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I'm playing a visual novel that gives LECTURES on how different types of guns work and other real life how-to-use-weapon facts; when I come across the following after my character has test-fired a S&W for the first time.

Teacher assassin: たとえ急所を外しても、太めの血管に当てにただけで相手は即死よ

Teacher assassin: 衝撃で血が逆流して, 心臓が破裂するから

The English Subtitles say that the above translates to

"Even if the bullet misses a crucial area, the enemy will die instantaneously. The shock forces the blood backwards and the heart bursts."

However, after posting a question as far as fact-checking the translated statement on Quora, I've gotten a lot of flack from military experts and nurses, who say that the above is not possible. So now I'm wondering, did the original translator mistranslate, OR is it a case of the game-makers Not verifying the truthfulness of those two lines of dialogue before giving Ein-sensei her dialogue?

And what does にただけで mean in the above sentence?

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The translation is almost correct.

たとえ急所を外しても、太めの血管に当てただけで相手は即死よ

Even if the bullet misses a crucial area, the enemy will die instantaneously only by hitting a thicker vessel,

衝撃で血が逆流して, 心臓が破裂するから

because the shock forces the blood backwards and the heart bursts.

にただけで is a typo. The correct sentence should be without the に.

たとえ急所を外しても、太めの血管に当てただけで相手は即死よ

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  • "only by hitting a thicker vessel" is the important part. The English subtitles completely ignored the "太めの血管に" part of the original Japanese.
    – yushi
    Dec 11, 2018 at 6:43
  • I on one hand want to cry, as EVEN THE FREAKING JAPANESE SUBTITLES have mistakes/typos, and the English subtitles miss important parts for this one line, and on the other hand, I want to grin and laugh, as I've gotten the correct (more correct?) translation for Ein's dialogue!
    – Toyu_Frey
    Dec 11, 2018 at 15:33
  • I don't think it was necessarily ignored. The translator or editor might've wanted to improve readability here, and the line left untranslated doesn't seem terribly too important.
    – user26484
    Dec 11, 2018 at 18:41
  • @user26484 the line left untranslated could mean the difference between a correct and factual statement being made, and a incorrect statement that is then believed to be true (factual) by someone who doesn't bother factchecking the actual Japanese-English translation... until they get embarrassing flack for it on a q&a site.
    – Toyu_Frey
    Dec 11, 2018 at 23:31

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