Often times, there's a mix of past/present tenses in Japanese novels, even when they're in the same paragraph. I think the authors utilize them to differentiate an inner monologue narration (present tense) and an event that happens outside the narration (past tense). In western novels, the inner monologues will be italicized, but in Japanese web novels with 1st person POV, those inner monologues make up for almost everything in the chapter. Not to mention that even with that, sometimes there's a separate inner monologue as well, marked differently than dialogues (sometimes within brackets like this). So, JP translators. Do you translate them all in past---or present---tense? Or do you follow the tenses in Japanese instead? And while I'm at it, are you the translators who keep using 「」for dialogues or turn them into "" speech marks? For readers, which one constitutes a better reading experience for you?
As a reader I like " " because that's what I'm used to. I think the only ones I see that uses that type of punctuation are the Japanese ones. It takes me a few paragraphs to get used to it, but once I do it's no big deal.
Thanks for the insight! And what about the tenses? Are you bothered with a mix of present and past tenses in the same paragraph?
Well normally inner thoughts and dialogue are in present tense. Whether the story is told in the present or past tense doesn't bother me as long as the tense remains consistent. If it's the past stick with the past tenses (past subj, past prog. etc.) likewise with the future tenses. It really irks me when they switch back and forth.
The reasoning I personally subscribe to is to make things as non-Japanese as possible. Because things are easier to read when less foreign. But this may be just a native english speaker who wants to to lower the weeb barrier speaking. So tenses conform to normal English narrative rules. Past tense narration, dialogue and thought in present tense. I may sometimes re-appropriate some of the more conversational narration lines to thought, etc. I don't see the point in using Japanese brackets. More effort in copy/paste, mainly. And as for honorifics, I personally prefer not to use them, but in exchange, I try to reword lines to fit the formality. But any translation style choice will have its pros and cons, its lovers and haters... consistency and legibility are probably the most important things to me as a reader.
If I remember correctly, in Japanese you can have a past and present/future tense in the same sentence.
There are two ways of translating, the first way would be direct translation, in this case I would not use if it’s for a novel. The second way is to use meaning translation, the closest meaning to the intended meaning of the translation. But then again that’s the best part about being a translator you get to choose what the sentence means in a sense by the words you use in the intended language of translation.
As far as I know, the tense of the whole sentence is dictated by the very last verb. There can be different tense in the middle, but that's more of a sequence of the event narrated in the sentence instead of tenses. If that makes sense. I often find both narration and opinion (hence inner thought) in the same paragraph, which makes things weird. I usually follow the Japanese tenses, but this makes sense too. Thanks for your insight.
Ditto the commenter before. Write narration in past tense and everything else, present tense. The only time I had difficulty with this was with Crying in the Night, Unseen. The entire story is narrated from first person. So you'll want to stick with present unless necessary.
I am more toward favoring the「」. It is used specifically for spoken dialog as opposed to an internal monologue. It's perhaps the biggest difference that "" can be used in an internal monologue most times italicized. When reading an english novel its not so bad, as the thinking and way its read conforms with those types of uses. Reading a translation though gets a bit wonky, as you do have to think slightly differently when reading a Japanese albeit translated WN/LN... I am not sure specific issues you are running across with tenses. Issues when they use verbs as adjectives for instance? I don't really ever recall coming across tense issues unless the author him/herself made a specific tense error. Or you mean issues with plain form verbs? Those occasions when depending on context can be future or present tense using plain form verbs? Those are typically left up to translators and editors to do what they feel is in concert with what the author is trying to convey... There is never a shortage of gaps that has to be filled when translating between languages... Worse case is fall back on present tense as much as possible, as most stories are taking place in the present. Unless its specifically reminiscing something, but even that depending on POV can be present tense as well.
Sometimes, deciding whether it is past or present tense depends on you, if you started the novel in past tense, then you have to make the entire novel past tense since it would be awkward if the character start talking present tense all of a sudden.
Hmmm this makes me wonder if I should italicize inner thoughts that's not shown in the Japanese text. >< Thanks for your insight! Yes, most of the happening event is in the present. With Upstart Pastry Chef it's pretty much constant, though the narration often presents a flashback as the explanation for the dishes, which is why I go back to past tense in those times. But a simple "she said/he said" that is so common in English text is conveyed with both present and past tense without any hard rule, I think? LOL so I just follow the present tense, mostly. It's not exactly a problem, though. It's more of a question of the others' translating style. Yup, this makes sense, thank you. ^,^
Not sure if it's a necessity to italicize as much of what is written is inner thoughts from the MC's POV. I would put it where it makes sense when on occasion you see some author make sudden POV changes or trying to represent someone else's inner thoughts cut between the MC's POV. You know something like this: Ex: As I was going home I could feel that gaze behind me. "Gawd his back is so sexy" I didn't have to look back to know what she was thinking. It really is up to you if you feel that is what is needed. Most don't really even know what goes into translation and editing and that quite a few things do need some artistic license to cover some gaps in the language. More importantly is to try get most of the author's intent. As long as you do that, that is all anyone can ask for. Context plays a large role... Sucks really...
Definitely italicize inner thoughts and monologues. No need to add conversation quotes. An example would be how we translate Loner and Juliet which consists mostly of conversation and monologues.
I definitely much prefer italicized words without any quotes to [] brackets, as it's the norm in English texts. Thank you for your insight!
Well for my translations (recent chapter for example) I use the Japanese quotations to differentiate between speakers 「First speaker」「 bold for next speaker」『Thicker quotation for third speaker』 I usually italicize for inner monologues or thoughts. My asterisks are usually used for standalone sounds (*knocking*) or for terms I can't use onomatopoeic words for. As for the tense of things, if I don't need to alter them I don't, but if I do, I variate them so it comes close to the authors intended meaning.
Ayyy thank you for your inputs @Kuro_0ni ~ I sometimes do my translation in handphone without Japanese keyboard installed, so it's a hassle to try with native brackets. I think that's why I didn't start using them when I first did this haha.
I'm probably just parroting many of the commenters here-- Thoughts and dialogue in present. Narration in past. " " for dialogue and italics for thoughts. But here's my experience with the dialogue/thought issue: In Ashes and Kingdoms, the author sometimes splits dialogue from the same person into different paragraphs. So, I would get something like this (making this up because I can't remember an example from the top of my head): 「召し上がれ」// 美味しいだろうと笑みを見せた。So, in this case, I would just merge the two sentences together like this: "Eat up. Delicious, right?" I said as I showed a smile. It would look weird if I did: "Eat up." It's delicious, right? I showed a smile. It seems too disjunct. And going with using Ashes and Kingdoms as an example, I had the same concern when I first started. The author made it clear that ( ) indicated thoughts, but sentences mid-paragraph would sound like they were coming straight from the MC's mouth. So, I ended up keeping the ( ) thoughts in ( ) and italicizing the mid-paragraph ones (though sometimes, I'll try to convert them into narration / rhetorical questions if it fit better this way.)
If you want a somewhat in-depth discussion of the nature of "tense" in Japanese, check out this thread from a couple months ago. It's a lot more complex than just internal/external, though the subjectivity of the narrator does play a part in determining how they conceive of the events they're describing. Since Japanese doesn't have grammatical tenses, but English does, I'm of the school of thought that you generally have to infer from context and general conventions of English writing what tense to use for any given sentence. Trying to create a literal correlation between Japanese aspect and English tense will inevitably result in awkward and/or temporally incorrect writing sooner or later. Maybe you can sort of code "completeness/incompleteness" into the English, but most of the time any ambiguity will work itself out through context as well. For what it's worth, I tend to avoid first-person narration as I don't like it, but assuming that you make sure you don't slip out of the narrator's voice, internal monologue should be obvious; as you said, those inner monologues make up almost everything. A lot depends on how it's written, but you should often be able to get away without having to set it off in any particular way. And (at least I've found) it's very rare for a Japanese third person narrator to narrate a character's thoughts (per that link above: truly omniscient narrators are rare in Japanese literature, even ones that take heavy influence from non-Japanese literary traditions). I prefer to reserve my italics to draw attention to individual words (and even that I do sparingly, because I'm an uptight purist ).