Onomatopoeia
- Thread starter FoxxieFox
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Not_A_Symphony
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I read this one the other day and I was surprised since I never "heard" it before:
umu
What does it mean? No clue.
Lord_Drakonus
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Pretty sure that's the sound that masculine old dudes in anime make.
Agentt
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It means indeed
The_3rd_Book
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Its basically the "hmm" old anime grand Master like people do
Not_A_Symphony
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It means sounds as words like hmm and bang.
HURGMCGURG
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Favorite onomatopoeia is Ptew, the sound of spitting.
BackWoodsJ_ACK
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As soon as I saw the word 'glock' the POP-POP instantly became the Fivio Foreign 'GLLLT' sound in my head.I punch ops Like POWWWW!
duck the POP-POP of my Glock, TICK-TOCK of my clock!
Only rappers, Japanese, and ME, use onomatopoeia so frequently.
K5Rakitan
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That's like the sound my baby makes when he's really enjoying his milk.
AliceShiki
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I don't like them much tbh... I can understand their appeal in comics, but they just don't fit well with novels IMO.
Some of the novels I translated actually had onomatopoeia in them... I always got rid of them all during the translation process.
Some of the novels I translated actually had onomatopoeia in them... I always got rid of them all during the translation process.
Onomatopoeia are very useful for visceral sounds, but I feel like certain sounds that exceed the human hearing threshold, such as gunshots and car crashes, should be described as opposed to having an onomatopoeia associated with them. For example I used "KHEEHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH" as a sound effect for deep and sharp inhaling, modeled after the sounds that I have heard and then putting syllables to it the best I could. I think that for certain other actions, such as say snapping a neck, describing the physical sensation is more effective, as it's kind of hard to explain vertebrae separation through sound as a lot of the sound you hear is that which is conducted through the bone say in the chest cavity, so you hear it less than you feel it. Overall, though, onomatopoeia are very useful if used appropriately and add a greater sense of depth to certain scenes. Hope this helps!
D
Deleted member 49654
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Exactly. In Japanese novels you can see them often. It is quite annoying, hard to translate, and unpleasant to read.
D
Deleted member 45782
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Beat me to it. Was thinking about share onomatopoeia/alliteration threads.
I think sometimes its good as long as one doesn't overdo it. Sometimes the sounds are important in writing. Like a big bang and it made the character suddenly alert it was a gun shot or some monster banging on the door trying to get in. sorta hard for me to write onomatopoeia since i don't think im great at describing sounds and stuff, but so far don't do much of that anyways.
I think sometimes its good as long as one doesn't overdo it. Sometimes the sounds are important in writing. Like a big bang and it made the character suddenly alert it was a gun shot or some monster banging on the door trying to get in. sorta hard for me to write onomatopoeia since i don't think im great at describing sounds and stuff, but so far don't do much of that anyways.
JayDirex
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Whut! throws up Brooklyn Gang signs (even though Im in the Bronx)
Fivio, movin devious!
AliceShiki
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It's not hard to translate usually tbh...
"My heart beat with a doki doki" -> My heart started beating faster.
"The thunderbird made an electric current with a zap" -> The thunderbird made an electric current.
Often times it's this easy... I remember one time that there were some slightly harder ones, but it was like... A sudden onomatopoeia that kinda signalized that the room went silent and everyone started paying attention to the two relevant people talking... I just changed that to "The room went silent."
It really isn't too hard to translate on most occasions.
D
Deleted member 49654
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I don't enjoy excluding information. It is easy to paraphrase it, but it isn't easy to not deviate from the original. If you translate, you need to keep the work's original taste and quirks. If the author wrote in such a simple and naive manner as your examples, then you gotta keep it that way.
AliceShiki
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Eh? You do you I guess?
I translate in a way that will feel comfortable for the readers to read. And that means making changes.
I have already done stuff like merging 3 paragraphs in one, excluded tons of shouting, added speech markers when there were none, removed honorofics entirely... Getting rid of onomatopoeias is just another change to the list, and not a particularly big one IMO.
When I started translating, I kept all honorifics, kept the same sentence structure and word choices the author made, added tons of footnotes for every small thingie that I made a slight change from... Those things just made the translation clunky.
I just think I got better by allowing myself more freedom on how to translate.