funny to see the comment. I was rewatching JoJo, this time in dub, and just came across a line like this. (the context is a fight between two 19th century British characters in a very theatrical setting):
Sub: "Stop the futile, useless resistance. Don't hide in the curtain's shadows and come out!"
Dub: "You're behind the curtain, like Polonius. And, like Polonius, it is there that you shall meet your end."
I was so surprised that they threw in the Hamlet reference it's what made me look up what the original Japanese line was. The English dub writing often strikes me just as straight up better the more I watch of it.
It is quite tricky and this Shakespeare reference might be a little bit out of context...
"Are you not a student?"
In English, the non-student speaker would respond with "No", short for "No, I am not."
In Japanese, the non-student speaker would respond with "Yes", short for "Yes that's correct."
A literal translation would make this mistake.
Source: I once said "So I guess you don't want to do the long-distance thing" to a native English speaker and she said "no" meaning she did, while I interpreted it the way you suggest and we (briefly) were not on the same page as to whether or not we were in a relationship.
French draws this distinction; ordinary 'yes' is oui; 'yes' contradicting a negative is si instead.
Mandarin gives you a variety of options for how to respond. You can use equivalents of 'yes' and 'no', but it's more common to echo the verb in the question.
你喜欢吃辣的吗？("Do you like eating spicy food?")
不喜欢 ("[I] don't like [it].")
Here we have no need to worry about whether the question was positive or negative; if I like the food I'll say 喜欢 and if I don't I'll say 不喜欢.
It's also possible to say 对 "correct", in which case it does matter how the question was phrased.
The specific question here, 你不是学生吗 "Are you not a student?", might be a little odder than usual because the verb 是 is also what's used for a simple "yes". But for "No, I'm not" 不是 is unambiguous, and I have a vague gut feeling that 是啊 would probably be taken as "Yes, I am". And of course you have the option of continuing your response ("yes, I'm a student, I've been enrolled here for two years") if you feel the short answer was too cryptic.
(Native American English speaker.)
“You didn’t go?” → “No, I didn’t go” (agreeing) or “Yes, I went” (disagreeing).
In Japanese, you should say “yes, I didn’t go” or “yes, I didn’t go”:
行かなかったんですか。→ はい、行きませんでした。(agreeing with the negative) or いいえ、行きました。(disagreeing with the negative)
(This difference possibly shows the more fundamental difference in the cultures, where one values truth more, and one values agreement/harmony more.)
I’m not saying that’s what happened to you, just that it wouldn’t necessarily be wrong to see it.
I'd be extremely wary of ascribing any cultural significance to the language modes here. Negation and especially affirmative/negative responses to negative questions is just extremely variable among languages. Even languages in the same language family just end up doing it differently.
In Japanese, you should say “yes, I didn’t go” or “no, I did go”:
P.S. For an example of when "yes" might really mean "no", I heard an anecdote. An American guy had been hired by a Japanese company to work in their offices in Japan and be a liaison to foreign businessmen. He was attending a meeting once where everyone but him was Japanese. The boss presented an idea. There was silence for about 10-15 seconds, then people said things like "Yes, that's a good idea, let's do that." The American left the meeting thinking that the idea had been approved, only to have his Japanese colleague explain to him that the key part was the silence. The boss clearly heard and understood the message that his employees didn't think it was a good idea, and the idea was dropped and never mentioned again.
So I could see a case where the character says "Yes" but the subtext is "No", and that would be clearly understood by a Japanese viewer. Different translators would choose different approaches there; some might translate the text, and some might translate the subtext. I'm curious to know if this was a case like that, or if it was a clear-cut case of one translation being right and the other one being flat-out wrong.
IIRC it was the DVD release of Tenchi Forever.
I guess I could be the odd one out but I'm not keen on the 'localisation' efforts that replace the cultural elements of the underlying media, e.g. how in Ace Attorney ramen is replaced with t-bone steaks (iirc?), prompting the meme 'Eat your hamburgers, Apollo'
Similarly there are some phrases which are probably unavoidably awkward. Like when translating vaguely as “that guy”.
Just according to keikaku.
Translator's note: "Keikaku" means plan
It's wild to hear someone - especially someone in the industry - say that. Fans definitely bring the most enthusiasm to their work, but fan subs are notorious for mistranslations and awkward hyperliteralism.