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Yea! They add so much!

13 (43.3%)

Nay! They detract from the work!

17 (56.7%)

Total Members Voted: 30

[i2amroy]

Explicitly declaring things like that in your language actually goes a long way towards making the language more rigorous and less dependent upon non-transliterated things along with all of the benefits of that (such as less likely to be misunderstood, etc.). Japanese actually does this a lot, for their stuff. For example in spoken English the way that you determine a question is all based around the speakers tone of voice, which leads to cases where if a person is deadpan enough it can be difficult to tell if they are making a statement or asking a question. On the other hand Japanese has particles (か "ka" and も "mo") that explicitly designate something as a question, removing that ambiguity. In the same way the honorifics work to eliminate ambiguity in the way people are talking, or the relative positions of a transliterated conversation. If you read one of the characters speak to another with a specific honorific, then you know for certain the relative positions of the two in the work (or at least what that particular one of them thinks the relative positions are), information that you would otherwise need to assume and guess at without them.

Personally in subbed works I don't find it that big of an issue, because you can literally here the character using the honorific. In dubs and and written works I tend to align much with RedKing. Drop them if there is a good English equivalent such as "professor" or something similar. However there are plenty of times where there isn't a good English equivalent, and I'd much rather have them there then have some bit of English press-ganged into serving to connotate something that it was never really meant to (I've seen more than one show that falls back on using a nickname in place of stuff and ends up with some really weird sections due to lost connotations). In short, don't use 'em if you can get away with it, but consider the entire context of what you are replacing and if necessary, leave them in.

[SirQuiamus]

translations are for weebs

lrn 2 moon you scrubs

[RedKing]

I hadn't thought about it before, but the prevalence of particles in Japanese is sort of an anomaly, because Japanese *is* an inflected language like English (i.e. the voice goes up at the end of a question, goes down slightly at the end of a statement, goes down a lot if you're making a declaration, etc.)

But so much of Japanese grammar is derived from Chinese, which is a tonal language and needs particles ("ma" to denote a question, etc.) because pitch inflection changes the actual meaning of words and emotion is expressed primarily through choice of vocabulary and sheer volume.

[Teneb]

That I didn't suddenly have foreign words shoved in my face helped in the immersion.

On this topic, I wonder why in various pieces of fiction/media foreign characters keep throwing terms in their native language around liberally. Should I start swapping words for their portuguese equivalents at random?

[Levi]

That I didn't suddenly have foreign words shoved in my face helped in the immersion.

On this topic, I wonder why in various pieces of fiction/media foreign characters keep throwing terms in their native language around liberally. Should I start swapping words for their portuguese equivalents at random?

Yes you should.  I do it all the time hoser.

[Loud Whispers]

Yes, blanda up the cultural enrichment, English needs to absorb more foreign words like the grand assimilating horror it is, surrender your Portuguese lexicon to the universal language

That and sometimes foreign words can really be used sexily in media (metaphorically, though I suppose literally as well) to get people thinking, to introduce words for as of yet undefined concepts or to ground characters in a more believable representation to sit in your 'oosh

[Flying Dice]

Re: the original question taken more broadly:

Can the concept be translated more-or-less accurately and use as much or less time than the original text? If the answer is no, leave it. I'd argue that honorifics don't parse directly in all cases, but can in some (basically places where there's an English title and context which matches).

[Teneb]

Yes, blanda up the cultural enrichment, English needs to absorb more foreign words like the grand assimilating horror it is, surrender your Portuguese lexicon to the universal language

Is English so desperate that it would apelar to robbery to culturally enrich itself? Truly the end times.

[Tack]

I dunno, I find english's language approximation nanika exciting.
It's that little idea in the back of my mind that one day everyone will speak English because it'll basically be every language.

[Loud Whispers]

Yes, blanda up the cultural enrichment, English needs to absorb more foreign words like the grand assimilating horror it is, surrender your Portuguese lexicon to the universal language

Is English so desperate that it would apelar to robbery to culturally enrich itself? Truly the end times.

Not desperate

Inevitable

[SirQuiamus]

I have no recollection of making this post, so I should probably remove it.

[Bohandas]

ptw

[Cruxador]

It depends.

For subs where you hear what's actually being said, leave it out. In things like LN translations, that are mostly for weebs who know all about that stuff anyway, and there's no other good way of conveying that detail, keep it in. At least, if it's important to the story or the situation and it's an honorific without clear equivalent.

On this topic, I wonder why in various pieces of fiction/media foreign characters keep throwing terms in their native language around liberally. Should I start swapping words for their portuguese equivalents at random?

It's a hallmark of pleb-directed writing. It's so you remember that this person is a stereotype, not some bland personality-less place-filler.

Is English so desperate that it would apelar to robbery to culturally enrich itself? Truly the end times.

The top 1% of languages contain 20% of the vovabulary.

I have no recollection of making this post, so I should probably remove it.

If that was how all aspects of life worked, it would suck even more for people whose parents get Alzheimer's.