4 replies to this topic

[gimee]

One Piece might be my favorite manga of all times, but one thing that bothers me is when Oda uses foreign languages in the manga. The fact itself that he's using foreign languages is fine with me, but if he could use attack names that actually make sense, and not 2-3 words put together, that would be better. I'm mainly aiming at words in French (since my French is better than my English), mostly used by Sanji. WTH is "Diable Jambe"??? It's like saying "Devil Leg" in English. If he at least wrote "Jamble du Diable" (Devil's Leg) or "Jamble Demoniaque" (Demonic Leg), that would make it so much better.

 

Also, I don't remember if that happens in the manga, but in the anime, there's a an episode where Sanji makes fries, and then the crew are saying he made Pommes Frites. In French you would simply say frites, and (I'm not 100% sure about this) Pommes Frites is the German way of saying it. Why is he naming everything in French, except for that one single thing, that he named in German??? Or did he just make a mistake?

 

I'm not saying that Japanese authors ought not to use foreign languages in manga, or that Japanese suck at using foreign languages, or any of that. I'm just saying that doing a little amount of research before writing it couldn't hurt.

 

Anyways, my question was, since I'm only fluent in French and English, and can't understand the other languages that Oda uses in the manga, does it make sense when he uses foreign languages? Like the name of Robin's attack, etc....

BTW it might bother me when Oda or another mangaka misuses a foreign language, but not that much. Because they're mangaka, can't imagine they have that much free time to do the research, or that they have contacts that are fluent in all sorts of languages (but they do take 2-3 weeks off per year, so they had a small time window to the research).

 

It REALLY does bother me though, when the same thing happens with American comics published by big companies like Marvel or DC... like they couldn't bother doing some research, send an e-mail to a translator, or even to one of their many contacts they have world-wide? Again, because I only understand French, I'll use it as an example: they couldn't phone anyone North of the border, in Quebec, and have them double-check that what they're writing is not completely awkward/total gibberish?

[M.A.D]

Japanese authors really do suck at using foreign language though. There's this manga that's really annoyed me with its name, called Seiken no Katanaji, which translates to Sword-maker of the Sacred sword. The official English title, as chosen by author, is The Sacred Blacksmith. Most of the times, they'd just chop up English words and string the remaining letters together like how they would with their own language. I've gotten used to words like "cosplay", but seeing something other than that is still annoying.

 

On the other hand, if you look at it their way, then I suppose it's inevitable, since they never had any real need to properly learn a foreign language, and so when it comes to names, the best they can do is looking up in  an auto-translator or just 'cribe something off a dictionary. Spending more time than that trying to look for proper grammar just so they can get a single name right would be a waste, considering that they have other works to take care of.

[cc32]

They usually know what it is called in other languages (and if they don't they just look it up, really, what's the current century?) but use the off translation for purposes of art. A prime example would be the anime Gurren Lagann's "Giga Duriru Bureiku".

Edited by cc32, 28 May 2014 - 03:28 PM.

[RedD-ragon]

4 main reasons why mangaka misuse foreign languages.

1. Rule of Cool. 'Diable Jambe' is a lot more memorable and easier to say 'Jamble du Diable' and 'Jamble Demonique'  
2. Kana. Most mangaka don't write using the roman (or other language's) alphabet. They either write it using kanji (done for a double meaning) or in katakana, this is done to make it more easier for the intended audience ( japanese children) to understand, for example the closest they have to 'Diable Jambe' is 'ディアブルジャンブ' which is romanised directly to 'Diaburu Janbu'.
3. Deadlines, a lot of manga chapters are written in a week, it's incredibly hard work and they don't have time to nitpick over finer details, in contrast monthly manga and american comics of often come out monthly, this gives them a lot more time to check things over.
4. Translation. Even if a mangaka is fluent in another language, that is no guarrante that the scanlator is. If these guys have no idea what the language is , they may just romanise the kana.

[IsGalis]

Hello! Native spanish speaker here! Robin's attacks are in Spanish

 

For example, "Cuatro Mano" means "Four Hand" (yes, just like that. No plural, I guess the Japanese have difficulties grasping the concept of plurals like those)

however, sometimes I see it translated as "Quattro mano", Quattro meaning Four in Italian and Mano meaning Hand in Spanish. Guess that must be because Cuatro and Quattro would use the exact same kana, as their pronunciation is almost the same. Also, he does combine languages from time to time, I guess. Like when Robin says: "Ocho Fleur", Ocho = Eight in Spanish and Fleur = Flower in French (but I guess you already knew that)... Unless he means "Ocho Flor" (Flor = Spanish for Flower) and the kana are the same so translators assume it's Fleur instead? I honestly don't know.

Robin also has this attack called "Gigantesco Mano" in which Gigantesco = Gigantic and Mano = Hand. Once again, grammatically incorrect because of the gender. Since in Spanish "Hand" is feminine the correct phrase would be "Gigantesca Mano" or "Mano Gigantesca". I think the only attack Robin uses that's perfect Spanish grammar and doesn't combine languages is "Campo de Flores" ("Flower field" or "field of flowers").

 

It doesn't quite bother me... well, only when he commits basic mistakes like that, but sometimes I forgive his errors just because I know it must be hard to learn western languages when you're eastern. Also, Daedrium is totally right, there are a lot of factors that influence Oda's misuse of foreign words. I think the biggest one there is the Rule of Cool hahahaha!

 

Btw, I'm learning French and I didn't know that any of Sanji's attacks were grammatically wrong. Figures. If Oda's Spanish is wrong, what made me think he would have the French right? Idk hahahaha, but thanks for pointing that out! I learned a new thing today

 

Oh, and don't worry. French are not the only ones who suffer like that. I remember when I played Red Dead Redemption for the first time and listened to the voice actors that were supposed to be playing Native Spanish speakers... Golly, NONE of them sounded authentic. They even got words wrong and the subtitles were totally different from what you could hear. It gave me the chills, I hated it very much. I know for a fact that most Americans don't even know which continent their country is on, I lived there for a year and I experienced it first hand. The worst part is how they don't even have the brains to GOOGLE the information they need because it's gonna be published on a videogame, book or movie. So, it's okay... Dang, my rant got long

Edited by IsGalis, 15 August 2014 - 08:27 PM.