Differences between Movie Captions and Direct Translation; a study of
“Spider-Man 2” and “Spirited away”
BY
Shiho Mizuta
A SHORT PAPER
IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF
THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE COURSE OF
SEMINAR 1 (World Englishes)
Kumamoto Gakuen University Foreign Language Department
English Course
SUPERVISOR: Judy Yoneoka
Kumamoto Gakuen University
Oe 2-5-1 Kumamoto
Japan
January 31
This paper consists of approximately 1540 words
Abstract
Captions in movies are different from direct translation of the spoken dialogue.
There are a lot of expressions and rules for making captions. Besides, there are many
devices to help people enjoy foreign movies. This paper will review the differences
between captions and translation, and analyze some examples of both from the
movies “Spider-Man 2” and “Spirited away.”
Outline
1. Introduction
2. Features of captions and information
3. Comparing captions from English to Japanese; Examples from
“Spider-Man 2”
4. Comparing captions from Japanese to English; Examples from
“Spirited away”
5. Conclusion
1. Introduction
When Japanese people watch movies, sometimes they notice some differences
between English and the Japanese captions. Why has the translator changed the
dialogue and use other words? What rules are there for creating captions? To answer
these questions, this paper will explains some rules for picking up some examples
from movies.
2. Features of captions
This section introduces some rules for movie captions. These rules are important when
translators make captions.
1. For each second of English dialogue, translators have to use 2-3 Japanese characters.
2. Besides, each line can have only 10 characters.
3. Movies should start with short captions because people become accustomed to
reading captions gradually.
4. If a difficult Chinese character has to be used 2, 3 letters must be cut from the
caption because Chinese characters take more time to read.
5. A translator has to be careful to use honorific words, and male and female words.
6. The timing of captions must also be matched with the spoken lines.
7. Translators must be careful of using the same words, for example, basket (ball) and
(lunch) basket.
8. Translators should be careful in their choice of sentence termination words. For
example, だ,ぞ,よ,わ,ね etc. This is because in Japanese, females will usually use
よ,わ,ね but men will use だ,ぞ.
(Toda 1994 :119-197)
There are many rules so it’s not easy to translate a movie.
3. Some examples from movies
First, this paper will examine some examples of English to Japanese captions
from “Spider-Man 2” directed by Sam Raimi, 2004 from the view of these 8 rules. This
scene was about the character MJ’s play. Peter and MJ are talking.
Peter: I’m coming to see your play tomorrow night. (明日君の舞台を見に行く)
MJ: You’re coming? (ほんと？)
Peter: I’ll be there. (きっと行く)
MJ: Don’t disappoint me. (かならずよ)
Peter: I won’t. (きっとだ)
If this conversation were translated directly, it would be different from those
captions. MJ said “Don’t disappoint me,” which means がっかりさせないで(9
characters in Japanese but she spoke quickly so the caption had to be short. However,
がっかりさせないで wasn’t be shorter in Japanese so translator chose かならずよ(5
characters) which was different mean. Also, Peter said “I won’t,” which means がっかり
させないよ, which would translate させないよ, but translator changed last characters
(かならずよ). “I won’t” was answering “Don’t disappoint me” so it had to be changed
to answer かならずよ and it had to be shortened to きっとだ, only 4 characters. This
is from Toda’s rules 1+2. Besides, the translator had to be careful of the ending
characters よ, だ because of Toda’s rule 8.
In the next scene, Dr. Otto Octavius talks to himself about his research.
The real crime would be not to finish what we started (完成させない方が犯罪だ)
If this sentence were translated directly, it would become, 真の犯罪はこの実験
(what we started)をやめてしまうことだ. However, this is too long to finish reading and
watch the movie at the same time. This is from Toda’s rule 1+2.
Here is another example.
“I counted on you to have the courage” (わしはおまえを信じてきた)
“to take those dreams out into the world.” (きっとその夢を実現してくれるだろ
う) (この世界で)
At first, it should be short so “courage” was skipped because of Toda’s rule 1+2.
Next, the natural Japanese word order of the caption was inverted from この世界できっ
とその夢を実現してくれるだろう to きっとその夢を実現してくれるだろう and この世界
で.
This is because in this case, it was better to know この世界で after きっとその夢を実現
してくれるだろう because the rhythm is very important. This is from Toda’s rule 6.
Besides, Japanese can listen to “the world” when they read この世界で. It is good for
Japanese to match the word they listen to and movie captions. This gives Japanese
identification between actor’s lines and movie captions.
This next scene takes place in Peter’s mind. He gave up a lot of things because
he is spider-man. Everybody needs spider-man so he doesn’t have his own time. He
thinks to retire from helping people as spider-man.
“I’m Spider-man…no more. (もうスパイダーマンじゃない) no more”(もう
イヤだ)
First, English and Japanese have different sentence patterns. In this scene, “I’m
Spider-man,” is an affirmative sentence, and “no more,” is negative sentence. People
who speak English can enjoy the difference of time between “I’m Spider-man,” and “no
more.” However, Japanese people notice this sentence is a negative sentence at once.
This is from Toda’s rule 6. He repeated “no more,” again as emphasis. In Japanese, it’s
difficult to translate shortly only two words, “no more,” so this was changed.
3. Comparing captions from Japanese to English
Next, this paper will examine Japanese translated into English captions “Spirited
Away”(千と千尋の神隠し) directed by Hayao Miyazaki, 2002 from Studio Ghibli.1
The
character Chihiro worked at a bathhouse. Her boss named Yubaba robbed Chihiro of
part of her name. This is the scene.
湯婆婆：千尋っていうのかい( You are Chihiro huh?)
ふん、贅沢な名だね(What an extravagant name)
今からお前の名は千だ(From now on, you’ll be Sen)
This is difficult to translate into English because Sen is a part of the Chinese
character of her name but people who speak English don’t know that the Chinese
1
http://www.alc.co.jp/eng/eiga/jimaku/jimaku38a.html
character has two readings “sen” and “chi”. In the English caption, it only says she
changed her name, so here we can say something is lost in translation.
The translation of this next scene is very interesting. Chihiro was working at the
bathhouse, and a visitor who was very stinky came there. Yubaba talked to the visitor
and Chihiro.
湯婆婆:よくおこひくだはいましたぁ(Welggum to our buzzs)
(千に)何してるんだい 早くご案内しな(Zhow him de bazz)2
The visitor was very stinky so Yubaba couldn’t speak well because he smelled so
bad. “Welggum to our buzzs. Zhow him de bazz.” Means, “Welcome to our baths. Show
him the bath.” We can enjoy not only hearing this but also reading it.
4. Conclusions
There are a lot of differences between captions and translations. Watching a
movie in captions is very tiresome because we have to continue reading about two hours.
Besides, some words and meanings are skipped. There are many problems, for example
jokes are difficult to translate in comedy. However, voices of actors or actresses are part
of their performances. Captions can enrich the experience.
Translators want viewers to enjoy each movie so there are many ideas. You
2
http://www.alc.co.jp/eng/eiga/jimaku/jimaku38a.html
should try to notice differences between captions and translations when you watch a
movie. It’ll be another way to enjoy a movie.
Bibliography
Toda, Natsuko (1994) Jimaku no naka ni jinnsei (Life in captions,
in Japanese). Tokyo: Hakusui-sha.
Toda, Natsuko. and Tsukamoto, Hiroshi. (1995) Bimyou na Nuance wo
Sukuitotte Hyougen shitaihe (How to pick up delicate nuances and
express them, in Japanese). Tokyo: Tsusan-journal.
Toda, Natsuko. and Koishihara, Akira.(2001) Eiga no Tanoshimi
(Pleasure of movies, in Japanese). Tokyo: Zaikai.
SPACE ALC http://www.alc.co.jp/eng/eiga/jimaku/jimaku38ahtml(12/2004)
日
本
語
字
幕
(Japanese
Captions,
in
Japanese)
available
http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%97%A5%E6%9C%AC%E8%AA%9E%E5%AD%9
7%E5%B9%95(12/2004)
Miyazaki, Hayao (director) Sen to Chihiro no kamikakushi (Spirited away) (2002)
produced by Studio Ghibli / Disney.
Raimi, Sam (director) Spider-man 2, (2004) produced by Marvel Enterprises, etc.