Translation review: [Hiryuu] Girls und Panzer 01

The thing is that I worked on Commie’s Panzer, so I can’t really review it. Considering the number of shows I’m working on, this is bound to happen for quite a bunch of releases. It’d be nice to have another translator guy/girl among us who’d do at least the stuff I can’t… Anyway, here comes Hiryuu’s Panzer.

Unlike Commie’s semi-Aryan script, Hiryuu is writing serious English. Too bad I (would) have no idea what AP is (could I not understand the Japanese).

Talk about awesome. “Tankwondo” is the best possible choice.

It’s not うざ (uza(i), annoying), but ぶさ (busa(iku), ugly).

Localizing tea to cafe? /a/’s gonna get so mad at you for this… How dare you defile the sacred Japanese language?!

“You could easily get top grades in class!”

I was going to praise this line, but “lets”…

The ending’s fine.

Conclusion: Great

I really don’t have much to complain about. A few instances of derpy English and those translation bugs I pointed out are pretty much all of it. Good to go.

This entry was posted by Vale.

15 thoughts on “Translation review: [Hiryuu] Girls und Panzer 01

  1. It’s always been bothering me. Isn’t translating Japanese into English a pretty simple thing to do if you understand the languages? It doesn’t seem so as there are often notable translation mistakes. If you were watching casually, you might make some mishearings and misinterpretations, but how can you make mistakes when you’re listening more closely? I don’t mean to attack anyone (though, to me, I sound like I am). I am just curious.

    • Even when listening closely and taking your time, you can and will still make mistakes. The “lets” is an annoying one at that considering it’s an obvious error(in this context), but it still snuck through. I’m not calling you out, but if you write an essay or or translate a long text, it’s unlikely to have zero errors. The point im trying to make is that no matter how much you focus(though it helps), errors can still sneak into the text/subs in this case without anyone noticing. As long as the errors are minor and as few as possible, then I’d say it’s good.

    • Oftentimes what they say can’t be heard clearly enough, and even if it can, sometimes the meaning is ambiguous, and the translator has to choose the interpretation. Every now and then we choose the wrong one.

    • Try taking an episode of an English TV show, and transcribing all the dialogue. Unless we’re taking about a show with extremely simple and clear dialogue, there WILL be places where, even if you understand the general meaning of whats being said, won’t be able to give cite the exact dialogue with 100% certainty. This is why captions are so helpful.
      (add in the fact that fansub translators usually aren’t native-level fluent in Japanese either, and it just gets even harder)

      • I think it would be quite possible to transcribe the exact English, considering there’s enough time to rehear any given line as many times as needed. If it is a line or a word that no one is able to work out, then you can’t really call someone out for being wrong and you’ll just sympathise with them because it just can’t be understood. You say that captions are useful, but aren’t they a transcription of what’s said anyway?

        I have been required to do translations of my own in a non-Japanese and non-English language for my own reasons, and I know that, if I had the option to listen to the audio as many times as I wanted at whatever speed I wanted, then it would be possible to attain 100% accuracy in transcription if not translation as well. At least, that is what I think. Maybe I’m just too naive or maybe I am just being conceited. With all these people who suggest the contrary to what I say, I hardly find myself convincing. But, yeah, if you aren’t native-level fluent, then you would probably have mistakes for harder lines.

        • Most of the time the problem is bad voice acting or audio quality or 2 people speaking at once.

  2. Since you’ve worked on Commie’s release of this first episode, I’d really like to ask what you think of the semi-Aryan script. I’ve commented on their 1v2 post that it was unnecessarily over-the-top and made reading and understanding it a little iffy, that they should keep it simple with simple English unless there was actual German spoken, which then they should keep the German and leave a translation note with it.

    But I’d really like your views on it >:3

    • I don’t really care. I fixed the translation and un-Germanized the phrases people were complaining about on staff. The translator wants to do it like that, and a) I won’t be watching the show anyway b) I know enough German to understand it even if he did it the v1 way (not to mention I could just turn off the subs). It’s his call.
      Sure, lots of people are complaining about it, but I’m not one of them.

      • I’m taking german classes for a while, so I’ll watch it to pretend I understand something. Thanks.

    • At the very least the vocal group seems to greatly dislike the German in Commie’s release, so if such a thing would bother you, better to go with the safe subs. Probably best to just watch both and decide which you prefer going forward.

      Or you could go full German and get Invictus-Subs

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