. It adds nothing and at it does is remind me of people who are obsessed with Japanese culture and randomly stick Japanese words in their sentences.
Frozenprince
Banned
But again, by doing that you're neutering part of the charm of the Persona series in the first place.
It's an easy way to denote "hey, this is FOREIGN!"
TheBryanJZX90
Member
That "charm" is just exclusionary gating bullshit there to make fans feel better that they know something other people don't.
Sakura
Member
I wouldn't say it adds nothing. It can be rather useful in many situations.
For example, a game with a nameable protagonist and voice acting. In the Japanese version, you can get away with characters not voicing his name, because you can have characters simply call him 'Senpai' amongst other titles.
In an English translation, if you decide to remove those kinds of words, it can make such lines somewhat difficult as we don't really have an equivalent for a word like Senpai.
In any case, I'm not sure why people get bothered so much by that kind of stuff. When I've read things translated from French/set in France, I've often seen words like Monsieur left untranslated. Then you have games like say Assassin's Creed II where because it is set in Italy characters sometimes add random Italian words or phrases in sentences.
I'm not sure what it is about Japanese that gets people riled up when a work gets the same kind of treatment.
FelixOrion
Poet Centuriate
I don't think it's real either but Google-sama tells me it's from Black Butler (Kuroshitsuji)
Because weeaboos say those words and like those works, and we don't want to be lumped in with those weirdos, amirte?
TheBryanJZX90
Member
I just think it's a crutch, and it's created a fandom that is more interested in being anime fans and having their own little secret language, and less concerned with the works they're watching actually being of a high quality.
Yes, doing a proper localization is hard. But it's important.
'That's great, Sakura-chan!' Literally nothing is lost by removing the honorific. That's the case with a solid 99% of times you'll encounter honorifics in Japanese text. No honorific innately gives some deeper understanding into how a character or writer is thinking or feeling. It's all about context and any editor or even translator worth hiring should be able to massage the choice of honorific into the English text. Now, when honorifics are specifically mentioned, that can be a little challenging. But those situations are not only few and far between, they're also mostly inconsequential. Approximating... say, a character dropping an honorific when addressing another to signify closeness, with another indicator of that closeness... That's how translation works. It's not about 'this word means that word', especially not in dialogue. It's about 'this character who speaks like this and is this kind of person in this setting and in this year with this social standing and feels this way about this topic, says this thing in this way to this person who will react in this way, and is being read by/listened to by someone from this place who is likely this age'. There are so many different ways to say the exact same thing in English that to see, 'That's great, Sakura!' and think the intent of the writer has somehow been perverted, is missing the mark completely.
I like them.
It reminds me of when I read foreign translated novels, and they leave in titles like "Monsieur" or "Senor".
I do get a bit disturbed at some of the hyper-fan-violent reactions of people against seeing them at all costs. It's one thing to not like them, and then there's one thing where people are asking for a nuclear culture purge, lest their American sensibilities and internal world building are forever shattered. Chill.
It reminds me of when I read foreign translated novels, and they leave in titles like "Monsieur" or "Senor".
I do get a bit disturbed at some of the hyper-fan-violent reactions of people against seeing them at all costs. It's one thing to not like them, and then there's one thing where people are asking for a nuclear culture purge, lest their American sensibilities and internal world building are forever shattered. Chill.
I feel like there's something to be said about keeping it as kind of a flavor text in some contexts, especially if they're historical in context. That said, when the voices come in, the aim should definitely be to localize.
I don't think anyone thinks of it as a secret language or that anyone feels better knowing that other people don't understand. I've honestly never considered that there are people who play Persona games that don't understand the honourifics. Then again, I learned them as a kid from the inside cover of some manga and watched a lot of anime. I imagine it is the same for many. People don't care whether or not the translations are good for their mother, they want the translations to be good for themselves. I prefer the honourifics to be kept in because I know what they mean and there usually isn't a direct translation for them. You are free to disagree and prefer the removal or localisation of honourifics, just don't accuse people who prefer honourifics of trying to stroke their sense of superiority.
SporeCrawler
Member
okay what about
-chin
or
-tan
-chin
or
-tan
Slayer-33
Liverpool-2
Hahahaha ty baby J
Sakura
Member
Nothing is particularly gained by removing it either though ^^;
In that sort of situation, it exists for flavour. Is it needed? Of course not. Just like random Russian/Italian/French/etc words/honorifics aren't needed in works set in those places. But often they are still there, for flavour or atmosphere.
While I agree "keep them because it is impossible to convey the same meaning without them" is a poor argument, I think "remove them because I don't want to seem them" or "remove them because they don't need to be there" are equally poor arguments.
I think honorifics can be used to emphasize how anime something is (like Persona). It makes sense almost nowhere else.
Honorifics are really cool, linguistics-wise, though!
Edit: Also, to the poster above: honorifics in my English translations makes me feel like I'm reading a lazy translation, written by a guy who prefers being fake-Japanese over giving a real translation.
As a guy who studies lingusitics, and speaks some Japanese, honorifics in English do not give me, and cannot give you, the same feel as how they work in Japanese.
Honorfics are one component of the Japanese language as a whole. If you pull them out and throw them into English, you aren't getting the real idea of how a Japanese person interprets it, you're getting a fragment, a fragment changed by the rest of the English around it. At most, you'll be speaking some weird dialect of Engish used by animu fans.
If you want the "real Japanese experience", learn Japanese.
Honorifics are really cool, linguistics-wise, though!
Edit: Also, to the poster above: honorifics in my English translations makes me feel like I'm reading a lazy translation, written by a guy who prefers being fake-Japanese over giving a real translation.
As a guy who studies lingusitics, and speaks some Japanese, honorifics in English do not give me, and cannot give you, the same feel as how they work in Japanese.
Honorfics are one component of the Japanese language as a whole. If you pull them out and throw them into English, you aren't getting the real idea of how a Japanese person interprets it, you're getting a fragment, a fragment changed by the rest of the English around it. At most, you'll be speaking some weird dialect of Engish used by animu fans.
If you want the "real Japanese experience", learn Japanese.
How can a Japanese to English translation be 'good for you', not as a native English speaker but as someone with a basic grasp on honorifics as a concept, and also not be exclusionary by nature?
Frankly, I want your mom to play Persona. One's attraction or lack thereof to foreign media should be defined by the source material and not by arbitrary linguistic roadblocks popularized by a vocal minority of consumers.
They really don't need to be there, though. They add nothing and only serve to alienate a casual consumer.
Anything outside the stuff in the OP is usually some cutesy thing like chan (but even cuter).
Dono is an olden day honourific that might be used between two kings, for example. If one king called another King-sama then he would be putting himself below him (calling someone sama is like an acknowledgement of your inferiority). So this king would instead call the other king, King-dono. Depending on the context, it could be used in an arrogant way where some homeless dude calls a king, King-dono and King-dono's right hand man will go all "tch!!!!!". I'm not a Japanese cultural expert, so I could be wrong.
I never said that it wasn't exclusionary. I said that I had never thought about it and doubt that it is the reason why many people prefer to have honourifics. I only appreciate the honourifics in the Persona dub because the game doesn't have Japanese voices with English subs. In the case of anime, using honourifics in an English dub would obviously be silly and needlessly exclusionary because people who want honourifics will just watch the subbed version and people who don't want honourifics will be left with nothing.
I like it in the Persona series because the games take place in Japan and I just think it adds to the charm; I wouldn't want it from every localization to come out of the country like Fire Emblem or Final Fantasy, but I think it works in a game that tries to simulate living in modern Japan. And if I recall correctly, the P4 manual does define most of the honorifics as well as some of the other terms in the game like kotatsu and sensei.
It's like how I don't mind the honorifics being used in the English dub of FLCL and don't miss them when they are completely dropped in Cowboy Bebop.
It's like how I don't mind the honorifics being used in the English dub of FLCL and don't miss them when they are completely dropped in Cowboy Bebop.
Nowadays, "dono" means you sound like a samurai. It's like how speaking with "thy" and such makes you a Shakespeare-era noble character nowadays in English.
Frozenprince
Banned
Yep, some old folks still use it (the war generation is basically gone) but other than that it's non-extant outside of pop-culture.
Black_Stride
do not tempt fate do not contrain Wonder Woman's thighs do not do not
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