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 Posted: Wed Jul 23, 2014 4:53 pm
Alright, so I've been reading a lot of fanfictions the past few weeks (thanks to SasuSaku Month), and I have to be straight up honest: When people mix English and another language. And I'm talking about the crap where they just throw random words such as "kawaii" or "Gomen" or "teme". I don't know. I just don't like how they try to switch between English and another language. Yes, I do understand that this technically takes place in Japan... but switching languages is just annoying & sometimes I don't even know what they mean. On top of that. It's stories who don't know the time frame. If the story is taking place in a village, for god's sake, why are they wearing designer clothes & going to starbucks?! I just don't get it.
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Posted: Wed Jul 23, 2014 5:05 pm
Sinnto Alright, so I've been reading a lot of fanfictions the past few weeks (thanks to SasuSaku Month), and I have to be straight up honest: When people mix English and another language. And I'm talking about the crap where they just throw random words such as "kawaii" or "Gomen" or "teme". I don't know. I just don't like how they try to switch between English and another language. Yes, I do understand that this technically takes place in Japan... but switching languages is just annoying & sometimes I don't even know what they mean. On top of that. It's stories who don't know the time frame. If the story is taking place in a village, for god's sake, why are they wearing designer clothes & going to starbucks?! I just don't get it.Oh my gosh... I actually groaned aloud when I read this. I've read my fair share of stories that randomly throw in words in different languages (e.g., a story where the author used words like "kawaii" in the Harry Potter universe and none of the author's characters were Japanese) but what always kills me is when the author seems to forget the setting of their story. I can understand minor slips where the author uses slang that wasn't in use during the time period that the story takes place but... Starbucks in a village? emotion_facepalm
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Violent Crow Vice Captain
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Posted: Wed Jul 23, 2014 5:15 pm
Violent Crow Oh my gosh... I actually groaned aloud when I read this. I've read my fair share of stories that randomly throw in words in different languages (e.g., a story where the author used words like "kawaii" in the Harry Potter universe and none of the author's characters were Japanese) but what always kills me is when the author seems to forget the setting of their story. I can understand minor slips where the author uses slang that wasn't in use during the time period that the story takes place but... Starbucks in a village? emotion_facepalm Glad to know I'm not the only one. I swear, I was going to choke a llama earlier today from reading it. dramallama Usually I'm okay with small mistakes here and there. But how do you totally lose a setting? That's like a HUGE part of the story. emotion_0A0 And honestly, if I read "kawaii" in a Harry Potter series (or any non-Japanese series), I immediately become disinterest in the story. I'm not asking the author to do a full on background check/create an elaborate setting or anything. It's just that any character in Harry Potter, unless they created an OC transfer student from JP, it is completely OOC. Slangs are fine with me if they are not excessive. I understand people grow up in different cultures and background. How they are taught the written language is different. But if they read the books/watch the animes, etc. they should have a firm sense of the style of speech the characters have to not go obscenely far from their style of talking.
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Posted: Wed Jul 23, 2014 6:37 pm
Sinnto Glad to know I'm not the only one. I swear, I was going to choke a llama earlier today from reading it. dramallama Usually I'm okay with small mistakes here and there. But how do you totally lose a setting? That's like a HUGE part of the story. emotion_0A0 And honestly, if I read "kawaii" in a Harry Potter series (or any non-Japanese series), I immediately become disinterest in the story. I'm not asking the author to do a full on background check/create an elaborate setting or anything. It's just that any character in Harry Potter, unless they created an OC transfer student from JP, it is completely OOC. Slangs are fine with me if they are not excessive. I understand people grow up in different cultures and background. How they are taught the written language is different. But if they read the books/watch the animes, etc. they should have a firm sense of the style of speech the characters have to not go obscenely far from their style of talking. I have seen all manner of completely screwed up dialogue for canon characters before. Let's say there's a pirate character that says "yoho" or whatever every now and then. Some authors either totally ignore the speech pattern or they use and abuse it like crazy with "yoho" at the end of every other damn sentence to the point that I want to throw my laptop across the room. Like if you're into YuYu Hakusho, there was a time where nearly every author put "hn" at the end of the character Hiei's dialogue. Every time. Without fail. He didn't even say it that often in the anime/manga! He only used it to dismiss someone who irritated him! Ugh, anyway... In regards to slang, like I said I'm pretty forgiving of it. However, if it's used by a character that would never use it in canon then that's a problem. Unless the author explicitly states that the fic is AU or indicates somewhere that a character is going to be OOC, there's no excuse for ripping apart a canon character's speech "just because." I dunno. When the speech patterns and little quirks in said patterns are completely disregarded by an author, that really annoys me.
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Violent Crow Vice Captain
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Posted: Wed Jul 23, 2014 6:43 pm
Violent Crow I have seen all manner of completely screwed up dialogue for canon characters before. Let's say there's a pirate character that says "yoho" or whatever every now and then. Some authors either totally ignore the speech pattern or they use and abuse it like crazy with "yoho" at the end of every other damn sentence to the point that I want to throw my laptop across the room. Like if you're into YuYu Hakusho, there was a time where nearly every author put "hn" at the end of the character Hiei's dialogue. Every time. Without fail. He didn't even say it that often in the anime/manga! He only used it to dismiss someone who irritated him! Ugh, anyway... In regards to slang, like I said I'm pretty forgiving of it. However, if it's used by a character that would never use it in canon then that's a problem. Unless the author explicitly states that the fic is AU or indicates somewhere that a character is going to be OOC, there's no excuse for ripping apart a canon character's speech "just because." I dunno. When the speech patterns and little quirks in said patterns are completely disregarded by an author, that really annoys me. LOL. I personally think that the usage of "hn" is when the author (this includes myself but for Naruto, not YuYu Hakusho) doesn't know what the character should say? While I wouldn't say I abuse it, I wouldn't say I don't use it sparingly. Or maybe it's because I feel like it's Sasuke's personality more. Exactly! To be honest, one of the things that annoy me is when people write FFs where it's completely AU and the characters are pretty much all OOC. When I read things like this, I question why. I think they can just write an original story out of it... I see no point in killing the characters to make it into something you want because you can just write your own original story ._.
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Posted: Wed Jul 23, 2014 7:25 pm
Sinnto Alright, so I've been reading a lot of fanfictions the past few weeks (thanks to SasuSaku Month), and I have to be straight up honest: When people mix English and another language. And I'm talking about the crap where they just throw random words such as "kawaii" or "Gomen" or "teme". I don't know. I just don't like how they try to switch between English and another language. Yes, I do understand that this technically takes place in Japan... but switching languages is just annoying & sometimes I don't even know what they mean. On top of that. It's stories who don't know the time frame. If the story is taking place in a village, for god's sake, why are they wearing designer clothes & going to starbucks?! I just don't get it. Oh my god! I HATE it when they just throw in the Japanese words. I hate it. So much. The only time Japanese or other languages coming in like that is if they are honorifics, a character is being taught the language or if the character is a foreigner and uses their native language by mistake when others don't understand.
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Posted: Wed Jul 23, 2014 7:27 pm
Night Kunoichi Oh my god! I HATE it when they just throw in the Japanese words. I hate it. So much. The only time Japanese or other languages coming in like that is if they are honorifics, a character is being taught the language or if the character is a foreigner and uses their native language by mistake when others don't understand. I know right!? I can't stand the random words. Sometimes, I feel as though they don't even fit with the context. Like one character saying, "Sorry [insert something meaningful]" vs "Gomen [insert something meaningful]." I feel as though the second version ruins any... intensity? to the moment ; -; Adding honorific is perfectly fine for me too. I just think of it as a way of addressing a person -- which works.
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Posted: Wed Jul 23, 2014 7:38 pm
Sinnto Night Kunoichi Oh my god! I HATE it when they just throw in the Japanese words. I hate it. So much. The only time Japanese or other languages coming in like that is if they are honorifics, a character is being taught the language or if the character is a foreigner and uses their native language by mistake when others don't understand. I know right!? I can't stand the random words. Sometimes, I feel as though they don't even fit with the context. Like one character saying, "Sorry [insert something meaningful]" vs "Gomen [insert something meaningful]." I feel as though the second version ruins any... intensity? to the moment ; -; Adding honorific is perfectly fine for me too. I just think of it as a way of addressing a person -- which works. Yeah. It's jarring and breaks the flow. It's one thing if there was actually a reason for it but if it's the whole "Well it's Naruto and they speak Japanese" we already got that memo. You don't have to throw in the random Japanese words.
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Violent Crow Vice Captain
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Posted: Wed Jul 23, 2014 7:43 pm
Night Kunoichi Yeah. It's jarring and breaks the flow. It's one thing if there was actually a reason for it but if it's the whole "Well it's Naruto and they speak Japanese" we already got that memo. You don't have to throw in the random Japanese words. You don't like random Japanese peppered throughout the fics that you read? emotion_awesome
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Posted: Wed Jul 23, 2014 7:54 pm
Violent Crow Night Kunoichi Yeah. It's jarring and breaks the flow. It's one thing if there was actually a reason for it but if it's the whole "Well it's Naruto and they speak Japanese" we already got that memo. You don't have to throw in the random Japanese words. You don't like random Japanese peppered throughout the fics that you read? emotion_awesome As much as I would like having my scalp sewed to a couch with steel wire.
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Violent Crow Vice Captain
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Posted: Wed Jul 23, 2014 8:09 pm
Night Kunoichi Violent Crow Night Kunoichi Yeah. It's jarring and breaks the flow. It's one thing if there was actually a reason for it but if it's the whole "Well it's Naruto and they speak Japanese" we already got that memo. You don't have to throw in the random Japanese words. You don't like random Japanese peppered throughout the fics that you read? emotion_awesome As much as I would like having my scalp sewed to a couch with steel wire. Uh... Okay... That was really graphic. emotion_puke Anyway, I never really saw the point of putting a foreign language into dialogue unless the character speaks that language (and the character is a foreigner) and they're using a term of endearment or some sort of honorific. Those two instances make sense because sometimes people will do that in real life. I highly doubt that if a person learned a foreign language, they didn't learn how to say "hello" or "sorry" or "yes/no" or something that's pretty basic. So seeing "gomen" or "hai" feels unnecessary to me unless the character is a foreigner. Writing Japanese words in fanfics about anime seems... redundant, in a sense. We know it's Japanese. Writing Japanese words in the dialogue of a character that is Japanese and living in a Japanese speaking area is just unnecessary unless you're going to write your entire story in Romanized Japanese.
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Posted: Wed Jul 23, 2014 8:52 pm
Violent Crow Night Kunoichi Violent Crow Night Kunoichi Yeah. It's jarring and breaks the flow. It's one thing if there was actually a reason for it but if it's the whole "Well it's Naruto and they speak Japanese" we already got that memo. You don't have to throw in the random Japanese words. You don't like random Japanese peppered throughout the fics that you read? emotion_awesome As much as I would like having my scalp sewed to a couch with steel wire. Uh... Okay... That was really graphic. emotion_puke Anyway, I never really saw the point of putting a foreign language into dialogue unless the character speaks that language (and the character is a foreigner) and they're using a term of endearment or some sort of honorific. Those two instances make sense because sometimes people will do that in real life. I highly doubt that if a person learned a foreign language, they didn't learn how to say "hello" or "sorry" or "yes/no" or something that's pretty basic. So seeing "gomen" or "hai" feels unnecessary to me unless the character is a foreigner. Writing Japanese words in fanfics about anime seems... redundant, in a sense. We know it's Japanese. Writing Japanese words in the dialogue of a character that is Japanese and living in a Japanese speaking area is just unnecessary unless you're going to write your entire story in Romanized Japanese. Hey, I've read your fanfic, you've been graphic enough with your violence! razz And, I don't think it's bad if they use their traditional greeting. I think it would be more force of habit than of not knowing their greetings. One of my good friends is fluent in French and while it is not her first language, she frequently uses french words midsentence out of habit of her practicing it often and I have to remind her that I don't speak French. xD
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Violent Crow Vice Captain
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Posted: Wed Jul 23, 2014 10:05 pm
Night Kunoichi Violent Crow Night Kunoichi Violent Crow Night Kunoichi Yeah. It's jarring and breaks the flow. It's one thing if there was actually a reason for it but if it's the whole "Well it's Naruto and they speak Japanese" we already got that memo. You don't have to throw in the random Japanese words. You don't like random Japanese peppered throughout the fics that you read? emotion_awesome As much as I would like having my scalp sewed to a couch with steel wire. Uh... Okay... That was really graphic. emotion_puke Anyway, I never really saw the point of putting a foreign language into dialogue unless the character speaks that language (and the character is a foreigner) and they're using a term of endearment or some sort of honorific. Those two instances make sense because sometimes people will do that in real life. I highly doubt that if a person learned a foreign language, they didn't learn how to say "hello" or "sorry" or "yes/no" or something that's pretty basic. So seeing "gomen" or "hai" feels unnecessary to me unless the character is a foreigner. Writing Japanese words in fanfics about anime seems... redundant, in a sense. We know it's Japanese. Writing Japanese words in the dialogue of a character that is Japanese and living in a Japanese speaking area is just unnecessary unless you're going to write your entire story in Romanized Japanese. Hey, I've read your fanfic, you've been graphic enough with your violence! razz And, I don't think it's bad if they use their traditional greeting. I think it would be more force of habit than of not knowing their greetings. One of my good friends is fluent in French and while it is not her first language, she frequently uses french words midsentence out of habit of her practicing it often and I have to remind her that I don't speak French. xD makes sense. Not some crap where a Japanese person living in a Japanese-speaking area says random Japanese words in a story that is written in English.
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Posted: Wed Jul 23, 2014 10:45 pm
Night Kunoichi Yeah. It's jarring and breaks the flow. It's one thing if there was actually a reason for it but if it's the whole "Well it's Naruto and they speak Japanese" we already got that memo. You don't have to throw in the random Japanese words.
Sadly, I read Naruto FF, so this happens quite a lot.
My opinion is that the author wants to keep some of the style... but totally ruin it in doing so.
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Posted: Wed Jul 23, 2014 10:49 pm
Sinnto Night Kunoichi Yeah. It's jarring and breaks the flow. It's one thing if there was actually a reason for it but if it's the whole "Well it's Naruto and they speak Japanese" we already got that memo. You don't have to throw in the random Japanese words.
Sadly, I read Naruto FF, so this happens quite a lot.
My opinion is that the author wants to keep some of the style... but totally ruin it in doing so.From what I remember of my early Naruto fanfic writing days, it was more of a way to express that I had knowledge of some Japanese words. Immature, really, but I grew out of it. :/
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