Translation is hard. Honorifics end up being a place where fansubbers just give up.
On the other hand, consider a series in which character A calls character B "B kun" while character C calls character B "B sempai".
Most of the time it doesn't matter enough to try and bother with a good way of translating that, but sometimes it comes up in the plot, perhaps several episodes into the show.
Choosing to leave those untranslated isn't anything new, nor unique to fansubs. The Early '90s AnimeEigo translation of the Aa! Megamisamaa OVA left them untranslated in some cases, with a note on the top of the screen.
Yes, fansubs could use better copy-editing, but so could some professional subs. The biggeset offender is that I have seen several instances of English loan-words left in their rÅmaji spelling rather than their proper English spellings in commercial subtitles.
Some of the higher production value translations will go for a very literal subtitle translation and a highly figurative dub translation. An example of this is the "Tenchi Forever" restaurant scene translation where The dub is roughly:
Waiter: "Would you like coffee after your meal?"
Diner: "No"
and the subtitle is
Waiter: "Would you like tea with that"
Diner: "Yes"
(That one particularly sticks out in my mind since if you watch with sub+dub at the same time you have someone speaking "no" with a subtitle of "yes")
On the other hand, consider a series in which character A calls character B "B kun" while character C calls character B "B sempai".
Most of the time it doesn't matter enough to try and bother with a good way of translating that, but sometimes it comes up in the plot, perhaps several episodes into the show.
Choosing to leave those untranslated isn't anything new, nor unique to fansubs. The Early '90s AnimeEigo translation of the Aa! Megamisamaa OVA left them untranslated in some cases, with a note on the top of the screen.
Yes, fansubs could use better copy-editing, but so could some professional subs. The biggeset offender is that I have seen several instances of English loan-words left in their rÅmaji spelling rather than their proper English spellings in commercial subtitles.
Some of the higher production value translations will go for a very literal subtitle translation and a highly figurative dub translation. An example of this is the "Tenchi Forever" restaurant scene translation where The dub is roughly:
and the subtitle is (That one particularly sticks out in my mind since if you watch with sub+dub at the same time you have someone speaking "no" with a subtitle of "yes")