My only problem with nekopara.

[Dragoon]

While I really like the novel, got the limited edition with the artbook, there is this small thing I can't get past.

Every time Chocola says something sekai project thought it was a good idea to make her speak in the third person form. Also known as "Illeism".

So every time she says something it goes something like this, "Chocola loves master~", "Chocola is so happy~".

While in Japanese she is speaking as a normal person would. She barely mentions her own name and also doesn't use words which refer to herself.

 

I find this really annoying since speaking in the third person form makes somebody come over twice as dumb.

So what are your thoughts on this?

[Darklord Rooke]

It doesn't really worry me. I sometimes speak in the third person to a certain member of the forum because it ticks them off

 

The translation team having little knowledge of writing "style" makes it a very hard read for me, and so I stay away from it. There was also a thread on Reddit which raised questions over the translation accuracy, but I have no knowledge of that.

[Fiddle]

Fiddle agrees. Fiddle ain't havin' none'a that third-person shizzle.

[Nosebleed]

This was a problem I found with Nekopara early on as well and complained about.

 

I'm usually a 3rd person defender.

Mainly because in my main language, Portuguese, 3rd person is a grammatically valid form of speech (not kiddy speech but actually valid in normal everyday situations and is actually more formal than 1st person) so I usually never find 3rd person odd in English (despite knowing it's not grammatically correct) and needless to say in Japanese I also don't find it odd when characters use their name to refer to themselves.

 

But in Nekopara.. the abuse of 3rd person was off the charts. They added 3rd person multiple times where there was none in Japanese. In fact most of her lines were not in 3rd person.

The translation for Chocola's lines made her sound more annoying/dumb than she actually was and i was really disappointed with it because Chocola's such a cute character.

 

So I have to agree with you~

[TexasDice]

So... Now I have to specify the english Chocola as my waifu? 

 

That's annoying.

[Kosakyun]

I didn't even notice with all the bouncing.

I'll try listening to it more.

[Eclipsed]

Well, shit. I actually played the entirety of Nekopara using autoplay and I didn't even notice that >.>

In general I don't mind 1st vs 3rd person, but for them to actually make Chocola refer to herself in 3rd person when she isn't is .

[Nosebleed]

Chocola does use 3rd person here and there when the situation calls for it. 

 

But SP's translation pretty much put 3rd person in almost all of her lines when she was clearly not even mentioning her own name or using any sort of kiddy speech for the matter.

 

Most ridiculous example:

Original:

そうか (sou ka) 

 

SP translation:

Chocola sees

 

More fair translation by me (and anyone with half a brain)

I see

[Down]

Using third person in english is retarded to begin with. In japanese it would sound kinda childish-cute (so moe lol), but in english... argh.

Granted, maybe Chocola is a mentally deficient person catgirl, but I would probably die trying to read that. (I'd probably die reading Nekopara for other reasons too, admittedly )

[Blackbird]

I never like dubbed from beginning so I never hear Chocola in english voice, but it's true that sometimes Choco don't refer herself as third person. 

[Chuee]

Chocola does use 3rd person here and there when the situation calls for it. 

 

But SP's translation pretty much put 3rd person in almost all of her lines when she was clearly not even mentioning her own name or using any sort of kiddy speech for the matter.

 

Most ridiculous example:

Original:

そうか (sou ka) 

 

SP translation:

Chocola sees

 

More fair translation by me (and anyone with half a brain)

I see

But that's wrong. Japanese doesn't require pronoun usage in sentences anything like English. You can say something like "寿司 が 好き" which would translate to I like sushi, even though pronouns aren't used. So if you decide to translate Chocola's lines in 3rd person then using the word I is incorrect since she speaks in third person. Translating 3rd person is a gigantic pain in the ass because with lines like what you mentioned, you're forced to either put something like "Chocola sees" which sounds really awkward or try and find another phrase that fits, though you might not find anything. 

[InvertMouse]

I have to admit I find the third person reference stuff cute (>///<)~

[Nosebleed]

But that's wrong. Japanese doesn't require pronoun usage in sentences anything like English. You can say something like "寿司 が 好き" which would translate to I like sushi, even though pronouns aren't used. So if you decide to translate Chocola's lines in 3rd person then using the word I is incorrect since she speaks in third person. 

Calm down, i was giving a suggestion for a translation that fit the context (which I should have given, my bad)

Chocola was answering an explanation with an expression of understanding. As in, she grasped the situation now. She didn't use 3rd person before either. It was just one of those colloquial expressions.

But to make it sound reasonable in English and have the same nuance, you kind of need to have a pronoun (Keyword: in English), and a relative equivalent for the expression, in this context, in English would be "I see", as in "I now understand" or "Is that so?" (with the appropriate tone of voice).

Not trying to start a TL war or anything but just trying to be a little reasonable, no need to jump the gun.

 

It's important to note there's no literal translation for そうか by itself in English, it's one of those Japanese only things, how you translate it just depends on the context. And what I gave was a contextualized equivalent for the expression in English.

Japanese speakers often use expressions aimed at themselves. Functionally it's like they're talking to themselves, which would sound strange in English speaking countries but is par for the course here. 「そうか・そっか」 is an example of this kind of expression – people make an exclamation ("Oh, OK!") to themselves when they realize something, grasp a meaning, make a logical connection, etc.  

 

Well, I'll stop here before this gets too complicated.

 

The point is, they abused 3rd person when there was no reason to and, while I agree 3rd person is cute in some cases (don't care if that's wrong), Nekopara didn't understand that it shouldn't be used for literally every sentence ever, that just downgrades and dilutes that cuteness feel.

[Chuee]

Calm down, i was giving a suggestion for a translation that fit the context (which I should have given, my bad)

Chocola was answering an explanation with an expression of understanding. As in, she grasped the situation now. She didn't use 3rd person before either. It was just one of those colloquial expressions.

But to make it sound reasonable in English and have the same nuance, you kind of need to have a pronoun (Keyword: in English), and a relative equivalent for the expression, in this context, in English would be "I see", as in "I now understand" or "Is that so?" (with the appropriate tone of voice).

Not trying to start a TL war or anything but just trying to be a little reasonable, no need to jump the gun.

 

But that's exactly the problem. If a person spoke in 3rd person in English they would never use the word I, but rather refer to themselves in the 3rd person. Therefore since Chocola never uses the Japanese equivalent of the word I or me, it's technically wrong to put something like "I see." if you translate other lines in which she refers to herself as 'Chocola' in 3rd person. I agree that translating phrases like "sou ka" using third person sounds awkward, but it would be worse to have a character refer to themselves in 3rd person and then suddenly use the word I when the Japanese text doesn't shift to 1st person. 

[Dragoon]

I never like dubbed from beginning so I never hear Chocola in english voice, but it's true that sometimes Choco don't refer herself as third person. 

There is no English voice, I'm talking about the English translation as in text.

 

@Chuue: Yeah and they basically added "Chocola" to every sentence, even though she doesn't mention her name.

[Kelebek1]

But that's exactly the problem. If a person spoke in 3rd person in English they would never use the word I, but rather refer to themselves in the 3rd person. Therefore since Chocola never uses the Japanese equivalent of the word I or me, it's technically wrong to put something like "I see." if you translate other lines in which she refers to herself as 'Chocola' in 3rd person. I agree that translating phrases like "sou ka" using third person sounds awkward, but it would be worse to have a character refer to themselves in 3rd person and then suddenly use the word I when the Japanese text doesn't shift to 1st person. 

 

 

Japanese doesn't have any personal pronouns anyway, so using any pronoun in English is wrong if you're going to try and say that. But guess what, you have to for English. There isn't really anything as "technically" right or wrong. Translating is all about conveying the *meaning* of the sentence, including its relativity to the culture it's coming from. Then trying to translate that over to the destination language, keeping that relativity so it makes sense. It's not about trying to translate the words themselves, because that simply cant be done between languages. Using your own name when referring to yourself, and using someone's name when they're present in the conversation are things we simply don't do in English. In Japanese it sounds normal, in English you sound like a pompous twat. You're  trying to keep relativity, so things like implied social positions, personality etc that you imagine about that character stay relative to how they're perceived in Japanese. Talking about yourself in the 3rd person in English is no where near equivalent to just using it in Japanese.

 

Keeping 3rd person in English itself is way way more incorrect of a translation. The more rigidly you try to stick to the grammar of the original, the more stilted and just plain bad your translation will be.

[Hakamichi_Sajaki]

It seems like they're (nekoworks) are using it as a way to show how Neko's aren't as intelegent as humans, their rudimentary method of communicating has developed as a result of that?

 

Either way I think In the case of nekopara it's not exactly something I've thought too much into.

 

That breast bounciness slider..

 

heheh..

 

I'm sorry Chocola... you where saying something?.. Oh yes.. Im sure it was interesting... Uhuhuh.. *stare 

[Chuee]

 

Japanese doesn't have any personal pronouns anyway, so using any pronoun in English is wrong if you're going to try and say that. But guess what, you have to for English. There isn't really anything as "technically" right or wrong. Translating is all about conveying the *meaning* of the sentence, including its relativity to the culture it's coming from. Then trying to translate that over to the destination language, keeping that relativity so it makes sense. It's not about trying to translate the words themselves, because that simply cant be done between languages. Using your own name when referring to yourself, and using someone's name when they're present in the conversation are things we simply don't do in English. In Japanese it sounds normal, in English you sound like a pompous twat. You're  trying to keep relativity, so things like implied social positions, personality etc that you imagine about that character stay relative to how they're perceived in Japanese. Talking about yourself in the 3rd person in English is no where near equivalent to just using it in Japanese.

 

Keeping 3rd person in English itself is way way more incorrect of a translation. The more rigidly you try to stick to the grammar of the original, the more stilted and just plain bad your translation will be.

 

Japanese has 'watashi, atashi, boku, ore' for pronouns when talking about yourself. You're right that Japanese technically refer to others by their name instead of using 'you' like we do in english. But most don't do the same for themselves except for certain characters, like the cat in nekopara. There's positives and negatives to keeping them and leaving them. If you take them out, you remove a part of the character. Nearly all characters I've seen speak in 3rd person are mostly young children, or someone who acts cutesy or younger than their age. The problem is that it often becomes hard to translate into short phrases in English that use I, like 'I see', 'I know', etc. The difference in how often English uses I compared to how often Japanese use the equivalent is noticeable, which is why translating 3rd person can sometimes can a bit repetitive in nature.  

[Decay]

Making Chocula talk in the third person alters her character far more drastically than making her use first person pronouns would.

[Chuee]

Making Chocula talk in the third person alters her character far more drastically than making her use first person pronouns would.

 

How so? Her character is supposed to be childish and cute, which is usually what 3rd person is used for. 

[Down]

How so? Her character is supposed to be childish and cute, which is usually what 3rd person is used for. 

In japanese.

In english it just sounds awfully dumb.

[Zakamutt]

I don't know about this. You could argue for consistently using third person instead of doing all kinds of judgements and contortions every time you need to think about it. I didn't personally find anything wrong with how it was presented in nekopara.

 

Insem actually did something similar for Chinami in Hoshimemo - quite a few lines don't necessarily have her refer to herself in third person, but still use third person. In the end it's still a valid choice to keep that consistency, imo. I'm used to the Japanese third person cutesyness in general though (and never considered it jarring anyway, I guess?), so whether it's there or not doesn't really affect me.

 

Then again, I've gotten into the habit of referring to myself and others in third person without using names when speaking Swedish - so "do you want to know about x?" could be answered by me with "he is interested". Also for other people when talking to them when I should really use second person

 

Entertaining, though also instinctive somehow... and no, it's not exactly correct Swedish. I just don't fuck a give.

[Darklord Rooke]

Suchet's Poirot refers to himself in the third person. Makes him seem more arrogant and charming. 

[jjm152]

In japanese.

In english it just sounds awfully dumb.

 

Disagree. I've seen enough anime and read enough VN's to understand the context of the trope. I actually expect it somewhat now.

[Toranth]

In japanese.

In english it just sounds awfully dumb.

Disagree. I've seen enough anime and read enough VN's to understand the context of the trope. I actually expect it somewhat now.

Actually, in Japanese it also implies a certain level of dumb. The idea is that the speaker is too young/naïve/stupid to understand the complications of first person pronouns. Japanese has a LOT of pronouns, by the way - Over 100, if you include the full range from popular modern to classical poetic.

Third-person self reference in English is so rare because it is strongly associated with "too stupid to understand 'I'". Unless that is the point you want to make about the character (very stupid, can't speak their own language) you shouldn't be using it in English.