This week's interesting poll was suggested by NightMongoose. I hope you already knew that besides accents there can be other regional differences in English, even just within the US (coke, pop, or soda?). Or trunk vs. boot. Or napkin vs. serviette. Should manga translations cater to specific regions? Does it matter in scanlations where the intent is global? Or does it matter more for a company that only has the license to publish in the UK?

You can submit poll ideas here
http://www.mangaupdates.com/showtopic.php?tid=3903

Previous Poll Results:
Question: What do you think about super powers that depend on other powers? (Copying, disabling, switching, etc.)
Choices:
Meh. In the end it's just another power - votes: 1273 (45.1%)
Awesome. Should make for some cool situations - votes: 1135 (40.2%)
Stupid. You're useless if no one else has a power - votes: 414 (14.7%)
There were 2822 total votes.
The poll ended: July 11th 2020

My housemate liked this poll because he's really into My Hero Academia

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A just ruler amongst tyrants

Regarding this, is the topic concerning accents/speaking differences of specific characters that are translated into English using regional English... or is it merely spelling and/or word differences from US vs UK & International English?

Because if it's the latter case the scanlator is just translating into their own language right? Why attempt to localise into a version of English they don't use?

Personally I'd prefer to not overly localized and keep the Japanese style with added translator note if it become confusing mmm...
But that only work for scanlation, not sure whether they can do that with official translation so maybe If it affects the the reader's understanding of the plot mmm...

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I will change this world mmm...
So the world can change me mmm...

No opinion. Use the type of English you use if you are a scanlator and that´s it. Using British, Australian and so on English can´t hurt either if the story is set there or such characters show up.

A lot of J-RPGs (The Last Story) are cursed with ultra British voice acting, not that the US or Canadian actors do better work. Thank Zodd that the original tracks became mostly standard last gen.

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I also read EU/US comics and am a librarian.
Manga-Masters, My ANN-Lists + Imdb

No opinion, mostly because, while I'm a native-level English speaker, my native language is not English, so it makes no difference to me either way.

WHENEVER POSSIBLE THE QUEEN’S ENGLISH SHOULD BE USED

But seriously, I think it matters for an actual company. A spelling difference like ‘organization’ vs. ‘organisation’ is unlikely to cause confusion (though people may not be impressed if they’re interpreting the differences as errors) but foreign slang or measurements (metric vs. imperial) will.

If it’s a scanlator, who cares. They’re doing it for free.

They can (Del Ray did it when they translated Hell Girl), but most don't. Overall, I agree with this post.


(English) Dubs are always cancer unless the project was designed with them in mind. That being said, experience has shown the Bong translations are far superior to Burger and Leaf translations.

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If it's released online, either translate it to your kind of English and put translation notes for things like Japanese puns and things like that or translate it to standard English without any localization or translate it to American English (I feel like most people sort of know something about US culture, so they would get the jokes.) Either way, if it's released online don't ever released a version for each country that has English as their official language. It's not worth it.

If it's being sold physically, then it would make more sense to localize the translation for the country it's being sold in.
Still, it's kind of pointless to go through the work to localize a previously translated work. You would probably need to go through the whole thing and agonize even more than if you were translating it from scratch.

So in my eyes it should be:
-> Translate it to your own kind of English (British, US American, Australian...) and put TNs for cultural references that people won't probably know that you localized to keep a joke as funny as it would be for Japanese person reading the manga.
-> Use standard English (though this own loses a bit of it's charm.)

In general I think it's unneeded, but I do occasionally see very "American" localizations, which I imagine can be hard to follow. The sort that replace cultural references, convert monetary values, etc. (I don't much care for that degree of localization in general though.)

If the character in question is canonically from England or the setting is in the UK at the time, then anyone relevant should be speaking British English unless they're foreign visitors. The same applies for America, and if neither applies then it doesn't matter much.

I'm not English native speaking, but I've chosen "Wherever possible" because, if you change "English" for "Spanish" that would be my answer.

The thing for Spanish is that lot of words change meaning or are used different in Spain (where I'm from) and America. Even between Mexico and Argentina a lot of things change. So, if I want to buy something in my country, I want it made so I can understand it 100%, with slangs, cultural phrases,...

Well, that is for official releases. If it's for fan translation, I don't care. Sometimes I even enjoy more translation made from Venezuela or Colombia than those made from Spain.

And say no to Neutral Spanish! It has no heart (I don't know if with English the same happens).

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True, I've given up on the real world, however I haven't given up on myself. The world doesn't get to decide whether my life is boring, fun, or ordinary coz that's my decision to make. As long as I have the will nothing is impossible!

I'd say neutral English is the one everyone uses the most, or likes the most, or maybe both. If it's too clearly British or clearly hillbilly it's kind of annoying. Though I wish we could refer to it has "having heart" and embrace it. In books, we do care a lot about the natural dialect of the author but in scanlation I'm pretty sure American English just means Neutral English.
As for my answer to the poll, No opinion, or rather I really couldn't care less. As long as it's understandable and mostly grammatically correct, it's good enough for me.

They should use whatever sort of English they speak. Seriously, there isn't that much difference.

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Like cute things. 🐇🌸