dimanoch said: I don't understand how you are using the term "Commie"... but I felt like I had to localize it and remove the... was that shit from Reddit?
You did fine. Commie's one of the sub groups doing Girls und Panzer.
They're doing decently with it, by the way; better than the CR subs (not a high hurdle to clear) and Hiryuu ('Tankwondo'? Really?), and I've been too lazy to check out DeadFish, especially since they're a day slower. They're (usually) above-average as a group, too; most of the heat they catch is from morons with a semester's worth of Japanese knowledge and a hate-on for anything they perceive as 'not literal enough'. (Protip: if you feel compelled to hate someone for this, pick gg instead; they're genuinely terrible.)
glasnost said: You did fine. Commie's one of the sub groups doing Girls und Panzer.
They're doing decently with it, by the way; better than the CR subs (not a high hurdle to clear) and Hiryuu ('Tankwondo'? Really?), and I've been too lazy to check out DeadFish, especially since they're a day slower.
Except that they're NOT doing it decently. Their translations from Japanese to English are, in many cases, just plain wrong, not even capturing the spirit of what's being said. The random German they're throwing in for no reason at all (nobody in the show is saying ANYTHING in German) is nonsensical.
Hiryuu's translation of Senshado as Tankwando is punny, but actually does capture the idea that this is a martial art (which, in the show, it is). A more correct translation would be "Way of the Tank" but that's unwieldy. Commie's "Panzerfahren" is literally "tank driving" which is NOT what they are saying, nor what they're intending people to get.
And more than that, people are missing details because Commie is translating them incorrectly. Just one example: when Yukari was spying on Kei's briefing, and stood up and asked how the units would be organized, Commie subs said something about two schools ganging up, which isn't even vaguely right. She said since they didn't have enough tanks to form two full platoons, they'd form them as a single company with groups of three tanks acting as smaller platoons. Commie missed all of that, and that is neither the first nor the last time they've gotten something complete wrong.
Madcat6204 said: And more than that, people are missing details because Commie is translating them incorrectly. Just one example: when Yukari was spying on Kei's briefing, and stood up and asked how the units would be organized, Commie subs said something about two schools ganging up, which isn't even vaguely right. She said since they didn't have enough tanks to form two full platoons, they'd form them as a single company with groups of three tanks acting as smaller platoons. Commie missed all of that, and that is neither the first nor the last time they've gotten something complete wrong.
Huh, sure enough. I was going mostly off the English writing, of which Commie's is the best (they've been including a second sub track without the ridiculous German since episode 2, so that's a non-issue), and haven't really been listening well enough to critique the translation (let's face it, nobody's watching this show for the subtle and nuanced plot or the accurate portrayal of tank combat strategy), but yeah, that's pretty bad. How unfortunate.
Regarding 'tankwondo': sure, it's closer to the nuance of the original word, but it also sounds astoundingly unnatural in English speech; I mean, it's a Korean loan word, of all things. If you're going to make up a word, make up something that sounds nice and let the dialogue in context carry any additional meaning behind the word instead of going all Roald Dahl. (Of course, maybe 'panzerfahren' would sound dumb to me too, if I knew any German; who knows? Honestly, I kind of like 'tankery'.)
I'l readily admit I think Tankwando is silly. I'm not really trying to defend that decision. I think someone heard "tanks as a martial art," had that pun spring to mind, and they all decided to just roll with it. If it were me I probably would stick with an untranslated "Senshado" most of the time, maybe including some sort of translators note the first time. Let's face it: Senshado itself is a made-up word, so trying to come up with a NEW made-up word that somehow translates the original made-up word is... challenging.
I've chosen to tolerate Hiryuu's "Tankwando", since I haven't noticed any blatant inaccuracies in the rest of their translations. That's not saying there aren't any there, but at least my rudimentary Japanese knowledge hasn't caught anything outside of a bit of localizing yet.
*gasping*I'm going anyway!!You're going to swim there? This is madness!I'm coming!!*Splash*Cute.So cute.Gran!Graan!So cute.Why didn't you stop me!?*splashsplash*So cute.You want me dead or something?!
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