Double posting because this statement on translation is SO TRUE.

[barbosa2007]

For the people on my F-list who translate actively or do some sort of internal translation whenever you're watching a foreign show, here's what professional translators Ian MacDougall and David Nist had to say:

In translation, the destination language will always require more words than the source language

• This might be old news to professional translators, but this concept hit like a bolt of lightning when they said it. A society will naturally shape their language to make common topics efficient to communicate. So, when these words go into another language, they will require greater verbiage to fill in the context built into the source society’s language.

• An example of how this breaks down is a word like ‘Yoroshiku’. This one word in Japanese becomes oppressively dense in English: I will be kind to you and am requesting that you also be kind to me so we can interact successfully.

If you want to create media, ingest media

• Those planning to work in film need to watch heaps of films.


• Those planning to write, be it scripts or subtitles, need to be constantly reading.

source: The Metropolis

Okay, I've got a plan because nekobot01, my personal librarian, has recommended this lovely book, which I plan to devour this weekend. Good luck, me!