Many European language versions of anime and games are being localized not by translating the original Japanese, but the English.
Lots of translators also seem to use Google or DeepL, which makes the issue even worse.
The English language version often don’t even translate, they write their own version, calling it “creative liberty”. This leads to a completely different version than what was intended, with others, such as the German or Spanish version, being even further from the original.
That’s why claims of people of having “learnt Japanese from anime” are dubious in the best of cases.
Source: Am Japanese, working in game translation in Tokyo. I’m also trilingual, which makes it even worse to watch this. Ignorance is bliss.
Shout out to Banjo Kazooie, an older platformer from the Nintendo 64 game era, where the antagonist always speaks in silly rhymes. So the translators needed to translate and also make it rhyme while also keeping the context and humor intact. They took creative freedom of course because there simply isn’t a good match but it actually enhances the game in a way. So if you played the game in French before and now switch to English you’ll get a fresh set of jokes and rhymes.
One of my friends who is really good at learning languages watches a lot of crappy daytime TV in the language they are trying to learn. He tells me that those shows present a lot of bullshit situations that you can understand with your eyes while you can try and put together with the dialog. I have heard of more then one person learning english by watching TV game shows
Printed comics (in native language are also really good), paticularly those aimed at a younger audience (think Walt Disney classics like Mickey Mouse or Donald Duck). The phrases are usually short and use everyday language. The graphical design (colors, postures, framing, fonts, panel alignment, etc) are all in support of conveying the action.
