Over the past several months, I translated two routes of Tsuki no Kanata de Aimashou (Kirari and Kiriko) as a small side project to keep me busy while I finished my graduate studies. While I do not have much to say about those routes or the game itself (I did not find it interesting enough to read in its entirety), it did provide an opportunity to experiment with some ideas I had been forming regarding translation and to refine my skills for a potential future project which I would surely be passionate about.

One obvious stylistic difference between my translation of Tsukikana and Tenina was my decision to keep in honorifics. In both cases, the decision was not entirely voluntary. Space was so limited in Leaf’s engine that even 7 or 8 characters were often too hard to give up, and being a supporting member of a team for Tsukikana, I respected the decisions of the main translator.

I prefer the omission of honorifics for an admittedly selfish reason. I think they sound jarring when forcefully inserted into English phrases. The Japanese language has evolved to get out of the way of structures like honorifics in a way that the English language has not, and the verbal gymnastics required to merely say a phrase with the extra syllables inserted is an unpleasant exercise.

Now, I will admit that it is not a particularly difficult exercise to say one or two more syllables, and I would not consider it an issue serious enough to have a strong opinion about when they are present, but I do think that this perceived clunkiness is rooted in the very structure of language itself.

English words naturally create iambs (and the closely related trochee). Put in another way, spoken English tends to alternate stresses between syllables. Prominent monosyllabic grammatical fixtures, like “the,” “an,” and “of,” make extended neutral stress patterns of 3 or more syllables rather uncommon. If anything, the language has evolved to actively avoid such monotone stretches, and a strong preference is given towards “punchier” language that flows well off the tongue.

It is so difficult to avoid this iambicisation of syllables that efforts to translate poetry often choose to use an iambic metre instead of preserving the metre of the original language. One famous example of such translation is Homer, whose dactylic hexameter is practically impossible to maintain for such a long work.

Stress patterns in spoken Japanese do not work this way. The main stresses occur when the pitch alternates, something that occurs usually once, maybe twice a sentence, and since Japanese names often have 4 or more syllables with the inclusion of honorifics, those monotone stretches of unalternated stress naturally appear more often. I have simplified the mechanics of Japanese and English stress and pitch patterns here, but the other patterns that appear in these languages clash for these same reasons.

Yet we cannot ignore the fact that for some people, the inclusion of honorifics does not sound strange at all. It is possible that their ears just aren’t sensitive to these patterns, but another common observation is that when English speakers pronounce Japanese names, they tend to introduce stresses that a Japanese speaker would not, effectively iambicising what was originally unstressed. The first reader is speaking a language that isn’t exactly English, while the second reader is speaking words that aren’t exactly Japanese. In both cases, there is only upside to their inclusion, as they create neither syntactical nor logical issues while still preserving some additional meaning that cannot be easily expressed in English.

Because of cases like this, I often wonder why a translation must be restricted to the domain of proper conventional English. While I admittedly have a great love for the English language, I am not particularly interested in the act of reinterpreting foreign works into aesthetically pleasing English in itself. My enjoyment of reading comes primarily from engaging in the language game presented by the writer, and as a translator my wish is for the reader to engage in as similar of a game as possible.

Stress patterns aside, in practice, Japanese uses words in a very similar way that English does. This makes direct translations of idiomatic phrases often understandable without any change at all.

Let’s look at some examples.

それはこっちのセリフだ！translates literally to, “That’s my line!” This is often said in situations where speaker A voices some complaint about speaker B, and speaker B would very much like to say the same thing about speaker A. This is a phrase that metaphorically casts the speaker as an actor in a play, and if we were to suppose that this isn’t a translation of a commonly said Japanese phrase and instead a line in a script written for an eccentrically speaking character, we would be able to immediately understand what the character intended.

But while this is something an ordinary person might say in Japanese, it is not something an ordinary person would say in English. A direct translation sounds more literary than the original and does not preserve the “normalness” of the phrase or its idiomatic property.

Another example of the two languages converging is the word 反芻, or to ruminate. In both cultures, the word for the act of ruminants regurgitating and redigesting their cud also means to ponder over. However, like the first example, the word is still used in ordinary speech in Japanese, while its rarity elevates it to a more literary voice in English.

I suspect that many English readers may not be familiar with its etymology and how the word derives its meaning metaphorically. They might intuitively understand that it means some form of deep thought or meditation, but not in the same sense of repeatedly turning these thoughts over that a Japanese reader might. While the lexical definition of the word is the same in both languages, the ordinary usage has subtly diverged.

Here’s an example of how this divergence affects translation. In Tenina, there is a line 「それは、ありもしない生き方を反すうして、涙していた。」that I translated to “I wept as I ruminated over a life that could not be.” Unlike the first example, we don’t have the issue of the English sounding too literary because the original Japanese was also written in a poetic voice, but I am not quite happy about how the ordinary use of the word ruminate plays out here.

As previously noted, the word ruminate has a calmer, more meditative connotation. It is sometimes used that way in Japanese, but in this particular passage the action is almost manic. Kida is obsessively repeating that image in his head. The English reader would need to step away from the ordinary usage of the word and reflect on the metaphorical image of rumination to understand what a Japanese reader would recognise immediately.

I am inclined to believe that failure to convey the ordinary usage is a failure in the translation, and this would be hard to dispute if the conversation were between an English speaker and an English reader. But suppose the conversation took place between two Japanese speakers, still in English. It is reasonable to believe that the language games being played are considerably different and that a direct translation models the original language game more closely than one that uses different words.

In both examples, a thoughtful reader should be able to interpret the metaphor and get a feel for what the speaker is saying. A more extreme example where a direct translation doesn’t have the same effect in the target language is H-scenes in general. Exactly why this happens is not of importance here, but it is often argued that because the intent of the writing is to excite the readers senses, that they should be modified in a way that does for the target audience.

There is a flaw to this line of thinking. Whether or not the writing has its intended effect is not always a failure to understand the language game being played. On the contrary, what they are doing with words in these scenes is so simple that an average reader should be able to comprehend what is being communicated. I suspect that an ordinary person with no specific fetish for the Japanese language and did not find the dialogue arousing in English would not change their mind even after learning the language. One would have to acquire not only the knowledge of what is being said, but the social conditioning that makes this kind of dialogue arousing to the Japanese reader.

Adapting lines with the sole intent of making them more palatable to the Western audience gives up on the reader’s potential to gain an acquired taste. It is a motivation that contradicts why many seek to read works from different cultures in the first place. Still, such decisions are not easy to make. It feels legitimately stupid when a translated line becomes a puzzle to solve when the original line is intended to be easily understood.

And we cannot ignore the convenience of these modifications from the original language. I present two idiomatic examples:

The Japanese have a phrase さじを投げる, which translates to “Throw the spoon.” It is a phrase that means to give up on something in frustration, and in English we have a very similar phrase, to throw in the towel. I would be quite understanding to the translator who replaces spoon with towel, for at the end of the day, the translator’s job exists because the reader is not trying to be educated in the nuances of Japanese language. This replacement feels pretty good relatively speaking, because the dynamic act of throwing is still preserved.

A more well recognised phrase is 類は友を呼ぶ, usually translated as “Birds of a feather flock together.” A more literal translation would go along the lines of “All kinds call for companions.” I have mixed feelings about replacement with the English idiom here. Unlike the previous example, we do not keep the verb of the phrase, “To call.” But because this is such a well-known phrase, there is little doubt that the original is also idiomatic.

Now to some, the connotative meaning of the idiom, that similar people naturally group together, is all that matters, and the specific words used to communicate this are of little importance. When this is truly the case, it is my personal opinion that what the author is doing is not particularly interesting at all. It is a disproportionately greater loss when a deliberate interaction between words is lost in order to preserve idiomatic use.

Perhaps the greatest reason to advocate for direct translations, even of idiomatic expressions, is that there is no good way to tell when the words matter and when they do not. We cannot rely on the translator to be an accurate judge of authorial intent. Just as the translator can miss the importance of details, so too can the translator find importance where there is none. I find it far more preferable for the reader to be the final arbiter, just as the reader would be in the original language.

Let’s reflect on the problems we have rambled through up until now.

1. The differences between Japanese and English stress patterns makes direct insertion of Japanese words into English awkward.
2. If we ignore the differences in sentence structure, the way words are used in literal and metaphorical speech are similar. It is generally possible for a reader to reason out what is being said most of the time with only a direct translation.
3. We get into trouble when different connotative meanings develop in ordinary speech, especially when words remain used in one language that become obscure in the other, and notably in idiomatic speech.

But what if it were possible to have our cake and eat it? What if a direct translation into English could still be understood as an idiomatic expression? I believe we already do that with the first example, “That’s my line!” If anything, repeated exposure to the direct translation has made it idiomatic among readers of this sub-culture. This happens more often than we may be aware of, for example, the word “lewd” becoming prevalent in weeb culture while being a relatively rare word in colloquial English. Less is lost in a direct translation as the reader becomes more familiar with the ways Japanese uses words to express ideas.

There needs to be a certain amount of buy-in with what the writer is trying to do in order for a reader to appreciate a work. It is for this reason that it is easier to replace idioms or rewrite culturally unique metaphors into one that is more easily recognisable in the target language. At the end of the day, these details generally have no impact on the overarching themes, nor do they affect the various happenings of the plot itself, and a large population of readers care only for these aspects of writing. But the less the translator allows for the author’s words to speak for themselves, the weaker the reader’s relationship with the author becomes. I will not deny that the reader necessarily develops a similar relationship with the translator as a writer, but it is my personal desire that this relationship be as minimal as possible, and that the reader engages as closely with the original author as much as possible.

With these arguments in mind, I propose these guidelines for the kind of translation I would prefer to do:

1. The translated line should attempt to recreate the original picture that the author created with words. There should be enough textual and contextual clues that with a reasonable amount of thinking, the reader can discern what the author intended to say and how they said it.
2. The translated line should also attempt to evoke the connotative meaning of the original words from their ordinary use. The tone of the speaker should match and ideally, it should be clear when a line is idiomatic.
3. When 1) and 2) are in conflict, prefer a literal translation when 2) is an issue of ignorance.
4. Do not adhere to these guidelines when doing so would be outright barbarous.

It is guideline 3 that we have been laying the groundwork to justify. The inclusion of honorifics is a special case where no translation has taken place at all. It is an exercise left to the reader to learn what these Japanese words mean, and we have seen an entire community of English speakers learn these words in the same way everyone else learns new words—through immersion and inquiry.

This kind of treatment is suitable for words that can be easily referenced. Take for example the word, “skinship,” a pseudo-English word that describes a kind of non-sexual physical bonding common in Japanese society. A reader who is unsure of what this word means can look it up on the internet just like any other word in English that they do not know and find an acceptable explanation. Once learned, the use of the word should not pose any significant problems.

Another example from the first lines of Tenina is “Sea of Trees,” a literal translation of 樹海. At the time, I felt it was prudent to include a translator’s note explaining that this is a metaphor for killing oneself, but looking back now I believe that there are enough cues, capitalisation in this case, for the reader to do their own research if their knowledge is lacking.

However, it is not always the case that it is obvious that a line requires some cultural context, nor is it easy to know what to search for without knowing the original line in Japanese. Take this example from Parfait:

「海にゐるのは、あれは魚人ではないのです！ 海にゐるのは、あれは、河童ばかり！」

This line is an adaptation of “The Northern Sea” by Chuuya Nakahara, which I would translate to something like:

「What is in the sea, mermaids they are not! What is in the sea, they are, only kappas!」

Because this is a play on such a famous poem, it would be a rather despicable act to give it anything other than a faithful translation. However one will find that translations of Chuuya’s work are not readily found on the internet, even if they were to realise that some intertextual device is at play. It would be even more impossible to find an explanation of why the replacement of the word “waves” in the original poem with “kappas” is significant (though I suspect that with advances in AI, this kind of research is now more feasible than it once was).

These are situations where a translator’s note can be appropriate when the reader is mature enough to realize that (3) isn’t an explicit part of what is being said. I think the unaltered text side-by-side with supplementary annotations is the best way to provide the necessary context of what’s being said, but since that is not really practical in the case of novel games, it’s worth exploring other ways to provide contextual cues with the understanding that they are not explicitly written.

Consider our first observation about the rhythm and cadence of the English language. One notable difference between English and Japanese is English’s prevalent use of pronouns where Japanese would explicitly use names and titles. In general the use of “You” or “I” simply fits better into the sentence than “Onee-san” or something simpler, but there are certainly instances where the choice of address is materially important to the meaning of the sentence.

In cases like these, I propose the continued use of the pronoun with the original name in angle brackets, in order to delineate between how it should be read, and what was left unsaid.

Here’s another example from Parfait:

「Do you take me <Nee-chan> for a fool?」 …Oh no, her speaking style has reverted to the way it was before she got married. Proof that she is furious.

If we were to take the translated line, “Do you take me for a fool?” by itself, it is difficult to discern exactly what has changed about her speech pattern (that she has started to refer to herself as “Nee-chan”). As a compromise, we directly insert the information that was omitted while politely asking the reader to read on as if nobody had said anything. Angle brackets are used so as not to be confused for a parenthetical expression present in the original text.

My second proposition is to highlight idiomatic expressions with the use of single quotations. So we would allow characters to say phrases like ‘All kinds call for companions,’ and allow the reader to process what is being said figuratively in the original language while also giving them the context that this is a traditional proverb rather than the original words of the author. I suspect that quoting words like ‘ruminate’ where the metaphorical usage in Japanese is slightly different than in English might also be an acceptable compromise. Like the angle brackets, single quotes are used so as not to be confused with the various type of quotation that might be present in the original text.

Introducing this new symbology creates problems of their own, and it remains to be seen whether they actually work. While the intent is for these notations to be ignored as actual speech, it is very difficult for the brain to truly separate words that appear in the same line.

However, because they are purely external to the text, their removal should not affect the translation itself should they prove to be too unnatural. Whatever the case, the intent is to use them as sparingly as possible. They are meant merely to serve as small hints when the reader might need just a little more help to understand what is happening. Both types of insertions should be used minimally with the assumption that they apply for the rest of the scene, if not the entire work, unless explicitly noted.

What I am ultimately proposing is for the translator to have faith in the reader to figure out the rules of the language games being played. I believe that in most cases, there is enough information in the meanings of words and the context they are used in to understand a direct translation from one language to another, even more so with a little bit of help. In extreme cases, what we have created can no longer be considered English, as we have abandoned the ordinary usage of words in favor of preserving the original usage in Japanese.

One may ask why so much effort should be put towards such a quixotic endeavor. It would be so much easier to communicate the author’s intent if we were willing to take some more liberties to adapt things into English equivalents. However, I believe that one of the reasons we read texts from other cultures is because they provide us an experience different than the ones produced by our own, and the language is an inseparable part of that experience. If we were to disregard how they do things with words, we would be losing a key ingredient of what gives writing a Japanese flavor. And while it may be an acquired taste, for some of us out there, it is because of these flavors that we like to read.