All Chinese words have homonyms. Some of the more popular pronunciations have maybe 30 or 40 other homonyms? Context usually allows you to differentiate what is what. But, sometimes the context can be ambiguous.
Like I remember in particular for When a Snail Falls in Love, we thought that one of the syndicate’s boss’s name was a code name or the name of the gang itself, and we translated the name’s meaning instead of just transliterating the name. At that point of time, that syndicate boss was just a shadowy figure manipulating everything in the background, so we happily figured they were referring to a shadow organization. Only to find out a few episodes later that it was actually a person’s name so we’d to change it back. (But honestly, who is called Golden Armour? )
Also, if you familiarise yourself with Chinese characters, you will realise that certain of these words with the same/similar pronunciation share similar strokes, that can give you a hint that it shares similar pronunciation.
With this I completely agree, in fact when the channel is still fairly active I tend to write into the TD 'cause I know that there is a possibility that the CM or the chief segmenter or the chief editor that I’m writing to might get spammed with PMs from various channel and my own message could get lost.
However, when it has been already a year or so since the drama ended, even thought all team member where quite active while it was on air, when I tried to write into the TD it was the same: I didn’t get a reply. Maybe I was just unlucky, I don’t know.
oh… if the drama ended you need to contact the translation editor or whoever is the most active id. Very annoying.
OR!! If it is to understand a subtitle then you can alternatively try to find someone who knows the native language to explain to you. @irmar has done this to me before.
I didn’t think about looking for the most active id now that I think about it…
Generally I wanted to point out missing segments and, at times, suggest a translation for missing or incomplete subtitles from the original language (KR).
I’ll try again contacting the translation editors / chief segmenter!
I think I actually read a discussion about the nyang currency, if I’m not confusing ids, which was really interesting actually.
When I was in college, I had a friend from Nigeria, from the Yoruba tribe. He was a Christian and had an English name he used which was the name of someone in the Bible. His Yoruba name meant something like “victory comes in the morning.” He said he was born at dawn after his mother went through a long and difficult labor. Now there’s an amazing name, but not one that would be popular in English.
Don’t actually know of anyone with a name with that meaning in Chinese, but wouldn’t be surprised to find someone whose name does mean that.
On a related note, don’t be surprised if you find a person called 吴愚, transliterated Wu Yu, the meaning of the name would be Stupid Wu, since Yu [愚] means stupid. But because 吴 is a homonym of 无 (not), the meaning of the name also sounds like Not Stupid. So for people whose surnames are Wu or Mei [梅 which sounds like 没, don’t have in Chinese], they sometimes have negative connotative names so that their full name will be something with a positive connotation. Like imagine being called 吴明, transliterated Wu Ming, Ming [明] means bright, totally a good thing. But placing them together, it would be like saying you’re Not Bright.
Yes, the nyang currency was me, but it was here, not in TD, because it was in an old film I’m working on alone (Wedding Day), so there was no people to ask in the films TD. Here, it was enough to tag ajumma2 and ping! the answer came within hours.
Since we’ve been discussing many potential systematic mistakes here lately, I wanted to hear your opinion on the following, which is occurring more and more lately.
Example:
“Joon Hyeong! Clean up that mess.” -> new
vs.
“Joon Hyeong, clean up that mess.” -> old
Everything I was taught in school tells me the old version is correct. In Croatian “Joon Hyeong” would be a “vocative” and would be followed or preceded by a comma, no questions asked.
I’ve no idea why somebody would believe those two… idioms? are two separate sentences.
@irmar@christina_ bozoli and anyone else who is primarily a non-English subtitler, or moderator
I think you guys should get in touch with @robertases who is in charge of English NSSA. It really is just her, but maybe you guys can give her some input? She is busy drafting some guidelines of common mistakes I think. It’s this behemoth document, but maybe… it will help reduce some confusion?
I was taught in school that not all questions end in a question mark. Some are questions in form, but really just rhetorical (can be a period or an exclamation). I took these things to heart when I subtitle so… some questions written by me end in . or !
I rely a lot on punctuation, the strategic placement of please, or word selection to try to convey seniority, rank etc. things that exist in English, since there are no normal tools in English. There is no formal or informal speech as a conjugation as in other languages.
It depends on the scene. If poor Joon Hyeong is in another room, or is singled out, maybe I could use the new. I imagine there would be a brief pause between the name and the rest of the sentence, to justify the exclamation mark.
But maybe I’m reading too much into this. I tend to go with the “feeling” of a scene.
It depends on how the speaker is saying it. If the person shouts the name and pauses and then proceeds with the rest of the sentence, then there will be an exclamation mark. If the speaker just says it all in one go, then there will be a comma. They’re both correct, but I tend to stick with the comma in most cases.
To me, this is dependant on the scene. I usually put exclamations when the person is agitated and/or shouting.
“Joon Hyeong, clean up that mess.” >> If everything is said in a normal tone.
“Joon Hyeong! Clean up that mess.” >> If Joon Hyeong was shouted and the remaining part of the sentence is just spoken normally. There might or might not be a pause between the first part and second part. This is to show that there’s a difference in tone between the first part.
“Joon Hyeong, clean up that mess!” >> If the whole sentence is shouted.
This sentence will surely resonate with all parents of teenagers.
In cases like this, for dramatic effect, you often do make a pause. An ominous pause.
First you shout his name to get his attention.
Then you give him a bad look.
Then you take a breath and with the finger you point to the place where a couple of hours before there was a neat pile of carefully folded T-shirts and now is a jumbled mess of crumpled and sorry fabric.
And you add: Clean up that mess!
In that case, a comma won’t cut it.
In normal cases, if the whole sentence is said with one breath, and with the same tone, of course, you should.
I still feel like a small break in the speech between the name and imperative doesn’t call for an exclamation mark so often. Commas also imply a break.
In some cases, threats can be delivered with no shouting whatsoever. A mom delivering a quiet request with no exclamation points can be a very dangerous person.
And if there is an ominous LONG pause, then an ellipsis might be appropriate.
“Joon Hyeong . . . dear . . . clean up this mess if you don’t want your body found floating in the Han river.”
When the Romans and Greeks were perfecting the art of speaking or rhetoric, commas, periods, colons, semi-colons, and whatnot all were marks indicating how long a pause should be in a speech. And that pause, for drama or for humor or for emphasis, often depended on the speaker’s desired result.
So two different rhetoricians theoretically could give the same speech with different punctuation in their text.
Obviously punctuation with the so-called Roman alphabet has been greatly standardized since Julius Caesar’s day. And it means nothing to people who don’t use “Western” orthography. And in the day of “C U later OK” it is irrelevant to many people.
But punctuation does help convey meaning, and I salute punctuation nit-pickers!
“Joon Hyeong, clean up that mess!” >> This can be when you’re angry or when Joon Hyeong’s a distance away.
“Joon Hyeong! Clean up that mess!” >> When you’re really really angry. By changing it to an exclamation mark, it would have the additional between the lines meaning “Joon Hyeong (you little piece of shit)! Clean up that mess!”
@christina_ that’d be fun! I do that when texting sometimes. Just replying everything with emoticons
Sure, there are all kinds of styles and all kinds of situations.
I remember reading Bruno von Bettelheim’s book where he said that a mother who has to shout to make herself noticed (obeyed) is a failure. And I remember oh so clearly saying to myself:
“When I have children, I certainly won’t be such a pathetic mother!”.
Ha. Ha. Ha…
)
!
