spoken english in DYRL?

[pondo]

anyone know why there is spoken english in the background noises of DYRL?

isn't that odd?

[kanedaestes]

A lot of anime seems to have spoken english randomly thrown in. Just like how we have tons of movies, cartoons etc with spanish, japanese or other languages randomly thrown into them.

[hulagu]

anyone know why there is spoken english in the background noises of DYRL?

isn't that odd?

The Air Traffic Control chatter? Isn't it always in English? The beginning of Frontier is the same.

Also, I assume they are not actually universally speaking Japanese to begin with since UN Spacy is an international organization, and the show just segues into Japanese dialogue for the benefit of the audience, since almost all the written text we see in the shows are in english.

Edited May 2, 2010 by hulagu

[Hikuro]

From what I had gathered thru a friend, there are numerous languages that are spoken in the background along with writings, English, French, Japanese, Chinese, I think it was something slipped in to show the hidden message of the various cultures for the film and interest the zentraedi showing it's more than just about war there are other things out there.

In my dub of the film I tried to keep some of that in there, I don't think I did that good of a job though since I just grabbed whatever background chatter would work.

[Talos]

anyone know why there is spoken english in the background noises of DYRL?

isn't that odd?

As far as the Air Traffic Control chatter, yes, ICAO rules dictate that English is the "lingua franca" for all communications. However, if we're talking about, say, Haneda ATC talking to an ANA plane, they are allowed to use Japanese, but would have to use English with the Air France flight from CDG or any other flight that requests it. This way the controllers and pilots only need to know one additional language besides their native tongue. When you have pilots flying to the US from Japan one day, to France on another, Holland another, and Spain another, it can become a nightmare to keep track of or organize.

With Kawamori and all being aviation buffs, I'm not surprised in the slightest that he did that. And if I'm not mistaken, though, Macross' primary language IS Japanese. There was an English-speaking fleet too, Macross-11. (Home of Fire Bomber American) and it was notable enough to be mentioned as such.

Edited May 2, 2010 by Talos

[Beltane70]

I thought it was pretty interesting that it wasn't just air traffic dialog in DYRL that was in English. The transformation warning as well as the scramble orders when the Meltrandi folded in were also in English.

[Lott Sheen]

As far as the Air Traffic Control chatter, yes, ICAO rules dictate that English is the "lingua franca" for all communications. However, if we're talking about, say, Haneda ATC talking to an ANA plane, they are allowed to use Japanese, but would have to use English with the Air France flight from CDG or any other flight that requests it. This way the controllers and pilots only need to know one additional language besides their native tongue. When you have pilots flying to the US from Japan one day, to France on another, Holland another, and Spain another, it can become a nightmare to keep track of or organize.

The JSDF pilots only use English when flying I heard.

[s001]

They're supposed to speak english.

[EXO]

The language on the SDF-1 was english. Remember, Misa wrote out the song in English even though she was saying it out in Japanese, translating from Protoculture speak.

[Talos]

The JSDF pilots only use English when flying I heard.

I haven't heard their ATC myself, so I was only talking civilian in this case. But yeah, I can completely see the JASDF doing that.

s001 and EXO: Yeah, I know. There's a lot of English that pops up everywhere. Macross 7 too, if you'll recall. Heck even on the Frontier. I still find it interesting that they call out a specific mission as -the- English-speaking fleet.

[Ghost Train]

I also heard Spanish in DYRL.

The best part of DYRL however is that the English is actually quite good! ... The Engrish at the intro of M. Frontier on the other hand was just lolz

[Roy Focker]

I also heard Spanish in DYRL.

The best part of DYRL however is that the English is actually quite good! ... The Engrish at the intro of M. Frontier on the other hand was just lolz

Thats because they had a few native English speaker among the DYRL? cast.

[sketchley]

Thats because they had a few native English speaker among the DYRL? cast.

Yup. If memory serves, they were hired to read some of the Zentraadi lines to make them sound more "alien". You can see a picture of them in the TiA:DYRL book.

[Ghost Train]

I'm from this mentally ill school of thought that believes that if you do something you do it right. So - great for DYRL.

The Engrish radio-exchange as Sheryl Nome arrives in Frontier is just inexcusably stupid and made me drop the series until a few months later ... they really should have just done it in Japanese. It did not set either tone or precedent as any and all future transmissions during the remaining episodes of Frontier were done in Japanese.

My first-hand knowledge of Japan is somewhat limited to the four hours I have to spend at Narita on my own to HK, but I am well aware of this extreme fascination Japan has with the English language.Despite the fact that English is taught starting in HS (at least) in almost every East Asian country (YES! That includes North Korea!), so little attention in anime is paid to getting it right. It's obviously not really important as it's primary aim is domestic consumption... but would it be hard to pluck a few from the thousands of native-English speaking foreigners living in Japan to read a few lines ?

I'm sure there is some extreme administrative impediment to doing this as I'm definitely not the first one to analyze this. Maybe the Seiyuu-Union is quite powerful ...

[Beltane70]

It could just be that the 11th fleet exclusively speaks English, whereas the Frontier and other fleets speak a large variety of languages.

[Talos]

All this reminds me of the English parts spoken in the new UC Gundam OVA, Gundam Unicorn. The English ATC (STC?) spoken in it is in -perfect- English and the monitors and such lack the usual Engrish you see (Patlabor the Movie and your "Rock-on" I'm looking at you...). I don't have any proof, but I've assumed that it's because Bandai did both the English and Japanese versions together and just cross-ported what they needed. I should point out that I have only watched the subbed version, so I don't know for sure. XD

[Gubaba]

All this reminds me of the English parts spoken in the new UC Gundam OVA, Gundam Unicorn. The English ATC (STC?) spoken in it is in -perfect- English and the monitors and such lack the usual Engrish you see (Patlabor the Movie and your "Rock-on" I'm looking at you...). I don't have any proof, but I've assumed that it's because Bandai did both the English and Japanese versions together and just cross-ported what they needed. I should point out that I have only watched the subbed version, so I don't know for sure. XD

Mark Simmons is credited in the end titles for Unicorn, so I think he probably WROTE all the English in it!

[Talos]

Mark Simmons is credited in the end titles for Unicorn, so I think he probably WROTE all the English in it!

Good point! I still have the Gundam book from like 2003 he wrote the forward in somewhere...

[Einherjar]

English is a required course for most Japanese schools, right? I don't know if that has anything to do with the spoken English in the movie, but at least some people in the original intended audience may have understood it. Also, since the major Earth milais the U.N., multinational forces may have been normal.

Edited May 4, 2010 by Einherjar

[sketchley]

English is taught from Middle School (aka Junior High School). Of course, it should be noted that High School, and beyond is not manditory (clarification: that's attending the school). Also, from either this past school year, or this year, English is also being taught in elementary school. Though, it should be noted that it's not by native English speakers, and is by Japanese teachers who don't necessarily have the proper training; as the whole thing was rushed into place (but that's a topic for another website altogether).

So, why the bad English in anime? The answer is fairly obvious: the prime market is Japanese speakers who have a similar or lesser level of English ability. It's only there to make it look more "cool" and/or "realistic", and it's not there to be accurate.

Another way to look at the situation is: how many of you have seen shirts/posters with Chinese characters/Kanji/Hanja that are backwards and/or upside down? Hmmm... maybe that should be how many of you even noticed that they are backwards and/or upside down? The number of you that say yes is about equal to the number of people in Japan viewing anime who say "hey, that English is wrong!".

And regarding the question of paying foreigners in Japan to read lines and correct English - DYRL DID do that, but only because it had the budget for it AND the creators bothered to put the accuracy in to make the movie more realistic. Most other anime productions don't have the budget to pay the animators, artists and other production staff enough money, let alone afford frills like accuracy of the foreign languages that appear in their production that the vast majority of their target audience don't understand.

Edited May 4, 2010 by sketchley

[Ghost Train]

I've always thought that for students who learned English as a second language, at least their writing skills (the mechanical portions of it - sentence structure, grammar, spelling) are of higher quality than the average native speaker (not the PhD in English literature).

Since in East Asia their primary language will be Chinese / Japanese / Korean etc. , their only exposure to English would be from a textbook which is generally considered an accurate source. Lol, when I was doing my UG every student from Taiwan or China I met had a higher SAT verbal than I who has lived in the US only since I was 14.

(For reference under the old system my Verbal was at 650, later on when I took the MCAT my Verbal Reasoning score was just about average at 10 )

[Impreszive]

I just figured that it showed the multinational nature of the crew and citizens on board the Macross. That said, English is the primary language in air traffic interchanges. Makes sense to continue the tradition.

[takatoys]

I also heard Spanish in DYRL.

The best part of DYRL however is that the English is actually quite good! ... The Engrish at the intro of M. Frontier on the other hand was just lolz

Yes, on the first minutes of the movie, when the Macross population is shown on a shopping street of the SDF-1, there is a spanish conversation of a couple. You can barely hear a man saying something like "no esta muy fea?" meaning "isn't it too ugly?" and the response of the lady is loudly heard saying "pero esta linda ..."meaning " but it is pretty." This dialogue is probably referring to an item that it shown on a store.

[Ghost Train]

Yes, on the first minutes of the movie, when the Macross population is shown on a shopping street of the SDF-1, there is a spanish conversation of a couple. You can barely hear a man saying something like "no esta muy fea?" meaning "isn't it too ugly?" and the response of the lady is loudly heard saying "pero esta linda ..."meaning " but it is pretty." This dialogue is probably referring to an item that it shown on a store.

YES! That was it!

[Beltane70]

Speaking of English in DYRL, Conda and Warera were both played by native English speakers despite the fact that their lines were either in Zentradi or Japanese. Though, I imagine they delivered some of the actual English dialog in the movie as well.

I know one of the actors, Kent Gilbert was already a fairly well-known celebrity in Japan when DYRL was made.

According to IMDB both actors also played the same characters in ADV's dub of Macross.