Remember that Tengai Makyo Ziria translation project?

[Dicer]

Never gonna give you up, never gonna let you down...

[Necromancer]

Quick, what is the corniest, most well known love song in English that you know?

If by 'corniest' you mean 'most awesomist evah!', then Sea of Love would be my pick.  Keep it Turbob!

[SamIAm]

You know what occurs to me: enka music in Japan is kind of analogous to country music in America. It's rooted in tradition, nostalgic, enjoyed by older people more than younger, the contents of the lyrics tend to follow certain storytelling patterns, etc.

Any cheesy country love songs that are instantly recognizable?

[spenoza]

Think of the stuff that was on the Lawrence Welk show. That stuff is American Enka.

[Black Tiger]

You know what occurs to me: enka music in Japan is kind of analogous to country music in America. It's rooted in tradition, nostalgic, enjoyed by older people more than younger, the contents of the lyrics tend to follow certain storytelling patterns, etc.

Any cheesy country love songs that are instantly recognizable?

And IIiiiiiiiiiIIIIiiiiiiiiIIiiiiiiiiii, will always love yoooooOOOoooooOOooooOOooouuuuu

-Dolly Parton

[SignOfZeta]

Islands in the Stream. It's like enka in that truckers love it and it's terrible, despite its creators knowing better.

[dshadoff]

I basically agree about the tone, and I don't think I would bust out a limerick unless one of the other poems is truly outlandish, like not even a haiku.

In my defence, I never knew enough Japanese to understand the game well enough to get a feel for the tone of the game.  Lately, with quite a lot of Japanese study under my belt, I may be willing to try to play the game in Japanese to see if I can catch that tone.

They all seem to be based on real haikus, though. Ever hear these ones? They are about three famous Japanese generals, and as a metaphor for their characters, the generals are talking to a cuckoo bird that won't sing:

織田信長 Nobunaga：
「鳴かぬなら、殺してしまえ　ホトトギス」 "If you do not sing for me, I'll kill you."
豊臣秀吉 Hideyoshi：
「鳴かぬなら、鳴かせてみせよう　ホトトギス」 "If you do not sing for me, I'll make you sing."
徳川家康 Ieyasu：
「鳴かぬなら、鳴くまで待とう　ホトトギス」 "If you do not sing for me, I'll wait till you sing."

In the game, it's a joke like "If you do not sing for me, I will wait for the nightingale."

Yeah, learned that one a year or two ago - probably everybody in Japan knows it, and anybody studying Japanese at around a JLPT N2 level should be aware of it.

But your translation is first-person, and is missing the crucial point about the object being a pet bird; the sense of the translation (though certainly not poetic) should be more like:
"If he encounters (or possesses ?) a nightingale (known for its pleasant song) which doesn't sing, he'll kill it" /
"If he encounters a nightingale which doesn't sing, he'll try to force it to sing" /
"If he encounters a nightingale which doesn't sing, he'll wait until it sings"

[SamIAm]

I don't know about the pet bird aspect or any of the deeper history, but I can guarantee you that 殺してしまえ, 鳴かせてみせよう, and 鳴くまで待とう are forms that are only used in the first person. Maybe there are alternate haikus that are third person, but those lines I posted are definitely aren't. There's also no word that means "possesses" or "encounters".

Also, not to nitpick, but the original poem is about a cuckoo bird, not a nightingale. The nightingale is only in a joke in the game.

Anyway, about the enka joke. The setup is like this:

Old guy says "Only those who love haiku above all else can appreciate the fine Japanese aesthetic in poems like this one that I just wrote:

Departing springtime [world's most generic haiku/tanka line]
I've come from so far away [lyric from that enka song]
To Hakodate [ditto]

So an annoying song lyric that fits the 7-5 part of the 5-7-5 structure would be great.

"And I will always love you" is seven, and that's followed soon after by "My darling, you, mmm" so that's pretty decent. I like the instantly recognizable aspect of it.

On the other hand, the original enka lyric fits better than I first imagined it would, so I might stick with that. Decisions, decisions.

[esteban]

Departing springtime
I've peaches from far away
Ziria does, too

[seieienbu]

Reading your translation reminds me of "I Ran" by Flock of Seagulls.  It's a shame that it doesn't quite fit as a Haiku...

Writing it as:

I ran all night and day, I
Couldn't get away

fits 7 then 5, but seems way more awkward than it does as 6 then 6.  Blarg.

[dshadoff]

There's also no word that means "possesses" or "encounters".

Also, not to nitpick, but the original poem is about a cuckoo bird, not a nightingale. The nightingale is only in a joke in the game.

This is a great example of something difficult to translate.
HOTOTOGISU is the problem here.  In your first translation, you ignored it, with the effect was that the reader was who was expected to sing (which was my primary concern).

True, it isn't a nightingale - but it is a bird valued for its song, and was domesticated for same (at least in that era), which is why I chose nightingale as the analog.  "Cuckoo", while technically more correct (genetically), doesn't come close to conveying the fact that the song was valued by people (at least in English).

So, no matter how you cut it, you'd have to (a) painstakingly explain background, (b) take liberties in localizing it, or (c) lose the essence of the original.

Translation is hard, but translation of poetry is VERY hard, and translation of poetry from a different era is CRAZY hard.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not even close to your level of Japanese, and I'm not trying to to criticize - merely trying to discuss the merits of a particular choice of words.

[SamIAm]

"I would walk five hundred miles
And I would walk five...

...Er, something like that"

Hmm.

EDIT:

This is a great example of something difficult to translate.
HOTOTOGISU is the problem here.  In your first translation, you ignored it, with the effect was that the reader was who was expected to sing (which was my primary concern).

Well, I said in the note above the poems that the generals were talking to a cuckoo bird. I just omitted that part from each line because I wanted to get to the point and explain the joke.

I don't think this is really so difficult or complicated. A straight translation without 5-7-5 is simply "If you do not sing, I shall wait for you to sing, cuckoo bird".

Take a liberty and stick "little" in the third line and there you go, a decent 5-7-5 rendition.

Does it lack a little context about the pet songbird aspect? Sure. But then again, so do the Japanese poems. I did a little research, and it turns out that the poems come from a book written around 1820, and the original poems are part of a larger parable in which this particular information is explained before the poems appear.

When used on its own/in a reference, "Et tu, Brute?" probably shouldn't be translated as "You're betraying me too, Brutus?" regardless of how informed the reader is. Sometimes, it's best to leave things in their raw state and leave it to the reader to educate themselves about the context. I think this would be one of those times. Besides, the focus isn't even on the bird, but rather the attitude of the general, and that comes through fine.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not even close to your level of Japanese, and I'm not trying to to criticize - merely trying to discuss the merits of a particular choice of words.

It's all good. That's all I'm doing, too.

[esteban]

ASIDE: I did not want to make a serious post in this thread, but I will. The original title for this post was "I Know Why The Caged Cuckoo Sings"



THE MUCH-MALIGNED CUCKOO

The two approaches (cuckoo vs. nightingale) suggested by SamIAm and dshadoff perfectly illustrate (to me) the nuances of the localization process.

One, brief moment in the game has generated substantial discussion...and, to be honest, this moment will hold much more meaning to me during the actual game, simply because I know the backstory behind it.

Personally, of the two birds, I have greater reverence for a nightingale, since the cuckoo (and the humble loon!) have had their reputations tarnished by countless cartoons (and the occasional sugary breakfast cereal). 

Honoring the original Japanese  (cuckoo as soprano) clashes with vapid pop-cultural associations (cuckoo as vaudevillian).

I honestly don't know which approach best "honors" the original intent of Tengai Makyou...but is difficult for me to overlook the cultural baggage the cuckoo is burdened with.

FURTHER ASIDE: I will never have the opportunity to discuss this again (here at pcefx), so I can't help but throw in one of my favorite lines from The Third Man:

Harry Lime: "You know what the fellow said – in Italy, for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, they had five hundred years of democracy and peace – and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock."

Now, this is factually/historically inaccurate, but that doesn't matter. It fits the character so well (since he is a master of manipulation).

IN CONCLUSION: The much-maligned cuckoo can't catch a break.

/aside


You may continue, as you were.

[SamIAm]

All this time translating old video game lines will be worth it if I can just challenge some cultural perceptions of cuckoo birds. 


Anyway, the kooky old poet in the game used two birds. Since it's based on some of the most famous haikus in existence, I'm sticking the cuckoo in there. Maybe:

"Little cuckoo bird
if you do not sing for me,
the nightingale might"

Take out the cuckoo, and it's a lot harder to recognize the association with the real haiku. Also, I like adding "might" because the original poems are so strong and threatening. It's a funny contrast, at least to me.

I should make one thing clear, though: the joke in the game is actually not even like what I've explained at all. The joke in the game is simply a bizarre combination of references, like saying "To be or not to be...it was the worst of times." In the game, it's "Oh, nightingale...I will wait until you sing, cuckoo bird". It's like he's drunk. But I found this too incoherent, so I made up my own thing.

But that brings me to the real dilemma...neither way is really funny to English speakers. Not unless you actually know the original poem. Being funny really is the line's first purpose, and it would be a shame to lose that.

So, do I preserve the original reference and poem as-is and just say "welp, that's what it says"?

Do I tweak it a bit, as I have done so far, so that it's at least coherent and hopefully funny to people who know the original story of the three generals and their cuckoos?

Do I make up a new poem that's entirely different, possibly involving booze? I haven't seen any mention of booze at this haiku gathering, but some of the other haikus are goofy enough that it almost seems implied.

Or do I come up with a new poem that still references those original poems but stands on its own as being funny? Is that even possible?


Finally...The old guy doesn't only say this haiku. In the lines before, he says he would like to dedicate his haiku to world peace. I could play off that, and make a haiku like:

"I can wait for peace
longer than Ieyasu
can wait for cuckoos"

It's not wacky-funny at all, but it's somehow still faithful, and it works well with the context otherwise. It also does a lot more to provoke someone to investigate the story of the generals.

Thank god most of the rest of the lines in the game are like "Remember to equip your armor!"

[dshadoff]

"Little cuckoo bird
if you do not sing for me,
the nightingale might"

Take out the cuckoo, and it's a lot harder to recognize the association with the real haiku. Also, I like adding "might" because the original poems are so strong and threatening. It's a funny contrast, at least to me.

So, if I understand correctly then, the original (famous) haikus are not actually spoken in this section of the game; merely referenced ?

That would be pretty harsh - expecting an audience to recognize a foreign cultural reference which isn't even included in the script.

If they were part of the script, the audience could at least catch on to the fact that there are several variations of the same haiku, even if they didn't get the reference to historic characters.  You might still have to include a warning to read carefully, as some people may try to read it too quickly and think that it's mere repetition.

I have another question - is this episode referenced later in the game ?
If it is, you're pretty much stuck with trying to keep a lot of things as they are.

If it isn't, you can have some more leeway... and this can go in several potential directions.

I should make one thing clear, though: the joke in the game is actually not even like what I've explained at all. The joke in the game is simply a bizarre combination of references, like saying "To be or not to be...it was the worst of times." In the game, it's "Oh, nightingale...I will wait until you sing, cuckoo bird". It's like he's drunk. But I found this too incoherent, so I made up my own thing.

But that brings me to the real dilemma...neither way is really funny to English speakers. Not unless you actually know the original poem. Being funny really is the line's first purpose, and it would be a shame to lose that.

There are more than enough English-language referential taglines which could be applied to produce humor, if the core idea is an old man rambling in memorable but mismatched quotes.  Some combinations could be funny, but the visual scene has to match.

Are you able to make a youtube video of what's going on ?  Maybe crowdsource on nicovideo ?

So, do I preserve the original reference and poem as-is and just say "welp, that's what it says"?

I can't say that I am a supporter of this.  It would at least require translator's notes, and that would detract from the game itself.

Do I tweak it a bit, as I have done so far, so that it's at least coherent and hopefully funny to people who know the original story of the three generals and their cuckoos?

Better, but still serves a very limited audience.

Do I make up a new poem that's entirely different, possibly involving booze? I haven't seen any mention of booze at this haiku gathering, but some of the other haikus are goofy enough that it almost seems implied.

Or do I come up with a new poem that still references those original poems but stands on its own as being funny? Is that even possible?

While I would love to enjoy the original game in all its splendor, it requires an investment which is just not something the average person wants to commit to.  This is a hard decision, but at least this choice (or rather, either of these two choices) is a compromise which allows the game to reach a wider audience in its new language.

Given the choice, I would say that if there was already a pattern of cuckoo-related poems, this would have to be yet another.  But if they weren't all variations of the same original set, then either would be fine.

But in any case, this section is probably among the most difficult localization that exists.  Many professional translation efforts would try to cut the section out, to avoid the hard work.

Finally...The old guy doesn't only say this haiku. In the lines before, he says he would like to dedicate his haiku to world peace. I could play off that, and make a haiku like:

"I can wait for peace
longer than Ieyasu
can wait for cuckoos"

It's not wacky-funny at all, but it's somehow still faithful, and it works well with the context otherwise. It also does a lot more to provoke someone to investigate the story of the generals.

I like this one.  Not sure how wide the appeal is, though.