There is rarely ever just one way to word things in translation. There are so many factors that influence this, not just the translator’s personal style or preference. Here are just a few things I have to consider for J-E translation:

-What kind of media is it? Is it anime, manga, light novel, live action, video games, etc?
-What company is this translation for?
-For any of these cases, is there an already established terminology sheet we have to follow?

-Where does the story take place? Do we want to use honorifics if we’re given that choice? Japanese or Western name order?
-If we have the choice, do we go long or short vowels?

-Who is the general audience? If it’s a mainstream video game that will be sold to a broad audience & people aren’t going to understand why this pun involving all these Suzukis is funny, we will probably have to localize a bit more. If it’s anime/manga, you might have more leeway

-If it’s video media like anime, you have to take some consideration into the fact that people will be hearing the original source language. You want to make sure to not cause dissonance as much as possible but don’t want things to sound stilted either.

-So you’re translating manga and have a paragraph to fit into a very narrow word bubble? You’ll probably need to chop that up for the poor letterer you are torturing and try to stay close to the original meaning (Letterers, I love you guys. Thank you for everything you do.)

-If you’re dealing with light novels and video games, you’ll probably have to take readability and flow even more into consideration, as stilted, awkward sentences will interrupt the reading process.

-Phonetic puns: What medium?
Manga or light novels: Congratulations. You probably have the ability to rewrite the whole entire pun however you want without including the original words. As long as it’s clever, people will probably enjoy it.

-Phonetic puns: What medium?
Anime or other video:
AHAHA think there for hours on what the best solution is. Don’t worry. No matter how many hours you spent grueling over how to translate this, some people will hate you and try to show how their way is much better than yours.

So in that case, just accept your fate and do what you think is best. You are the one in charge of this translation. Try to keep the audience in mind but try to make choices you think are best because you will probably not be able to make everyone happy no matter how hard you try

Sometimes I wonder why people want to even become translators so badly. It’s not a glamorous job. Most of the general public don’t even know of your existence, and a good handful of people will always criticize your work to make themselves feel better about themselves.

Yes, I personally do this job because I love it. I think this is what my weirdly wired bilingual brain was meant to do. I try my best to be confident enough about my work so no matter how many internet randos or even professionals rip on my work, it doesn’t completely break me...

...but also humble enough at all times to admit to and correct any mistakes. I will never publicly criticize other people’s translations because even if it may not be what I would’ve come up with, I know there are a list of things that could’ve affected their choices.

It’s always easier to judge other people’s work than doing the work yourself. I know I say this a lot and it’s because it’s one of the most important things about this job to me. I’d much prefer to spend my time finding something good about a translation than rip it apart.

One of the greatest feelings you get from this job where people just don’t know you even exist or criticize everything you do, is when you have that one person message you or come up to you at a convention and thank you for something you translated.

Or even seeing people enjoying something you worked on. I remember being so ?!?! When I first saw Osomatsu cosplayers at Sakuracon because I didn’t think anyone even watched the show.

I don’t know how things involving translation get so hateful or malicious at times, so I will do everything I can to keep things positive.

I think I rambled enough this morning. I hope you all have a wonderful day

There is one thing I left out of this thread (simply because I forgot) but there's also character voices to consider at all times. This can be an entire thread all on its own lol Which I may get to someday when I'm not working.