God I hate HSR English translation

[cashew]

I'm strapped for time, so just throwing this out there:

I don't know if it's the English translation or if it's the Anglosphere fandom, but why the fuck is Aventurine constantly calling Dr. Ratio "Doctor" when in the Chinese trailer he specifically refers to him as "Professor"?

I know this sounds like I'm nitpicking but "doctor" and "professor" are completely different titles and convey different meanings. Aventurine refers to Dr. Ratio as "professor" because he's playing up "I'm just an ignorant layman, please help me oh great educator" — aka, he's clearly working the "professor/student" kink angle. (If you listen to the Chinese dub, you can tell from the acting his definitely working this trope hard.)

Meanwhile, "doctor" is used in a professional setting, usually used to convey distance and collegial respect, often towards women. (I don't want to get into the politics of academia here, just let it be known that in academia, most women have to insist on being called "Doctor" to fight back against the sexism.)

My point is, stop having Aventurine call Dr. Ratio "Doctor" and use the actual word "Professor" instead. FFS.

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Edit to add: OK, so another thing that really annoys me is the way Dr. Ratio is written. This is actually an extension of my annoyance with popular media's horribly inaccurate portrayal of academia. I'm seriously tired of "smart" academic people talking like a fucking science paper. Do you have any idea how much work goes into editing the paper to make it sound "science-y"? That's literally the majority of the paper writing process. Copy-pasting the statistical program's output into a table and reporting p-values? That shit's easy. It's writing sentences that doesn't involve "so that's what I think nyah nyah nyah STFU your arguments suck" that consume the majority of the paper writing process. (Source: personally have edited too many scientific papers.)

Most people write scientists as if they've never stepped into a science department. We do not sound like robots reporting numbers and shit, OK? We're usually using double negatives, shortening words, and using "the thingy" liberally because most scientists blank on their professional jargons at the worst fucking times. Honestly, the most realistic characterization I've seen of a scientist in popular culture was Matt Damon's portrayal in The Martian. Newsflash, scientists talk like normal people. We curse, we swear, we forget words and stutter, and often resort to "how much solution do we have?" when we actually meant to ask "how many liters of buffer solution do we have left?" And we almost never use the full name of measurments, it's always "mL" or "mils" or "cc's" or "micros". Who the fuck have time to say the whole thing when you can just read off the letters?

The fact that Dr. Ratio rejected Genius Society and proclaims "ignorance is an ailment" and it is his duty as a scholar to cure the universe of it, says to me that Dr. Ratio is actually interested in being a professor and teaching students, more so than showing off his "intelligence". (An attitude I applaude him for, as I could not stand teaching and hated every minute of it.) Sure, he might be harsh with his grading, but he genuinely seem to enjoy teaching and of all the professors I've known who actually enjoyed the teaching process (rather than tolerate it as something they have to do because universities won't let you get away with only doing research), all of them heavily studied communication methodology and tried to figure out how to phrase complicated concepts into easy to digest examples using commonplace language. In fact, learning how to parse down jargon is a skill we had to learn in graduate school.

So, fandom, please, stop writing Dr. Ratio like he's some kind of weird android robot and give him normal, human speech patterns. Gah.

Also, this ends my brief foray into Aventurine/Ratio ship. I would much rather put up with horrible OOC failed faux-period drama with Jing Yuan than read another fic where Dr. Ratio can't talk like a normal human being.

Comments

[tanithryudo]

Technically though, Dr. Ratio is *also* a doctor on top of being a professor. He has a doctorate in medicine, his full CN character name is 真理医生, and in his conversation with Screwllum he was described as being more doctor than scholar. So calling him "Doctor" is technically not *wrong*.

That said, Aventurine does prefer to call him "Professor" in the CN version rather than the "Doctor" in the ENG version. I guess, different kinks, maybe? :p

The ENG translation does have its downs. The VA is also... meh. Aventurine is ok, but Ratio's ENG VA outright said that his voice director kept telling him to over-act more, and it really shows, because *nobody* talks like that. The CN VA for Ratio talks normally in tone, for example, not trying to sound like he's doing 朗诵 in normal convo. This is probably the biggest reason why the ENG playerbase has this impression that Ratio is a narcissistic & condescending snob, contrasted to how the CN playerbase tends to see him as a flawed but gentle saint.

This plus the fact they just swapped out the ENG VA for Argenti (and Huohuo), and I can't get used to the new Argenti voice... yeah, I have swapped my game settings to CN voice (still sticking to ENG text) going forward. -_-

[cashew]

He has a doctorate in medicine, his full CN character name is 真理医生, and in his conversation with Screwllum he was described as being more doctor than scholar.

Yeah, about that. I thought the point of this is to show that he considers himself a teacher first and foremost. A "doctor" for "ignorance" as it were. His passion is teaching rather than research, seeing as scholars are focused on discovering knowledge rather than the spreading of it.

That said, Aventurine does prefer to call him "Professor" in the CN version rather than the "Doctor" in the ENG version. I guess, different kinks, maybe? :p

I get the sense in canon, Ratio isn't Aventurine's physician, so he's not going to have much of a chance to really play up "can you kiss my boo boo, Doctor?" kink. He's mostly going to Ratio for help, much like a student to a teacher, hence his constant use of "professor". Especially since Ratio even said that if one is too stupid to remember his full name, then one can refer to him as Dr. Ratio, which suggests being referred to as "Doctor" does nothing for the guy's libido.

yeah, I have swapped my game settings to CN voice (still sticking to ENG text) going forward.

Have you considered swapping to JP voice? I find the JP voice far more bearable and I can ignore the awkward grammar. The only time I'd switch to CN voice is probably during the Xianzhou stuff given the original Chinese have some pretty cool lines and a lot of the wordplay gets lost.

[tanithryudo]

Re: Ratio - I dunno, it's *possible* that Aventurine required some patching up after his run in with Nihility and had to be rescued by Argenti. Then again, the damage was mostly on the spiritual side since it took place in the Dream, so I dunno if Ratio could've done anything for him on the physical side.

But yeah, the "Doctor" translation in the context of their dialogue, at least, is inaccurate.

(In fanfic, I've seen a lot more instances of Ratio playing actual healer type doctor to Aventurine. But unfortunately, it also tends to hit a pet peeve of mine too... In that HSR is a blatantly high fantasy+sci fi universe, we've got people who heal with magic powers, wide variety of items that restore HP, and Ratio's canonical accomplishments include some advanced technobabble medical achievements. Yet in most hurt-comfort fics, we end up with really basic real-life based first aid, bandages, and hospital stays. Just... eh.)


JP voice -- No, I have no interest in toggling a verbal language I don't understand when there are 2 languages I can understand right there.

[cashew]

Then again, the damage was mostly on the spiritual side since it took place in the Dream [...]

Funny you should say that given that I've seen quite a few fics where the writer decided the damage was definitely physical. (Both in CN and EN fics.)

HSR is a blatantly high fantasy+sci fi universe [...] Yet in most hurt-comfort fics, we end up with really basic real-life based first aid, bandages, and hospital stays.

OK, I gotta give this one to the fic writers, even with high tech/magic healing, post-treatment recovery is still a thing. Also, pretty sure HP isn't the same as life force. Granted I see this happen a lot in game fic, but I would argue that just because mechanically your character is healing up to full or getting KO'd after dropping to 0HP it doesn't actually reflect life and death or full health. HP is meant as an abstraction of how many hits the person can take before needing to back out of combat (hence, Hit Points), it's not meant to be a 1-to-1 correlation of health levels.

Also, in the narrative we have evidence that despite having access to magic healing, Jing Yuan still needed an extended stay at 丹鼎司 to recover from 幻龙 (forgot her English name) battle. He was still carrying substantial injuries during the sidquest with Bailu and Dan Heng; he even admitted saving their ass set back his recovery — all while the HP bar showed him at full health.

So that's my long winded argument that normal care like bed rest, dietary management, first aid, etc. is still relevant even in this high fantasy sci-fi setting. I mean, didn't Dr. Ratio comment on the importance of bathing as a form of self-care? My interpretation is that the high level tech/magic is merely meant to stave off traumatic death, with the daily care stuff still using the mundane methods.

(And this is completely reasonable extrapolation. Our current medical technology is practically magic compared to the medieval ages, but doctors nonetheless still recommend a balanced diet, exercise, and care routines that's been used since medieval times for basic daily care. Plus, given the theme of unnatural longevity and the many problems it causes, I don't think HSR is a universe where tech and magic can sufficiently solve mundane problems. You're still gonna need chicken soup when you catch a cold.)

JP voice -- No, I have no interest in toggling a verbal language I don't understand

But the JP acting is so much better. (┬┬﹏┬┬)

[tanithryudo]

> OK, so another thing that really annoys me is the way Dr. Ratio is written.

Do you mean in fanfic? Cuz most of the fanfic I've read hasn't dug too deeply into the pure academic side of Ratio's character, aside from including lectures/grading in daily activities, or the occasional student reactions/rants. Usually when his smarts are needed to feature, it's usually in his role as tech consultant to the IPC and either negotiating patents or going to distant planets to investigate/install supertech inventions.

I don't think he has been sounding too nerdy in the actual game either? ...Most of his dialogue in Penacony has been sarcastic verbal sparring, mostly with Aventurine. His dialogue in the Herta space station quest IIRC was interrogating the MC, and prodding us along the questline; then at the end he had a philosophical conversation with Screwllum.

Just looked through the few IM conversations Ratio so far has with the MC. Those are more wordy and have some jargon, but he's also sounding like a recruitment drive, so I'm not sure if he's half copy-pasting from some PR brochure. XD

[cashew]

Clarification: I'm talking about fanfic. In-game (at least in CN version), he sounds like a normal if harsh teacher.

Cuz most of the fanfic I've read hasn't dug too deeply into the pure academic side of Ratio's character [...]

Yeah, that's the problem. Fanfic seems to keep forgetting he's a professor and make him sound like some weird android robot. Even in normal discussion he speaks super formally, which is makes no sense because most academics I know don't actually speak like that outside of giving a pre-scripted lecture. Hell, most of them don't even speak like that during a lecture.

Like, this line in the first fic sorted by kudos for Aventurine/Dr. Ratio in the first frickin' chapter:

“You have my verbal confirmation.” He sighed. “I will see this task through.”

Who the fuck talks like this? What kind of normal human being speaks like this?

[tanithryudo]

Yeah... some fics may be a little OOC. This is the guy who responded to our MC's sudden group chat about a (fake) bomb threat with a simple "k" and then leaving the chatroom. (He still helped the IPC folks search tho.) XD

I am wondering if ENG fics may be affected by the way the ENG VA over-delivers on his lines, making him *seem* pompous even if his words aren't really pompous if you read them in a normal tone.

Might be better in CN fics, maybe?

[cashew]

I find in CN fics people talk more like normal people overall. Even in the pseudo-period drama stuff...but then again, that could just be due to that style of talking is so normalized in period drama that it just sounds normal while being distinctly not modern.

I have no idea what's contributing to EN language weirdness in fic-dom. Maybe because despite the Westernized setting, the writers are still writing with a Chinese mindset and translations are just gonna sound awkward and weird.

Another thing that might contribute to the weirdness is that in Chinese there's a stronger delineation between casual speech, workplace speech, and formal speech. As in, the grammar changes naturally to reflect a person's lower social status when talking to a higher ranked individual. Unlike in the Anglosphere where there's less strong of a grammatical shift and it's more reliant on vocabulary and tone of voice, not to mention the social class differences matters less in western societies and "speaking appropriate of one's station" isn't even a concept that exists anymore in US/CAN/AUS. Only the English still have a sense of class exclusionary language, but even there the class distinction has been dampened a lot under parliamentary rule.

So all that adds up to something sounding perfectly normal in Chinese but sounding extremely unnatural when repeated in English. Where Ratio sounds like he's just talking to someone of a higher rank and observing the appropriate social graces in Chinese, when translated to English makes him sound like a malfunctioning android. Thus leading to the EN fics making him sound weird. I don't know, I'm just guessing. I'd have to actually compare the EN dub to CN dub to verify this and I'm not up for that right now.