Like manga, I hate it when they, for example, transliterate さん as -san, when there is an “equivalent” word for it, like Mr. but would it carry the same connotation as the source material? I cringe when I buy translated versions of Japanese literature due to this (which is why I stick to the source material), it just… does not sit well, I mean instead of writing -sensei, -senpai, or -sama there are “equivalents” in English for those but the catch is that would it work well upon translation?
I’m fine with keeping honorifics, especially when a change in honorific use is a notable part of the story (such as when characters become closer and start referring to each other more casually) or when characters have lines like “drop the -san.” Those things don’t work very well when translated directly to English because they rely heavily on a cultural aspect that doesn’t really exist in English.
I’ve noticed a lot in games and anime where the feeling that I get from hearing how a character is referred to and the feeling I get from reading how it was translated are two very different feelings. Sometimes they’ll remove honorifics altogether and you lose out on that information about their relationship. Sometimes they try to “translate” the honorifics and instead give a completely different impression of the characters and their relationships.
I think the most important thing in a translation is preserving the intended meaning… not of the words themselves but what those words are actually trying to convey. If you can do that with English equivalents? Great! If not, I’d rather the book require more cultural knowledge to understand than insist on scrubbing out anything that can’t be translated directly.
Usually when relationships change there a lot more things that change than just how they refer to each other. For example using a different pronoun for yourself, using the more casual version of verbs and so on. It’s just that the honorific suffixes are easy to notice for someone who doesn’t know the language. The problem is just that in english there is not much of a difference in how people talk depending on who they talk to, but a good translator might be able to reflect that change without relying on just leaving things untranslated.
Some are very difficult. In any romantic setting dropping the honorifics would be a huge deal because it implies a very intimate register, and it’s basically impossible to replicate if you don’t use them to start with.
Some yea, but idk one could just use the lastname in the tl before and after that the firstname which would be similiar. Honestly it has been so long since I last read anything that was translated from JP -> EN that I have no idea how stuff is translated lately. I’m not interested in checking how there are either. I’d rather read something new in jp.