Third Person Speech in VNs?

[Zenophilious]

I started playing Hoshizora no Memoria, and I really got confused when Chinami started referring to herself as Chinami instead of "me" or "I".  At first I thought it was an error in the translation, but since it was consistent, I decided to look her up.  Apparently this is the explanation: http://tropes.wikia.com/wiki/Third_Person_Person

 

About how common is this?  Just wondering, since it was a little strange to see at first.

[cryofrzd]

It's 100 times more common in anime/VNs than in real life (excluding babies)

[Flutterz]

It's pretty rare from what I've seen... Then again translators often ignore the whole third-person thing, so I might simply have missed a lot of them. Off the top of my head I can only recall Kanon's Sayuri doing it.

[Nosebleed]

In translation they often ignore the third person speaking and just replace it with I or Me or whatever depending on the context just to make it more coherent.

In real life this rarely happens aside from babies.

Again this is used to emphasize cuteness (related to baby speech) but for some people it doesn't work. I find it cute personally but in reality it's rather annoying if you see someone referring to themselves using third person speech.

[Zenophilious]

Ahhhh.  Strange, but it makes a little sense now.  Thanks for the responses.  Now I know, and knowing is half the battle.  GEEE EYEEEE JOEEEE!

 

[/lame reference]

[InvertMouse]

I do think it's really cute (>U<), but yeah, only in fiction and perhaps not so much in real life.

[garejei]

In Japanese it's sort of a cute thing, but it doesn't quite work that well in English in my opinion. I really don't like it when translators do this, but that's just me.

[Nosebleed]

In Japanese it's sort of a cute thing, but it doesn't quite work that well in English in my opinion. I really don't like it when translators do this, but that's just me.

I agree i'd prefer if they left the third person speech when translating because it's what the novel is saying so it should be there. Same thing when they remove honorifics (worst cases are when they address someone as senpai for example and they replace senpai with the person's name. That really gets on my nerves for some reason)

But since in english we can all agree it doesn't work as well they often just leave it out. I'm against it and i find 3rd person speech cute. But that's just me.

[garejei]

I agree i'd prefer if they left the third person speech when translating because it's what the novel is saying so it should be there. Same thing when they remove honorifics (worst cases are when they address someone as senpai for example and they replace senpai with the person's name. That really gets on my nerves for some reason)

But since in english we can all agree it doesn't work as well they often just leave it out. I'm against it and i find 3rd person speech cute. But that's just me.

 

Hm? You may have misunderstood my post. I was saying how I'm personally against having third-person speech in English. I'm also not a big fan of honorifics, and in my own translations, I actually do substitute them with the person's first name like you have mentioend, because that's how normally people speak in English.

 

Well, I guess now you know not to read anything I translate, haha. =P Man, I'm so good at self-promotion.

[Nosebleed]

Hm? You may have misunderstood my post. I was saying how I'm personally against having third-person speech in English. I'm also not a big fan of honorifics, and in my own translations, I actually do substitute them with the person's first name like you have mentioend, because that's how normally people speak in English.

 

Well, I guess now you know not to read anything I translate, haha. =P Man, I'm so good at self-promotion.

Since you said "I don't like when translators do this" as a whole sentence I took it as related to the original post. So yeah I misread. My bad, god I need glasses I swear. (or more sleep)

Don't worry i won't dislike an entire novel or won't read it because of these things. Personally i like honorifics and third person speech but just like you said they don't work well in english so as a proper translation it shouldn't be there but I as a fan of this moe stuff am against it. 

When i was reading hoshimemo i just pretended in my head it said "Chinami" instead of "I" or "Me".

[Flutterz]

Seems to me like the question of whether or not to do third-person speech is a continuation of the whole translation vs localization thing, just like using honorifics and stuff.

[zoom909]

As for 3rd person speech in Japanese:

 

I think that I would preserve this in the 1st person, only if it were a character's peculiar habit of saying their own name, but I would never do this in the 2nd person.

I have seen some fansubbers have put things like this:

"Does Kazuya-kun like umeboshi?"  (while the girl is speaking to Kazuya, I mean!)

I would put:

"Do you like umeboshi, Kazuya-kun?"

[Nosebleed]

As for 3rd person speech in Japanese:

 

I think that I would preserve this in the 1st person, only if it were a character's peculiar habit of saying their own name, but I would never do this in the 2nd person.

I have seen some fansubbers have put things like this:

"Does Kazuya-kun like umeboshi?"  (while the girl is speaking to Kazuya, I mean!)

I would put:

"Do you like umeboshi, Kazuya-kun?"

The thing is that sort of speech is often used to emphasize cuteness with the whole baby talk. When you translate it and turn it into normal speech it loses that intention (at least in my opinion). I like that moe effect and that's why i think it should be preserved when translated. Again I know it's not proper translation but it makes me happy inside~

[InvertMouse]

It makes me happy inside too Nosebleed =3~

 

I prefer when translations keep all the honorifics. Sometimes, it shows character development. Character A might call B by her last name, then they grow close and he calls her by her first name. If the sub always uses the first name, that growth is lost. Same thing for san, etc.

[Zenophilious]

It makes me happy inside too Nosebleed =3~

 

I prefer when translations keep all the honorifics. Sometimes, it shows character development. Character A might call B by her last name, then they grow close and he calls her by her first name. If the sub always uses the first name, that growth is lost. Same thing for san, etc.

I thought it would be standard to keep the honorifics in...you know, since most people reading the translations are semi-familiar with them already; what are the odds of someone reading a VN that hasn't seen an anime or read a manga?  Besides, it lets you know how familiar/close the characters are with each other, which is definitely lost in the translation.

[Clephas]

It is common amongst very young children, but usually parents make an effort to 'fix' them before they get into elementary school.

[wattstax]

I get it that it is confusing for non-familiar readers seeing honorifics when playing a VN for the first time. Still prefer it though as you get it pretty fast.

I already find german to english translations confusing as they tend to translate it without the german distance when speaking to an foreign person.

Same with all east-asian languages, not just japanese. The honorifics or senpais, Onii-san,... are an important part of their communication and indicate the closeness of a relationship. They can't be just exchanged with a simple "you" or the given name.

Just my opinion though . Glad, that VN and Other media are subbed, so by listening you can easily get the spelling.

[Kaguya]

I generally dislike lolcalizations. I know it's selfish, but I had enough of onigiris becoming cheeseburgers, honorifics suddenly disappearing (and characters always being called by their first names, despite what you're hearing) and the omission of speech quirks and other parts of the text (such as third person speech). Especially with voiced VNs- it's painful to read something and listen to something else entirely. Though that's just my opinion.

[Nosebleed]

I generally dislike lolcalizations. I know it's selfish, but I had enough of onigiris becoming cheeseburgers, honorifics suddenly disappearing (and characters always being called by their first names, despite what you're hearing) and the omission of speech quirks and other parts of the text (such as third person speech). Especially with voiced VNs- it's painful to read something and listen to something else entirely. Though that's just my opinion.

That's the thing they tackle a demographic that's not supposed to be used to Japanese hence why they try to americanize it as much as possible so people relate to it more which i dislike. I never ate a rice ball in my life but i'd still prefer them to say they're eating a rice ball instead of a cheeseburger. These cultural things are important in VNs and they remove a lot, if not all, of it when localizing VNs. A trend that needs to vanish.

[Beato]

There isn't really any big localising trends with VNs though. Except for Phoenix Wright but if they hadn't localised i half the jokes wouldn't have worked anyway.

And there's a pretty big difference between removing third person speech and making onigiris into hamburgers.

I don't like preserving third-person speech in english. It's better to make the character speak a little more cutesy if you still want them to seem cute.

[Kaguya]

Might be because I'm not a native speaker, but it doesn't particularly bothers me (third person speech).

The thing is, having too many differences between what you hear and what you read is annoying >.< 

But both seem the same to me- adulterations in the text to better fit the culture of the place the game is being localized to. Can't see any difference from changing speech patterns to the onigiri/hamburger thingy, except that the second case is more blatant than the first.

[Beato]

The first part is what translation is the second thing is not. If you only change the words to english but don't actually try to convey the impression a Japanese-knowing person is supposed to get from reading the text, you've failed. Same thing with writing style and anything else. If someone is speaking in a way that sounds stereotypically cute in japanese they'll need to sound stereotypically cute in english.

[Kaguya]

The first part is what translation is the second thing is not. If you only change the words to english but don't actually try to convey the impression a Japanese-knowing person is supposed to get from reading the text, you've failed. Same thing with writing style and anything else. If someone is speaking in a way that sounds stereotypically cute in japanese they'll need to sound stereotypically cute in english.

But they are kinda trying to do the same thing. Had they left it as an onigiri, I dunno about the US, but most people here would just "wtf is this, I don't even..." and by changing it to another type of food (not necessarily a hamburger) they are trying to convey the meaning of some sort of food typical to the country/good food (yeah, right...) or whatever else it's supposed to mean in jp in a way that the general population would understand. If you're well-versed in both cultures, you could still get the same meaning from the food. I still don't agree with it, though.

 

To me, it would be better if they just left it in the original manner, such as the third person speech and had a glossary entry explaining the cultural and social implications of whatever is like that.

[Beato]

It isn't about understanding specific worlds though. Knowing what an onigiri is is enough to understand. If you don't think the way a character speaks sounds cute than it doesn't matter if you know it's supposed to sound cute. Why not keep boku and watashi then to? Why not keep desu? Why not translate 明日宿題をします as "do homework tomorrow" instead of translating it into I'll do my homework tomorrow?

 

To me third person speech and the onigiri/hamburger are completely different. But keeping third person speech is not completely different from the examples from above. It's only less extreme. Adapting the way people speak so that it makes sense is not the same as changing actual objects into something different. For example おにぎりを食べます can be "I'm eating onigiri", "He's eating a riceball" or "They're going to eat onigiri" depending on the context. All of those are valid translation for that sentence. But "I'm eating a hamburger" is not. Neither is "eat onigiri" which is the only thing the sentence actually says.

[Kaguya]

It isn't about understanding specific worlds though. Knowing what an onigiri is is enough to understand. If you don't think the way a character speaks sounds cute than it doesn't matter if you know it's supposed to sound cute. Why not keep boku and watashi then to? Why not keep desu? Why not translate 明日宿題をします as "do homework tomorrow" instead of translating it into I'll do my homework tomorrow?

 

To me third person speech and the onigiri/hamburger are completely different. But keeping third person speech is not completely different from the examples from above. It's only less extreme. Adapting the way people speak so that it makes sense is not the same as changing actual objects into something different. For example おにぎりを食べます can be "I'm eating onigiri", "He's eating a riceball" or "They're going to eat onigiri" depending on the context. All of those are valid translation for that sentence. But "I'm eating a hamburger" is not. Neither is "eat onigiri" which is the only thing the sentence actually says.

Speech like this is often used to indicate more than cuteness. Changes in speech are often important clues to what is happening with a particular character- a character that has a particular speech quirk (like a genki girl always bouncing around with energy who talks in third person) can lose their quirk (or take it up to eleven) in certain situations, which is completely lost with the tl to the first name of the person- same thing with surnames and honorifics, they're not there just to sound cool, it generally serves as a measure of how close certain characters are with each other, which is also lost during the tl. Yes, the way it's done is different, but both the tl from onigiri to hamburger and the tl from whatever speech quirk a character has to a simple "I" are adulterations of the text in order to convey the meaning of the phrase to an audience ignorant of the sociocultural implications that type of speech/food/whatever have in that particular country.

 

So instead of doing that, I believe it's better to just leave it as-is and explain it in a glossary entry- try to educate people and get them used to the culture instead of trying to accomodate the novel to their preconceived notions, because that makes the text lose much of it's meaning.

 

This is a talk about personal preferences, really. If you just want to read a good story in a way that satysfies you, changes are you don't care much about how it was tld as long as you have fun. And everyone has their own tastes, so I guess it's fine- no one is wrong in this kind of thing.