It saddens me that any Tom, Dick or Harry can call himself a “translator” these days just because he can copy&paste the Japanese text into a machine translator. The resulting so-called “translation” reads as if an autistic 5 years-old wrote it. 95% of them don’t even know proper English, let alone Japanese (Btw, the remaining 5% at least went through the effort of learning hiragana, but still don’t know jack about grammar), so they already fail at the two important elements a translator should have: Good grasp of the (1)original and (2)target language.
In that sense, I too disqualify as a translator for the English language, since I don’t have an accurate grasp of it. But at least I went through a proper translator education at university, albeit in my native tongue German.
Anyway, I don’t know if they have been revised yet, but the earlier “translations” I read of Mushoku Tensei were so cringe-worthy that I was about to smash my head into the wall. That is no longer entertainment, just a tedious task to encode the possible meaning in every sentence.
And as if the piece of garbage they produce isn’t bad enough already, they shit out scripts on a nearly daily basis without even realizing what harm they do. The readers get spoiled with a shower of releases, thinking that translating mustn’t be that hard after all when they release so quickly.
Yet here I am, struggling for weeks over a single chapter, sometimes a whole day over a single page, to hopefully convey the fucking nuances correctly in English, only to find myself reading “NEXT CHAPTER WHEN” comments the day after I finally release it-.-
Everyone is free to do whatever he wants, but this wasted “effort” of theirs is simply idiotic. It by no means does the novels justice, nor is it in any way entertaining to read, yet people jump at it like money on the street. Why? Because their impatience has blinded their rational thinking.
I can understand that you’re eager to read the next chapter, but to fall so low as to read this cobbled-together junk? I’m disappointed. That has no longer anything to do with love/interest for the series, just greed.
So far, I haven’t come across even a single “translation” from these wanna-be “translator” that I would deem at least “okay”. All the scripts were clustered with mistranslations and incorrect English that even someone, who doesn’t know any English or Japanese, could tell its wrong. Some might be average at best with heavy editing, preventing me from immediately gauging out my eyes.
Of course, not all of you are such greedy leechers, but when you do not comment, you will always stay a minority. So go up to your favorite scanlator’s site and give them a hug!
While we’re on the topic, there’s also this bunch of Chinese translators. Translating from a translation is always wrong. Always. But seeing as these guys actually know the language they translate from and the result is 10x better than what any machine translation could ever hope to achieve, I’ll compromise on this. It IS a fact the the community lacks translators.
I know that nothing will change from writing this, but I just needed to blow off some steam. Forgive me.
Now for the actual release itself. lol.
My dice seems to be rigged as it always landed on Risou, no matter how often I rerolled-.-
But it was a pretty kewl chapter, not so fucking technical like in the beginning, which is a good sign! Though it seems to get rather political now. But I don’t mind for now.
Next chapter is over 70 pages long again, so it’ll take a bit longer. You know the drill, patience and all that.
Also, TsukiTsuki is supposed to be my main project, yet all the comments it gets are about Risou 🙁 I’m glad you guys like Risou that much, but it’s a complicated feeling for me 😛
Special thanks to Ives, who helped me with the Spanish in this chapter!!
Either way, it’s always a good motivation push when I see a lot of comments, thanks! Keep it up.
Enjoy~
Well, just ignore people like those. Most probably speaks only one language and doesn’t understand how different each language can be especially japanese and english.
Thank you so much for the chapter, I find it amazing that you translating from one language to another with neither being your native tongue, your quality as always has been great, I hope the rest of the leechers understand how difficult and time consuming it is (myself included)
Thank you for the translation. Did you learn your japanese at your university? (If, how many courses did you do?) I’m glad that you give us the possiblity to enjoy novels so close to their source.
Yeah.. We all have seen those horrible disaster translations.. And no worries Prozess, everyone likes TsukiTsuki, it’s just that new volume isn’t getting published for some time and we jumped to Risou madness 😀
Everyone, do you know tsuki tsuki (light novel) 13’s release date?? ’cause i never seen tsuki tsuki release date ANYWHERE
Thanks for the translation! Didn’t even realize you were German. Your grasp of English is very good. Once I knew I started looking for errors consciously, sorry ’tis the life of an English student.
“receipts(recipes) for cakes, cookies or pudding on his computer, downloaded from a homepage(website) with pictures to (explain)”
Also, I’m not sure sultry was used correctly, I believe that is usually a sexual innuendo reference instead of the temperature.
Sultry referring to temperature is correct, I believe that a marginally older term the sexual version is derived from.
You’re absolutely right beefy that it can be used like that. I was referring to it going out of common usage. It is however, like you say, still a valid use.
Well, i do agree with you in this, and i do belong to the minority that prefer to wait for a proper translation than read a google translated crap that you must struggle to try to understand wtf is happening (even the “EDITED” ones). Like everyone else you must have at least read one or a few google translated to understand just how bad it is, even more so if you first read a google translated one then read a TRUE PROPER human translated chapter… the difference is like heaven and earth!.
K now! thanks a lot for risou!!
This is very true. Also, if people insist on posting trashy translations then use Bing Translator, its WORLDS better. And check the individual kanji in Jisho, Kotobank or even Wiktionary.
Thanks for new chapter, I really appreciate your efforts in TsukiTsuki and Risou. TsukiTsuki was actually one of the first LN that I started to read and thanks to that I got to know more of them (like Risou for example 🙂 ) so I get how important some parts are to truly enjoy and understand story. Thanks once again.
I also agree to your statement, MTL is to the majority not good unless the “translator” has already some grasp of the language and uses it only as supporting device (like hiragana megane, it would still be a rather simple and maybe lacking translation though.) And two-way-translation is actually to the most part better than MTL but still worse in comparision to actual translations, that was also the reason why I began to read english direct translated works instead of those two-way-translations (I am a German reader with multilingual background and read jap to ger translated works before). I also tried to translate myself (Douluo Dalu from viet to eng/ger which was translated from the chinese original) but the result was worse than the direct translated work of Bagel Bagelson when it came to the translations of names, places and titles, so I gave up (the viet translation simplified to much imo). But I can also understand the impatients of the many readers because of the fact that there are so many translation materials with so many readers and fans but only a few good translators who have time to translate regularily.
PS: Thanks. (as always)
Thank you for another chapter.
For me I want to try read some novel in JP language (cuz some have no translation) so I start learning it but my progress go in slow pace (nearly a year but still at chapter 15 of Minnanonihongo).
Thanks for a chapter. Have you learned japanese on your own or at uni/language course? Regardless the way you did, any tips/recommendations helping learning it?
All your translations are top tier (well I can’t compare them to original cause don’t know japanese but i like your ‘style’), you can see an effort was put to them.
Don’t get discouraged by the greedy ones – you’re doing a great work! I hope all this stuff you’re doing, and LNs&mangas overall won’t become boring to you – Wish you always Good Luck!
Thanks for the new chapter !
*Hugs*
I’d say when it comes to the quality of (mis)translation, what also matters is the quality if the original material. Let’s face it: a lot of WNs that are currently MTLed simply don’t deserve proper attention both from translators and readers. Chapters are short, writing is simplistic (at best), the plot is usually a bunch of cliches, so it’s something to quickly skip through when you want to take your mind off the things and relax a bit.
Then there are novels that are good enough to actually care about the details. With those, the proper translation is a must, and the waiting time is obviously different. Anyone who has ever translated anything from one language to another should be well aware of how difficult and time-consuming it is, so it’s easier to them to be patient. Actually, I’m surprised you can translate from a non-native language to another non-native language at that pace and that level of quality. Thanks as always.
” My dice seems to be rigged as it always landed on Risou, no matter how often I rerolled-.-”
Don’t cheat please~ 😛
Thanks for your hard work! And sorry but i love Risou so much~ *.*
Thanks for the translation. I find your translations rather high quality. I wouldn’t have known that you were’s a native English speaker if you didn’t state so here. I agree that many translators take too many shortcuts. However, it makes me appreciate your translations even more because I can see that you put effort into it. Once again, thank you.
Thanks for the chapter, you are a champion.
Concerning Mushoku, the community has had to read through some of the worst translations I have seen, so everyone just doesn’t give a shit anymore.
Personally I hope some translator/s redo the chapters from the start(at their own pace), that way the LN gets the translation it deserves.
Thank you very much for your efforts. Don’t let these negative things get to you. Your work in this translation business is simply amazing.
Many thanks for your hard work PROzess! I read your autobigraphy on Black Wings (RIP) and I was moved to tears :P. It gave me more motivation when I read the part about how you learned japanese!
About MTL, yeah it should only be a support if needed for the translation but using it to translate the whole script is too atrocious and it would only mislead the reader to another scenario and that is a shame. Needless to say it’s disrespectful towards the authors but also towards the language.
What’s more I saw some peole on Baka Tsuki Mushoku Tensei’s thread defending their “translators” because some real translators attacked them (and they did well).
Sorry for the poor english but don’t worry it’s not MTLed ^^.
*hug*
I’m glad you put so much effort into making high quality translations! If I’m eager for more, it’s because I really enjoy reading them.
Thank you for all the effort you’ve put into giving us an enjoyable read.
Vielen Dank für die Übersetzung, Meister Prozess 😛
In the interests of helping you keep the translation quality high:
> receipts for cakes
Receipts (records of purchases) should be recipes (instructions for making something).
> marriages arrangements
This should be ‘marriage arrangements’, even if more than one marriage is being contemplated. I’m sure it must look odd to you, but in that phrase, ‘marriage’ cannot become plural, only ‘arrangements.’
> call for beldam
Beldam should be capitalized as a proper name. I confused this with a misspelling of bedlam (a scene of uproar and confusion) until it was made clear it was a name later on.
A beldam is an old woman so in this case beldam would be a title rather than a name, Pascuala is the name. Possibly should still be capitalized as a title but I don’t think it’s necessary.
Hugs to PROzess!
PS Once tried translating from japanese into my language (Russian), stopped after it lead me to vomit a rainbow. I couldn’t make it satisfactory enough.
That Shield Hero LN is possibly the worst offender. The amount of garbage translation made me just give up on it. What happened to people where they just accept the lazyness of “guy:shit he says” or “guy[words coming out of his mouth].” These aren’t scripts or screenplays what are they thinking.
If you stop by an eatery to grab some junk food, you don’t really expect a waiter in a suit to attend to you, or the food to be served on an exquisite tableware. All you care about is fast service and passable taste. Quality will be poor and the food is unhealthy, but it’s not called junk for no reason. Properly translating stuff like Shield Hero is like serving cheeseburgers on porcelain with silver tableware after an hour of wait. Leave that treatment for LNs like Oregairu.
That analogy is a bit wrong.
Even if the Web Novels aren’t linguistic masterpieces, they still deserve a proper translation instead of some butchered shit.
If you want to express it the junk food way, it’s like going for a cheeseburger, but getting something inedible that was mixed from leftovers of trash of the previous day with a little bit of meat, between two pieces of bread and a piece of yellow edible paper instead of cheese.
If I want to eat a cheese burger, I want proper meat and cheese on it!
Same goes for any kind of entertaining text aka novels, it deserves a proper translation, otherwise you cannot enjoy it.
You sure know that the meat in fast food is not strictly what we usually mean by meat, right? Personally, I’d rather buy some string cheese, nuts or similar snacks than go fast food places, but the number of people willing to close their eyes and compromise is by no means small. It’s just the question of how far are they willing to go with that and what are their initial standards.
Most WNs not only have terrible writing, but the story, the setting, and the characters are also mediocre at best. It’s enough to pander to one or more fetishes to get some following, anyway. I’m not saying all of them are like that, but if the original recipe is for making a meal as you described, then even if an incompetent cook messes it up further, we are still choosing between crap and crap. It’s kind of pointless to argue which one tastes better.
The fact that people read crappy translations of crappy WNs simply skipping the lines that don’t make sense immediately only shows that they are in for some temporary distraction. I can’t even call it reading in a proper sense, but there’s a clear demand for something like that.
I don’t care what others do.
They can eat all the crap for all I care.
But arguing that a Web Novel doesn’t deserve a proper translation, because it’s shit anyway, it just outright bullshit.
Your job as a translator is not to judge the quality of the original text, but an accurate reproduction in a second language.
And that is what all these wanna-be “translator” fail to do.
To begin with, I don’t even want to discuss the original text (who are we to judge someone else’s work anyway?), but criticizing the work mechanism of these so-called “translation”.
It bugs me that I’m lumped together with “them”. Translating is actually a pretty tough job and I just want people to appreciate it, instead of impatiently demand for more.
Unless a translator picks a project based on what they expect to attract the highest number of visitors or the greatest amount of donations, it is precisely their role to judge the quality of the original material to determine if it’s worth translating. Actually, that’s one of the few advantages they have over professional translators who have to work on whatever they’re assigned to work on.
If the original source is utter crap, but plays the pandering card well enough to attract attention, why would the audience mind terrible translation as long as that one thing they came for somehow comes across? They’re the people who are willing to put up with all the crap that’s already in the source, any flaws in translation simply don’t stand out as much as they would if the source was decent. Which is probably why there’s a surge of machine translations of crappy WNs.
This is particularly sad because WNs provide an opportunity for authors to do things differently, without including all true and tried elements that guarantee sales and without which their work won’t get published unless it already has a huge following.
Back to the main topic, it doesn’t take a genius to understand what the quality translation is and why it takes time to do. It’s not that the people who complain and compare real and machine translators based on speed alone don’t understand, it’s just that they don’t want to understand. Which is why it’s pointless to appeal to them with reason and try to explain that you and MTLs are fundamentally different: such people simply take the point of view that’s more convenient to them. MTLs openly state that their translations contain errors, and all the wonderful grammar is in the plain view as well, yet what are the comments from their audience are usually focused on? Speed of the translation. I don’t know if people like that are the majority, or if they’re just much more vocal, but they don’t appear to be your audience, so, logically, the best thing to do is just ignore whatever they say.
I think we need to differentiate a bit here.
First off, a FAN translator is supposed to pick up what interests HIM, not pandering to the audience.
Second, you don’t really get my point. I’m a professionally trained translator. I went through five years of University and as soon as I finish writing my master thesis, I can be employed as a professional translator. Hence my viewpoint on translation is different than others.
For me, a translation has always to be ACCURATE and. The translator NEVER judges the quality of a work. In case of fan translator, you decide a project based on your likes as a novel fan, but as soon as you start to translate it, you ought to change your mindset and provide a correct translation. If you cannot do that, you have no right to call yourself a translator.
And that’s exactly what I’m criticizing here. Using MT does NOT make you a translator. Just a stupid guy with too much free time. But everyone perceives them as translator and equals them with us, the “real” translators, which is quite annoying, because we need more time to ensue quality. People just don’t understand that.
To begin with, I only wrote all this to blow of some steam, not like I want anyone stop or discuss the pro and con now-.-
Fuck yoorself u mothafacka
Shield Hero is hardly the worst offender. Mushoku Tensei has been in my experience consistently poorly translated but I think the quality of Yoraikun translations has been pretty high. High enough to convey conversational nuance.
I find it sad that fan based communities always devolve into pissing competitions(looking at you Prozess). Yeah you are likely not getting paid to do this but that doesn’t mean you get to derive your sense of being rewarded by deciding the value of other people’s work and effort. That’s called being a jerk and you have no right to say who should be allowed to try translate. The only right you have is to not read their work. Get over yourself, you think that leechers wouldn’t be asking you when the next chapter is if you were suddenly the fastest translator in the manga and web novel community? Ridiculous, leechers always will want more and faster. That has nothing to do with the fact that other translators can do the job faster than you (even if you look down on their work like snob). The same people who ask when the chapter is for you are also pestering translators like yoraikun or bagelson even though they release on a much quicker schedule. So you mature and intelligent solution to your problem is to ignore annoying leechers or stop translating since you find them so annoying but the solution is definitely not to target and attack other people volunteering their time to the same community as you just because you think you are better than them. Seriously, if that is your attitude then quit because Japanese stories translated into English isn’t worth suffering the rantings of a jerk.
Hey , I wonder if you want to do this.
translate same chapter with one of chapter you think it’s bad so much that you have to tell that translator is bad
since it’s about opinion and not many will see original text and compare bad translate = good translate so people will have more understanding about what is this about that’s so called “bad”
because I am one of those people who don’t know japanese language and want to know why it’s called bad ?
@Danv
I can see that you didn’t read his post before posting your crap.
If someone guesslate instead of translate then he’s not a fan who translates the author’s work but a fanfiction writer.
I see nowhere on what basis you bash PROzess for saying what is right. If you don’t translate a work from it’s language to another then it’s not a translation. Since you are so smart then you know that when we get a translation we only get 80-90% of the original work but when someone guesslate (use machine translation and then guess the rest to make sense of the grammar and have a flow) we only get 30-40% of the original work.
This means that even with their shitty misplaced effort, which should be used on learning Japanese, we do not get the sarcasm, irony, idioms, puns and jokes in the story. Many lines are cut away because they don’t fit the flow because the idiot who guesslated can’t see how they fit into he context. We only get a shitty version of the original work. As an author I would feel sad if someone did that to my work. As a true fan I would get angry if someone did that to my favorite author’s work.
Of course you already know that, right? Or are you one of those who wouldn’t give a damn about it and just want the next chapter as fast as possible even if only contained less than half the story?
I thank that you’re translating Risou. I’ve only recently learned about it but it’s pretty interesting and I hope there’ll be more releases in the future. I admit it’s hard for me not to become impatient over things I enjoy and will want them as soon as possible, but I won’t be complaining to those that are freely translating for others to be able to enjoy these works.
Now, I’ll hope the based die gives us more Risou. Sorry it’s not your main translation, but I can’t help to like it the best!
is that Spanish she was speaking in?
Try reading the main post.
oh. Derp
Thanks for the chapter =D
Thanks for the excellent work! I like these sort of cerebral chapters, so this was extremely enjoyable for me.
Thanks again for your hard work, and believe me when I say that we greatly appreciate the effort and care you put into your translations ! 🙂
Hello and good day to you Mr. PROzess,
While I have been guilty of reading some ( I can’t stress that enough…SOME!) of the machine translated chapters of things I like to read, some are just plain unreadable even if you are familiar with the context of the story (because lazy people are lazy)… I am glad I can rely on waiting for you to put out quality translations, while I can only hope you get around to expanding some of the other teasers you have translated, I also understand the motivation needed to work on a project.
So I just wanted to say thank you for giving us a portion of your time so we can all enjoy amusing stories…
Many hugs breh!
Thanks a lot for the translation
really thankful for doing it since i am not capable of it
not my place to say this but take your time i am thankfull for every chapter doesn’t matter how long i have to wait since it is translated really well
thanks alot for the ch, it was pretty confusing
dont let it get to you . its still the first month .though it saddens me to say but this is the age of technology . a day will come when google translate becomes good too. it makes me doubt my decision of learning japanese
Thank you for your effort.. i love risou so much…..
As always prozess, love your work. You’ll always have die hard fans.
Also, no matter what, quality > quantity. We as leechers read this for fun. What’s the point in reading a horribly translated story? They should go just read the cliffnotes…
Thanks for the release. In my opinion, consistent quality is better than fast release speed.
Thank you for translating Risou. It’s always a pleasure to read an excellent translation of an interesting story.
Thank you for all your hard work.
I’d like to add my /hug to this post. I haven’t read the translations you’re talking about but I have seen some bad ones and you make it sound like I wouldn’t want to read them. I humbly thank you for your efforts at getting us something readable and make my first post here to say this:
I check this place almost every day, but I have patience and don’t EXPECT my free translations to be shoveled into my open mouth. Even if my posts are rare, please be aware every update you make has this fan go “YAY!!” from his corner of the internet.
You write in English well. If you didn’t say that your native language in German, I would not have noticed. And thank you for your translations.
Found a bit of a typo : Technically he had the receipts for cakes, cookies or pudding on his computer, downloaded from a homepage with pictures to the explanations, but it was a little doubtful if he could properly make them with the sugar and wheat flour from this world.
I assume that should be ”recipes” instead of receipts.
Still keep up the good work man.
” I can understand that you’re eager to read the next chapter, but to fall so low as to read this cobbled-together junk? I’m disappointed. That has no longer anything to do with love/interest for the series, just greed. ”
Have to disagree here, not everything need to be excellent, sometime good enough is enough.
movie in computer, music in mp3, narou in google translate, anime in 480p, read books in epub can still be enjoyable.
I respect people who insists on watching in big screen, listening music in high quality audio, or reading quality transaction; but there are nothing wrong with low taste, some enjoy it.
I totally agree. Still getting good enough and shitty is the difference here.
You aren’t getting a translation when you read a chapter run through machine translation where the grammar is fixed and a flow is made. Instead you get a guesslation where people have inserted how they think that story goes. The jokes, puns, idioms and hard stuff that couldn’t be translated by the machine is either removed or left alone to confuse the reader.
How do you feel about reading 30-40% of a story instead of the normal 80-90% you get from a real jp-en translation?
Those rigged dice! Curses!
I could go on for a while about how I agree with your views and how I wouldn’t touch MTLs with a 50 ft pole, but then I would feel as if I’m just trying to keep you satisfied.
I guess you will just have to settle for a “thank you” from me instead.
Thanks Prozess.
TsukiTsuki’s premise sounded a little generic, but you’ve convinced me to give it a look; you went through the effort of translating it after all, so it can’t be that bad. Thank you for the chapter!
I don’t mind waiting for your translations they’re far from perfect from an English standpoint but I do realize that you put in a considerable amount of effort to retain nuance. So thanks for all your hard work. Also, keep rolling those loaded dice. Risou is a great series, probably one of the better “transported to a different world” light novels.
I don’t know about others but i did study japames in colledge since I’m tourism graduate and it was part of my curiculum but I sucks at it so I use machine translation that what I get for sleaping in class my english grammar still suck though hahahaha so did you take lannguage class for learning Hiragana
The only thing I could think of when reading Risou was: “So that means that there are japanese-speaking people in the other world, seeing as the ‘soul of words’ require an amount of people knowing the same language.”
Thank you for translation.
Thank you a lot for the translations and god job with the spanish transcription (I’m spanish :D).
It’s true there are a lot of machine translations on the internet, due to that people know how to recognise an excellent work such as yours.
……wait, TsukiTsuki hasn’t ended yet? I still can read more of Kaorun?
…….damn i’m a stupid idiot. Thanks for the translation and hope you keep doing it!
*Looks at rant; Reminisces back on when ProZess did SAO; Reminisces back on when Yuki bothered reading SAO*
Ah, those were the days. Well, your writing certainly does seem to have improved, though. is it that you now have an editor, or that you have more time to proofread without rabid SAOfags yelling at you to drop a chapter? Not having TL’ed jackshit myself, it may not be my place, but feels like it’d probably a pain having had so many mouthbreathers poking you for chapters and insulting you after you give them. And here and now, with the webnovel craze you get shit tons of mindless zombies praising machine “translators” for their “work”.
*HUGH*
As usual, thanks for your work. I’ll read the chapter in a while, since I’m busy right now, but will comment later again. Don’t worry about the “next chapter when” thing. At least you don’t have a Maurice Bartlett like Code-Zero.
That guy was priceless.
He has come back (never gone, really, but Code-Zero stopped updating last moth, so he’s showing us his glory once again).
Please don’t say that nothing will change. At the very least, I wanted to tell you that you’ve been an inspiration to me. And I wanted to tell you that there’s someone out there, because of you, that would rather do 1 chapter right than 100 chapters wrong.
I’m not going to sell myself as a good translator yet. I realized when I started that 2.5 years of college Japanese is still pretty small. I bounce between about 4 dictionaries sometimes, and I’ve even resorted to searching a phrase on the webs in the hope that a Japanese website can explain some obscure slang. I’ve had countless moments where I can picture a scene from the Japanese and struggle with how to represent it in English. Sometimes I thought I understood a sentence, and reading the next one totally changed my understanding.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that some person you’ve never known before picked up the pen because of you. And he’s trying his best to not piss you off 🙂
There is no shame in looking up phrases or slang on the internet. The thing is, most of them are explained in Japanese, so you need at least a certain level to understand the explanation, otherwise it’s putting the cart before horse.
I too do look up a lot of weird phrases on Japanese dictionaries. Nothing wrong with that. Can’t expect one to remember everything, specially if that phrase only pops up once every hundred years.
Dude, I got more respect for you who actually began Japanese and decide to translate then any other idiot who decides to use google translate and guess on the rest.
The fact that you don’t call yourself a good translator only shows your future value. I cannot wait to see how far you will get since you are taking this seriously and want to improve your japanese. Respect.
As promised after the hugh, I’ve read the chapter. As usual, a good translation.
As a Spanish speaker myself, I find Aura’s spanish to be a mix of “neutral” Latino-American Spanish, highbrow Spanish and nuances-lost-in-translation Spanish. Also, “iniciara” and “tratara” are suppossed to be in the future tense, so the should be “iniciará” and “tratará” (as they are, it’s imperfect subjunctive).
Once again, thanks for your work.
Still, I find it weird that they have no numerals. Perhaps East Asians doesn’t realize it since due to the nature of Chinese script there’s no distinction between numerals and number writing, but all of the writing systems that can be read have their own numerals (not always as easy to use as current Arabics, but still).
Trivia: while our numbers are evolved Arabics (different from arab Arabics), we keep the custom from the greeks of sorting the cyphers by threes.
I actually gave up on TsukiTsuki after seeing that it was on hold for over a year already. I couldn’t find any news about the release of Volume 13 which greatly saddened me T-T
Thanks for the translation and the thumbs up for the Chinese translators 😀
Whoops, “that it has been on hold”
Sorry about my grammar.
aren’t Risou/Teasers the options right now because Tsuki Tsuki has obtained Hiatus Overdrive?
Thanks for the chapter and all of your hard works ^^.
Hey i want to tell u i appreciate the hard work you do. I love tsuki tsuki and risou series u translate n_n
Man you are really annoyed by them well when you can’t any alternative you just role whith what you got . Just to tell you , English is mot my first language and you are right i do find errors in their traslation but when you love a serie and it takes to much time to get translated by a good translator so we role with it.
But man i have to say that your english is very good, the gramer and the use of the , and . are very good
Any way i want to thank you for all the work you put in this series and i hope you the best
Wow that reminds me of an analogy. Because you are hungry and can’t get food, you are willing to eat rotten food from the garbage bin. Totally understandable…
The problem here is that you may be hungry but there is no need to do it. The only reason you are doing it is because you began to eat from the garbage bin and you want more now but can’t find it anywhere than the garbage bin.
Sorry, not offending you but trying to explain with an analogy that fits guesslations (machine translation plus guesswork).
I didn’t know you would want us to encourage you en-mass, since I thought it would start to sound insincere… Well, if you would like to know, we love you and love that you take pride in the work you choose to do, and at least I admire your fluency in multiple languages, a feat I could never accomplish no matter how hard I try! Please keep it up and don’t be discouraged by the hacks out there!
PROzess, thank you for the effort you put into learning both Japanese and English. Thank you for all the effort you put into carefully translating, not just words, but meanings so that we can fully enjoy stories that were written in another language. Machine translated stuff gives me a headache after two sentences and I can’t take it. It’s no longer an enjoyable story at that point, but a struggle for comprehension. I enjoyed Tsuki Tsuki quite a bit and I’m absolutely loving the Risou translations. Keep up the great work and know that both the work, and you are appreciated. *Hugz*
I can certainly get where you’re coming from. I work as a programmer and when someone who knows how to put a button on a form in MS Access and record a macro for it can lay claim to being a programmer as well it’s extremely annoying.
That said there’s a place for Access programmers (that place had better not be anything more complex than your video collection) and there’s a place for ad hoc translators. They will never ever replace a proper trained translator like yourself but in the interim they fill a demand that would otherwise not be filled. A lot of the time people are satisfied if they can get the overall gist of a story and fill in the details through their own imagination.
I find I enjoy translations like yours all the more after reading through some of those other attempts and will gladly wait for a good release. After reading these I’m not merely satisfied, I’m happy (doesn’t stop me wanting more of course, quite the opposite but it does encourage a greater degree of patience!).
MTL attempts are something you read just to pass the time when you have 15 minutes with nothing else convenient to fill the gap. I can acknowledge the effort the people involved have gone to even if I don’t particularly appreciate the result and hopefully over time they’ll improve (though it’s almost certain none of them will ever approach anything close to professional levels).
In the end I know that when someone needs an actual application they’ll come to a real programmer and when someone needs a proper translation they’ll go to a real translator no matter how many amateurs with tool kits there are out there.
Short Version: Thank you, and how was your break actually?
Long Version: It is a fact that some people often do NOT get/feel the nuances from a story, for them plot is all that matters. You really should forgive these simple creatures :P. For me though (and I think for you too, correct me if I’m wrong), we get confused by “crude” translations by seeing these nuances that are completely there by chance. However I think most translators keep doing their best just completely removing these nuances to make it easier for us. Now I am just happy we once got another great chapter and the only time it takes too long is if its neglected for a year for me. Anyways thank you for the chapter I haven’t read yet and don’t get headaches translating 😀
Hahaha,.. can’t imagine how hard is to write numbers with words and do math.
Thanks for the chapter.
Honestly I feel spoiled reading your translations, since I’m too used to the awful MT elsewhere. After I started reading the stuff you translated I stopped blindly perusing other projects and actually searched for properly translated LNs. I’m never going back.
Thank you for putting the time and effort into translations between two non-native languages (I had no idea!). No amount of gratitude could equal the work you put into this.
I eagerly await the next chapter, which I hope you will publish only after you have taken all the time you need (and the appropriate amount of rest. Don’t kill yourself now!)
Once again, thanks for making non-mainstream LNs entertaining to read!
*hugs*
Here is the first time I am letting a comment on a website for something else than school, but your comment about translators is really interesting and I would like to react to it.
Also, my english is rather bad so please don’t mind it if I make too many mistakes.
I love reading novels, books and everything. I have recently started (six months ?) to read online, starting with some web novels and some light novels. I am also reading fan fictions even if I have difficulties finding ones I consider good enough for my (bad ?) taste.
Sadly, most of the time translations are very slow to come. It is very easy to understand as the work of translating can be difficult and time consuming, and the community may be lacking competant people to do it, just as you said.
However, everyone is not interested in quality translations. Many people like the story for the story and do not care at all about the style. I am a bit like that.
I like reading tate no yuusha no nariagari, for exemple, and I am very happy to see the translations going so fast. Of course, the quality is not always there, but getting the story is very satisfying.
Some people will start thinking that there must not be that much work to translate seeing how fast some people can give releases, but why is it a problem ? Some people will understand the quality of your work, but some people will not and will never !
Why don’t you take what machine translators are doing for what it is: low quality translations. Everyone does not like it, real translators are free to do it again if they find the interest, the time and the motivation to do it, but people who like fast releases will be pleased !
You don’t like that people are asking for the next chapter as soon as you post one. I know this feeling although not about writing/translating. Maybe you could do like me when you get these kind of comments, take them as a proof of interest from those people. They might not be able to understand the work behind your work, but they like it and they want more. If they disturb you, you can still say **** and ignore them.
Concerning the difference in quality in your work with some other people, I really think you should not be concerned about it. Because you post less doesn’t mean people will not give your work less credit.
I am just a stranger to you and you will probably not be interested in what I think, but you are the only website I visit nearly every day even though you do not have daily content, just because I like the quality of your work really much.
And to my opinion, machine translators are not hurting the community, they are just answering a different need and different people are reading them. You should just forget them, take pleasure and pride in what you do, because this is what is the most important for each of us.
I don’t know if you will read all of this, but anyway, I love your work and I hope you the best in whatever you will do in the future and especially in translations since you seem to spend quite some time in it !
P.S. I prefer Risou, but feel free to chose your next work as you prefer 😉
Brice
Almost no real translator will re-translate something that already has a translation, no matter how bad it is. The only exception I know is Teh_Ping, who does it to prove a point. Everyone else will just pick translate something else, there are enough interesting LNs out there that haven’t been touched yet. Thus, MTLs taint projects forever. Hell, most translators wouldn’t take over after some machine-translated chapters. Thus MTLs taint projects forever.
And it does hurt the community. For one, Machine-translated web novels are becoming dominant. There are times when 50% and more of the first page of the Light Novel and Manga subforum of the Animesuki forums, possibly the largest central place to discuss light novels, consists of MTLed WN threads. For two, it drives proper translators away. I know krytyk has cut all ties with Baka-Tsuki over the MTL madness in particular, Kadi leaving was related to MTLs, cloudiii who spent a crapton of time and effort trying to reform and modernize BT only months before left “until there is an alternative to BT”, and there should be more. Sure, some have stayed, but I know for a fact that many of those just don’t care. You can’t tell me losing the people that care is not a bad thing for the central place to find or share LN translations.
Anywho.
*Merrily joins the dogpile on PROzess*
Let’s forget about how machine translations are evil and all that. Have you ever compared a MTL, a self-proclaimed 75% MTL-25%TL and a real translation of the same chapter? Because I did. The results? MTL is a bunch of nonsense. 75/25 MTL, while readable, often have errors to the point where entire passages tell a different plot altogether compared with the real story. Only a very select handful of guys can offer a true LQ (meaning readable and accurate enough) work basing it on MTL. And at least half of those have alredy left the translation world sick of pure MTLs and people who tried to be like them but couldn’t.
I myself have switched from translations to self-translated reading for Mushoku Tensei, and for Tate no Yuusha I check the work of each individual translator and, in the worst cases, I end up contrasting it with the original WN to make heads of it (yoraikun-translated yoraikun chapters, kookiedreamer and hatoken are at least acceptable, since they work on it; guys like the new sub at yoraikun are worse than a cancer slapping yor mother and killing your puppy, for example). I forgive poor grammar and typos, but not undisguised machine works.
@Brice
“However, everyone is not interested in quality translations. Many people like the story for the story and do not care at all about the style. I am a bit like that.”
Yes, but it’s without the humour, the style and the features which makes the characters what they are. It’s just the shortcut story. I would never feel satisfied with that.
@Astrea
I totally agree. As a translator, I wouldn’t try to pick up a project already done by another group. Even if they did a bad job. It wouldn’t motivate me at all. There would be no hope for the project and the misguided readers could for my sake read some shitty translation because that is what they choose. I would focus on some other title which I find interesting enough to share with the readers.
@Anon
Yepyep totally agree with you.
Wow, prozess-kun has arrived at ‘that’ boiling point :D. Well, welcome in mtl-garbage rage-hating club.
My post about the case from 4+ months ago. Find 5 differences.
http://krytykal.org/looking-for-cancer-you-wont-find-it-here/#more-102
*hug*
KRYTYK-SENSEI! *stalks*
Thank you very much, Process!
I am hoping to hear some news about the next volume
of TsukiTsuki soon, want to know how it continues.
Do you know what the reasons for this delay are,
or is there no information?
Quite the heated conversation here ;o I just have one thing to say… Risou no Himo ftw! Aura banzai!
There’s much less wrong with a Chinese translator that knows both languages well, and has access to the original raws, than with a Japanese translator who only knows one of the two languages fluently, and botches the transition between the two (which is unfortunately the case with the majority of translators nowadays). So yes, the community is lacking translators, if you place a heavier emphasis on understanding the source material than actually translating the material itself. Which may be ideal in some cases, but is usually a waste of time. (The “that’s what a PR is for” argument isn’t valid if the PR doesn’t know Japanese.)
That aside, low translation quality is a travesty of the business, but not a disaster. And it can be fixed. Just do what you do best, and invest time in helping the few people who do come to you. Those who matter will wait for a long time – those who don’t matter will leave after a short while.
(I also can’t help but notice the hypocrisy of the commenters here who are complaining about other releases having bad proofreading. Not to put you down or anything, but I can see mistakes in your releases, even at first glance. Don’t accept support if it’s misguided is all I’m saying.)
Grammar’s not the main issue when it comes to many other translations. Rather, it’s the structure of sentences, or lack thereof. I can overlook typos, but I prefer for English to look like, well, English.
I’m just here to give some PROzess love. I came here a year or so ago for TsukiTsuki and I appreciate all the work you’ve done on it. I’ve just finished up Risou, and I’m looking forward to reading Shinanai. Thanks again for all your efforts.
Hey, Prozess. Quite the outpouring of support from the readers, huh? And you deserve all of it.
I’ve spent some years of my life working with fansubbing and scanlating groups, and I can tell you, I at least wholly appreciate what you do. People often don’t understand the effort that goes into preserving the original quality of a work while trying to transcend language barriers.
I do appreciate it, and so does everyone else here, which is probably only 1% or less of the people that truly appreciate your work. And I agree with your viewpoint. People who do shoddy translation work with the barest amount of effort are garbage translators and need to get off the internet.
There IS something to be said for people who are using translating as a means to increase their linguistic talent are a different matter, but a baseline familiarity with the languages in the first place is all but required. Which is why those people should GET A F-ING EDITOR TO HELP THEM LEARN THE DAMN LANGUAGES BEFORE THEY PUBLISH!
…I can’t even look at the shit the guy posting on Yorai-kun’s website is releasing. Not to insult him, but he needs to re-evaluate his baseline translating criteria, and ask for help before posting.
Anyway, Prozess, you are doing an amazing job with your translations, and all the more for having both the original and target languages be second languages for you. So, I’d like to offer my services as an Editor if you are looking for one. I know you asked for one a while ago (and got no response, so you stopped looking), but I hadn’t been visiting the site at that time.
I’ve worked as a Typesetter/Editor on Scanlation projects, and Editor for other projects and you know what makes me different from other people who worked those jobs? I always submitted reports back to the translator as to why lines had to be changes. What turns of phrase and sentence structures had to be updated and why, in order for the translator themselves to learn more about the language they are translating into. It worked wonders for some people.
So if you want my help as an editor, let me know. I left my email address in the posting information for you to contact me. (I tend to avoid IRC, though. Email is my main contact point.)
And I like both Tsuki Tsuki and Risou a great deal. But it’s really your translations and judgement in projects that brings me back to check your website on an almost daily basis.
Appreciate all the hard work, have read a lot of your releases over the years.
With the exception of a few series out there (mushoku and tate no yuusha), sometimes we have to settle for machine translations and poor editing, as a lot of series we wish to read do not get picked up by anybody. This leaves our options at: learn to read the native language the novel is in, or settle for the pieced together sentences and make a coherent sentence ourselves. Otherwise we wouldn’t even normally be able to read these wonderful novels. Not trying to be antagonistic, but I at least admire the attempt to bring such wonders to readers, even if it’s done terribly.
Keep doing what you’re doing, there’s a reason you’re the best in the business.
Eh, I can relate, translating is not something easy, and as you said it requires some sound basis most of those “translators” don’t have.
I do find some errors here and there, but one can feel how much you work on those novels, the difference is noticeable.
You know, you can’t compare with stuff like those google or machine translations horror… Reminds me of arifureta… You should take the time needed and keep the quality level and don’t mind fast (bad) “translations”.
Btw, I discovered this site not long ago, and I’m reading Tsuki Tsuki, Risou and Shinanai… too bad only 6 volumes of Tsuki tsuki to read… 😉 Truly a nice and funny novel.
I love you?
I love you, too.
Get a room already, you two!
Most of the stuff that’s getting machine translated is unpublished anyway. I’d much prefer the published version. Publishing editors are good at what they do. Don’t get bent out of shape because people are crappily translating unedited crap.
I wouldn’t go as far, I do believe that published versions are superior because of the professional editors assistance and they are more enjoyable to read because of better language use, flow.
Moreover, author has a chance to revise the story to resolve inconsistencies, and is advised in doing so by those professional editors.
Another thing are illustrations, which are inseparable part of what we call a “light novel”.
That’s why I for an instance do not translate web novels, and wait for the novel release in published light novel format (Only Sense Online that is).
But I wouldn’t call the original author’s hard work ‘crap’. Don’t do that.
Thanks for the translation!!
And good luck with the 70 pages seems like a huge load of work, i’m having a headache just thinking about it 😛
The quality of these translations definitely make it worth the wait. Thanks for your hard work.
Seeing new updates becomes a highlight of that day.
To be completely honest if you want praise just say say so and we will shower the fuck out of you with it. We love your work, and there are many many many many many of us who appreciate your work. Just because we don’t post much doesn’t mean we don’t see everything you write and love you in a totally sexual way.
People who post that crap that you are talking about asking for you to release faster ect. Can die in a ditch. They don’t speak for us the silent majority. If you want us to flood you with thanks every time you post say the word. Otherwise no this. We are out here and for every jackass posting you should hurry up, theres another 10 people reading that post and going “what a fucking twat”
I think he’s saying that people shouldn’t bug other groups when they read guesslation and calls it translation. Then they compare it to the real translators and bitch about them being slow. Not to mention, call them funky names.
Also that the guesslation is crap…yes it is.
I want praise! I’m getting none on my site D:
Well,I admitted that I’m also one of those guy who demands fast translation, but after actually trying to learn a proper Japanese grammar, I’ve come to know just how hard it is to be able to accurately translate Japanese and decide that I don’t want to be one of those scumbag who only ask ” When the next chapter ” or stuff like that without knowing the pain that the translator have to go through to finish translating a shit lot of thing =/
So go up to your favorite scanlator’s site and give them a hug!
.
.
.
hug.
Thank you for all the work that you do in bringing us these translations in such high quality.
Also, TsukiTsuki is supposed to be my main project, yet all the comments it gets are about Risou 🙁 I’m glad you guys like Risou that much, but it’s a complicated feeling for me 😛
Personally I can’t wait for Volume 13 of TsukiTsuki to be released. But as I know you have no control over that, I will wait for it. In the mean time I tide myself over with Risou or the other teasers/side projects you translate (I generally find my interests coinciding with what you translate).
hug. (another one for good measure)
Since everyone here is literally kissing your ass I’ll take the role of the shitty leecher who disagrees with everything. Also,
>Bitching about others translation just because it’s more popular…
Classic PROzess xDD
Anyways, like everyone has a choice, right? Sure it might be horrible, mostly-guessed machine translation but it’s all they have. Besides, why bitch around it if you’re a translator yourself? More like why do you even care? It’s their business. What saddens me the most is even though a LOT of translators notices this kind of mistakes. No single one wanted to help them. They do nothing about it. Heck, they just insult and make fun of how awful it is. It’s like an adult insulting a child who can barely walk. Or in scanlation where the big groups crap around smaller new groups about their releases. “Muh too much topazed”, “crappy raws = crappy cleans ayy lmao”, “duhs the translator even know furi?” and all that crap.
If you can read the original source in it’s original glory, then good for you. But seriously? No one gives a single fuck.
Yeah, and if someone with zero knowledge of medicine tries to do a surgery after donning HoloLens (or whatever the next cool thing is going to be) on another someone who thinks that going to a hospital would take too long, surgeons should rush to their side, provide timely assistance, and fix all the blunders. Yup.
Seriously, it should be obvious that people shouldn’t do the work they’re not qualified to do, and if they want to acquire necessary skills, they should properly educate themselves instead of looking for shortcuts. If those were to work, no one would have been bothered to spend time, money, and effort in school.
Guesslation isn’t translation. People guessing what something possibly could mean aren’t translating, they’re guesslating. Your post turned invalid on the first sentence at the point “other’s translations”.
Man, these analogies… Okay, I’ll bite. Depending on what the patient thinks. If he lives, it’ll do. Let’s say that particular patient is in a hurry or very eager to get cured. He goes to the quickest way possible. You can even say he even goes to quack doctors just to finish it once and for all. The reason why he’s doing that? He’s desperate. No one’s guiding him to which doctor to consult to.
But we’re talking about translation. The readers wanted to know as soon as possible. Despite others bitching, in the end, the readers still read crappy translations.
It isn’t guesslation. Let’s say it’s “barely translation”. At least it isn’t 100% pure guess, it still have some facts necessary and that’s what the people wanted anyways.
The point isn’t the desperate readers. They can do whatever they want.
The fucking main point is: These wanna-be “translators” call themselves translators, when they are NOT.
What they do is NOT translation, but like krytyk correctly said, just guessing. They get some result from google translator, or similar, and at best, edit the english to somethign readable. They have no clue whether the result from the machine translation is actually correct or not. They GUESS, not translate. End of business.
Sure, I have a lot to complain about impatient leecher, too, but this post was a rant about this popular crap people call “translation” when it isn’t. That’s all.
And why should a proper translator help them? To begin with, they have not the slightest clue about Japanese, otherwise they wouldn’t resort to some bullshit like machine translation. By your logic, any real translator is obligated to teach Japanese to everyone out there that doesn’t know it. That’s just bullshit. We real translators went through lot of time-wasting efforts to learn the language, the kind of effort these lazy pricks obviously don’t want to go through.
If anyone wants to seriously learn the language, I welcome anyone in my channel and give some pointers, but it takes a lot, yes a fucking lot, effort on your own part for it. That they use machine translation just shows that they are not prepared for that kind of effort and they just defile the term “translation”.
@Deovenir
Not translation but guesslation.
If this was a translation exam, these people wouldn’t even pass. They wouldn’t even get an F…
My sister took her japanese exam many years ago and failed. Want to know why? She mixed two companies with something else and because of that ended up with a wrong translation.
So by using google translate and misunderstanding something, the story ends up in another direction. Not to mention the personality, the jokes and style is thrown out the window. You don’t get a translation of a work but at best a summarization.
Just started reading TsukiTsuki. I’d put it off since I’ve read all of the manga that’s been translated. I started making note of some mistakes before I realized the volumes don’t have comments. Is there any way to submit errors or would it just be a pain in the ass at this point.
It’s okay just take my soul now. 🙂 We humble lechers are forever grateful for your time. Thank you for making our days better.
P.S If you ever need a recommendation or reference. I am sure you will find a few hundred.
Machine translation is just a crutch to lean on. A tool to make your life easier. I am sure we have all seen some examples of good and bad MTLs, but the real difference is the amount of effort you put in to the finished product. MTL is pretty damn dumb a lot of the time. I know from experience as I use it regularly, but do not count on it to much more than give you more than noun and verb soup. My main problem is while I have years of Japanese language classes under my belt, my vocabulary is woefully lacking due to lack of daily useage/exposure. This is where automated tools can help the most as they give me the nouns and verbs I am missing.
With the help of tools like Google translate, rikai-kun/chan, and hirigana megane I can get through a chapter or even volumes with a little effort while maintaining about 80%-90% accuracy. That being said, I would never even begin to think of publishing any translations. Why? That missing 20% is the best part of written works. The main selling points of novels in general, in my opinion, is the level of detail. The reason so many novel to movie, tv, and even manga can never really live up to the source material is that cannot go into that level of details without extreme time and material investment.
For example, the latest chapter of Risou was one I read in advance using aforementioned tools. I mean I could understand the general plot and a good portion of the details, but after reading the fuller translation, I realize how much detail is lost. Those details are where much of the enjoyment of reading is derived in my opinion, so losing them is unacceptable.
10% accuracy is fatal, not to speak of 20%. 90% accuracy means every 10th word or sentence is completely wrong. Equaling the translation to garbage.
There is no good mtl or bad mtl. Tools are meant to help you translate, but not translate for you. Just as Prozess-kun stressed in his post, accuracy is the most important factor for translations.
Second, is adaptation to the target language. The translation does not have to go word for word, but it does have to carry all the meaning original has without losing any, which is the field translator can use their imagination on and improvise.
People mostly go about translating in a wrong way. You don’t stare at the sentence and just Englishize™ it. You read the original text so long, until you understand it in 100% with all the details, nuances, connotations, intent of the author and the role it plays, then write the sentence completely anew to maintain all the factors.
Speaking of adaptation, what’s your opinion on changing passive voice to active voice?
@fishsandwich
What krytyk said. I agree that those tools are to help you understand the words or sentences you don’t understand and not translate everything.
There is no good MTL. They reason to why you say it is that the english flow was good enough for you to understand perfectly what happened. The “group” could have removed confusing sentences or the ones they didn’t get. You wouldn’t know so to you it’s a “good” MTL.
*hugs*
You are right though. The ‘translation’ of Mukoshu Tensei actually made me puke ;_;
I just wanted to thank you for doing what you do for us. It’s amazing that you spend so much time on something for others, even when you get a bunch of complaints saying you take too long.
Rather than complain about how long it took, I decided to spend the time I was going to waste anyway starting to learn Japanese. (It was a mistake… 😛 ) But thanks to you, I can read light novels that look interesting straight away. So, *hugs*.
You are brilliant.
I don’t get it…
Why not just read it raw then? I mean, sure they made a translation from a machine, also that made many people yay. (well im a guilty one too, im enjoying those mtl releases)
Everyone should be like Minding their own business like professional translators.
Are you mad because of the poor quality of the translation?
Then don worry about it. Now listen(read) carefully, this is very important for everyone to know . particularly “mushoku tensei” and “sheild hero” only make those machine translation releases a preview
yes ONLY Previews, they will EVENTUALLY be replaced by a translation by someone PROFESSIONAL that will translate it from japanese to english… that’s what the “preview” in baka-tsuki are for.
that means, what the machine translator-ers doing are nothing a set back in the translation community, their works are not regarded official, just like children playing house.
(and sheesh, please just let them be)
rather i like it since its like letting the stranger you can trust(about 70%) scratch your back, and i am very thankful for it.
PS: that aside, I don’t see anyone claim themselves “Translator”
if they ever did they wouldn’t miss the word “Machine” as prefix. so it’s pretty much a clear classification of themselves.
—
well if you still have problems reading the machine translator of Mushoku tensei(for those who can’t read japanese), then wait for the official translation in baka-tsuki (the one without preview on it) and stop being a butthurt.
(also yoraikun isn’t a mtl’er , the more you know)
Too bad that you have not the slightest clue what you are talking about.
Come back if you know what’s going on.
Previews never get replaced by a proper translations, it’s something that has never happened, and never will outside of experiments like Teh_Pings who does it to prove a point that the MTL is garbage.
Madan no Ou is sitting on machine translations since 2012, where do you see professional translations replacing it? It’s one of the top novels popularity wise and has anime.
No translator with any self-respect will pick up something after it’s been turned into garbage and retranslate everything, that hasn’t happened and will not happen.
In other words, once a novel is translated by garbage… guesslato… mtler, it will never get a proper translation. NEVER. Unless it’s a translation from a publisher, which you won’t ever read because you can only leech free stuff.
Taken from Yoraikun (https://yoraikun.wordpress.com/about/): “I am using Hiragana Megane, which adds usually-correct Furigana to Kanji, and besides the occasional single word translation (for which I use the rikaikun app), it is a rough mental line-by-line translation. I can only really understand spoken language, and I cannot read many kanji. Also I can only speak in a Hiroshima accent.”
In other words, he’s garbage worse than machine translations not only he uses machine translations, he also translates from fucking FURIGANA, that’s WORSE than doing machine translations. You can’t translate from furigana, it’s not Chinese to translate from phonetics!! Kanji is what specifies the meaning used, not phonetics. The guy has no fucking idea what is he doing. Even machine translations are more precise as they use kanji as a basis for giving our result while this guy is GUESSING what it might mean!
In other words, Yoraikun’s translations are just as bad or even worse garbage than machine translations.
It can be proven with a simple example:
大洋 – たいよう (Taiyou)
太陽 – たいよう (Taiyou)
体様 – たいよう (Taiyou)
体要 – たいよう (Taiyou)
大要 – たいよう (Taiyou)
態様 – たいよう (Taiyou)
大欲 – たいよう (Taiyou)
Now, our brave yoraikun is translating from FURIGANA, the furigana form of all these words is in the middle the “たいよう” part, what does he do? Is it sun? Or maybe ocean? Or avarice? He doesn’t know, he has to “guess” which one is it. That’s why it’s fucking guesslation, that’s why it’s garbage worse than machine translations.
Also, “official” translations on baka-tsuki? Don’t make me laugh, the only one working on mushoku tensei who knows what he’s doing is Teh_Ping, who does translations with the speed of a snail. One chapter a month.
The whole mushoku tensei outside of Teh_Ping’s translations is total garbage, theoretically the entire thing should be labelled as “preview” because it’s all edited mtl. Edited mtl or raw mtl, garbage is garbage. Editors don’t fix mistranslations, they cover them up.
Yes 99% of Mushoku Tensei was machine translated, yet only 1/5th has preview tag. Why? Because certain retarded supervisor (The one before Teh_Ping, yes, the one who is currently in charge of Tate no Yuusha) allowed it. “Edited MTL is not MTL so it doesn’t need preview tag” he said. Sigh.
Of course, everyone who argued the quality of those translations left, (Hayashi, Kadi, me) unable to put up any longer with the garbage and idiocy of certain someone who was allowing to MTL to roam freely.
Baka-Tsuki is dying, the only thing sustaining it are js06, zzhk, lygophile and larenthian. The whole thing is standing on those 4 translators who know what they’re doing, everyone else left for their blogs or quit translations permanently.
Anyway, you probably won’t understand anyway, mouthbreathers never understand.
Oh btw, that was me above. Stand tall~
Sniff Sniff… Okay, so I’m garbage. Now go check through and see if all of my readings and meanings are completely wrong. Now you think that what I do is completely guesswork. That I can’t read for my life. Let me just say that I do check my work, and I do understand it. I make sure to read it and cross check it in order to make it make sense. Yes, for every Sentence Structure and system that I do no, I just skim over it and extract meaning before recreating it on paper, but for things where it is vague, or I truly do not know, I do actually do my research.
Ohhh burn
http://i.ytimg.com/vi/zehSKo5CJWY/hqdefault.jpg
Don’t worry Yoraikun, we all know you are doing great work ^^.
OK, great, so does that mean only s06, zzhk, lygophile and larenthian should be doing the translations on baka-tsuki? Can you tell me what year they’re going to get around to helping out with Tate No Yuusha? Or Konjiki no Word Master? Just because a person isn’t a top-class translator doesn’t mean he/she should be stopped from putting out decent work. Not only that, Yoraikun has been able to do it at a very fast clip. Quality > quantity is not always true.
He’s not mad, I am. He’s sad that people keep complaining, whining and bitching about how other groups can translate faster and he cannot. The reason is that other groups uses google translate instead of really translate the work. Those groups call themselves translators when they are not. They are creeps who couldn’t learn Japanese and found the easy way out of it by using software to do it. A software which is a helptool and not a translation tool. It helps with words and some sentences but not the full section, chapter or novel.
If you cannot see the wrong in this then you are a lost cause. Sure, they can be ignored but only until you readers come and bitch about the speed of the releases. Only until the other MTL people call themself translators. That’s where the problem is.
to be honest, i haven’t checked the “register” link in the page for a long while. back then baka tsuki people does that,.. they remove the preview made by other people whenever they were replaced by translation of vanant (or whoever is)
rest assure he’s not a mtler
but ever since vanant left, i noticed that lot of translator too, and few months after a boom in mtl
here i am running my mouth when i know nothing, geez sorry bout that
sorry bout my ignorance
i have nothing to say anyway, since beggars cant be choosers
I’m jut gonna be a professional leecher and mind my own business.
Hello, just a random leecher here passing to say a few words.
First of all, thanks for all the hard work you are doing, i know how hard it is to learn another language (my main language is Portuguese, and i am trying very hard to learn italian for the past 6 months or so).
When someone who literally disrespects a real translation by calling MTLs something comparable to it, it cringes me. It seems to me like the translation situation is similar to the caster scene in eSports community, some individuals are very talented, but most are just amateurs and people just call them all “casters”.
Anyway, good job on keeping on translating and sharing it with us, as you mentioned, you have the qualifications to work with this stuff, and instead, we can read it at leisure from your blog.
Cheers from Brazil and keep up, don’t be disheartened by the false shepperds.
first sorry for my bad gramer second let me ask you guys a few think. if you dont like their translation why are you reading them. if their translations are bad and we mustn’t read their translation what will we do(i dont have any chinese or japanese or korean language knowledge so i need to wait till they will became officall english and when will they became officall???)and last if you dont like their translations and they are makin so much mistake pls show us what is real translation???how many of you can do this (1/10.000 or 1/100.000)if you are not 1 then just shut up and stop reading, dont badmount those who can give their time to translate.if you want to badmount them first translate their translation yourself and ask them to compare with your not with just 大洋 – たいよう (Taiyou)
太陽 – たいよう (Taiyou)
体様 – たいよう (Taiyou)
体要 – たいよう (Taiyou)
大要 – たいよう (Taiyou)
態様 – たいよう (Taiyou)
大欲 – たいよう (Taiyou)
You’re wrong in the entirety. What they’re doing is not translation. That is all.
Some of it is correct, but most of it isn’t. If something isn’t something translated from Japanese to English, but instead “guesslated” because the so-called ‘translator’ doesn’t understand what he’s reading or writing, it cannot be translation.
Translation is translating text from one language to other. Someone who can’t understand a language cannot translate. Simple.
Yes, we have pointed out horrendous amounts of mistakes in the so-called ‘translations’ before. It was fatal to the point of being bullshit and fan-fiction.
Imagine that 35% of what you read was made up by ‘translator’ and wasn’t in original. That’s how those ‘transrations’ look like.
relax krytyk sama, most of they aren’t that too irresponsible to just guess a word in a translation, ofcourse when a sentence doesn’t make a sense or a connection to previous sentences ofcourse they would do a research of the word and properly make a correction, otherwise if they can’t do it they will leave a note(that it might be incorrect) alongside with its raw japanese sentence.
only few unskilled machine translator would guesslation.. well i think no one would do that either, cuz doing that is plain stupid.
and that guy is right, it’s kind of unjust to jeer people who invested their time on something even you know it’s (not entirely) wrong,
sometimes we just have to deal on what was served on our plate, if you can’t then do your own dishes… that meant you leechers have to learn japanese yourself if you are unsatisfied.
Ah, I skipped my point:
Yoraikun hasnt made that Taiyou mistake , that meant he is doing a great job as of yet. So its kind of uncomfortable you guys badmouthing him while he’s doing the best he can. Only because of his illiteracy in japanese.
That’s not something someone illiterate in Japanese can judge. We have went through every translator’s translations for mushoku tensei testing them all, when the big fuss happened. We failed them all.
Just by seeing Yoraikun’s “furigana translation” I can fail him on sight.
It’s something as clear as a day for any serious, actual translator, that someone who writes “furigana translation” can be only a joke. It’s like writing you know Japanese culture because you watch anime.
krytyk,
I think you’re being overly critical of Yoraikun’s work. Sure, his translations aren’t professional grade right off the bat, but it’s several steps above machine translations. Plus IMO he’s gotten the gist of the story as well as taken the trouble of getting the names right. Instead of dismissing him right off the bat, why don’t you try checking some of his latest work, and demonstrate how he was off? Lastly, when MTLs appeared for Tate No Yuusha, the translators were good enough to fix/retranslate them when they got to them. They do care about it and try not to half-ass it.
@muchantr
They aren’t translating. They are guessing after they get a software to “translate” the whole chapter. So please don’t call it translation because then you are comparing it with real translations. Call it guesslations as they are.
A real translation is when a translator translates a title. Even if he’s bad, he’s still translating it from Japanese/korean/chinese to another language such as English.
Now you said, why read them. I don’t read them. I refuse to. I didn’t even know they existed until I read one and found out that there were many others out there.
Now you said that we should show you how to do it. The problem here is that if I pick a title and show you how it’s done, then that’s cool, right? BUT I only picked 1 out of 100 titles. I don’t think you want me to pick up all 100 titles, right?
Also when they already picked up a title. The chance of a real translator picking it up and doing it is very small. People don’t want to do what someone else is doing, especially not when the readers are reading that instead of your version because it’s slow. So this also kills the majority of novels that any translator would pick up because some shitty wannabe translator who uses software to “translate” picked it up and ruined it. As a true fan you should get angry about this.
@wtfkjp
Yes, most are irresponsible to do that. We are talking about people who aren’t translators but still try to translate without any japanese knowledge.
They go so far as to remove sentences because they are confusing to be placed in the flow. Well, the machine didn’t translate the sentences correct so it became a confusing sentence. Th story is also stripped for its humour, personality and style. That is what guesslation is…NOT TRANSLATION.
@Krytyk
I disagree. You can easily know Japanese culture by watching anime and reading manga. You just need to do it a lot. If not, then you are looking at the wrong titles. If you want examples I will give you many starting from the penis deity, goth, neet, hikomori, mythology, recession, political issues, doujin making, sushi to twintails days which was yesterday… DUN YA DARE MAKE LIGHT OF MANGO!
Can’t comment on Yorai cuz I don’t read his stuff.
Could you please check out Rankuin no Manshou. I think that it is not only a great novel to read but it seams to be a serious novel worthy of your time. IMO
Dunno what this “Rankuin no Manshou” is, but Rakuin no Monshou is a fairly good work, however unpopular. Hey, it’s been ages since I’ve seen a LN that wasn’t oozing at the seams with moe, fanservice, and OP.
and i am saying you if you dont like them dont read if you have a problem then translate it yourself.there is no mistake. all you are doing is talking blaa blaa do somework if you want to badmount someone
You clearly fail to comprehend any arguments that are made here, so just stop it.
If you want to comment, get a brain first.
I really appreciate the work you put into this.
As for machine translations the real problem is just convenience from both, readers and translators. It’s a simple case of quantity over quality and to be frank, I dont care for the most part. I’m sure there are others like me but that doesn’t change that I’m also part of the cancer. In my case english is not my mother language and internet pretty much taught me everything i know. I’ve been reading mediocre translations for years and i think I’ve become inmune to bad grammar and nonsensical paragraphs by this point lol.
Anyway, thanks for the hard work and i hope you keep doing it.
wow looks like a lost a huge fight here, everyone, prozess and krytyk just ignore those guys who call themselves “translators” and also those guys who want the next release, just take your time and enjoy what you are doing
Well ignoring them only means that more people will pick up this job as “translators” and then we will get more titles shitty guesslated. Whcih in turn means to demotivate the real translators and the good titles never getting the chance to get translated for the fans…since no one wants to pick up projects already “done” by other “translators”.
https://bato.to/forums/topic/19625-where-can-i-find-recommendations/ i use this link to find ln and more than half of all translation i read till now was m.translate in other word there is not many peaple know those language and gramer (i really have respect and envy for those who have)and nearly%90 of them are unlisenced so without those who machine t. i cant even read them(i try to machine trans it before but i gave up after 1 hours.i coundnt even translate 200 letter and prob. only 30 or 40 was right) just for those who can read those ln raw pls try to understand those who cant and dont badmount machine trans.
Dude, you are not getting what people are saying, are you?
30-40% of translation if it’s correct, is not translation! The 60-70% to make it 100% is guessing.
This is why it’s not a translation. You are not reading the author’s work but a fanfiction of the main story. At best you are getting a summarization of what’s happening in the story.
This is why we don’t like them calling themself translators because they are not translators. They are wannabe translators without any Japanese knowledge.
When they pick up a title I wanted to do, I will not do it because they already ruined it and on a fast pace. So why should I pick it up? I will just read it myself and laugh at you people for not getting the whole story but only 30-40% of it. I do that when people pick up manga I wanted to do and it’s done by a “translator” who does not know Japanese. I will never touch such a title after it has been killed in my eyes. I rather go with another one and read the old one myself.
I love you prozess. Teach me your ways master.
Hey Prozess,
Don’t mind your mistakes in english. As you said, all your translations convey the nuances in the novel. Keep doing this great job as always. Let me know if you need any help.
PS. Thanks for Risou. I like TsukiTsuki, but Risou has taken a grasp of me and it’s not letting it go.
So I wasn’t going to return to this post, much less comment on it, before I realised just how much butthurt there was on it. Plus Krytyk-sensei posted comments, that man is my god.
Sigh… another drug addict who got brainwashed by the drug dealing terrorists who gave out free drugs to hook people and brainwash the masses.
¿Que?
Dunno about you, but drug dealers or not, at least they aren’t cutting my
crack, smack, or Xtranslations with random shit. Or worse, handing me Bath Salts and passing it off as the real deal.They will eventually cut off the drug deals when they had enough of them and move on with their lives to do something else. What about the brainwashed masses who worship them like God? Of course the masses will turn into drug-starved zombies. These drug dealers are evil or leading them on, making people worship them, suck them dry, then abandon them. Look at Mexico, they haven’t been able to stop the drug War over there at all. Fuck all drug dealers!
While some translators are bad, at least they try to translate it for us the majority. And yes, the meaning may be lost in translation but SO WHAT? ITS A TRANSLATION, OF COURSE THE MEANING IS LOST. Many idioms and phrases wouldnt make sense in another language. The fact that a translator would take the time and effort to release a chapter EVERY single day is applause worthy in its own right. While you may be intent on focusing on every nuance of every sentence, you must remember that that is your own work and that does not give you the right to diss the work of others. If a translation is machine translated, I do admit it is complete garbage (Screw you Google Translate) but using a machine to translate maybe a word you dont understand is completely fine, shouldnt it? But what about the translator that release a chapter every day and the grammar and spelling are above your so called average? This is insulting in many ways considering the fact that some translations may be from Light Novels and some may be from Web Novels in which the chapter lengths would vary greatly.
Applause, you deserved praise for speaking out against the Elite Boners who thought just because they have more experience and education in language, they can diss other people’s effort like nothing.
LOL…if the meaning is lost, that’s not translation. Translation is convert one language to another languange while the meaning is still the same. If the meaning is lost, then its became fanfiction or modification, not translation.
And for ISIS, just using that name and some of your comments already giving me a lot information about you, “bad person” that is, at least for me.
to: Sigh. You are wrong. if we take your definition then there is no such thing as a translation. No matter what you do, some of the meaning will always be lost. Many times the language you are translating to will not have a word or phrase that represents what you are translating. I don’t translate light novels, nor do I know Japanese, Chinese or Korean, but I do speak 4 languages. I can tell you that there are words and phrases in each of these that cannot be transmitted without a paragraph of explanation. Also, if you have heard of the web of words, you will know that even a word with the same meaning will not have the same connotation. hence the meaning is lost.
Yes, but you didn’t read the first post did you?
He said that while there are bad translators, he respect them more than machine translations where only 30-40% is correct and rest is guess work.
Machine translation is not translations. Let me repeat it again: NOT TRANSLATION.
If they did translate every day, I would respect them a lot but they aren’t. The idiots who call them translators while having no Japanese knowledge are just guessing to make the 30-40% of the translation flow correctly in English. What you read is a summarization of the story and not the true story. Heck, I ‘d call it a fanfiction instead of the original story.
Otherwise I agree with you that using MT for a word or a sentence as a helper tool is fine.
Also that the meaning of puns is lost sometimes. Still as a translator it is your job to explain what can be explained.
I’m not one to usually post, but I feel the need to state my opinion here after reading these comments. This comment is for those of you who have made comments dissing those who translate online. Yes there are some who do not appreciate how difficult translating is, and just copy and paste, but there are many who do not. And those who don’t may use the aid of translation software, whatever it may be. There is nothing wrong with this at all.
They are not being paid to translate. They are volunteering their time to bring novels to others who cannot read, write, or speak that language, such as Chinese or Japanese, even with the aid of translation software. Unless you are picking up the task yourself, or are paying these people a salary, you have no right to declare what is ‘translating’, ‘guesslating’, or even ‘trash’. While critiquing is helpful for anyone, paid or not, what you are doing is not critiquing. I have found several of these comments to be rude and snubbing the time people have spent to bring you translations FOR FREE.
If the fact that some translators use translation software upsets you, don’t read their work. But, unless you are translating for free yourself, you cannot complain and put down those who use software, and you cannot declare what is and what is not translating (especially when you’re not paying for it).
The spoiled attitude of several commentators/leechers (not just on this site) on this ‘machine translation’ issue have gotten me so annoyed. If your not paying for it, or doing it yourself, you have no right to complain.
Just because it’s FOR FREE, doesn’t mean that they can write a fanfiction and pass it off as a “translation” of some else work.
@Mei
The problem isn’t with those who are using helper tools for a few words or sentences but for the majority of novel releasers who put entire chapters and then correct the grammar and flow to make up a nice chapter for others to read.
A summarization at best and otherwise a fanfiction.
As translator, I have every right to call it trash, guesslation and decalre what is translation. Specially when it’s my favorite author whose work is getting butchered by idiots who puts it all in google translate and tell me that it’s a correct translation of his work. I got every right to be angry and rude when they do that.
They aren’t bringing me any free translation, they are bringing me free gueslation of what they think the author has written in Japanese.
What annoys me is that people like you can actually take their side when they act like that and tell me that I don’t got any right to bash them. Let them be and they multiply, we’ve already seen that with online readers earning money on our free scanlation work. This is no better.
Of course, I don’t read their work but that doesn’t mean that it stops. It just mean that it demotivate my to translate those works since the readers think that those are real translations when they are just guess work. This also make the leechers bitch about faster releases when you just released because they compare you to a shitty machine. Not to mention, when a reader cannot wait anymore and begin to take the title you worked on and runs it through machine translation and start releasing the title as “translated” because now he’s also a “translator”.
So don’t you dare to say that I got nothing to do with it when I got every right to say how idiotic guesslation is.
well i have’nt read risou but i really like ur translate for Tsuki Tsuki
thx as always keep up a good Work Sir
dont let their Shitty Comment become a hindrance to ur work
How bout teaching the masses a little Japanese then? Lets be real both krytyk and PROzess have lives and we know damn well that you don’t spend all day translating. So why do small lesson on these blogs? Call it: Curing the undead, lessons for dummies, lets end cancer, and other jabs at MTL while using these inactive blogs to do some good.
Mmmmm In my opinion, doing this sounds a good strategies on paper but its silly (Unless they really want to be teachers). They do this for fun, they are just being prideful of their status as Translators. Teaching the mass a little amount of Japanese won’t fix the problem
The only way to solve this is either to have America invade Japan and force Japan to abolish Japanese writing and adopt English 100% or have Japan invade and take over the world so everyone can learn Japanese as a baby.
I like how you think ISIS, all praise to american terrorism
@ISIS
Why America? I thought you were against America? Traitor, I shall call a fatwa against you.
*sit back and watch*
Thanks for your Hardwork PROzess !!
*wink*
You guys have emotion, so you can get no motivation.
You guys have your life, so you might want to enjoy it a bit.
Skyrim, Phycho-Pass, LOL, or Naruto.
(Wait… the last one already end…)
Anyway, what I want to say is…
THANK YOU! FOR ALL YOUR HARD WORKS!!!
You guy are human. You can get angry and get upset.
What I am is… a leech in the name of a reader.
I hardly make any comment… most of the time I might say Thank You, but nothing more…
I cannot say who is right or wrong… because I always reading from you guys…
so I see the points in each of you…
so I will say it again…
You guys are human with emotion.
Your words may take no shape, but they are sharper than a knife.
I do respect all translators from all sites,
that why it is uneasy… to see all this.
Huh… what a ruckus. I see where both (?) sides are coming from, but what I DON’T understand is the whole reason for becoming so damn aggressive. You can’t argue with krytyks oppinion of mtl. Without profund understanding of a language, the alteration into another will always be flawed at least if not wrong overall.
But we have 2 big problems for the whole translationcircle
1 – a big amount of ppl, who want to read on (next chp, why so slow, why not 2 chp per day…) or the more moderate (good work, I like reading your tl, keep on it’s fun) – maybe these should be put in seperate caregories…
2 – a !really! small amount of ppl, who know their stuff, got trained and excel in the process of tranferring minute nuances between two languages and take pride in it (and time… lots of time… their freetime)
Can you find a solution for these total opposites? No you can’t!!
The problem will never be solved.
I can’t read japanese, I’m fairly good at english, which doesn’t help me crap, if I want to read japanese ln/mangas/wn. So what do I do? I can spend years and years to learn japanese by heart, to fully understand and comprehend said works.
Or I wait for someone to translate it for me. Again I have two options. I can rely on guys who have the knowledge, the abilities and the understanding to convey the authors intentions accuratly, which will take usually long.
OR I wait for ppl who use the help of machines to give a rough translation (yeah I know, they may not be right at all), so I can understand, whats going on.
Depends on what you want to have. But here is the point (at long last) – I FUCKING WON’T EVER KNOW THE DIFFERENCE!
Give me a translation of krytyk and one of yorai. Both are written in good english, I can understand them and even if they have big differences… why should I care? I will possibly never read the original, let alone undestand it. So what I basicly do is reading a novel in english. If the translation is bad… nothing I can do about it, I still enjoy reading it and thats the whole point.
I don’t know, if the protagonist threw the stone into the Taiyou (sun) or the Taiyou (ocean). The translator/”guesslator” will tell me. And as long as it makes sense it’s great – I know where the stone landed, even it the author had the stone intended to be somewhere else (maybe really the sun).
So every translator (be it mtl, tl by knowledge or tl by listening to earthworms) tells the or at least a story and as long as I can enjoy reading it, I’m satisfied.
So tell me, “Krytyk-sensei”: Why should an incorrect tl, which you write off as garbage and jokes, bother me? Usually I know they are mtl’s and I know they aren’t 100% or even 50% accurate, but what relevance has it, if I will never be able to compare it to the original?
I really hope you read through all of this and can give me an answer – is this whole mess only between translators? Are the leechers, who get to read for free even involved? Should they care? Should they demand 100% accuracy? And if yes… why?
@irnem
Hi, I’m not Krytek but I would love to give you my opinion on the matter. Sorry, I didn’t read your whole post but I read the end :3
The problem is that most people who read those machine translations aka guesslation, do not know what you know. That only 30-40% of the story is put into the chapters released every is not know to many. Since they don’t know it they come and bitch about it on the real translators site about their speed and when the next chapter is out after a few days from the recent release. This is a huge problem cuz it demotivates anyone who spend a long time to translate a title they love for others so they can share the love too.
Now to the comparison. Yes, you will never be able to compare. Still in your heart you will always know that you didn’t get the full story, the full enjoyment and the full message by the author. You will only get a summarization or a fanfiction of the author’s work. If that’s fine with you then carry on.
Also remember this. Because someone else picked up the title and you loved it, no one else will. Any real translator who would want to pick up the title because they saw potential in it will not because someone else picked it up and “translate” it in a fast pace which an original translator cannot. Again motivation to pick it up is killed and you will never get the chance to get the full story because you couldn’t resist the temptation and decided to go with the shitty edition. If you don’t care then you didn’t love the story enough.^^
Leechers never care, only the readers do care what they get.
Another problem is if I translate a novel and some dude thinks I’m being slow, he can just MT is and then make a flow and start releasing it much faster than me. Incorrect but fast. I would just drop my title then and there and let people deal with the wrong translation. It wouldn’t mean that I wouldn’t get the story cuz I could just read it myself. It would just mean that I would laugh at people when they told me half of the story and missed out on the jokes, idioms and personality of the characters.
I hope this helps you understand a little. If not, then I may come back if someone makes me notice this post again.^^
Let me preface this with how much I respect the work any of you guys does. It’s a time commitment most people would not bother to make, especially for free.
I don’t see where you gets off on this article. It’s full of BS “no true Scotsmen” statements and I really don’t see how you thought writing a scathing, intentionally inflammatory article about people who like translating as well was a good idea. I mean, what a guy. You’re looking down your nose at a group of people that probably do, on average, have much less experience at translating, and painting with a very broad brush. It’d be like a veteran violinist dropping a steaming load all over a newer violinist for providing “a ghastly performance that made my ears bleed.” Well no shit, people don’t learn languages or skills overnight. Jesus man, chill.
0/10
You didn’t even bother rewriting your post from Yoraikun’s blog.
I did too, notice the lower number of spelling errors?
I don’t see why I should have to make a second version anyway, if switching a few words still gets my meaning across
Dude, stop the swearing. The problem isn’t that they don’t get the skills overnight but the problem is that they don’t even want to learn and just use software and guesswork to do the rest. I’m quite sure that’s what the OPs post says…
So people who learns Japanese and translate >>>>>>>>>> machine translation with guess work by idiots calling themself translators.
Lalalala, Krytyk-sensei doesn’t give a fuck, scroll down to bottom comment.
http://krytykal.org/oso-cover-appeareth-hype-train-start-break-continues/
Prozess and all her Goonies, jeez if you don’t like MTL then don’t read it simple as that no ? who is forcing you to read them ?
and instead of being jealous wasting time gathering your nicompoops you could have easily churned out your hmph *unofficial professionally translated* note self proclaimed Chapters
@rachel
We aren’t reading them.
We are butthurt when you leechers come over here and demand the next chapter after we just released one chapter.
We are butthurt when you cannot wait for the next chapter and decide to MT the novel and release it as a translation when it’s guesswork plus MT.
We are butthurt when you call yourself a japanese translator while you got zero japanese knowledge and use google translate to make guesslation.
We are butthurt that there are more and more idiots popping up like that which ruins the original work of the author and people reading it and thinking that they are getting the full story.
We are butthurt that many good titles were picked up and ruined that we don’t want to pick them up ever, making the other readers who wan the full story suffer because of MT idiots.
We are so butthurt than people cannot see this and still think that they are reading a translation and not guesswork.
We…well our butts are so sore that I will stop now.
Prozess sucks, your translations are not any better than “Published works” out there who are much more credible than whatever you translate…..so should we wait for official published work or rely on your so called self proclaimed professional translations ???
Here’s a Tip for you kids: Don’t like what others are doing ? Oh well Fuckk Off and mind your own business
errr…I think you went wrong somewhere, dude. We aren’t talking about this, lol.
Jealous as usual PROzess Sama, when should we wait for your next edition of “i need to Rant, i need attention, give me some attention” I admit it’s a Pop Corn entertainment to see little Kids like you cry for attention 😀
@Touma-san
Jealous of what?
I fully agree on not wanting shitty translations. You love those?
Btw I want attention, wanna give me some? Any input would be great on my groups page >.>
This translator is so slow for a true professional what a let down TT
Actually, every comment is a joke, except the love comment which is nice
I do believe mtl is bad. I believe all of us do.
I don’t know if translator have a code or something, but if someone who have done translation with good quality say “furigana translation is a bad method and the translation from it is a garbage” -which is the main source of drama- then i do believe it’s true.
And i believe krytyk didn’t really want to pick a fight with yoraikun. He just simply said what he think is true, and if it’s true why should we bash him?
And if you like yoraikun translation, just support him. If krytyk said he is not a translator by his standard, and if yoraikun indeed never have a proper translating training like prozess did. So be it. We still like his translation. Just take krytyk comment with a bit grain of salt.
So the conclusion:
Mtl is garbage
Translation with furigana may cause a mistranslation
Yoraikun do the furigana translation which may cause mistranslation, but his translation is good enough for the reader
Krytyk hate guesslation more than mtl
Prozess is god
All of us may have different view about it, then so be it. Forcing your view to other is childish, you’ll never have a happy life if you do it in real life.
Respect each other, if you don’t like it, say it politely, and of someone told you something bad, just take it to improve yourself.
I have no idea what I’m talking about and most of the other comments is a joke
so… well… you know…
I find this discussion interesting since I’m a person who has translated (though not in Japanese), read translations, and even used machine translations when there weren’t any other available (although that’s only in games).
From my (admittedly few) translations, I’ve seen that the speed can greatly vary at parts. You could get through most of the text very easily, but then have a sentence give you more trouble than the rest of the text combined. And while you can find a passable way to translate those parts, usually you’re left with the feeling that if you devote more time, you can get the nuances to be just right. It won’t be a great difference, it would be something like using the word big instead of enormous or huge. But getting a translation just right , can take time and lots of it.
As a reader I’ve realised this. I won’t probably notice and I certainly won’t dwell if the translation says big where it should have said enormous. But, if lots of those compromises happen, it could affect the feel of the whole text. Machine translations are just an extreme example of this, too many small mistakes that greatly affect the experience. So where is the line that shouldn’t be crossed? That’s purely subjective. I don’t think that people like krytyk are criticing just to criticise, I just think that they have a much higher standard than the rest of us (which is understandable if they have a higher knowledge on the subject). However, just like how reviews by movie critics don’t always resonate with common people, I think that the mistakes he points out aren’t noticable or of any particular importance for most readers here.
The thing is, there is a mountain of difference between a machine translation and no translation, as there is between a machine translation and a good translation. The difference between a great translation and a good one , although noticable, isn’t as great, but it’s the most time consuming of all.
Given that there is a shortage of translators I would prefer to have more good translations to read so I can actually pick the work I like, rather than having some translations which are great, but which are so few so as to restrict me on the works available to read.
Again, the main problem with that is that what’s good enough is really subjective. I have resorted to using machine translations in games, so I could go for the genres I like and although the quality of the translation is abysmal, if the general meaning goes through I think that the other elements of the game can salvage it and actually make it better experience than translated games that aren’t so much to my preferences. Going with machine translations for light novels which are text only would be too much of a compromise for me, as not properly translated games are too much of a compromise for other people. In any case though, if people read a translation then it means that those people enjoy it. Complaining about that is complaining that people have different tastes than you, and to throw in a little latin, de gustibus non est disputandum.
The violin concert analogy that PROzess brings up I think isn’t really applicable here since when you go to a violin concert (even a free one), you have devoted time (getting dressed, etc), you might have brought other people which could hurt your reputation or bring you guilt for subjecting them to this and not having planned something better for them, and you might even have to go away from a place you’d otherwise like due to the violinist. You read a translation alone, you could be in your bed with your underwear if you’d like and you can close it with a click of your mouse. It’s as non demanding as it gets. And while these translations might infringe on your sense of what a translation should be, them not existing would affect the happiness of a lot of people. And I’ve always been of the opinion, that if something makes people happy and doesn’t really affect you, then you should just let it be, even if you disagree with it.
This has been my opinion in general, as far as Yoraikun is concerned I’d say that his translation is way above what I would consider passable. It would probably be not a 10, but something like an 8-9 for me, since he’s more focused to being literal than I’d like (for example in ch. 237 I think that the “Don’t grace me with your foul presence” with a TL note underneath is a bit disruptive to the flow and would prefer if just “grace” was changed to “taint” or anything similar and the note gone so the flow of the fight wouldn’t be disrupted). Again, this is just my preference. In any case I recognise that without him a LN that I enjoy reading would have been beyond my reach, and I appreciate him taking the effort to translate it.
for starter, i don’t usually post my opinion because people always have different opinion. But i cannot help it in this case, because you start to insult another translator without good reason, and the one i like at that. so here my opinion, enjoy..
i think its better than waiting for a damn month or more just to read for 1 chapter, and tell the world they are a self claimed professional translator just for a slightly better translation, and start insulting another translator just because they do faster. counting there are so many LN and WN out there.
its not like i will ever read the original, so as long i understand the story, a slight difference between sun and ocean (taiyou) will not affect anything at all.
its for free. they do it with good intention to share what they read. if you don’t like what they do, just don’t read it, or make a better translation, don’t insult it, for you don’t pay a single penny nor pour any work into it.
don’t like my opinion? feeling offended? that what you do to yoraikun. grow up kid.
this is intended for krytyk
well there quite hilarious here eh, i kinda get a point about what PROzzes-san & Krtytk-san {i will not call them by “-Sama” but still i respect them} say after all they already doing translation quite long time and they doing it with really care about what they translated until this time so that kinda understandable these two are “angered” by some “immature” people attempt to translated a novel using MTL (well i am not in right place to say they are “immature” thought) even so what make me wonder are how are there a people who clearly a leecher (reading stuff for free) are also add fuel to fire and more hilarious are some people who are against PROzzes-san posting are raging with sleep-talk (i will not give any example) well let’s quite about babbling
what my point are don’t be a heretic just because u didn’t like it or offended by them (leecher) you are not even translated anything and you just run out your mouth like you know what that same goes to for people who blindly defend MLTer as you aren’t know how proper translator do they job PROzzes-san and Krytyk-san can say because they already “soaked” in this “Mud” for long time after all , sure some of you are know “little” Japaneses so you can bragging about it but aren’t that just make you same as they (MLTer) as for me i just leave kanji even furigana i didn’t even understand little bit about that and my English only to level understand what the meaning of word (they still i don’t know) so spare me about grammar ETC for this time. i will admit i too read some novel that MLTer will some of them are readable(for me) there to some MTLer that very very hard to understand about what going on or the word are just put there without proper line (literal translation)
as for Yoraikun-kun who many of you above are despise, i think he are quite good (not Tl since i can’t tell what wrong about it) for he himself explaining thing about how he doing his translation, as for other MTLer well i thinng they kinda aware about it but chose to not show up as they name not even mentioned here (or just not known LOL) as for enjoyable while reading i agree about it with RROzzes-san because as i reading some translated novel from English to my mother language when i found some miss in translated work (i read the original too) in really kill the joy reading your favorite boo. in th end this thing are something that just up to yourself if you want read it or not (to all leecher in the world LOL) and many thank to :
Krytyk-san for TLing : Antimagic academy 35P (this become more darker eh :v), Elysion VR (sadly only three vol), OSO (all hail Yun), and omae wo
PROzzes-san for TLing : Tsuki-Tsuki (LOve it .<) and other teaser (please make some of them full project)
and other translator at baka-tsuki and Nanodesu
well this just me spouting something that not really like me (i prefer stand in side line) sorry for grammar error and such (if that really hurt your eyes to read it :P)
I can see where you are coming from but no translation will be 100% compared to the original authors book. I know or a lot of us knows that these machine translated novels WILL never give us good content. Yes we are impatient a lot of us are anyways. Manga compared to light novels are much easier to convey the message. THE THING IS IT IS EXTREMELY HARD to get a “fully” trained translator like you well closest we will ever get most likely you will eventually go pro and then you can’t freely translate for us anymore well just assuming therefore I thank you for all your current translation that are easier to read.
In order to speed up the process you need several skilled translator to even keep up with the release dates. But most of us don’t believe that many light novels will actually make it overseas compared to manga since it is over 200-300 pages of pure text WITH EXTREMELY OTAKUISH meaning it is really unlikely. Unless we have several hundred of you it will be extremely hard of you to translate these several hundred light novels. That is why most of us just throw in the ropes and accept machine translation which aren’t readable the editors just makes it passable for “free stuff” actually they might have some knowledge in japanese translation but not enough.
I’m a casual reader, and I’m not really expecting literary works of art when I read this stuff. I’ve read ShieldHero quite a bit, and I’ve seen what a mangled mess MTL can produce. It’s incoherent, and it doesn’t follow logical sense. I have to decipher more than I can actually derive enjoyment.
Yoraikun, whatever he does, produces a translation that makes sense and is coherent and logical to the storyline. I don’t find myself confused at all despite what some professional translators have tried to define as “guesslating”. Everything makes sense in the proper context.
Now, if krytyks or prozess feel that the quality of translation is accurate or terrible in general, then feel free to produce a sample “proper” version for comparison so that readers who don’t know all the intricacies might know and sympathize with what you’re talking about. Don’t just take a piss on the carpet leave a puddle, and walk away.
I really do have to agree with the way some people go about calling text that has been parsed through some computer program to give out a copy of that text in another language.
While I am a Chinese-> translator, the current novel that I am working on is based off a Japanese text. I began this project with an aim to improve my Chinese skills, however reaching about two-thirds of the first volume now, I am beginning to feel the need to just end this project and select a new novel that was originally in Chinese. The “official” translated text that I am translating from is in no way Chinese. It is a hodgepodge of sentences put together without any respect or detail to the original text. After I have finished writing up a framework, there is currently a proper translator going through and re-writing it to match the original meaning held in the japanese text. My main point is that translating a translated text is horrible. The text indicates that there are atleast 4 if not more ‘translators working to convert the text from Japanese to Chinese and that their skill levels vary from lack of understanding of Chinese to just horrible gibberish. The phrasing and word choice are all jumbled up with some phrases being Japanese in terms of structure, while others originate from China, Hong Kong or Taiwan. There is absolutely no continuity in the text and that has just made it a chore to actually try and get meaning across.
I will at the very least finish this volume that I am trying to convert into English text as the current translator is too lazy to properly write up and translate the whole book himself, after which I will make a decision whether to abandon the project and start a new one, or to continue with this conversion job.
Fuck you guys. Stop degrading yoraikun. You wanna feel superior? Go ahead but what right do you have to insult his efforts or any other translator’s efforts? I agree that MTL is garbage but do the readers give a shit? No, they’re just happy for fast translations. And I personally think that yoraikun translations are NOT garbage. Why? Because 1. It is easy to understand and the storyline is conveyed to us readers 2. Just cos he translates from furigana? Theres more than one solution to a problem. Same with translation. or what is there only the hard “pro” way for it to be considered a translation? 3. He actually goes back and fixes his mistake 4. There are more than 1000 kanji. You can’t know all of them.
You guys act like you’re so perfect; ranting and insulting for attention. Well here’s something, GET OVER IT. has the other translators talk shit about you? No, they’re just minding their own business. So why don’t you guys do the same? Yeesh
Stick to your quality and translate a 800 chapter novel in 4 years. Most people would like to finish one in a year so I’ll take a reasonably translated MT which has been done by someone who has an intermediate grasp of the language.
MTLors have not the slightest grasp of the language. That is the problem being addressed here.
But I guess in your fucking impatience for more chapters, you failed to comprehend that (I doubt you even read the post).
@Lulz
Interesting, so what do you do when the novel is still being released in Japan? After all, it can take years for novels getting released in Japan.
It’s not reasonable translated through MT. If it was so it wouldn’t be a problem to use MT. You lose all the context, the personality of the characters, the jokes, idioms are removed. The detailed description is gone too. Instead you get your favorite novel which you couldn’t wait for in a 30-40% edition of the original work.
Also in 4 years, your japanese could be superb…so I rather go with 4 years and if I got tired of their speed, I would just use my time to learn Japanese and read it myself.
Also we aren’t talking about intermediate grasp on the language, we are talking about n00bs who know no Japanaese and got no intention of learning it. Sure the English is wellwritten but the Japanese translation is shit.
NEXT CHAPTER WHEN?
Is this still going on? The translators got their points you know?
I can understand if they do not agree to another translators’ method as they have they own pride and point of view. Therefore something like this can happen at some point, but it will pass in anytime.
What I didn’t like is how some readers try to keep the fire alive for nothing. These translators did not ask for money right? They have their own reasons for these projects and their reasons are not the same. It is not wrong to point out what you think, but is it ok to get aggressive toward those who work hard while you hardly contribute anything at all?
It is fine to give comments… but be more considerable please.
I can see both point of views and I can say one thing is I respect all you translaters and others( I guess) I mean truely getting heated over us fans that hit me I felt it in my heart and my penis you guys are awesome truly, machine or what every you guys do I still see that you men and women are taking your free time to bitch about us fans/leechers and provide something that may not be perfect but still entertaining.
This is not about the post itself and is about the comments I’ve read here.
All I can say for guys who diss on translators(MTL or otherwise) is just don’t read their translations. But don’t be a hypocrite. You say whatever you want on this comments page totally trashing the MTL translators but when a chapter comes out you flock like birds to read and say how great they are for doing it. SERIOUSLY??? You may be readers and opinions but you’re still just free leechers (I’m one too by the way) so don’t do shit that will jeopardize other free leechers all over the world.
when all of the spit already spitted out. May I enlightnen you people? The definition of the word translate, translator, and the word.
First off all I’m an asian, a writer, a teacher and a pharmacist. Yup i’m OP, but you know I’m asian*wrysmile. For record this is my first time ever commenting something.
Not all asian is japanese for agurment sake.
Why I state that? Because the grammar culture used in the east part of the word, for god know why is definitely not same with the west. And the root problem for the trans(putsomething) is this.
You want to know what the PRO translator demise is? The death english part. It’s just no way in the world this part to be translated in
english. Maybe they know it, the sentence mean, but to discribe it? Nice joke.
PROzess right? You’re an odd one i say. Is hard to play with grammar culture, child of human.
Well, we got out of track. Now back to the meaning of what I mention before.
A word, a simple part of a sentence and naturally the one that make the sentence.
Translate, changing the word from other culture to the other.
Translator, somepeople or thing that do the work of translate and present it.
Now the delicate part. Who’s the translator? Somepeople that change the way the word presented to other people.
Now following this, then even a children can do it too? Yes they can. Even if it’s not good quality? Yes, it is. Then if they use tool? Well, it’s a little ambigue. But yes. But the one who do the job is the tool?! Then can I call your brain a tool? Or maybe called a dictionary a garbage*this is polite word gentlemen*? Machine translator ,folks. Is a tool to translate. Pretty much the same like a dictionary and your brain.
Now the thing is people, it’s just so sad.
As an asian that have a same grammar culture as japanese I can really say even the real pro translator that has the support of the author cannot produce the very same essence as the original work. (Verify it yourself with what you call it?one yen? Yen press?)
Yes, translated word never same with the original word. Bear with it.
And now you PROzess you’re an odd one.
You can’t say a trash easily to a litterature young lad. Even when using machine is not easy to form word to a sentence. There just exist good and bad translation. The differences is just the good and bad sentence.
Even they using machine translator, when they can form the good sentence it is a translated work. Then they are valid as an translator.
And it’s just sadden me more.
Yoraikun was it? And the other? They use macine that help read kanji and furigana. Its not like a book where you can catch small details of them. Even a real japanese can’t read kanji or furigana perfectly. The more non-japanese.
Yoraikun himself(or her? Confirm please) say he lives in japan for 3 years and can speak and held japanese conversation. I can say if it’s the truth his translated work is 80% accurate. Because you really know the grammar culture when you experience them. Even if he can’t really read japanese if he know the meaning of the word it’s still accurate 70%.
Because it is different when you know and when you can.
Now, I guess It’s a pride played it’s role.
I can say the one mentioned up there is a veteran at translating and i can say they are the warrior of litterature word that helping the heroes(author).
And yourself PROzess is an outstanding veteran out there. Krytyk too. (I wonder if teh-ping is healthy) I already read all of you people work. When I say all, I really mean it. And I can proudly say I read yoraikun too! You people are a great translator.
If I can visualise it with military rank. It goes like this.
PROzess and krytyk here is already an upper echelon.
Yoraikun is an eager fresh innocent new captain.
And translator that use MT and can’t form sentences well let’s call them a new bratty recruit soldier?
Please don’t throw stone at your campanion or should I say nakama here*smile*?
Other people doesn’t matter, because you do what you can do. And what you do is magnifficent.
I can say I blessed can read your work.
By: an old man that enjoy a good war and good ending where people learn their mistake.
Ps. It would be nice if you read it dear warriors and do mind english is my third language
This… i think i am going to recluse myself for a while and think of everything i deem as correct
Never thought i would end up reading a wise comment here that would actually make me brainstorm for an hour
Good sir, i thank you
i dont get it why someone mad at other people hobby, its like you build perfect gunpla and mad at other people that made the same gunpla model with much lower quality
Im just wondering if anyone remembers bakahou?
Prozess if you have read the Ln translations of shield bro which I hope you have. They have been translated by two main individuals Bakahou who machine translated for the most part if I remember correctly and Did a great job, and Yoraikun who also did a great job and did normal translations. Now I hold great respect for both of these translators Bakahou and Yoraikun. Bakahou did not know japanese and was actually learning it while he was translating from what I understood. He translated a lot of chapters in a very short time mostly due to his method of translation which was machine based. From what I understand however he used not just one machine translator but like 8 of them. He would release like 1-4 chapters a day and most of them from what I understood where considered decent translations. I enjoyed his translations much like I enjoy yours.
I feel however that while yours did take more skill to do he still had to put in work. I feel that bashing on people who do extensive machine translations like how he described doing it isn’t conducive to improving the LN community. From what I remember reading was that he would feed each line into each of the 8 machine translations read through the translations and then edit them to create the best possible translation. I mean he released around 90 chapters in under 2 months. If you read through his English translation which I hope you do I would like you to also remember the fact that if he didn’t translate shield bro like he did Yoraikun and others might not have started.
Bakahou started the wave for shield bro his quick, very legible and, easy to access translations kick started the series. Bakahou carried the series on his back forward for 2 months translating from chapter 25 to 125. Yoraikun started translating at chapter 95 and started taking the burden off of Bakahou. On most IRCs that I have visited and many of the translation websites from bakatsuki to krytyk, royal road, and japtem nearly every single site has heard of shield bro. I feel that both yoraikun and bakahou contributed to the fact that shield bro is massive and loved by so many people all over the world. I just don’t want people critizing bakahou i’m sure he worked his butt off for the series and doing so is wrong that’s all i’m saying.
I wish you the best in your translations and look forward to Risou or tsukitsuki whichever you choose to translate.
Tell me about it. My Japanese is not much more than uttering simple tenses, yet those novels uses two, three, or even more clause in a single sentence, to explain one thing, with conjugations more varied than any Japanese course I can find. 3 Hours to make sure I don’t understand it wrongly, but even after it, a speck of doubt still linger.
I love everyone! STOP bashing each other!
Readers are dogs and translators feed them meat (chapters), some dogs will whine and beg the translators for more, others will go looking for translators that will feed them meat that will make them a little sick (Google translation and machine translation), others will wait and wag their tails when ever the translators feed them.
Sophistry aside, poor translations are still translations. Good translations are merely translations. The ones who really should be indignant are the original authors. (However, those who actively complain about copyrights basically lack the confidence to reliably produce other original works and pitifully resort to safeguarding their current products via commercial shackles.)
P.S. Hyperbolically, you gouge your eyes out when frustrated although you can also literally gauge them for their level of beauty or range of vision.
…….This whole internet drama-circle of hate and revenge thingie going on between translators and them so-called fake machine translators-this will undoubtedly stretch till the end of the world. *sigh
Why must we fight? spouting multiple curses, attacking and bashing each other- only to be finding ourselves absorbing more and more hatred each passing day… All these dark emotions gathering – i truly am saddened by this overbearing fact.
If i must choose, then i undoubtedly will choose the side of our hardworking translators. Even though i might as well choose to be neutral on this – but i kinda understand how our hardworking translators might have felt when they have worked hard at translating a chapter, and when you’ve posted the chapter many disturbing comments was suddenly appearing. Or when an overwhelmingly fast but of lowest quality “so called” translation popped out and your readers suddenly switched over to their side. I have seen enough bloody comments made by them bloody ungrateful anons who think that they were some kind of famous people and that the world owes them something, owes them great time. One word for you, as i loathe the act of cursing others, I’ll be courteous instead : Poopy pooping pooptard. oops, that was three.
Back to the topic… i seriously recommend that if both sides couldn’t concede with each other- i suggest splitting up-. Just like the last case with RRL and japtem. Become a separate entity that had nothing to do with each other. Or might that be impossible? if that so then why is it impossible? might someone be kind enough to explain the reason to me?
If only each side would back down and recognizes each other points would this farce finally come to an end, but i don’t think we’ll be reaching that ending. Ever. And all the people who’s only thinking of defending their selves, their greed and their selfish desire and blinded to the others – i can only send you my sighs (i am staring right at you flock of anons)
Thank god this hasn’t happened (Or maybe it has but it quickly subsided) to the circle of Wuxia translation (Well, there are some difference in opinion going on but it wasn’t as bad as it is over here) – Our circle is mostly consisting of gentle users- and our overlord Ren is truly the most gentle and yet wisest of us all. Ren even once explained to us all about the feeling of being a translator. As expected from overlord Ren, All hail Overlord Ren!! (and i secretly thanked god, because our world of Wuxia literature isn’t as mainstream as many Japanese (and Korean) LNs or else things would turn bad like over here)
Well, a little bit late… but anyway. I tried to make it short and compact but utterly failed. Thus i scrapped it and will sum it up or simplify it …. yeah well that failed once again. TL;DR at the end.
First of all, thank you very much for all your hard work PROzess, krytyk and all other translators.
Simplified(!):
Me, some German guy who learned Japanese, Korean and prof. translating for 2 years at an university before going for the money, which means learning Chinese (HSK 5 atm) and economy. Meaning, I claim to know what I am talking about.
I lived and worked for 2 years in Japan. Currently, since almost 3 years, working and living in China.
People from other cultures often perceive, rightfully, the way Germans criticize something as quite harsh, even though it is not necessarily meant that way. Anyway I won’t sugarcoat and mean it that way, MTL is garbage. No way around it. If you think otherwise you have no clue what you are talking about. I am not talking about dictionaries here, I am talking about chapters guesslated by MTL.
Living in China means living behind the Great Firewall. VPNs are not always stable, online reading can be a pain. Especially in regards to LN translations which are usually hosted on blogs. Because of that I copied a lot of “translations” to further edit them later on and to convert them to PDF to read them whenever I feel like it.
Conclusion, after deleting several copies, there is a frightening amount of guesslations out there and I completely agree with real translators. Though I did not went through with it, I completely understand why they are quite enraged by all those guesslations and dumb people who complain about speed. This is not about jealousy, being arrogant or hating, it is about what is a translation and what is not and being grouped together with a bunch of wannabes who often cannot even spell English. This is ridiculous and infuriating for translators.
Just google HSK and take a look at the amount of Hanzi (Chn. Kanji) necessary for HSK 4 and upwards to get an impression how much effort is necessary for people to learn an asian language. But “only” learning such an language, or having an impression of the required effort, still gives one not necessarily an understanding how much effort is necessary for a proper translation. To give you at least one idea to think about, imagine a dialect and how to translate this dialect into another language while keeping the connotation intact. In case of Japanese the most common dialects in manga would be osakaben or kansaiben, iirc. So far so good, but you still do not necessarily know how speaking in such a dialect if perceived by other Japanese people. In case of American English you might think about a texan dialect, or whatever dialect, and what you associate with this dialect, do those people sound dumb or would you judge them as simple or whatever if you hear that dialect? How would you explain it to a foreigner who speaks English but does not necessarily know what kind of impression and cultural aspects are expressed by speaking in that dialect?
If you understand this, you will have an idea about the effort a real translator will have to put into translating something. And now consider yourself in that position and being grouped together with someone who clearly does not know anything about Japanese and often cannot even spell English. If you still do not understand why MTL is hated by translators I feel sincerely sorry for you.
Well I will quit here since the text keeps growing and growing once again. Open for arguments about meaning, % and the like in context with translation, but most pro MTL ppl who posted here really have no clue what they are talking about. But yeah, I will quit now.
TL;DR – I know my shit and MTL is cancer.
All you guys are a pain in the ass. So what if a person uses a 3rd party material to help in translating a novel they love.
Take for example a carpenter.
Is it right to call him a half-assed carpenter just because he uses a hammer to pound the nails while you guys are using your hands and feet?
No. The use of a hammer as a tool is like using a dictionary. But don’t liken a useful thing like a hammer to MTL.
This one’s for all you folks out there who use google translate. FFS STOP USING GOOGLE TRANSLATE ITS TRASH AND SUCKS COMPARED TO BING. Thank you.