Here’s a question for you: why do some fansubbers choose not to translate the word “bento” when it pops up in dialogue? I’ve seen several fansub groups do this, so I’m curious. Did I not get the memo or something? Is “boxed lunch” no longer an acceptable English translation?
Mind you, I’m not the sort of person who expects subtitles to be devoid of anything that sounds remotely Japanese. If a word or concept is especially difficult to translate, I’d rather it be left alone. And I generally like to see honorifics in subtitles. Basically, I don’t like it when translators get clever and start looking for ways to jam a square peg into a round hole. This is just a hunch, but I suspect sub watchers aren’t allergic to Japanese.
I wouldn’t exactly consider “bento” to be a difficult to translate word or concept, however. “Did you bring a boxed lunch?” Looks fine to me. Hell, in most cases, a simple, “Did you bring a lunch?” would suffice. So, what gives?
Oh, and the beach was nice. You might think I’m easily amused, but consider what I came home to.
The beach was nice, indeed.
I suspect it’s just some kind of tradition. Ittadakimasu and other phrases aren’t translated either. Maybe someone once thought it would be a good way to teach some trivia by not translating one word or another and instead explaining it in a notice. Or maybe someone just wasn’t familiar with the term lunch box / boxed lunch and others just picked it up.
I think it’s a good way for translation groups to teach people some trivia. Btw, random fact. Pretty much everyone in Hawaii knows what a Bento is. :) Maybe the subbing group is from Hawaii?
Everyone in Portland pretty much knows what a bento is, so I’m chalking that up as “a word that doesn’t really need translating, and takes up less screen real estate.”
“Boxed lunch” in English usually refers to something mass-produced like they serve at seminars and such, and while I’m sure it can also have that meaning in Japanese, the bentou in anime are generally homemade. Just “lunch” would be a better translation in many cases IMHO.
Probably the fansubbers don’t want to bother with translation issues like that and just leave the word untouched, confident that most of their audience will know what a bentou is. It’d be the same reason they leave “itadakimasu” (and even “ittekimasu”/”itterasshai” in some cases) untranslated. I find it to be a bit annoying, but then I’m probably not representative of the general fansub-watching population.
With words like bento, something that doesnt nessacarily need to be translated, or other words like ittekimasu, that would be difficult to translate, I understand a descsion not to.
But there are some sub groups that do go a little overboard with not translating words. Dattabayo is one that comes to mind. I don’t know, maybe its just because it is eaiser to reference/remember using the japanese word. Or them wanting to be different. Or they might just figure eveyone already knows the terms (ignorance), which everyone doesn’t. Or they just dont care one way or the other.
I don’t mind, but I could see it being annoying to people who don’t know all these japanese words popping up in their english subs.
Futon yesterday, tayaki today, bento tomorrow, the revolution cannot be stopped!
Really, who out there that watches fansubs doesn’t know what ‘bento’ means? So why translate it? It’s one of the more common Japanese words, as Pete points out.
We know what a futon is, they don’t translate it to ‘a sleeping mattress’ or something like that. Bento is what it is.
(as far as I can tell, a better translation than “boxed lunch” would be “lunch in a box.”)
I personally prefer “bentou” :P.
When I hear “boxed lunch” I think food from the cafeteria in a styrofoam box. When I hear “bento” I think of a homemade Japanese lunch.
Sure, bento is really just a lunch in a box, but perhaps the implications, or the underlying cultural relevance so to speak, are what the fansubbers are trying to preserve.
But I’m no expert. Just an uneducated observer.
Well, I agree that most fansub viewers probably know what “bento” means. But, if you respond by saying, “So why translate it?”, you get into a slippery slope situation. After all, most fansub viewers probably know what “arigato” means, so why translate it? How about “ohayo gozaimasu”?
I can understand not translating something like “ittadakimasu”, since it’s a phrase that doesn’t translate well. But “arigato” and “ohayo gozaimasu” translate with ease. And the same could be said for “bento”. So why not translate it? Leaving it untranslated just seems arbitrary.
Note that I’m not complaining about the usage of bento. Doesn’t bother me at all. It’s just that a lot of groups seem to do it, and since I can’t think of any legitimate reason WHY they would choose to do so, I find the practice a bit of a curiosity.
Well, it’s not unheard of for the English-language to assimilate foreign words into its’ vocabulary stable. Plenty of words that used to be in a foreign tongue became part of daily English usage. Words such as jungle or suite( Indian and French respectively). Given enough exposure and time, words that used to be Japanese-only can become an English word on its’ own.
So I don’t think it is odd to see Bento in the subtitles. Bento is a pretty unique noun, because the imagery it conjures is very different from what ‘Boxed Lunch’ would conjure.
Cheers.
Actually, Engrish speakers have already assimilated OVA and bento into “bent over”. Thus, no need to transexulate.
How do you not translate the word bento? I guess it’s always in context of a sentence or a thought. You gotta be more specific…
My guess is of practicality. “Bento” is shorter than “boxed lunch” and saves subbing space. And as it’s been pointed out, most anime watchers know what bento means and thus fansubbers can save a few letters.
I mean, just think about how often bentos appear in anime. Using “bento” instead of “boxed lunch” has probably saved the fansub community gigabytes (if not more) in file encoding and bandwidth.
The preceding paragraph was a horribly executed attempt at making a joke.
Also, much like futon and tsunami, bento is officially included in english language dictionaries as a variation of obento. While “arigato” is defined as the “Japanese thank you,” there was no entry for “ohayo gozaimasu.”
In general, I think translations should translate as much as possible. Even “ittadakimasu” has a sufficient English equivalent. I think “let’s eat” is fine, because normally the purpose of a translation is to confer the meaning of the source. Now, it doesn’t really matter how you might attempt to translate “ittadakimasu” literally, because it’s just an idiom used before eating. The closest English equivalent, a phrase used before eating is “let’s eat”. So that’s fine in my book. Do people think there is some kind of deep cultural insight to idioms like this that is lost if translated? I don’t really see it, unless you’re talking about a broad anthropological study of a language. Most people don’t actively think about the meaning of the idioms they use, they just use them.
However the English fansub-viewing community is an odd duck with a highly different from normal attitude toward translation, so as much as I would like to say “If you want to learn Japanese, go learn Japanese; if you know Japanese, then why are you watching fabsubs; this is an English translation,” I don’t really bother anymore, because obviously if enough of your consumers want their product one way, that’s the way you’re gonna make it.
I like that many anime are subbed by more than one group, and there’s some diversity of translation philosophy across fansubbers.
Bentou is interesting though, because food items are normally something of an exception. It’s okay to leave a food name untranslated a lot of the time, because it’s not necessarily normal for a food name to tell you anything about its contents. Like grits, ya? You would not “translate” ‘grits’ into “porridge of coarsely ground corn,” because that is highly divergent from what was actually said. So it’s fine to leave it translated, unless it actually has a name in your language. There’s no point to translating ‘taiyaki’ into an explanation of what taiyaki is, because that’s not what the character saying it is doing.
Bentou is kind of on the border. You could claim it as a food item, largely because Andrew F. is wrong (too much highschool romance anime?); you can totally buy prepackaged bentou (for anime references, see Genshiken). Bentou doesn’t really have the same translation vs. explanation issue that Taiyaki does though, and boxed lunch is a very compact translation. While it does have a different connotation in English. I think for the best match of connotation it’s actually better to stick with just “lunch.”
However, there’s a huge difference between translating for something like a novel (where, depending on the style of the translation, you might go with “lunch,” or “bentou” with a footnote) and translating for subtitles for anime or a movie. In this case, you are creating a concept-word association every time you leave something untranslated. So if you don’t translate a word like “bentou,” you might create a falsely specific (*waves at Andrew*) concept-word association for the viewers. They might think that “bentou” specifically means a home-made boxed lunch. If you translate it “boxed lunch,” and they trust your translation, then this is at least marginally less likely. Furthermore, you don’t actually have too much of the miss-matched connotation problem with English “boxed lunches,” because the viewer can actually *see* the item in question.
Sorry to pick on Andrew, it just makes a good example. =p
Ah I should have read Andrew’s comment a little more closely. Apologies.
You know, I had a point to make but I forgot what it was while reading Seth’s novel…
No, seriously. :-)
Oh yeah! Now I remember… There are some times when it’s better not to translate. For instance in Shana, the fansubbers refer to the alternate world as “Guze,” and the item inside Yuuiji is the “Reiji Maigo.” In the commercial version they were translated as “Crimson World” and “Midnight Lost Child.” Now that may be the literal translation, but invoking SDB’s rules about “magical words” being in a foriegn language (for Engish-speakers, it’s usually Latin, for Japanese it’s usually English), these shouldn’t have been translated. In the fansub, they both come across as mysterious and arcane. In the commercial version they come across as rather cheesy. In the dub, they’re hopeless. “What, you couldn’t make up better names?”
There’s times when the untranslated word is better, and I think bento is one of those that is better left alone. Not because it’s magical or mystical, and not exactly because of the cultural factor, but because of the character implications. The Japanese still value the domestic arts more than we do (cultural, yes), but when is the bento most often shown in anime? When they’re trying to tell you, “this person made it for that person because he/she cares.”
If we hear “Honey, I made lunch for you to take to work,” we think sandwiches or “brown bag.” But if we hear “I made you a bento,” it’s no longer a mundane thing, it’s a *special* lunch, made with love/care/whatever. Especially considering that the bentos we see in animé look a bit more complex than a piece of meat between two slices of bread and some mayo.
@ubu roi,
There’s an interesting angle there: Bentou as art media (which yeah would not normally be translated). But I think usually the point is that they’ve cooked for their SO. Bentou are a courting device in a lot of anime, but it’s not because they’re bentou (usually at least), it’s because that’s what people eat for lunch (at least in these anime). It’s the cooking something for your target that is important, and I don’t see that importance as being stressed more by leaving bentou untranslated.
Also agree, in principle at least, on magic words.
It’s a cultural thing, I suppose, and I think it’s a bad thing to remove cultural identity from a show.
Words travel. There are lots of words in the English language which we nicked off other nations.
On my way to work in the morning, I can pop in to the nearest supermarket, and right next to the sandwiches, pork pies, sausage rolls, cornish pasties, filled pitta breads, tortilla wraps etc is a small range of sushi, which includes a box clearly labelled “Sushi and Sashimi Bento”. It’s in a square tray clearly designed to look like a wooden box. I sometimes buy one for my lunch and it’s very nice, although I manfully resist the urge to shout ‘Ittadakimas!’ before tucking in as that would be very silly and my colleagues would look at me funny.
But the point is that this isn’t a shop specialising in Japanese food, it’s a regular British supermarket.
It’s a word that’s making its way into the language, so in a few years time there might be no need for this discussion!
Actually, the thing that gets me about Anime Bentos is “How do they have the TIME to make all that in a morning? Does Sayuri have to get up at four in the morning to prepare all that food in time for school?”
A much harder consideration is honourifics. If you translated them all literally, the dialogue would sound really stilted, but if you leave them out, you leave out a possibly important part of the relationship between two characters.
Thanks for the insights, Seth. I heartily agree with most of your comment, especially the bit about itadakimasu. In the end the whole issue really comes down to “it depends on the context”, and most fansubbers don’t want to spend time splitting hairs when their audience is howling for the next episode of “Magical Schoolgirl Lolita-chan”…
Actually, it’s kind of impressive that are any good English fansubbers at all. English translation is a profitable profession. Power of fandom, ya?
Bento is a term that is simply best kept as is, as it describes something fairly specifically Japanese. There’s a difference between the common “boxed lunch” and a Japanese bento.
I have never heard ‘boxed lunch’ used in a conversation, and ‘lunch box’ sounds like something we had when we were in kindergarten. I probably don’t mind seeing it as any of the 3-4 ways but I don’t think it matters at all.
I’ll leave the bento for what is it.
Although it isn’t mentioned, Jeff, that picture you made (you did, right?) is nice, where was it taken if I may ask? I want to make those kind of pictures some day aswell but I think I’m a bit too young to start with it (17).
*if its off topic, my apoligies just wanted this to be mentioned aswell*
Jasper
Jasper, are you referring to the photo of the snow? I just took it from my back porch.
yeah well, than you live nice (very) maybe because i have been watching Kanon too much, but overall i like it hehe. the sky is never so blue here (nor is the grass as green and the snow as white).
I don’t eat lunch often…
I eat crackers (jacobs cream… the Best!) when I have them though, with Monterey Jack… so Good!!!!
I don’t really see the reason behind such lavish lunches. Microwaved can of ravioli every saturday… when I have it…
I’m hungry now… Its Cracker Time!
that picture did not make me hungry
If it wasn’t for the local Toyko Teriyaki across from my work if would have never know what bento meant I got my ‘lunch special’ and looked it up on my blackberry!! Thanks for the info!
I think they should leave stuff like Bento, ittadakimasu, Futon, and stuff like that, alone. If it doesnt have an exact translation then put a note at the top like soem do saying [Note: Bento is a type of packed lunch]
I find it annoying when subbers start trying too hard and it takes away some of the meaning.