Please Translate, "Father, Mother, Grandmother..."

[Keith Justice]

Thing is, I can >HEAR< her say, "Oka-sama". That is never lost.

What gets lost for people just wanting to watch and understand is what is meant by her using it in English so that anyone can best understand the scene and undertand what "Oka-sama" means.

Like I said before, I had some friends over and they wanted to know if a character's name was "Oba-san". If we can >HEAR< it, it's there... always will be. For those that want to understand they can listen.... like me.

For those who are just watching the show, they should have words translated.

Again, the only persons it does a service to are those who will not be affected either way.

Guys, I never complain... I haven't for years.... cuz the experience up to now has been seemless. Please don't do this.

something like "Ji-nee" to "second sister"

Dude, I've been watching Japanese stuff for years and I didn't even know that's what "Ji-nee" meant. If you leave it untranslated it's just another instance of, "WTF? Who? What? Why did she call her that??"

Since when was it okay to leave someone reading a sub wonder what is being said? O_o

[William_Duel]

Moving away from translating family in general, I find that there are at times words that don't need to be translated and could have sufficed with a note, being translated incorrectly and honestly it steams me a little. There are indeed translators who I guess nobly try for total translation. But for example I was watching an anime where the word Yomi came up. Those who know about it, would recognize Yomi as being the underworld in Shintoist tradition, much likes Hades. The character's ability was called Yomi and the translator turned it into "Life". Maybe I'm missing something in this case, but as far as I know Yomi doesn't translate to "Life". 'Inochi' does. I don't think Yomi does. Now I bring this up not only because I'm somewhat ranting but to bring up the point about Translating in that it's sort of different for many translators, especially when you have a language that has interchangeable words and meanings. Another example is the use of swears in translation. Some translators are really creative when it comes to swearing and make it sound perfectly natural but it's not always a direct translation. It's sort of the style of the translator. (Most Japanese swears are at most, just really rude words and not actual swears, like saying You! in a mean way and such except for maybe Kuso, which I think always has been Shit, hell it's the base word in shit drippings) So to wrap this up, I guess what I'm saying is 'screw us, Japanese to English translations will never be perfect'.

[oddjob]

I love everything the way it is. And I got used to it!

The translations notes are already helpful enough. For example: There was an episode in Hibiki that Asumu mother calls Asumu Obachama(sorry, don't know how to write it) and in the translations notes it explained what it was its meaning.

But if you want to put more, no problem!

[marthaba]

The translations notes are already helpful enough. For example: There was an episode in Hibiki that Asumu mother calls Asumu Obachama(sorry, don't know how to write it) and in the translations notes it explained what it was its meaning.

i agree to that using words that is not translated should have translation notes for the viewers to understand what it means but not everytime, if that word has been noted then theres no repeating it again

lol at naruto head village titles..

[Keith Justice]

I didn't even notice it.... someone had to tell me. Thank you for listening TV Nihon. And keep up the good work.

/SALUTES!

[Valhawk]

I'm for translating words that have a direct English equivalent. The thing to remember is that there is not just one word for mother or father in English either. I think it distracts because people don't necessary know the difference between the different descriptors for a word in Japanese.

For words that don't have a direct equivalent (Itadakimasu, honorifics, etc.) or have become iconic (Henshin, etc.) it's fine to leave them in Japanese as long as you include a note explaining it's meaning every once in a while.

Other than that you guys to a great job.

[pekcun]

I was thinking of making a thread, but might as well post here.

Please translate -tachi, it's not even an honorific.

As for the thread topic, you can see my posts in this thread.
I'll make a summary of my posts there if it's too tl;dr.
I think Japanese words should be translated to fit the context as much as possible, if a situation arrives where it would be much too hard for a certain word/term to be translated(such as puns) a translation note would be helpful.

Except for character names or iconic words such as Henshin and technique names.

[Alara Moonrunner]

-tachi meaning group (lit: and others), so Alara-tachi would mean Alara's group or Alara and others depending on how one decides to translate it. Japanese to English translations involve a fair bit of poetic license.