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Old 2008-02-20, 12:58   Link #1381
nikorai
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oompa loompa
I think in either case it takes several years to get some fluency in japanese. In my case the progress is really slow though I'm fluent in English and French. However knowing other languages does help, even if they don't have kanji. For example I treat japanese as english put upside down (I know it sounds simplistic but it's sort of substitutes for lack of knowledge of Chinese and Korean).
For example you translate something "I didnt come because I'm busy" as 忙しいから、来なかった. Subordinate clause also go before the determinate word.

As for whether it is legal or illegal to translate something. Im not a lawyer but I think legislation differs depending on the country. We should be fine as long as people dont start to sue other people.
Also Japanese people tend to be against globalization and feel pretty much self-sufficient. For example, they mark their products "for Japan only". That creates a certain attitude from the gaijin, in turn. At least its my opinion.
You can also interpret legislation in the way that export of such goods is prohibited, internet distribution is prohibited etc etc and economy (both Japanese and overseas) goes down consequently. (ah, lovely Hong Kong shops).

tripperazn
you have my moral support in this translation project but you're far more advanced in japanese than I am so I think I'd only mess things up.
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Old 2008-02-20, 13:41   Link #1382
tripperazn
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Quote:
Originally Posted by nikorai View Post
oompa loompa
(I know it sounds simplistic but it's sort of substitutes for lack of knowledge of Chinese and Korean).
For example you translate something "I didnt come because I'm busy" as 忙しいから、来なかった. Subordinate clause also go before the determinate word.

As for whether it is legal or illegal to translate something. Im not a lawyer but I think legislation differs depending on the country. We should be fine as long as people dont start to sue other people.
Also Japanese people tend to be against globalization and feel pretty much self-sufficient. For example, they mark their products "for Japan only". That creates a certain attitude from the gaijin, in turn. At least its my opinion.
You can also interpret legislation in the way that export of such goods is prohibited, internet distribution is prohibited etc etc and economy (both Japanese and overseas) goes down consequently. (ah, lovely Hong Kong shops).

tripperazn
you have my moral support in this translation project but you're far more advanced in japanese than I am so I think I'd only mess things up.
Well...most native speakers of English don't think in terms of "subordinate clauses" and how these particulars of grammar are arranged to comprise a sentence. Whereas if you know Chinese, you would immediate know that 忙 means busy, and 来 means come, the essential portions of the sentence are instantly made clear without any knowledge of Japanese.

Not speaking from a legal perspective, but the status quo for visual novel patches in other languages, but the situation is exactly as nikorai says. The Japanese companies don't care. I've yet to hear of a single case where the company has contacted authors of the patch in any way. Of course, those were merely patches, separate from any component in the game.

@nikorai: Both Tremalkinger (the primary translator) and I (secondary translator) are both very casual learners of Japanese, there is definitely no structured self-study that you have gone through. I know you're probably busy, but if you have time please drop by the wiki page sometime. One visual novel for 2 novice translators makes us desperately understaffed at the moment.
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Old 2008-02-20, 14:00   Link #1383
LiberLibri
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You may criticise the self-sufficientness of Japanese government or people, but PLEASE, research about what you are going to say, before doing so.

Quote:
Originally Posted by nikorai View Post
Im not a lawyer but I think legislation differs depending on the country.
That's why the unification conventions were codified. Paris Convention of 1883 for the patents and designs, Bern Convention of 1886 for the copyrights. Didn't you see I invoked the INTERNATIONAL Convention, not Japanese local law, to which both China and Russia are State Parties?

Quote:
Originally Posted by nikorai View Post
Also Japanese people tend to be against globalization and feel pretty much self-sufficient. For example, they mark their products "for Japan only". That creates a certain attitude from the gaijin, in turn. At least its my opinion.
That's because legislations on Product Liability differ from one jurisdiction to another, and there is no unified international standard. Also regulations on materials are not standardised; e.g., some chemicals can be used in products for Japanese domestic market, but they can not be used in ones for EU area. You have the responsibility to write "for Japan only" on your products in order to ensure each country's sovereignty over its market and the consumers' interest.

I repeatedly insist that private translation does not infringe the author's right and what you should restrain is to distribute the fruit publicly. OK, I know most Japanese companies are reluctant to localise their works into Chinese or Russian because the expected return would be small. So it is natural you buy the Japanese original version and translate it into any language you like for your entertainment. That's all. You have no need to distribute it to world-wide.

Last edited by LiberLibri; 2008-02-20 at 14:23.
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Old 2008-02-20, 14:34   Link #1384
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LiberLibri

If you maintain this position one can start suspecting you're a japanese spy.
I'm sorry I even started the argument.
Basically we can stop translating and I'd find more time for my thesis. But we should stop buying the games from Japan in the first place because they are clearly labeled "for Japan only''. And I personally don't really like marketing and I don't like when somebody 'ensures' and 'enforces' as long as there's nothing criminal in your actions.

Here it is all based on free will. From the user's point of view if you don't like translation dont use it. If you're a developer I think you're interested in showing it to the public. You can develop your own game and make sure it is not translated and then see for yourself if it was worth the bother.


I'd say that if there's demand for translations there will be supply. As for now I can see there's huge demand and very limited supply. Apart from Fortune Arterial there are many projects that I think are interesting as well but the complete lack of time leaves you no choice but to ignore most of them.


tripperazn
Thank you for your comments.
Quote:
...if you know Chinese, you would immediate know that 忙 means busy, and 来 means come
The reverse also works with Japanese ("sono gyaku mo mata shikari"(c)), though not quite as good and I personally only know the word 你好 in Chinese.

As for game translation, honestly I can't promise anything. During weekends perhaps I can have a look at japanese texts. By the way, from the users point of view, I like the way you present translation, along with original phrases and separately from the game. This way I can only refer to the translation when the original phrase is not clear.
So for this weekend I can try to do something with no more than 1 page of text, the less text, the better.

Also i'm still thinking about getting additional textbooks. See, I complained a bit earlier about the complete lack of japanese textbooks in russian print (I found only 2 authors and i already got those books) so I thought I might substitute them with english ones. I know there are some textbooks published by the japanese but the ones i saw didnt have back-translation exercises.
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Last edited by nikorai; 2008-02-20 at 15:08.
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Old 2008-02-20, 15:26   Link #1385
tripperazn
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Quote:
Originally Posted by nikorai View Post
As for game translation, honestly I can't promise anything. During weekends perhaps I can have a look at japanese texts. By the way, from the users point of view, I like the way you present translation, along with original phrases and separately from the game. This way I can only refer to the translation when the original phrase is not clear.
So for this weekend I can try to do something with no more than 1 page of text, the less text, the better.

Also i'm still thinking about getting additional textbooks. See, I complained a bit earlier about the complete lack of japanese textbooks in russian print (I found only 2 authors and i already got those books) so I thought I might substitute them with english ones. I know there are some textbooks published by the japanese but the ones i saw didnt have back-translation exercises.
Hm...yeah, your English is definitely at a high enough level that any Japanese textbook would be no problem. However, I think your Japanese is also at a high enough level to consider a low-level native book. I don't have any suggestions for specific books, as I'm not quite at that level yet in terms of kanji and vocabulary. I started learning in classes from English based textbooks, but when I watched a raw back then, my brain would process the Japanese and give me a translation in English which I would then interpret. This is not a good situation to be in IMO, since you are basing your knowledge of one language off of another one, there is no direct link between your thoughts and Japanese. After all, the level of a native speaker is your ultimate aim, you should learn the way they do. Just my person opinion on this matter.

Please don't push yourself to translate, this is a long term project and you are busy writing your thesis. My contributions are extremely sporadic, because they depend solely on how much time I have on a given day.

Quote:
Originally Posted by nikorai View Post
The reverse also works with Japanese ("sono gyaku mo mata shikari"(c)), though not quite as good and I personally only know the word 你好 in Chinese.
Haha, nicely done. I'm impressed you were able to write that, though. Unfortunately, I don't know any Russian or Cyrillic. Not very good with languages, sorry
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Old 2008-02-20, 17:16   Link #1386
nikorai
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tripperazn
Quote:
there is no direct link between your thoughts and Japanese
Since you can interpret the same phrase differently, it is very important to learn grammar. Grammar patterns are gradually memorized with speech and translation/interpretation. The more you know the more interesting it becomes to translate.
I'm on my own so I'm just trying to organize the studying process the way it was done in the university. Direct and back-translation was one of the tasks the students are expected to be able to do. For example my final exam was divided into 2 parts. The first part is written exam where we were given 2 texts, one in English and another one in Russian for back-translation. The second part is oral test where the students are asked various questions and should be able to dwell upon a topic according to their examination card. The same for French.


I'd also like to send you a PM regarding Fortune Arterial project.
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Old 2008-02-20, 20:10   Link #1387
tripperazn
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Quote:
Originally Posted by nikorai View Post
tripperazn

Since you can interpret the same phrase differently, it is very important to learn grammar. Grammar patterns are gradually memorized with speech and translation/interpretation. The more you know the more interesting it becomes to translate.
I'm on my own so I'm just trying to organize the studying process the way it was done in the university. Direct and back-translation was one of the tasks the students are expected to be able to do. For example my final exam was divided into 2 parts. The first part is written exam where we were given 2 texts, one in English and another one in Russian for back-translation. The second part is oral test where the students are asked various questions and should be able to dwell upon a topic according to their examination card. The same for French.


I'd also like to send you a PM regarding Fortune Arterial project.
Definitely. Although, "interesting" isn't as apt a description as "frustrating" for how I feel about the different grammar structures and patterns that convey meaning. During translation, I see something new almost invariably after about 10 min.

Well, I never had a university language course, so honestly I'm not sure how they would organize it, but apparently it works your English is nearly flawless, except for some missing puncutation markings, which no one really cares about.

I received and replied to your PM, feel free to contact me, I check AS pretty often.
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Old 2008-02-20, 20:27   Link #1388
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Tripperazn: I don't know if you noticed or not, but I made a few comments on the talk pages for scenes 1 and 15.
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Old 2008-02-20, 21:39   Link #1389
mandarb916
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Originally Posted by oompa loompa View Post
this is slightly off topic, but i plan to start learning japanese in college from next year, how many years do you think itll take to be relatively good at japanese? ive always been pretty good with languages.. im fluent in 2 and can understand 2 others.. however anime aside i dont know anything about the language.. how long do you guys think?
Depends on what you mean by "relatively fluent". If you mean being able to speak w/o making blatant grammatical errors on the fly for just conversational Japanese, then you're looking at quite a few years.

If on the other hand, if you mean just being able to communicate enough to get around Japan level, then probably 5~6 quarters? From a personal standpoint, listening to someone at this level, suddenly, makes me cringe and I generally just tell them to speak English unless they tell me before hand that they want to practice.
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Old 2008-02-20, 22:27   Link #1390
tripperazn
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"

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Originally Posted by richvh View Post
Tripperazn: I don't know if you noticed or not, but I made a few comments on the talk pages for scenes 1 and 15.
Thanks, as always, richvh. I've only looked through 1-8, personally. "Edited" means that I've read through and fixed what mistakes I can see. The "translated" pages, I haven't even read yet since I am not the primary translator.

Unfortunately, I can only comment on the first scene. It seems to me that this more of an issue with translational style than accuracy. I used to be a strong advocate of literal translation whenever possible. However, I got around to playing some translated visual novels recently . Often the text flows horribly and the script seems poorly written. It was absolutely faithful to the original game, but many phrases sound awkward. I think that was why I was very underwhelmed after reading through my first visual novel translation, the writing was very inconsistent and the original meaning of the Japanese phrase is actually warped by the fact that it is literal. English speakers who do not know any Japanese do interpret things differently than people with some knowledge of the language. Even now I sometimes catch a literal translation that sounded odd, but I could puzzle out the intended meaning which didn't exactly match the translation.

A blatant example would be something like "I felt agonizing pain in my chest." An English speaker would probably think that the character is suffering from physical rather than the intended meaning of emotional pain due to the different use of 胸 from "chest". This was one I paraphrased from a mistake I saw in CLANNAD.

Anyhow, now I pay more attention to how well the adjacent lines flow together and how well the meaning of the passage is conveyed more than word for word accuracy. For example, "I can taste iron from the blood in my mouth." vs. "The taste of iron spread inside my mouth.". I think the former is much more clear in saying that he is biting his lip so hard that he is bleeding into his mouth. Someone might not know that blood tastes like iron or might not make that connection. Better safe than sorry.

Then again, I'm extremely underqualified to really be translating anything, so if there is a reason why it's better to translate literally, I'm definitely all ears.
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Old 2008-02-21, 04:40   Link #1391
esfir
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does anyone have a difficult time translating colloquial phrases? oddly, if it is a gramatically-intense sentence, i generally don't have much of a problem, because i can logically piece things together--but when it's a common saying, i find that my translations are usually wrong.. (both in english to japanese, and japanese to english). for example, i loosely translated 「だってヒマなんだもん」 as "(we've got some) spare time", only to find out that it actually is better translated as "i'm bored".

another thing that is lost on me is the switching back and forth of 「ところ」 and 「トコ」. a person will say 「トコ」 in one sentence, and then in the very next sentence say 「ところ」, yet from what i can tell, be using it as "place" in both. is there something i am missing here, or is it just completely arbitrary? neither seem to be functioning as any kind of grammatical marker.

i feel like the more i try to figure this language out, the more it confuses me.
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Old 2008-02-21, 05:00   Link #1392
tripperazn
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Originally Posted by esfir View Post
does anyone have a difficult time translating colloquial phrases? oddly, if it is a gramatically-intense sentence, i generally don't have much of a problem, because i can logically piece things together--but when it's a common saying, i find that my translations are usually wrong.. (both in english to japanese, and japanese to english). for example, i loosely translated 「だってヒマなんだもん」 as "(we've got some) spare time", only to find out that it actually is better translated as "i'm bored".
My suggestion: watch more raw anime. Especially ones that take place with high school kids. You'll hear so much of this slang, it sounds natural after a while. Tae Kim's guide does a pretty good job of covering general Japanese slang for such a short section.

My problem is the exact opposite of yours, grammatically complex sentences give me a headache, especially descriptions!! I can easily pick out what いっすよ。 means though.

It's a problem for me since I'm afraid of talking to native speakers now. I just KNOW this anime slang is going to pour out of my mouth without me even noticing and I'll come off as extremely rude.
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Old 2008-02-21, 05:41   Link #1393
LiberLibri
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A japanese spy? I will certainly welcome if a japanese company offers a reward for my opinion, but unfortunately I've never got one
Maybe in your country, only those who are going to be killed are allowed to blame the murder. Sorry, I did not know your common sense.

Quote:
Originally Posted by nikorai View Post
Here it is all based on free will. From the user's point of view if you don't like translation dont use it. If you're a developer I think you're interested in showing it to the public. You can develop your own game and make sure it is not translated and then see for yourself if it was worth the bother.

I'd say that if there's demand for translations there will be supply. As for now I can see there's huge demand and very limited supply. Apart from Fortune Arterial there are many projects that I think are interesting as well but the complete lack of time leaves you no choice but to ignore most of them.
How interesting. Surely you support the free trade of drugs and slaves. Users' demand justifies anything! Our beloved comrad Lenin would be pleased to know Capitalism has finally achieved victory in his land.

> 「ところ」 and 「トコ」

The latter bears a kind of vulgar, unofficial colour. You cannot use it, for example, in academic writing. Also in English, the last character of a word is often omitted in daily situation, e.g., mornin'.

Phonetically speaking, ところ is not pronounced literally as [to-ko-ro], because [o] requires much tension. Rather, it sounds like [to-ko-r]. Therefore one may write down the verbal sound as "とこー" or, "とこ". But it is against the orthography. So the kanakana letters are used to express the unofficial nature. (In general, you can exploit kanakana to show the writer's intention to beg readers' generous understanding; like "you know", "so-called", "isn't it?")

Last edited by LiberLibri; 2008-02-21 at 05:55.
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Old 2008-02-21, 05:56   Link #1394
tripperazn
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How interesting. Surely you support the free trade of drugs and slaves. Users' demand justifies anything! Our beloved comrad Lenin would be pleased to know Capitalism has finally achieved victory in his land.
Judging by your responses, the subject of copyrights and legality must be a huge issue for you personally, and I respect that. However, you must also respect the opinions of others. Just because you disagree with nikorai, doesn't mean that you can use such racist comments. The "Location" option doesn't exist for that purpose.

I would like to remind you that my country was also Communist. Those times are NOT something I personally would like to be reminded of, especially not in a personal attack against my country and people. It might surprise you that what you consider "history" actually has an impact on people today, but please do not make these assumptions.
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Old 2008-02-21, 08:25   Link #1395
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>tripperazn

I never attack a person who think "I know it's not good, but I love the masterpiece so much that I cannot stop fan-activities...". I resisted against you (and nikorai), because you asserted that piracy is not illegal. It is not a question of personality or subjective value, but of a mere fact.

Yes, I used intentionally those words, since nikorai called me a japanese spy. I believed he feels such insulting intercourse funny.

You respect my opinion? Thank you very much. But rather, I beg you, show your respect for the creators. Your favourite games and animes do not appear spontaneously. A lot of persons, who make great efforts to keep their daily lives just similarly as you, create them. The labour condition of average anime staffs is notoriously terrible. They have rights on their works. That is why I persistently deny the opinions encouraging piracy.
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Old 2008-02-21, 12:14   Link #1396
richvh
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Originally Posted by tripperazn View Post
Anyhow, now I pay more attention to how well the adjacent lines flow together and how well the meaning of the passage is conveyed more than word for word accuracy. For example, "I can taste iron from the blood in my mouth." vs. "The taste of iron spread inside my mouth.". I think the former is much more clear in saying that he is biting his lip so hard that he is bleeding into his mouth. Someone might not know that blood tastes like iron or might not make that connection. Better safe than sorry.
Well, "I can taste iron from the blood in my mouth" is hardly natural phrasing, either. "The taste of iron" may be a bit too 直訳, but "A metallic taste" is something I have seen in English literature. If even that is too obscure/poetic for you, then "The taste of blood" is better than your turn of phrase.

Oh, and the previous sentence (ぶつりと、繊維が切れる感覚。) has nothing at all to do with physics - it's about biting through the lip.
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Old 2008-02-21, 13:03   Link #1397
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LiberLibri
I consider any further argument pointless.
The products we are talking about are aimed at japanese people and the developers do not expect foreigners to buy them. But we do. This is what you don't like and actual translation doesnt matter. I repeately said that it is not piracy because we spend our money and thus respect the agreement. We do not distribute copies of the game so there's nothing criminal in our actions. People write guides and solutions to games without asking permission to do so, so what, ban them as well?
In Soviet Union there was much more control over what you write/create, how many copies you sell, for what price, and, what you like most, who will have the right to translate. But the West hated russians because they found there's no democracy in the country.
On the other hand, in the free market you can't be absolutely sure your decisions are correct. So it's a matter of choice. You can market your product for some target audience but fail but it can also become popular with people you didn't originally take into account.
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Old 2008-02-21, 13:40   Link #1398
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Originally Posted by esfir View Post
another thing that is lost on me is the switching back and forth of 「ところ」 and 「トコ」. a person will say 「トコ」 in one sentence, and then in the very next sentence say 「ところ」, yet from what i can tell, be using it as "place" in both. is there something i am missing here, or is it just completely arbitrary? neither seem to be functioning as any kind of grammatical marker.
In conversation, it's more arbitrary than anything. Particularly amongst friend/family, you just use whatever comes out. I have, however, had a few friends confuse "by the way" with "place". 「ところで」is never used as 「とこで」. Completely different meaning.
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Old 2008-02-21, 15:04   Link #1399
zka
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Question Japanese online dictionary with pronunciation?

Heya... Started learning japanese and of course I wonder if there is a nice english to japanese dictionary where you can hear the word that is being shown. For example if I write "sensei" or maybe even in hiragana "せんせい" then I want to be able to hear the word too...

Anyone who has bookmarked such a site ?.. All the ones I can find are just the regular ones
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Old 2008-02-21, 16:55   Link #1400
mandarb916
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Originally Posted by zka View Post
Heya... Started learning japanese and of course I wonder if there is a nice english to japanese dictionary where you can hear the word that is being shown. For example if I write "sensei" or maybe even in hiragana "せんせい" then I want to be able to hear the word too...

Anyone who has bookmarked such a site ?.. All the ones I can find are just the regular ones
http://dictionary.goo.ne.jp
和英 radio button is for Japanese to English, and requires Japanese input
英和 radio button is for English to Japanese, and requires English input.
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