Lost in Translation

[HourglassIndigo]

So, I recently learned that both Chi-chi and Goku are supposed to have hick dialects in the original broadcast of the anime. For some reason, this was left out of the English dub. What are some other tidbits from the original Japanese broadcast/manga of dragon ball that was never brought into the English versions?

[TheBlackPaladin]

So, I recently learned that both Chi-chi and Goku are supposed to have hick dialects in the original broadcast of the anime. For some reason, this was left out of the English dub.

Well, funny you should say that...

Firstly, the hick dialect was not incorporated into the English dub, but from the research I've done, it would appear that it wasn't incorporated into any of the dubs. Only the original Japanese version might have the hick dialect.

Secondly...I use the word "might" for a reason. There seems to be a bit of debate over whether or not the use of the hick dialect is an appropriate choice. Now don't get me wrong, Steve Simmons (who does the subtitles for DBZ, Kai, and--I think--the new movies) is an excellent translator and a huge fan of the source material. A solid case could certainly be made for incorporating hick dialogues for them, but other people who know Japanese feel that this may not be the best way to describe it. In addition, the things that make Goku sound like a hick may be at least partially due to a specific acting choice on the part of his voice actress, Masako Nozawa, and not necessarily something that's indicated by Toriyama's writing.

All that to say, it could be argued either way, so between the inconclusiveness of it all and the fact that no other dub picked up on it, I can forgive the English dub for not emulating this particular mannerism. As long as it comes across that Goku is kind of a dumbass (albeit a loveable one), that's good enough for me.

What are some other tidbits from the original Japanese broadcast/manga of dragon ball that was never brought into the English versions?

A few were, a few weren't. The dub of Dragon Ball Z is generally not the place you want to go if you want to look for loyal adaptations of the characters. Kai's dub is much, much closer in that regard. For example, there is a style of speaking in Japanese called "keigo" which refers to "respectful speech," generally with upper-class vocabulary. Freeza had this in spades in the Japanese version, and it was nowhere to be found in the DBZ dub. For the Kai dub, they corrected this and then some.

On the other hand, certain speech mannerisms from the Japanese version were still not carried over even in the Kai dub. For example, in the original Japanese version, Popo speaks very basically...I don't know that there's an exact English equivalent for this (one of the problems of translating from one language to another), but I would describe it as "Caveman-speak." They still haven't incorporated that in the dub, unfortunately.

[Cipher]

Goku's dialect (dropping some conjugation and particles, and replacing "ai" and other vowels with "e" sounds) is -- from what I'm familiar with (a lot less than the fluent site staff) -- a hodgepodge of informal/uneducated elements, some of which (definitely the "e" thing) are part of the under-educated/consciously affected "yakuza" speak the thread linked to at the top mentions.

I'm not convinced that Appalachian hick speech is the best English approximation, but I'm not really convinced there is one outside of a generally informal speech pattern in general. Nothing quite captures the fact that almost every word out of his mouth contains a pronunciation with different connotations than an educated Tokyo dialect contains -- it's not just an "ain't" here or there; it's not even so much a word-choice thing; it's something at once both more and less obvious.

In addition, the things that make Goku sound like a hick may be at least partially due to a specific acting choice on the part of his voice actress, Masako Nozawa, and not necessarily something that's indicated by Toriyama's writing.

I'm pretty sure all of Dragon Ball's informal dialects are indicated in the manga, but I could be wrong. You can present most of that with kana in a way that's a lot less intrusive than trying to phonetically capture accents in written English.

They still haven't incorporated that in the dub, unfortunately.

Probably because it toes the line of good taste even further than Popo's design on its own does. It's totally part of his Sambo shtick. (Which we forgive because it's from 1980s Japan, but ... yeah.)

[TheBlackPaladin]

In addition, the things that make Goku sound like a hick may be at least partially due to a specific acting choice on the part of his voice actress, Masako Nozawa, and not necessarily something that's indicated by Toriyama's writing.

I'm pretty sure all of Dragon Ball's informal dialects are indicated in the manga, but I could be wrong. You can present most of that with kana in a way that's a lot less intrusive than trying to phonetically capture accents in written English.

I'm mostly going off of what Herms wrote in the thread I linked to (well, he wrote it in another thread that was quoted in the thread I linked to).

In the manga Goku's speech is comparatively close to standard Japanese. The main characteristics of his speech are his use of improper/impolite first and second person pronouns, lots of contractions, and how he slurs ai or oi sounds into ee. None of these points are exclusively "hick" things (Kuririn, for instance, does the "ai/oi into ee" thing when flustered). Altogether it seems super-casual and uneducated, which I guess fits the "hick" stereotype, but it's not a style of speech specific to any region. In the anime though, Nozawa plays Goku up more as having a vague Tohoku accent. The Tohoku accent has a "country bumpkin" stigma around it, so the closest thing in US English would probably be a Southern accent.

So, to expand on what I mean, it seems as though Nozawa made a deliberate choice to emphasize an aspect of Goku's speech that, while in the manga, wasn't necessarily emphasized as strongly by Toriyama as it was by her.

They still haven't incorporated that in the dub, unfortunately.

Probably because it toes the line of good taste even further than Popo's design on its own does. It's totally part of his Sambo shtick. (Which we forgive because it's from 1980s Japan, but ... yeah.)

Yeah, that thought did occur to me. A combination of his blackface appearance and caveman-speak probably wouldn't have gone over well. It's admittedly close enough for FUNimation to have been concerned about. Then again, they were working with horrid translations for a while, so it's possible they never adapted this because the translations they got didn't really indicate it. Eh, well, they did have good translations for Kai though, so...hmm. Not sure why this didn't get adapted. I definitely wouldn't blame them if their reason for not adapting it was a fear of racism accusations, though.

[ParkerAL]

I'm pretty sure racial sensitivity was the furthest thing from Funimation's mind considering what they did with Killa.

[LuckyCat]

So, I recently learned that both Chi-chi and Goku are supposed to have hick dialects in the original broadcast of the anime. For some reason, this was left out of the English dub. What are some other tidbits from the original Japanese broadcast/manga of dragon ball that was never brought into the English versions?

Kami being called "Kami" and not God is probably the biggest change for me. This especially hurts Dragon Ball, where the stakes are undervalued for Goku and Piccolo. You also lose the much of the Journey to the West Buddha-Sun Wukong parallel because of it.

[B]

Probably the most irritating thing to me, personally, is the Turtle Sage's moniker being mangled into "Master Roshi". It implies "Roshi" is a proper noun and the character's birth name, which it is not, but the truly annoying aspect is that multiple characters refer to this character differently. Most use the more respectful "Muten Roshi-sama" while Goku strictly uses "Kame Sennin" or "ji-chan". It scrubs over the fact that Goku is less formal with him than everyone else, despite his master's status and notoriety. The icing on the cake is that even with the name-mangling, FUNimation could have still kept these distinctions. "Turtle Hermit" is an established title in the dub, so why doesn't Schemmel's Goku just say "old man Turtle Hermit" or even just "old timer" or "old man"? Phrasing and scripting can go a long way to establish character traits like Goku's simplicity; he doesn't need an over-the-top accent.

[ABED]

Even calling him just Roshi conveys that.

[Cure Dragon 255]

Probably the most irritating thing to me, personally, is the Turtle Sage's moniker being mangled into "Master Roshi". It implies "Roshi" is a proper noun and the character's birth name, which it is not, but the truly annoying aspect is that multiple characters refer to this character differently. Most use the more respectful "Muten Roshi-sama" while Goku strictly uses "Kame Sennin" or "ji-chan". It scrubs over the fact that Goku is less formal with him than everyone else, despite his master's status and notoriety. The icing on the cake is that even with the name-mangling, FUNimation could have still kept these distinctions. "Turtle Hermit" is an established title in the dub, so why doesn't Schemmel's Goku just say "old man Turtle Hermit" or even just "old timer" or "old man"? Phrasing and scripting can go a long way to establish character traits like Goku's simplicity; he doesn't need an over-the-top accent.

WOW! This is the most shocking to me. REALLY? Most people call him that? Sorry for being so shocked, but I so am! Bulma calls him that? How about Yamcha?

[Fionordequester]

I'm pretty sure racial sensitivity was the furthest thing from Funimation's mind considering what they did with Killa.

To be fair, Christopher Sabat said that that was just something they did off the top of their heads. It actually didn't occur to him that people could construe it as racist, and by the time he did, he actually did regret it.

[HourglassIndigo]

So, I recently learned that both Chi-chi and Goku are supposed to have hick dialects in the original broadcast of the anime. For some reason, this was left out of the English dub. What are some other tidbits from the original Japanese broadcast/manga of dragon ball that was never brought into the English versions?

Kami being called "Kami" and not God is probably the biggest change for me. This especially hurts Dragon Ball, where the stakes are undervalued for Goku and Piccolo. You also lose the much of the Journey to the West Buddha-Sun Wukong parallel because of it.

That must be confusing, especially with the Beerus and the Kais.

[successoroffate]

I got one from GT, the beginning of the Don Kia Saga:
As Goku and the gang are trying to get the spacecraft back from Don Kia's headquarters, Pan tells Goku in the Japanese version as they are attacked by Kia's soldiers, how to approach the situation:

Pan: "Grandpa, do you know the meaning of the saying " Case by case"?""
Goku: "Cake Banana Cake" I don't know what it is but I am hungry now, Can I have some?"

English version:
Pan: "Grandpa you'll be the icing on the cake"
Goku: "I've got no problems with that but...Where's the cake?"

Pretty similar yet so different.

[Darkton]

Probably the most irritating thing to me, personally, is the Turtle Sage's moniker being mangled into "Master Roshi". It implies "Roshi" is a proper noun and the character's birth name, which it is not, but the truly annoying aspect is that multiple characters refer to this character differently. Most use the more respectful "Muten Roshi-sama" while Goku strictly uses "Kame Sennin" or "ji-chan". It scrubs over the fact that Goku is less formal with him than everyone else, despite his master's status and notoriety. The icing on the cake is that even with the name-mangling, FUNimation could have still kept these distinctions. "Turtle Hermit" is an established title in the dub, so why doesn't Schemmel's Goku just say "old man Turtle Hermit" or even just "old timer" or "old man"? Phrasing and scripting can go a long way to establish character traits like Goku's simplicity; he doesn't need an over-the-top accent.

"Gramps" wouldn't be too bad, either. Heck, Goku sounding uneducated is part of the reason I like Kelamis' English one so much: that surfer-style voice conveys to me a bit of a teenage connotations, as though he were a youthful adult.

As for things that're lost, neither dub really deals with the issue of Mazoku very well. They're definitely supposed to be demons, and not just that but very Eastern demons. As far as I can recall, and my recollection may be biased by never seeing anything more than bits and pieces of the Daimao Arc dub, the dubs don't really associate Piccolo before the reveal that he's Namekian as... a weird guy who kinda looks like the Guardian of Earth, which most people don't know about since arguably the Dragon Ball dub was working backwards from Z, so they could add in foreshadowing.

[ABED]

I got one from GT, the beginning of the Don Kia Saga:
As Goku and the gang are trying to get the spacecraft back from Don Kia's headquarters, Pan tells Goku in the Japanese version as they are attacked by Kia's soldiers, how to approach the situation:

Pan: "Grandpa, do you know the meaning of the saying " Case by case"?""
Goku: "Cake Banana Cake" I don't know what it is but I am hungry now, Can I have some?"

English version:
Pan: "Grandpa you'll be the icing on the cake"
Goku: "I've got no problems with that but...Where's the cake?"

Pretty similar yet so different.

Different, but I think they did a good job. The line was within character and the line is similar but can't be the same due to the pun being in Japanese. I wish issues like this were always dealt with as well.

[Gaffer Tape]

WOW! This is the most shocking to me. REALLY? Most people call him that? Sorry for being so shocked, but I so am! Bulma calls him that? How about Yamcha?

A lot of characters do. His students? Kuririn and Yamucha call him Muten Roshi-sama every time, as do Tenshinhan and Chaozu, at least after they turn their backs on the Crane School. Blooma, if memory serves, is a bit less consistent. It really more depends on the context. In serious contexts, she'll refer to him as Muten Roshi, but if she's talking about him (as opposed to talking to him) or speaking in reference to some zany, perverted antics he's done, she'll refer to him as Kame Sen'nin. Chichi, Gyu-mao, and Gohan refer to him as Muten Roshi-sama. Oolong says Kame Sen'nin while Pu'erh says Muten Roshi-sama. And, as has been said, Goku refers to him as Kame Sen'nin no ji-chan.

[Cure Dragon 255]

WOW! Watching DB in Japanese sure is a whole 'nother experience!

[El Diabeetus]

As far as Goku goes, I believe his dialouge needs to be adapted slightly liberally to get the uneducated, hick-like, manchild across. Overall, FUNimation does a great job, but they do have the occasional part where Goku speaks a little too well. But, that may be personal. FUNimation may've gone overboard occasionally with Freeza, but I wish they'd approach Goku the same way. In the Japanese version if you have basic knowledge of the language it's easy to tell Freeza is much more eloquent and Goku is a brain damaged hick.

Don't necessarily want to post dubs I've done, but it's the easiest to illustrate way how I'd adapt Goku.
https://vimeo.com/80959837 - 'Sup, I'm Goku scene from BoG (done before FUNi even dubbed BoG)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J8F9G9eZYSk - 10x Kamehameha against Yi Xing Long (went a step further and even tried to adapt the Ai - ei quirk).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdlMVGvRM48 - Prior to the Hero Scene of BoG (Using ain't instead).

For the most part all that needs to be done is For = Fer, To = Ta, more ain't thrown in and droppin' g's 'ere an' there.

He doesn't necessarily need to have a southern accent, but, just speak a little strangely.

I usually adapt Sea Turtle as Say Turtle, Soy Turtle or even Sea Tortle could probably work too. Tortoise like FUNi uses is fine. But, as far as I can tell Urigome isn't supposed to be a real word, just butchering the pronunciation of Urigame.

[LuckyCat]

So, I recently learned that both Chi-chi and Goku are supposed to have hick dialects in the original broadcast of the anime. For some reason, this was left out of the English dub. What are some other tidbits from the original Japanese broadcast/manga of dragon ball that was never brought into the English versions?

Kami being called "Kami" and not God is probably the biggest change for me. This especially hurts Dragon Ball, where the stakes are undervalued for Goku and Piccolo. You also lose the much of the Journey to the West Buddha-Sun Wukong parallel because of it.

That must be confusing, especially with the Beerus and the Kais.

Not really. 神様 (kami-sama) is used for God, Beerus is referred to as a 破壊神 (hakaishin), and Kai is referred to as 界王 (kai-oh).

[IAmTheMilkMan]

When Goku first visits Bulma at Capsule Corp in Metro West during the Red Ribbon Army arc, there is an exchange of dialog that seems somewhat difficult to translate between Goku, Bulma, and Bulma's Mother. It has to do with sake and alcohol.

In the Funimation subtitles, the exchange is as follows:

MRS. BRIEFS: Here you are, Goku-chan, have some alcohol.
BULMA: Don't be giving alcohol to kids!

Whereas in Viz's manga translation:

MRS. BRIEFS: Goku, I do so apologize for my daughter's manners! Here, have some sake!!
BULMA: Don't serve alcohol to children!!!!

From my understanding of it, "sake" has a slightly different meaning in Japanese than it does in English and that is where the confusion stems from. While we tend to think of "sake" as a specific kind of alcoholic beverage, in Japanese the word "sake" is more of an all-encompassing term for alcoholic beverages in general, much like the term "liquor" is for us. Am I correct?

I think Viz does a better job with the translation, in this instance. While Funimation's subtitles aren't technically wrong, saying "have some alcohol" without referring to a specific beverage sounds like such an odd thing to say.

[Puto]

From my understanding of it, "sake" has a slightly different meaning in Japanese than it does in English and that is where the confusion stems from. While we tend to think of "sake" as a specific kind of alcoholic beverage, in Japanese the word "sake" is more of an all-encompassing term for alcoholic beverages in general, much like the term "liquor" is for us. Am I correct?

Yes. Which is why leaving 'sake' in an English translation can give connotations that weren't really intended in the original.