Last night we went to see Howl's Moving Castle. In Austin, one theater played the Japanese-language subtitled version. In most of America, if you can see it in a theater at all, you'll see the English-dubbed version.
I knew going in that the basis for the story was English, based on Diana Wynne Jones's book of the same name. So I was puzzled by the subtitling of one of the character's names: Markl. I dismissed it as one of those fantasy genre inventions.
Today I discover that in the book the character is named Michael. I typed Michael into WordLookup and it gave me the katakana rendering マイケル [ma i ke ru]. Mark has a couple of variations: マルク [ma ru ku] or マーク [mah ku]. So am I right in supposing that whoever did the subtitling mistranslated [maikeru] as Markl, instead of recognizing it as Michael?
This annoys me as much as people who write "The Ring, or Ringu as it is known in Japan."
I shall console myself by babelizing some phrases with Carl Tashian's Lost in Translation. For example...
Original English Text:
Howl's Moving Castle was fun.
Translated to Japanese:
喚き声の移動城は楽しみだった。
Translated back to English:
The portable castle of screaming voice was the pleasure.
I do have a sense of humor about this. I do. I do.
Posted by M Sinclair Stevens
June 25, 2005
Comments
It's amazing how often katakana trips me up. It's offered early on as a godsend, because presumably we know most of the words, but not only can I not understand them much of the time, I often find them much harder to pronounce than native Japanese words.
Comment by: Matt. Posted June 28, 2005 10:27 AM.
I've had the hardest time with Katakana, I've almost got all of the Hiragana, I have about 9 left to work on, not including the combination characters. I've spent all of my time on Kanji, I barely know all of the first grade, with a few readings each. Katakana is the worst! It scares me! I agree with Matt, It's hard to know exactly what they mean without some insight. I've fond that listening to Japanese singers' songs in English helps a bit, because the way that they say things, is still with the syllabry. Coinsdiering that I only listen to Japanese music anymore... It's gotten me a little closer to understanding with their trying to say.
Hope this helps, it's getting lengthy, I'm done now! Ja ne minna!
Comment by: Angie. Posted June 19, 2006 10:40 AM.
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The portable castle of screaming voice was pleasurable.