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June 1, 2009 11:16 AM

What, exactly ARE the conventions when translating familial honorifics in Chinese? You can't go around calling EVERYONE in the story aunt and uncle.

I'm translating a movie set in a small village in the 1940's in Shandong. These people, good lord...I'm ten minutes in and I don't know anyone's name. It's all 娘(maiden/mother)，大树(big uncle)，大娘(big maiden)，新娘(new maiden/mother，姐(older sister)，哥(older brother)....I've been dodging it up to now, because it's clear who's talking to who, and in the case of actual family, English has, y'know, words for that. But there has to be a better way than this.

I'd really prefer to avoid ma'am and sir, because while honorifics, they're mostly intimate/informal ones. "You, big guy" and "Hey lady" aren't exactly the tone we're going for either. They're neighbors and people who've grown up together, and there are dozens of them, only a few of whom are named.

H4LP?!

posted by saysthis to writing & language (22 comments total)

Give them names? Maybe that would be ruining the Chineseness of it, but I think your choice is between a) keeping the custom/style of avoiding names and being confusing and b) giving names for clarity. It's a fine line, how much "Westernizing" you do in the translating process. But I don't see anything wrong with giving them nicknames, like whatever is the Chinese for "big guy," if that's basically what the honorific of that guy is.
posted by rikschell at 11:38 AM on June 1

I agree with rikschell. Maybe in the course of the movie most of them turn out to have identifiers that you can then use in place of "uncle" &c.; if not, you can make something up for each one. You're doing a movie translation, not an academic project; the goal is to have the audience understand, and I'm pretty sure nobody's going to say "But that person is never called Lao Ming in the original!"

But I don't understand this:

I'd really prefer to avoid ma'am and sir, because while honorifics, they're mostly intimate/informal ones.

I come from a ma'am/sir tradition, and they certainly are not intimate/informal; if anything they skew towards the opposite end of the spectrum (in other words, you would automatically use them with strangers and authority figures), and they're appropriate in pretty much any context aside from intimate discussions between siblings or spouses. I was brought up to call all older-generation relatives "sir" and "ma'am," and I think they would be appropriate translations in such situations in the film.
posted by languagehat at 11:49 AM on June 1

(It sounded to me like saysthis was calling "big uncle" and "older sister" intimate and informal, not "ma'am" and "sir.")
posted by nebulawindphone at 11:55 AM on June 1

'hat, I think that saysthis meant "The honorifics in the film are intimate and informal, so I don't want to translate them as the more formal 'ma'am' and 'sir'."

I would watch the whole film all the way through to find out if the characters have first names, then refer to them as "Uncle Wu" and "Aunt Jiang" (or whatever the first names actually are) if possible.
posted by Sidhedevil at 12:00 PM on June 1

I don't know how much you're trying to go for a literal translation, and in my mind, this works out better for female figures than male, but with those caveats, I'd be tempted to use the Miss Firstname construction. It's got that sort of combination casual/respectful/familiar. Or use Auntie, instead of Aunt. Though those are connotation things and might read differently for different people.
posted by mercredi at 12:13 PM on June 1

I've encountered this problem and my solution will vary depending on the purpose of the translation - if it's a film for entertainment/art purposes (as opposed to an anthropological study of rural Chinese life, say) I'll find a voice for the characters and do my best to have them sound natural in the translated version. That will often mean dropping these kind of epithets. You rarely have to worry about losing "Chinese-ness" as there's usually that a-plenty. Occasionally some bugger will make a direct pun based on something you've redacted under this approach which means back-tracking a bit to establish it, or ignoring the line etc.
I do recall one piece where I used a cod version of the kind of northern English dialect I grew up with, with things like "our mam" but that probably won't work for all audiences.
posted by Abiezer at 12:16 PM on June 1 [1 favorite]

I'm ten minutes in and I don't know anyone's name.

Try watching the rest of the movie for a start. Do they have names later on? How are they listed in the credits?
posted by Sys Rq at 12:21 PM on June 1

To everyone saying "watch the movie", yep, did that!

(It sounded to me like saysthis was calling "big uncle" and "older sister" intimate and informal, not "ma'am" and "sir.")
posted by nebulawindphone at 3:55 AM on June 2 [mark as best answer] [+] [!]
This is correct. Sorry for the confusion. Lucky for me, unlike my mefi posts, I can edit the movie!

Abiezer...giving them a voice would work if they weren't all from the same village in the film. I've done that on some past projects. They're actually, all, already speaking pretty heavy Shandong hick. I can do some play with the two families at the center of the story, but the secondary characters, who aren't given the screentime to merit a voice, are the ones I worry most about.
posted by saysthis at 12:49 PM on June 1

Ack, clarification time.

Yeah, I watched the movie. I mean I'm ten minutes into the subtitle translation. I did, in fact, watch the movie. It's written such that the names of most characters aren't important. Everyone's role is pretty clear - either they're related to the two central families, or they're part of the setting. It's the second type I'm worried about.

I'm wondering if there's any guides or somesuch that you all know about, or even just preferences for name translations when watching translations from East Asian cultures. That's what I'm most in need of.
posted by saysthis at 12:52 PM on June 1

And Abiezer, yes, it's fiction. Nothing anthropological here.
posted by saysthis at 12:53 PM on June 1

My bad - by "voice" there I meant something suited to their personality as opposed to the regional accent etc. By which I mean, some people come over as "Mr Cheeky Chappy," "Misery Guts" or whatever and you find something that fits, but as I said, with the key making them sound natural in English (unless of course they were speaking in stilted Chinese, like reading some policy announcement at a meeting).
Maybe have to be a case-by case approach? Establish epithets for those central characters who have them used regularly (I realise different people call different people different things depending on age and familial relationships; that could be done fine if it's say, grandson to his grandma, sisters-in-law etc) and drop it all or use names if they're incidental references? Or is close-knit community a big theme?
posted by Abiezer at 12:57 PM on June 1

It's written such that the names of most characters aren't important. Everyone's role is pretty clear - either they're related to the two central families, or they're part of the setting. It's the second type I'm worried about.
Yahey, cross-posting!
That sounds like a case for doing throwaway stuff like "Cousin Li" and not worrying to much if it doesn't stick in the audience's mind, if the main impression you want to give is a community linked by ties of friendship and kinship.
posted by Abiezer at 1:00 PM on June 1

I know very little about Chinese or the art of translation. But I wonder if, rather than translating the epithet into English, you could use the English transliteration as if it were that person's name? Like, subtitle "大娘(big maiden)" as if the person's name were Da Niang.
posted by jillsy_sloper at 1:30 PM on June 1

I would give them names and probably add a preface screen explaining, as briefly as possible, that the names were added to stand-in for the Chinese honorifics that don't translate well.
posted by chairface at 1:35 PM on June 1

But I wonder if, rather than translating the epithet into English, you could use the English transliteration as if it were that person's name?

I think that would freak out the Chinese-speakers who were watching the film, and even people like me who don't speak Chinese but who know a few words--if I saw subtitles that indicated that someone's name was "Jie Jie", for instance, I'd be all ?!?!?1?!?. The idea of assigning actual regional/class/era-appropriate first names to characters works much better in my mind.
posted by Sidhedevil at 2:04 PM on June 1

I see your point. I guess I thought it would be like an American who has a Tio, Opa, Yiayia, or Bubbeh. But you're right, it would be weird if my mom called her brother Tio to his face.
posted by jillsy_sloper at 2:28 PM on June 1

I think you can get by with simplifying the relationship honorifics down to Brother/Sister for people (non-related) close to the speaker's own age, Uncle/Auntie for anyone a generation older, and Grandpa/Granny for anyone more elderly. Maybe something like Missy for younger 娘-types who aren't part of the central families. "Big Auntie Jiang", for example.

(All my parents' Chinese friends, and any older relatives whose places on the family tree I can't remember, are Uncles and Aunties to me in both Chinese and English. But their children don't get called Brother/Sister because in this day and age that's just weird.)
posted by casarkos at 3:59 PM on June 1

Actually, I agree with jilsy_sloper. I would just use the pinyin for the honorifics as their "nicknames". I have a friend who speaks English with her sister, but call each other by the honorifics in Chinese - mind you a diminutive Anglicized version of them. I find it a lot less awkward than having the characters say "Older Sister", which is just not part of the English language. Borrowing words from other languages to express a concept that is found in the culture of the original language is very common in English.
posted by waterandrock at 4:38 PM on June 1

Surely the best way to find out the conventions for this stuff would be to watch other subtitled Chinese movies along these lines? (For example, other movies subtitled by whoever's hiring you to do this, or just general classics that you admire.)

For Japanese, incidentally, there are no universal conventions -- it all comes down to the translator and/or their instructions. Works being marketed for cultural authenticity or whatever will sometimes just use "Sister", "Uncle", etc. throughout the whole film. It's unusual from an English standpoint, but it makes some audience members feel like they're getting a more authentic representation of Japanese culture. Works being marketed as young and hip, where the audiences mostly won't have hang-ups about authenticity of language, might work around it by replacing such terms with names, English near-equivalents like "pops" or "kid", or just eliding them entirely (if it's part of a whole sentence and this can be done). I would imagine that this holds for Chinese too, and all other languages... it all comes down to how you (or "the author", or "the person hiring you" etc.) want these subtitles to be received by the audience.
posted by No-sword at 5:02 PM on June 1 [1 favorite]

> That sounds like a case for doing throwaway stuff like "Cousin Li" and not worrying to much if it doesn't stick in the audience's mind, if the main impression you want to give is a community linked by ties of friendship and kinship.

This sounds good to me.

'hat, I think that saysthis meant "The honorifics in the film are intimate and informal, so I don't want to translate them as the more formal 'ma'am' and 'sir'."

D'oh!
posted by languagehat at 5:26 PM on June 1

Give them names. That's what the best English translations of Korean films do, where there's a similar issue. Anyone who knows Chinese will understand why you chose to do so.

By the way, I know you're asking for standards to follow, but there aren't any. Translations of Asian movies/TV shows are notoriously uneven, quality-wise.
posted by smorange at 6:38 PM on June 1

"Standards"...just ideas, mostly!

Give them names...you know, once I'm through the first draft, I'll go back and redo a draft and try that out. It might work.
posted by saysthis at 7:19 PM on June 1