#and uh I dun get why Vi's English name was romanized for the Chinese books? | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

e-adlirez · 1 year ago

Text

Translation Shenanigans

So Ghost of the Shipwreck was the first of the books I realized was drastically different in the non-English versions compared to the Scholastic cut, which resulted in me wanting to compare the versions that were available to me: the English, Spanish and Chinese translations.

The Chinese one was interesting in particular because uh, well :3

Context: “呵呵” denotes a sense of dissatisfaction in Chinese, and the better the enunciation of the “呵呵”, the more dissatisfied you are with whatever you’re ranting to your bestie about today. And it's not like the Chinese translators didn't know about the existence of "哈哈", the actual Chinese onomatopoeia for laughing-- they use it when Vi is checking on the grandma.

So this was an intentional decision in phrasing, as far as I can see :]

Extra: Every single version of this scene has Vi look at the grandma, totally bluescreening from how she takes this soooooooo

One for the non-Chinese version and one for the Chinese version :D

#geronimo stilton #thea stilton #thea sisters #lingual interpretations go heehee #on one hand I like the Chinese translators because they decided on these interpretations in a really cool way #but on the other hand they could've given the characters better Chinese names :'D #most of them are just Chinese romanizations of the English names smh #I mean I get that this is the standard and Chinese people have done it in the case of non-Chinese historical figures #but if Katy Perry can be named “fruit sister” in Chinese then I'm pretty sure they could give the girls better Chinese names #and uh I dun get why Vi's English name was romanized for the Chinese books?#she's already Chinese with a canon Chinese name #d-do we really need to keep calling her “WeiOuLaiTe” instead of oh I dunno Chen Jin/Chin Sai #come to think of it Xiao revealing Vi's Chinese name wouldn't have worked then if she went with Chen Jin/Chin Sai the entire time so #I got nothin' . .

20 notes · View notes