2008-02-20, 12:58 | Link #1381 |
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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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2008-02-20, 13:41 | Link #1382 | |
Toyosaki Aki
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Join Date: Nov 2007
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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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2008-02-20, 14:00 | Link #1383 | ||
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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.
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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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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:
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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2008-02-20, 15:26 | Link #1385 | |
Toyosaki Aki
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Join Date: Nov 2007
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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. 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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2008-02-20, 17:16 | Link #1386 | |
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tripperazn
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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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2008-02-20, 20:10 | Link #1387 | |
Toyosaki Aki
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Join Date: Nov 2007
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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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2008-02-20, 21:39 | Link #1389 | |
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Join Date: Jan 2008
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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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2008-02-20, 22:27 | Link #1390 | |
Toyosaki Aki
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Join Date: Nov 2007
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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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Last edited by tripperazn; 2008-02-20 at 22:45. |
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2008-02-21, 04:40 | Link #1391 |
hepcat
Join Date: Feb 2008
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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. |
2008-02-21, 05:00 | Link #1392 | |
Toyosaki Aki
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Join Date: Nov 2007
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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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2008-02-21, 05:41 | Link #1393 | |
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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:
> 「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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2008-02-21, 05:56 | Link #1394 | |
Toyosaki Aki
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Join Date: Nov 2007
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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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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. |
2008-02-21, 12:14 | Link #1396 | |
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Join Date: Jul 2007
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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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2008-02-21, 13:03 | Link #1397 |
Senior Member
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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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2008-02-21, 13:40 | Link #1398 | |
Senior Member
Join Date: Jan 2008
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2008-02-21, 15:04 | Link #1399 |
Member
Join Date: Aug 2004
Age: 39
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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 |
2008-02-21, 16:55 | Link #1400 | |
Senior Member
Join Date: Jan 2008
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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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hiragana |
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