Learning Japanese & Translation Skills With Anime

I'm a fluent Japanese speaker. I can handle novels and text-heavy videogames. When it comes to films or anime, I am just about able to enjoy them without subtitles (though having them there certainly makes things less mentally taxing). Regardless, it's a fact that the more you read and listen, the more your reading and listening skills improve. However, this week I have found myself back watching anime with English subtitles, back to a time when I could barely speak Japanese. But why?

Before I answer that, let's take a step back and think about foreign entertainment.

Who needs it, right? We English speakers have got America, the world's strongest cultural superpower that showers us with blockbuster movies and big-budget videogames! I kid. The world is so much larger than those fifty states; it's a big place, full of countries each with their own cultures and unique entertainment options. Even though these foreign entertainment is often not originally written in English, translators allow us to enjoy them. Without a translation, I wouldn't have been able to enjoy Metro Manila (a phenomenal film from the Philippines) or The Count Of Monte Cristo (an epic book from France). I may be biased because I am a fan of Japanese popular culture, but I'd argue Japan is one of the biggest producers of foreign-language entertainment. While it perhaps isn't as strong as other countries in the fields of film and traditional literature, Japanese manga, anime and videogames enjoy incredible worldwide popularity. I think this is because they offer entertainment experiences unattainable from Western offerings.

Among students of Japanese, anime or games or manga is often cited as the catalyst for why they became interested in the language. This is definitely partly true for me too! People dream of one day experiencing the game or anime or manga they love in its natural language without a translation or any other support. In pursuing this goal, there is usually a set progression of steps. In the case of anime, people are often first exposed to the medium with a dubbed version of the programme, and then switch to viewing it with Japanese voices and English subtitles. This is the beginning. Next comes studying Japanese! You continue to watch the show with the assistance of English subtitles, but start to pick up on the words and phrases that you've studied. Progressing to the next level of being able to enjoy anime with not English but Japanese subtitles takes about two to three years of concentrated studying. This is no mean feat, and the path to this point is littered with people who have bowed to its heavy study demands. However, if you do reach this point, then all that remains is to wean yourself off subtitles and develop the capacity to understand Japanese just by sound alone.

Japanese has a saying about how perseverance prevails, 石の上にも三年. Its literal meaning is that even the coldest rock will get warm if sat on for three years. Incidentally, in my third year of university, I reached the advanced level of being able to understand Japanese without needing to be supported by translations. I was overjoyed I could play through the entirety of Final Fantasy VII in Japanese with only the occasional need to pause to look-up a word. I was similarly happy when I found I was able to understand Death Note (one of the few animes I really revere) using Japanese subtitles. I thought from that point onwards, I would never need to depend on another person's translation ever again because my brain had developed the adequate capacity to understand Japanese.

So, back to the question at hand, why am I spending my evenings watching anime with English subtitles?

You see, the thing is, I'm a freelance Japanese to English translator.

Consuming media like a Japanese person without any support from your mother tongue is a guaranteed way to improve your Japanese fluency. However, if you want to do translation work, fluency in a foreign language is just one part of the equation. Understanding a text is one thing, smoothly phrasing it in your native language is another matter entirely. When you first start learning a language, you ascribe all the words you learn to those of your native tongue. For Japanese students, they understand konnichiwa as hello and pan as bread. Imagine it as if the words need to pass through a processing plant that converts the Japanese into English before they can reach your brain's cognition centre. However, as you become fluent in Japanese, that processing plant goes out business; you become able to hear the foreign language and simply understand it. This is an essential skill if you wish to converse at a natural speed with native Japanese speakers. However, it means if you are put on the spot, you aren't always necessarily able to come up with a fitting, natural translation of a Japanese word or phrase .

So, as a translator wishing to do good translation work, what are you gonna do? How do you improve your skills? I know of a few ways (that I'll perhaps discuss in a future post), but today I want to focus on one that I particularly useful, peer review i.e. evaluating the work of other translators. At university, I always found it useful when we (the students) would translate a text for homework, and then in class discuss the different ways we tackled the text. Indeed, the desire to examine the work of other translators is partly why I created this site and have subjected the localisation of games such as Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney and  Final Fantasy VIII to a review process. When I do this, I have text documents of the Japanese and English scripts aligned side-by-side, and am scanning them for discrepancies and interesting translations. This takes time! I'm not having fun playing the games! Similarly, in the past when reading Japanese novels, I have stopped at each chapter to read through the official English translation. It's interesting to read what you have just read back in your native tongue, and can certainly highlight some nuggets of information you may have overlooked, but since you're not directly comparing specific text, I never felt that it was is directly benefiting my translation ability. Of course, you could read the Japanese and compare it to the English translation sentence by sentence, but this robs all the enjoyment of reading the text and would take a ton of time.

However, there is one medium that lets you analyse a translation sentence by sentence while also having a relaxed, enjoyable time. What is that medium, you ask? Anime! Or more specifically, anime with English subtitles. It seems obvious, but it wasn't until Kristin from slomadstravel.com shot me an email with this advice that I realised what a great translation study tool anime can be. As you watch, your ears are provided with Japanese sentences, while simultaneously your eyes are served a translation of these very sentences. Of course, the length of some sentences, as well as the way the mirrored structure of Japanese in comparison to English makes it impossible to always comprehend the translator's decisions on the fly. However, for the most part, you can appreciate the quality of the translation and comprehend many of the decisions the translator made.

From a week of watching an episode or two of Death Note everyday, I feel like I've already absorbed a lot. Let me show you one example, from the fifth episode of Death Note. The final minutes features a monologue from L (the detective) that ratchets up the tension as he theorises the future actions of Kira (the murderer he is chasing). L comes to the conclusion that him and Kira will likely soon cross paths. L ends his speech by clenching his first and uttering the words,

望むところだ！ 

This can be broken down into two parts. 望む (nozomu), which means, to desire or to wish for, and, ところ (tokoro), meaning (in this case), point or result. To quickly put that into English, that's what I want. If I was the translator, I think I would have massaged this and come up with something like,

And that's exactly what I want! 

However, the subtitle shown was,

Bring it on!

Nice! I like this translation a lot! It fits the scene (and the Japanese) perfectly! Out of curiosity, I Googled the Japanese and this translation, and came across a site about English phrases with a page dedicated to the expression. It features the following example conversation,

A: We are gonna win today’s game.
（今日の試合はもらった。） 

B: I don’t think so. We have the best players ever!
（それはどうかな。こっちはベストメンバーが揃ってるぜ。） 

A: OK. Bring it on!
（望むところだ。受けて立つぜ！）

This is not to say that 望むところだ should always be translated as Bring it on, but rather that this is a potential translation solution. I don't think it's a phrase my mind would have previously come up with when faced with that phrase, but thanks to watching anime with English subtitles, it's now part of my repertoire! And this is just one example from one line from of one episode. There were many other examples I could have highlighted!

Outside of simply doing translation work, it can be difficult to find ways to study to improve your skills. Indeed, I previously posted about how the field of gaming localisation greatly lacks academic reading materials. However, I really think the method outlined in this post of watching Japanese anime with English subtitles can have genuine benefits. If you want to improve your translation skills then try it out for yourself and tell me how it goes! And if you know of any other improvement methods, why don't you share it via a comment below?