The Translation of Haruhi Suzumiya (Novel Translation Thread)

[Onizuka-GTO]

Originally Posted by panzerfan

Spoiler:

I stand corrected: Kyon is so normal that he in turn is abnormal.

*goes on an ego trip*

[CrowKenobi]

Originally Posted by panzerfan

Spoiler:

I stand corrected: Kyon is so normal that he in turn is abnormal.

Ah, the Arthur Dent kind of normal.

[panzerfan]

Originally Posted by CrowKenobi

Ah, the Arthur Dent kind of normal.

Originally Posted by Onizuka-GTO

goes on an ego trip*

Fine, fine, I admit it :P

Now for further gloating... it seems that my oversea contact managed to secure me the Chinese version of the novel set and it's en-route to Canada as we speak.

[Kinny Riddle]

To people with the original Japanese novels and texts: even if your Japanese if not 100% perfect, you can help as well! Namely in sorting out the honorifics used (-san, -chan, etc.)

I notice there's plenty of errors in the translation concerning honorifics after watching the anime. Since they use a different style of honorifics in Chinese, it's impossible to determine which honorific is being used in the original, so most of my translation is pure guesswork. (e.g. Kyon is supposed to just call Yuki "Nagato", but I didn't know and included a "-san" in all his usages. Most appreciated if you guys can clean up these glaring errors. )

Begun translation of Vol1 Ch7.

[Onizuka-GTO]

oooOOoooOh chapter 07!

[arcticphoenix16]

In the taiwanese version, everyone refers to Asahina as "sempai" (other than Haruhi of course). But I haven't noticed that in the anime, what does the original novel says?

[Freak Of Nature]

Originally Posted by arcticphoenix16

In the taiwanese version, everyone refers to Asahina as "sempai" (other than Haruhi of course). But I haven't noticed that in the anime, what does the original novel says?

They usually call her "Asahina-san" or "Mikuru-chan". But technically, she is their senpai, as she is a grade above them.

[C.A.]

Originally Posted by Freak Of Nature

They usually call her "Asahina-san" or "Mikuru-chan". But technically, she is their senpai, as she is a grade above them.

Its interesting because even though mikuru is a senior, shes really a junior.

Since shes from the future, shes got to be born after everyone, so at her originally time plane, everyone else is probably older than her or dead lol

Maybe thats why she insists kyon to call her mikuru san/chan, instead of addressing her like a sempai.

[Psieye]

Originally Posted by C.A.

Its interesting because even though mikuru is a senior, shes really a junior.

Since shes from the future, shes got to be born after everyone, so at her originally time plane, everyone else is probably older than her or dead lol

Maybe thats why she insists kyon to call her mikuru san/chan, instead of addressing her like a sempai.

Or perhaps, she's biologically the same or younger in age than them. Chronological age (comparing dates of birth) is meaningless to time travellers or even just relativistic speeders.

[panzerfan]

Chinese honorific tends to be more lax than their Japanese counterparts (in their modernized form that is) There is a difference but it's actually not too hard to make the changes here. It's special terminalogies that is is more alerting since there are numerous words in Japanese where they are used in Katatana that Chinese will replace with indigenous kanji words (compound characters) which makes no attempt to minic the original pronounciation by taking on a literal translation, such as 'computer', 'parking lot', 'catalogue' etc... even in instances where the original pronounciation is 'attempted' variation occurs when you translate from Japanese to Chinese and then to English comparing to a direct Japanese to English translation. Best way to circumvent this problem is to pay attention to the source raw and use the Chinese translation as a guide in creating the English translation, or this problem will never go away.

[C.A.]

Originally Posted by Psieye

Or perhaps, she's biologically the same or younger in age than them. Chronological age (comparing dates of birth) is meaningless to time travellers or even just relativistic speeders.

Hmmm maybe, but I think shes really(biologically) 1 year older than the rest of them at least comparing on the same time scale. Well wouldn't it be simpler to investigate on haruhi if shes on the same same level or same class.

But why is she going for education in the first place? She's probably so well educated in her original time plane, unless they allow people with education similar to 15/16 year olds in our time to join a time travelling organisation.

Or maybe mikuru was cryogenated and lived for centuries and her body stopped growing after some point in her teens, resulting in a cute and mature loli who has vast knowledge.

And maybe:

Spoiler:

She was biongenetically enhanced and is a mutant who fires beams off her left eye!

Mikuru sure is an enigma, we may never know her true age.

[panzerfan]

(that's a speculation topic and... we can't have you spoiled now can we? *To quote Misuzu... nihaha)

[Kinny Riddle]

Originally Posted by C.A.

Hmmm maybe, but I think shes really(biologically) 1 year older than the rest of them at least comparing on the same time scale. Well wouldn't it be simpler to investigate on haruhi if shes on the same same level or same class.

But why is she going for education in the first place? She's probably so well educated in her original time plane, unless they allow people with education similar to 15/16 year olds in our time to join a time travelling organisation.

Or maybe mikuru was cryogenated and lived for centuries and her body stopped growing after some point in her teens, resulting in a cute and mature loli who has vast knowledge.

And maybe:

Spoiler:

She was biongenetically enhanced and is a mutant who fires beams off her left eye!

Mikuru sure is an enigma, we may never know her true age.

You'll just have to find out when volume 2 gets translated.

Until then,

Volume 1 Chapter 7 is now 35% done. Moving on to the climax.

http://www.baka-tsuki.net/project/in...lume1_Chapter7

[Onizuka-GTO]

w00t!

Cheers Kinny! your ichiban sugoi!

[Psieye]

Originally Posted by C.A.

But why is she going for education in the first place? She's probably so well educated in her original time plane, unless they allow people with education similar to 15/16 year olds in our time to join a time travelling organisation.

Well, to go on a slight tangent, it's a mistake to assume that Future Education has everything that older times had to offer. There's more to teach, so you get taught less about everything. Mikuru likely excels in Temporal Physics concepts and other such relevant knowledge, but she'd be lacking in broader areas.

I can't guess what areas she'd be lacking but to give an example of present Physicists vs Physics education a few centuries ago, we modern students really don't get taught much on Geometry. One page of advanced Geometry from a few centuries ago would need 6 pages of writing to convey its arguments to a modern reader - such was the state of Geometry in those days with hyper condensed notations and axioms.

Or to take another example, in the late 19th century when Quantum Mechanics and Relativity hadn't been discovered yet supposedly there was an infamous question set to Cambridge Physicists: "describe the motion of a rugby ball on a ship that's rocking about in a storm" - which is a ludicrously hard Mechanics question that even our professors daren't touch.

I'm limited to Physics in my examples, but it's not hard to extend this to other, non-scientific subject areas. I could imagine History lessons would be quite an experience, being provided more detail than one would in futuristic History lessons.



Ah well, that had nothing to do with guessing her biological age ^^;;

[Onizuka-GTO]

The only important question you would have to ask Mikuru is: "Would you? I would!"

[panzerfan]

Well... think of it this way. How much time do we spent on WWI today? Even the Great Wars get shafted due to the need to cover 'other' terribly significent events such as Detante, WW2... the generation that follows us will be learning about Sep.11 in great details as that is a defining event in beginnig of the 21th century. The generation X grew up with the Berlin wall falling down and for them the big topic of discussion was historical lessons from the Cold War (such as JFK, Cuban misslie crisis, 'Nam) so that's just how it is.

Geometry at the times of Pythegoras was very, very rigourous. They were calculating areas under curves and the like which today would tax a student fluent in calculus. That being said, we as a society know alot more and we do stand on the shoulder of giants. There are specialists that have retained those knowledge and are developing at the forefront of number theory (which is ancient). Let us also not forget that accecss to education and educational resources has significently improved and even exploaded now that the information revolution has become granted. There's just too many things out there to teach so we're all learning a little bit of everything.

Who knows, maybe the concept of memorization will be truly dead in the forseeable future, leading to individuals that knows where to look for the relavent information and calls upon the sources when needed and apply them... just like how we stream data online nowadays (maybe I won't live to see it, who knows :P)

[Onizuka-GTO]

Originally Posted by panzerfan

Well... think of it this way. How much time do we spent on WWI today? Even the Great Wars get shafted due to the need to cover 'other' terribly significent events such as Detante, WW2...

tell me about it, it's like going up to someone and saying "Boer War" and they think im talking about Aircraft Manufacturing competition designs, well that's what you get if you ask people in my Uni Engineering School I have no idea what a normal person would say.

Very sad. Perhaps in the next era we will have neru-interfaces connected to the super-wiki for instant knowledge?

[Matt Soulblade]

Great work! Looking forward to this project

[panzerfan]

Absolutely. I can concur with Crimean war, Anatolian and Abbysinian massacre and the list goes on...
anyway, going back to Mikuru.

Her look shouldn't be used to indicate her intelligence or age. The socialogical context might be too different to make a fair judgemet (her status might come to play as well). Best to take her just as she is.