Phenomenon: Dubs and subs of the same anime usually have different lines.
Question: Why do they translate it twice? I mean, they can translate an anime once and for all, using that translation for both subs and dubs. I kind of wonder how the translation in sub and dub work is done.
In: 5
There is a difference between localization and translating, and animated TV series are the perfect example for this. You want a script that matches the mouth movement. Anime, interestingly enough, is often animated with the already recorded script in mind. You don’t have that benefit once you go into another language. Aside from idioms that can’t be directly translated, languages have different flows, different sentence structure and different ways to express the very same thing. When you localize, you do not only translate the language, but translate the piece of work to be understood in the cultural and linguistic context that you’re bringing it to.
If you went with verbatim anime translation you would
1. Get a lot of idioms that you simply can’t understand without explicitly knowing them.
2. have a script in the background that does not match the mouth movements, simply because that would be impossible with a direct translation. The whole experience would feel asynchronous, and for good reason.
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