I showed my friends a video without subtitles and didn’t tell them the to options were and they were all like he said no new mummy or daddy will want you if you don’t LIKE that.

so 7 points for like

That’s an impressive result!

so 7 points for like

Rose wrote:

On your video, the fact you play your version of the subtitles a number of times is making it harder for someone to think straight about what it is they are hearing. The mind works on what it is told –
~
Psychologically, your video made it rather unfair to what is being heard by Hoffman so I think you should not side with peoples options simply from that video.
~
At first I had thought I heard “Don’t” but from the video and from thinking rather hard I’m a little unsure. To get opinions on this I think you should approach it with a fairer video.

~

I have myself, in the past, “heard” Hoffman say it both ways, and so I am very aware of how easy it is to influence one’s perception to go either way on this. And I freely admit that I deliberately repeated, in my video, the modified subtitle more than the “official” one so as to manipulate this maleability of perception. But I judged that the situation had already been skewed toward the “official” subtitle by years of people being exposed to that version via direct gameplay and video play-throughs. Plus, there is a strong suggestion of correctness inherent just in being the “official” version.

People’s votes seem to me, without having actually counted them, to be somewhat evenly split. And I’ve noticed that there are streaks of votes that might indicate that the votes that people read in the comments-thread of the video may also influence their perception to vote the same way.

I don’t think that a “fairer” video will resolve anything. I think that the main value of the video is for people be made aware of the two alternative possibilities for what Hoffman is saying, and become aware of the suggestibility issue (which I think happened for many people), and take all of that into account when forming their own personal opinion, whatever that opinion may be.

“Dont’” and “Look” are both words that can relate to the events at hand. Hoffman might be digging into Diana, not sexually, about touching her, telling the girl that if she doesn’t like it no mummy or daddy will ever want her. It’s a dig into a child that obviously doesn’t like him and is desperate to have a mum and a dad to care for her and so it puts a lot of strain on her psychologically. I think because he might have been so irritated with her he took a dig at her, if that was the sentance used. “Look” can also relate because of the mermaids and whatnot but it is rather strange to be saying it while touching her unless the touching still seems to be a punishment as well.

At first I had thought I heard “Don’t” but from the video and from thinking rather hard I’m a little unsure. To get opinions on this I think you should approach it with a fairer video.

xxxRosexxx
[P.S apologies for a messed up reply! It's liek 1am here and I'm struggling to make sense with anything!]

There are also other interesting differences. Here is the Japanese version of the three chalkboard messages revealed in the select the month portion of the game. In English it matches the same word order, but that sort of removes something. So I don’t think this was originally written in English, because the grammar makes more sense in Japanese.

“Everlasting – True love – I am yours” is “I swear by (my) everlasting, unchanging love that I will abide with you.” In other words, “I vow to never leave you.”

Unlike the English, the Japanese forms one coherent sentence. And more than that, the important difference here is that Jennifer takes on a knight like persona in the Japanese ver that isn’t present in the English.

“Hmph, as for you making such a face
Even if a new mother or father comes,
You’ll just end up unloved* by them”

~
Interesting.

As for the mermaid line, the Japanese is actually split into two parts.

“Hmph, as for you making such a face
Even if a new mother or father comes,
You’ll just end up unloved* by them”

*The word is actually to “hate” or “dislike” but I believe the intention is actually to sting her moreso than it appears in the English. I feel like the Japanese is a bit more threatening. It’s not an “if then” as much as it is threatening her with the prospect of loneliness and being unwanted, emotions she probably is already struggling with as an orphan. I think it also says a bit more about Mr. Hoffman.

Hopefully the comment wont go unread, because maybe it brings up a bit more light on who Mr. Hoffman is.

Edit: I also wanted to add that I can’t help but feel like an English speaker had a strong influence on the development of the game. It’s possible that the script was written by an English speaker and then translated into Japanese. I believe this is the practice used in Biohazard games and this game seems to suggest a similar practice going on. But the Japanese translation of that script may reveal little things that the English script doesn’t assuming it was written by a separate Japanese team. What’s interesting is that unlike Biohazard, the lines are very close to the English counterparts (many lines in Biohazard are not actual translations of whats being said in English).