Mixed tenses in Japanese novels

[Shoemilk]

I'm not really good enough with Japanese to read the language. Speaking Japanese and reading Japanese are two different creatures entirely, it is literally the #1 most complex written language in the entire world. (They literally have kanji tests to verify whether or not a person knows how to read and write kanji at various levels. These tests are meant for adults, not school children. There are 12 levels, and the overwhelming majority of the population has trouble passing level 2. (A fair number have trouble passing level 1.))

I have glanced at some stuff in the original Japanese though. I have seen square brackets used in various places in manners that seemed to suggest a similar function to quotation marks, but I did not see them in all cases. It's hard for me to say much on the subject. I would suggest asking someone who knows better than I do.

Dialogue in Japanese literature is offset by 「dialogue goes here」. They also have grammatical constructs that you generally only find in writing. As I learned Japanese and the constructs, I would try to use them and people would tell me I sound like a book. Off the top of my head, I can't remember if they italicize inner monologue in books as I've not read a Japanese novel in years. (It takes me too long to read it and I get bored).
EDIT: I just asked my Japanese coworker if inner monologue is italicized and she said no, it's just there in the text body, maybe having its own paragraph

The Japanese have proficiency tests for pretty much anything and everything. the Kanji kentei is not just for adults. The first level (level 10) covers all the kanji learned in the first grade. Level 9 is the second grade and so on and so forth. As high school is not required in Japan, anything higher than Level 3 will have a real drop off (already you get iffy at 4 and 5). If you are interested, here is the passing rate for the 2020 test: https://www.kanken.or.jp/kanken/investigation/result/2020_1.html

As you can see, there's a real drop after elementary school levels and not many took Pre 1 or Level 1. Generally, people who can take that are considered a bit out there (You only need to know about 2k characters in order to read books or the newspaper, so the 6k that Level 1 covers is extreme. Think of it like the spellingbee on ESPN, no one knows those words).

 

[RaidenInfinity]

The inner monologue tag does exist in Japanese and Chinese writing. It's the full-width parenthesis (This ->（）). Whether the author knows how to use it or not is another issue though... (Disclaimer: I can read and write Chinese but only read a little Japanese which only helps in self-MTL-reading stuff.)

Also, it'll be better if OP give examples: original text and translated text to compare. In my opinion, mixed tense is just plain bad translation. Oh, and for fuck's sake, those people who mix even POV like some chapters of "Hellmode ~A Hardcore Gamer Becomes Peerless in Another World with Retro Game Settings~" JP web novel translations where at first it's FPV then suddenly change to TPV then the next sentence back to FPV, go fuck yourselves and never translate anything again, thank you very much.

 

[BlackKnightX]

The inner monologue tag does exist in Japanese and Chinese writing. It's the full-width parenthesis (This ->（）). Whether the author knows how to use it or not is another issue though... (Disclaimer: I can read and write Chinese but only read a little Japanese which only helps in self-MTL-reading stuff.)

Also, it'll be better if OP give examples: original text and translated text to compare. In my opinion, mixed tense is just plain bad translation. Oh, and for fuck's sake, those people who mix even POV like some chapters of "Hellmode ~A Hardcore Gamer Becomes Peerless in Another World with Retro Game Settings~" JP web novel translations where at first it's FPV then suddenly change to TPV then the next sentence back to FPV, go fuck yourselves and never translate anything again, thank you very much.

I can feel the passion in your voice~

 

[RaidenInfinity]

I can feel the passion in your voice~

Well, I do understand why the translators of that particular story make that mistake. It's because the author omits subject a lot in their writings (because Japanese grammar allows that) so the lowly translators, when noticing the lack of the subject in the sentence, slaps an "I" there as the subject even though the entire chapter should be TPV as there's sentences which clearly state the character's name (example: Allen did something.). You know what? MTL does this a lot so I suspect that they use google translate then try to "fix the grammar".

And then about tenses. Well, in both Chinese and Japanese, turning a sentence into past tense is just adding/changing some particles in the sentence. For Chinese, it's the past tense particle 了(le), while in Japanese, you'll notice that the sentences often end with た(ta) or だ(da). But you know, unlike in English where almost everything needs to be changed to past tense form, in CN/JP you usually just need to put the past tense particle on sentences that have action. Now what will happen? The bad translators see that, oh, this sentence isn't marked with past tense particle, alright, present tense then (when in fact it should carry the nuance of the previous sentence and should be past tense)! And knowing this makes mixed tenses in the same sentence even more absurd.

 

[BlackKnightX]

Well, I do understand why the translators of that particular story make that mistake. It's because the author omits subject a lot in their writings (because Japanese grammar allows that) so the lowly translators, when noticing the lack of the subject in the sentence, slaps an "I" there as the subject even though the entire chapter should be TPV as there's sentences which clearly state the character's name (example: Allen did something.). You know what? MTL too does this a lot so I suspect that they use google translate then try to "fix the grammar".

And then about tenses. Well, in both Chinese and Japanese, turning a sentence into past tense is just adding/changing some particles in the sentence. For Chinese, it's the past tense particle 了(le), while in Japanese, you'll notice that the sentences often end with た(ta) or だ(da). But you know, unlike in English where almost everything needs to be changed to past tense form, in CN/JP you usually just need to put the past tense particle on sentences that have action. Now what will happen? The bad translators see that, oh, this sentence isn't marked with past tense, alright, present tense then (when in fact it should carry the nuance of the previous sentence and should be past tense)! And knowing this makes mixed tenses in the same sentence even more absurd.

I can’t read Japanese, but there was one time that I tried to read it with google translation. And boy why was I not surprised, the subjects were all messed up, to the point that I didn’t even know who doing what.