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Lost in translation

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Piss Ant
Member


14 years ago
Posts: 171

Why is it that middle school kids in manga speak as if they were college graduates? Sometimes, its not even because of the translator (dumbass proofers 😛 ). For example, one kid will point out another kid's psychological issues out of nowhere and they only know each other through school. That stuff drives me nuts. Either every kid in Japan has a lot of life experience and wisdom or mangakas place their own, current intellect into a middle school character.
An example would be Let's Fight Ghost here:
http://www.webtoonlive.com/webtoon/Let%27s%20fight%20ghost/ch34/
The girl in this chapter picks the guy apart and has quite a large vocabulary. She even hears his heartbeat 🙄 Certain words should have been replaced, i.e. switch stuck-up for haughty, weak or tender for vulnerable, negatively for pessimistically, and smarter for wiser. What kid really talks like that? NONE! It ruins the reading experience IMO. So much so that, in this case, I've dropped the above series :/


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--I wont type a post like a college report. If you don't read it just for that reason, you don't have to post why your hoity-toity ass refused to. I swear, so many people on this site are so full of themselves. A lot seem to think they always have an "intelligent and/or logical" point or show signs of a superiority complex. They never admit they're wrong. Maybe partially, but excuses abound! :\
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Zombie Porn!
Member


14 years ago
Posts: 334

That would be because most of the people writing the manga are not middle schoolers and haven't been for like 20 years. Or 40 years. Back then they probably spoke better and had better vocabulary etc, but they do tend to act older than they are, and the writer was inexperienced so that's why the things she said to the boy seem too advanced for her years and jump out at you.


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Ancient Alien
Member


14 years ago
Posts: 312

I don't think that's just in manga. I've read plenty of books and seen movies where I'm like, "This character is supposed to be thirteen or fifteen? Jesus."


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Local Prig
Member


14 years ago
Posts: 1899

A large number of Japanese words sound far more advanced in English. This is a common problem compounded by the sea of bad translators out there.


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Member


14 years ago
Posts: 1041

another thing is that in manga most of the time the kids are snobs[they go to the best of schools]
they are the rich spoiled kids
if they start to downgrade someone with words its usualy the steriotypical rich girl

richkids usualy have a much larger vocabulary than the normal working class kids not only in manga but even in real life
in japan as well as anywhere else
so unless otherwise noted...the kids could very well be going to a fancy upperclass school

noone likes these fuckups so japanese usualy make them stand out even more


Member


14 years ago
Posts: 13

What you linked here was originally in Korean by the way.
Korean and Japanese both have systems of politeness language, that usually depend on the status of the person you're talking to. Moreover, both languages have borrowed tons of words from Chinese that are usually seen to sound more polite and refined compared to the original words of the language.

On the other hand, in many literary works in general (I don't think it's only comics), specific characters are given distinctive ways of talking. This might have been the case here as well. Maybe she already was talking stuck-up and overly polite in the Korean version, so it just got translated accordingly.


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Member


14 years ago
Posts: 109

jesus christ..it's FICTION...don't mess the real life with made up stories and worlds...it's pointless


Member


14 years ago
Posts: 259

I don't think that's a "high level" way of speaking at all... If it was college or graduate student level, it would be something like replacing arrogant with supercilious or vulnerable with pregnable. Everyone in my high school [even freshmen] speaks with a much higher vocabulary than what that girl used. If fact, she would have a very low vocabulary compared to my classmates when they were in middle school.

But either way, the translators tried to make her sound smart. [She was trying to intimidate the guy by making him feel inferior.] That's called effective use of language rather than misuse of language, in my opinion. I could be wrong though, since I've never read that manhwa before today.


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