Quote:
Originally Posted by RobinMask
What's wrong? English grammar and Japanese are not the same, and you can not directly translate from one to another. "I am going to town" and "machi ni ikimasu", for example, would not match up accurately with Japanese audio to English subtitles. What I mean is say a person heard 'machi' and then saw underneath in subtitles "I am", if they are learning solely from anime and without a textbook/teacher, why wouldn't they assume that 'machi' is 'I am'?
That's just one example of why it'd be a bad idea for a beginner. Not to mention that translation is an art, not a science, some figures of speech and colloquialisms - even everyday words - have no equiviliant in another language, so the translator has to find the nearest/closet match, in which case the subtitles are nothing alike the audio.
I think it's great to pick up the odd word. Like a character on Bleach kept repeating "Hage" and I could pick up it meant 'bald', but even then I didn't learn it was actually a very offensive insult until reading on a recent thread so. So if I was going solely by the anime and I innocently called someone 'bald', I could probably be insulting them greatly.
It's only real purpose is with intermediate and above level speakers, to test their knowledge. Its such a flawed method of learning for beginners I could rant about it all day . . .
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Yeah, you are right. I really forgot that topics, especially regarding the accuracy of translations. Please, forget about what I said and thanks for the explanation.