Why are the english subtitles so horrendous?

[Potatochobit Lv3 pwrd Next Form]

seriously
I am not a japanese master or anything, but the english text is usually not really close at all to what they are saying.
I understand having a liberal translation can be great, but they should save that for the dub.

[(Shadow)]

*grabs popcorn* this is gonna be good.

[Sya]

Well it isnt 1:1 translated but they still have the same meaning (not always though but mostly).

[A State Of Trance]

They are only off randomly on small words that don't mean anything in the big picture. The overall message is translated correctly. They only miss minor things.

Edit: I think you are playing on the Japanese audio after reading it again. Well, I would assume they use the same English subtitles anyways. Even on the English version they don't put all the words being said in the subtitles.

[Wings]

yeah the subs are a bit off on some things but as was said, the overall message is preserved properly... I just try to see it as a bonus if i can understand the real meaning without the subs.

[Michi]

Same ♥♥♥♥ for spanish sub.

[黒]

That's because the subtitles were made off for the dub and from the dub. Adding the fact that they did full lipsyncs for English, they had a lot more leeway with the localization. The subtitles were not tailored to the Japanese audio.

[McNabbo]

Subtitling and dubbing often are done by different parties, thus the differences.

You have to consider the idea that subtitles are approached differently than dubbing. Subtitling often requires a writing style more easily read at fast paces. If you wrote everything out word for word, it might be more accurate, but it also might not be able to be read in the alotted time.

[mitchincredible]

Originally posted by Žombie Killêr! Mægic!™ P.C>:

seriously
I am not a japanese master or anything, but the english text is usually not really close at all to what they are saying.
I understand having a liberal translation can be great, but they should save that for the dub.

I'm not a Japanese speaker, but knowing how languages interact between each other, I have a feeling that other than the odd mistake, they probably had some subjective impression from the translator about what the actual meaning of the Japanese phrases was that couldn't simply be a direct translation to english.

[Goober Peas]

They probably did what they did with FF12. Wrote two seperate scripts at roughly the same time. One in English and one in Japanese. Instead of just writing one in Japanese and translating it to English.

[Dzaka]

Originally posted by Žombie Killêr! Mægic!™ P.C>:

seriously
I am not a japanese master or anything, but the english text is usually not really close at all to what they are saying.
I understand having a liberal translation can be great, but they should save that for the dub.

it is very simple.. the subs are the english dub script. written for the english language version. which was built seperately by SE for non asian release. and a bunch of weebs begged for the addition of japanese language support for the game built for english with an english script penned. and now those weebs have to accept that no matter the spoken language in this overly large badly ported monstrosity.. they still have to accept the bad script.. now have a good day

[A State Of Trance]

Originally posted by Dzaka:

Originally posted by Žombie Killêr! Mægic!™ P.C>:

seriously
I am not a japanese master or anything, but the english text is usually not really close at all to what they are saying.
I understand having a liberal translation can be great, but they should save that for the dub.

it is very simple.. the subs are the english dub script. written for the english language version. which was built seperately by SE for non asian release. and a bunch of weebs begged for the addition of japanese language support for the game built for english with an english script penned. and now those weebs have to accept that no matter the spoken language in this overly large badly ported monstrosity.. they still have to accept the bad script.. now have a good day

Such a monstrosity that I've had over 30 hours of pure fun. What a waste of my money!

[Moon Punisher]

To be fair im amazed really , usually it is similar , here sometimes the difference is brutal lols.

People that say part of the meaning is lost on the eng version are totally right , not because they couldnt have said it in english , but because they decided to literally change what was said totally lols.

Glad im playing in ♥♥♥ lols.

[RustyRed]

Kung Pow: *see mouth moving for 10 seconds then hear "I don't know", spoken in less than 2 seconds.

A joke to poke fun at terrible dubs from the pre 2000s...

[Goober Peas]

Originally posted by Moon Punisher:

To be fair im amazed really , usually it is similar , here sometimes the difference is brutal lols.

People that say part of the meaning is lost on the eng version are totally right , not because they couldnt have said it in english , but because they decided to literally change what was said totally lols.

Glad im playing in ♥♥♥ lols.

Depends. I'll mention FF12 again, the English script and voice acting is far superior to the Japanese ones. I'm not too familiar with the Japanese versions of FF13, but from what I've heard it's not great.

[Arthur]

I had to turn off the subtitles, they were getting in the way. I really wish I could have the Japanese subtitles.