What makes a good translation? (discussion about but not including slurs)
What counts as a good English translation of a Japanese-only game from two and a half decades ago... when the original game has some problematic dialogue? (Yes, I'm keeping it vague for now. There's a whole bucket of discourse here, but for now I want to explore the issue as far from specifics as possible.)
The translator in this case chose a word they understood to be a "mild slur" intending to keep the meaning and tone of the original work.
Some folks noted that the chosen word is widely considered a slur even worse than the original text, but it could and should be easily changed to something less incendiary as the context itself would be plenty to preserve the insensitivity of the original writers.
The translator then penned an open letter about how they didn't know it was that bad, they didn't want to hurt anyone, and that they were just trying to keep the original derogatory tone.
My argument is that translation exists to open up a work to a new audience. Just because the original work had a bad concept doesn't mean it's acceptable to compound the problem with a translation that's worse. If the goal is "accuracy" there's still no excuse; the translation is from mid-1990's Japanese to 2020's English, so there's no reason to use deprecated terminology anyhow.
I can get to more details later, but first: What're folks' thoughts on this? Does anyone have favorite examples of translations that illustrate the issue?
re: What makes a good translation? (discussion about but not including slurs)
@ElectricKeet this would be an excellent question to send in to Mato aka Clyde Mandelin
re: What makes a good translation? (discussion about but not including slurs)
@typhlosion Hunh. That's actually a really good idea, thanks! Heck, they might even already know the specific translation (and shitstorm) I'm referring to....