LogFAQs > #980052499

Like, english has, what, hundreds, thousands probably, of phrases and sayings and terms that (of course) only exist in english. If you translate literally and only include phrases that are used in japanese, it's like you're painting a picture except you've removed dozens of shades of colors from your palette "because those shades don't exist in japan". But you can't translate the japan-specific expressions because they're not translatable to english, so you just end up with... less possible phrasings.

And you can't trust the guy making these pics anyway. Like, just looking at the japanese lines myself (as an amateur), it's clear to me that there are lots of nuances about the way the characters are speaking that are completely left out of the "literal translations" on the right. Like for example, in the last quote, the way she says "yo' hands" instead of "your hands"? Imagine if I gave a literal translation of that and I said she said "your hands". But she didn't, she said "yo' hands" which conveys a much rougher tone. That's what the "literal translations" are doing. She's slurring a lot of her words but it's coming out pristine in the "literal translation".