how to translate this sound effect? "びしゃん！" (Toradora)

[RonnieCorny]

hi

i'd guess that this is a sound effect, right? but how do you translate/transliterate?

thanks!


- ron

[RonnieCorny]

hi

seems quite confusing for me to try to figure out a lot of "sound effects" in the novel... for now, i'm just going to guess or approximate some and just put some alternative ones that i think *may* be appropriate and hope editors can clean it up later...

such as the kissing sound and the hand hitting something sound... or even hugging sounds...


- ron

[Dan]

Can you give a context for it?

[RonnieCorny]

hi Dan

for the "びしゃん！", it's in the early parts of ToraDora spin-off that i'm working on... the paragraph goes:
びしゃん！　と今度は口にビンタを食らい、しかし竜児は刃物のように吊り上がつた凶眼を常にはないほど爛々と光らせ、一歩も引かずに大河に怒鳴り返す。
which i translated as:
Whack! And he got slapped in the mouth this time, then Ryuji's fierce eyes shone as he shouted back at Taiga without backing off bit.

there are a few other "sound effects" and expressions that i find difficult to translate over to english... even the kissing sounds or the slapping of slippers on stairs sound seem a bit awkward to write down...

i guess for now i'll leave it to others who may have better understanding of how to transliterate these... i mean, strangely enough, i can understand what i'm reading, but putting these into writing (english) seems rather contrived...

i'll probably go back and edit those when i'm finished with the translation and can compare them with other volumes/chapters completed by more experienced translators and editors...

- ron

Can you give a context for it?

[kerrichan]

Hi Ron,

I have had experience in translating manga (in which there are many sound effects that give me headaches). I found that instead of looking for an English equivalent for a particular sound effect, guessing from context was easier and better.

With regards to びしゃん, I think that your choice of "whack!" was appropriate in the given context.

This might a bit irrelevant, but I found that びしゃん can also be used to refer to the object "bush hammer" (try wiki-ing it). I don't think "whack" would be unsuitable for the sound made by a hammer?

[RonnieCorny]

hi kerrichan

thanks! yeah, but somehow i can't think of the proper sound for some of the effects being described...

also, i may be a bit weird in trying to maintain the exact paragraph structure of the original text with my english translation... i'm somehow finding it hard to maintain that while making the text readable and the story comprehensible... or even maintaining the correct *style* and even the "tense" (past, present, future, past-participle, etc.)

- ron

[Darklor]

For some of this exist experienced editors

[kerrichan]

I would agree with Darklor.

But frankly speaking, Japanese paragraphs and English paragraphs do not always tally, much less tenses.

For example:

「病弱な女の子、男子は好きだもんねー。あー、やだやだ。汚らわしい汚らわしい」

からかうように羽川。

The text shows it as two separate paragraphs, but in English, the tendency is to lump it together, so that it becomes

"Guys like sickly girls, afterall. How perverted of you," teased Hanekawa.

There are times when I feel that the tense should be past participle but the one given in Japanese is past, or worse still, present, or even better, no verb, so no tense. It's going to be pretty hard if you're going to base everything on how the original Japanese is, I think. For me, I make a point of reading through my translation once before I post it online, to make sure that it feels "all right" in English. Instead of treating it as a translation from Japanese, I think of it as if I'm the one writing it in English (though that might sound a bit cocky. =X) The point, I think, is to make sure that the end result goes down as smoothly as possible for the English-reading community. It's my own opinion, though.

[Dan]

Ohhh, I noticed that a lot. As an editor I'm always tempted to put the phrase and corresponding "who said it" together, but I always left it alone since it matched the original - guess I won't be afraid to change it now since that's how Japanese does it all the time...

Ronnie, I'm with kerrichan, the sound effect is appropriate for English. I'm guessing from the hiragana I know that it was originally Ryuu giving a small "ough!" when he got slapped but for English readers it's better to put the effect for the slap rather than for Ryuu's cry.

[RonnieCorny]

ok... thanks you guys...

well, i'm up to 50% on that story/chapter... hopefully, i can finish it soon... and i hope to get some comments from those that have read the original or knows it to comment on whether my attempt was anywhere near... there are some phrases/situations where i didn't really translate, but interpret... i feel bad about those... i don't know enough yet to do an extra chapter on translator's notes, but i guess at some point in time i might do so (to explain significance of certain metaphors and allegories).

yeah Dan, but it does read as "ough!" or "ooof!" or anything close... and it just doesn't transliterate into anything in the english language... direct mapping of the sound gives "bishiyang!"... without context, i would have thought it was "whoosh!"

but i guess i'm not alone as i saw another topic here asking about how to interpret the sound of piano...

if any of you have the time, and enjoy ToraDora, i'd really be glad to get some comments (and maybe some guidance) on my effort so far... I chose the shortest story after completing a very short "author's notes" section without getting any criticism, but i think that's just because not many people got to read that yet...

anyway... again, thanks!

- ron

[Darklor]

But maybe its also that not many mind a little amiss english (or even realize thats it a awry)