2012-03-21, 07:51
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Link #183 | |
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Professional Hikkikomori
Join Date: Feb 2009
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Quote:
Last edited by omimon; 2012-03-21 at 08:28. |
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2012-04-16, 05:04
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Link #188 | |
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Senior Member
Join Date: Jul 2010
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Finally, some LNs are damn easy to translate because the author uses simple language, or sucks in writing (but has a good story) that you don't care making the sentences good, or is just full of dialogue. Dialogue is really 10x easier than narration for most series. It also differs from translator to translator, depending on their goal for a series. Some take the quality of their work very seriously, while some wants to get the content out fast to reach the masses at a comprehensible level. There are no rights or wrongs. The former will produce a very quality work at the expense of the translator not finishing the series (usually), while the later will sacrifice quality for completeness. In short, again, too few translators. If there are enough committed translators that we can see a series getting completed in a year or two, it's easy to divide the work so that everything gets translated in order as much as possible. Well, some will prefer by volume due to style issues. But the fact is, most of us are just soloing our projects. Or dueting at best. I've seldom seen projects having more than 2 very active translators since the days of Haruhi and Toradora. And taste is subjective. Try not to put down other series if they are not your cup of tea. You can criticize them sure, but at least include the points which made it subjectively not your cup of tea. So far, I don't see most of the LNs which are translated 'instantly' to be terrible. The only ones I'm not really fond of are IS and High School DxD. And that's just my taste. Also, don't forget that Monogatari is not exactly a light novel type kind of novel. It is published under Kodansha Box label (not under their normal light novel label), and are larger in size, with each page divided into upper half and lower half sections. Thus they have a lot more words than the average light novel. I don't even want to start on the word-plays, kanji references, and other stuff. By the way, most of us are not bilingual and know at least 3 languages with Japanese as the third language or beyond. Finally, a disclaimer, what I said does not represent all the views of all fan-translators. |
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2012-04-16, 08:45
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Link #189 |
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^o^
Join Date: Aug 2010
Location: Australia
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I had a feeling I would come across as demanding and ignorant.
Please don't misunderstand me, I greatly appreciate both the translations and also your explanation. I apologize if I have caused offense, I really didn't have ill intentions. I wasn't demanding explanations or results, I was merely curious. It is unreasonable to presume you would collaborate with the other translators but I don't quite see how you would make any progress at all if that was the case. I've only recently started reading LNs so I guessed there might be some kind of system in place but I stand corrected. I also can't imagine how you find 'gratification' in the task with the explanation you gave. It sounds terrifying. I wasn't belittling the difficulty of the assignment as my inexperience prevents me from even writing my name in kana. I have naught but respect and envy for your aptitude. Lacking motivation to do the boring parts is completely understandable, especially if you do it for fun, but it doesn't exactly make a coherent story; which again is not your problem. Maybe it's personal, I don't know. No one else is saying anything  But it is wrong to assume that I was expecting the whole series. I don't even expect that from Shaft in my lifetime. 'Terrible' was a bit too harsh. I tend to speak my mind more often than is polite. 'Simpler' or 'series with a large fan base that I'm not part of' would have been more diplomatic. I guess I expected everyone to watch Nise and get inspired, considering how popular it has become. I was just about to start reading High School DxD  As for mistakenly assuming you only spoke the 2 languages needed to translate the novel; I apologize, but there really was no way for me to know. I sometimes forget how vast the internet is. Your English is flawless. Thanks again for the reply. It was helpful and interesting >< Keep up the good work! |
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2012-04-16, 09:57
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Link #190 |
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著述遮断
Join Date: Jul 2009
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Unlike English with our mere latin style 26 letters and systematic spelling...
Joyo kanji (daily use kanji) has over 2,136 ... which you learn purely my rote. I have nothing but respect for the people that managed to even get the first 500 into their memory. It is taxing on the memory... and takes years to be remember all the different readings attached to each of them... Japanese (and Chinese ) authors have got some SERIOUS brain power ... especially to pull off all the Kanji puns and jokes... its no joke. It is so difficult that in the 1800's at the height of the Meji restoration it was suggested that Japan switch language to English or at least the Latin Alphabet. I suspect that Romajii was even created for that purpose. I can imagine that during the American occupation it was strongly considered as a replacement for Kanji as well. It is indeed a very difficult language. |
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2012-04-16, 10:23
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Link #191 | ||
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Senior Member
Join Date: Jul 2010
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 Because LN translations are in great demand, and translators are so few and far between, we normally don't enforce strict rules and systems, deadlines, or even proficiency level so that the barrier to entry is lower. Or course, some degree of proficiency is still desired (my personal gauge is at least 300-500 hours of study for the easier LNs), and twice as much (or even more than that) for the very difficult novels (just my personal preference). Anyway baka-tsuki is a community where people come and go freely, it's not a translation group. This dilutes the quality but gets more done overall. Again my personal opinion but I feel this makes it better than quality groups that die out before they finish a series because of time commitments (you can really find a lot of dead groups if you go search). We will sometimes get relatively not so proficient people who improve along the way because they are more committed or have more time. I myself also have improved a lot. A lot of my past translations were just painful to read. Ability to translate is different from ability to comprehend. One thing that helps me a lot in translation is to be able to grasp exact usage contexts of certain words and use them myself. Previously, I just know a word, but might not be able to use it well. Though I have to be careful because many light novels have bad writing (by academic standards). It also increases my slang lexicon. I'm not too sure about Europe and US, but I'm guessing most people will have a second language which is usually a European language. For most Asian countries, it's compulsory we study two languages, English and our mother-tongue (dependent on country). So it's easy to infer that Japanese is either a third or later language for nearly all non-Japanese. Thanks, but my English is far from flawless. Quote:
Last edited by larethian; 2012-04-16 at 10:34. |
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2012-04-16, 10:50
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Link #192 |
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Senior Member
Join Date: Aug 2010
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larethian wrote an excellent post. Indeed, I am self-taught and for me translation was first of all practice to see if I understood the text correctly. I think that paradoxically the more proficient one becomes the less motivation he has to translate. To tell the truth though, I don't still know that many kanji, and I am not an English native speaker either, so overall it took me even more than 1 hour per page to translate Kizu.
In addition there are plenty of distractions. For example the latest novel of this series comes out. Or the anime adaptation comes out, so I have to reread the novel to tell the differences. Or I try to finish reading Zaregoto. Or I try to study some more kanji. And then there are days where I simply get tired of reading and writing in front of the screen of a PC. I'm not saying I won't translate anything anymore, but at the moment I'm still taking it easy  I also confess it is actually my fault there is a "hole". I spoke with Canonrap, the one who is doing NekoShiro, and I kind of implied I wanted to translate NekoKuro. Which I do want to, really, I just got sidetracked into other activities. As it is though he is going with NekoShiro without me having really started with NekoKuro. And I still should recheck the translation of Kizu for completeness' sake. Not to mention I am kind of worried for the future because Shaft will adapt 6 books in a row 
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2012-04-16, 11:36
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Link #193 |
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一刀繚乱
Join Date: Sep 2009
Location: アッバス
Age: 33
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You know, lare, shikijin, there's a reason why I respect fan-translators, and that goes for you two as well. It's the effort that fan-translators are doing as volunteers that makes me appreciate them. Of course, I'm still the idealistic one who will argue back when people give unruly demands because I hope that they understand where we come from. Of course, monogatari here is a 10/10 difficulty as compared to other series.
@Shikijin: Distractions are okay because we're human, ゆっくりしていってね. That's what I feel is important. (And lare, I know what you're thinking. Don't give me that look lol).
__________________
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2012-04-16, 21:00
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Link #194 |
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^o^
Join Date: Aug 2010
Location: Australia
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I should probably be glared at ominously for derailing the thread, but it would be beneficial if everyone read your posts.
I for one will not take the novels or their translators for granted again  If you are born and raised here in Australia, it is extremely rare to obtain fluency in another language unless your immediate family are immigrants. Thus, the level of finesse required to translate a complex novel in 2 languages that are not your native tongue is incomprehensible to me. We, as lazy westerners, are privileged to be able to immerse ourselves in other cultures in our mother language. Thank you again for your replies and hard work. And Shikijin? Self taught? I can't even imagine... |
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