|
I think the best way to compare is to check out a few Japanese authors that have gotten professional English translations. There is a huuuuge world of difference between that and light novel fan translations. I haven't looked at any professional translations for stuff like Haruhi or Spice & Wolf but I bet there's a pretty big difference there as well.
|
#
?
Jan 11, 2015 20:26
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 3, 2024 00:28 |
|
|
User0015 posted:Any examples off the top of your head? What? You want me to post Swedish excerpts that fail to make you laugh? Did you quote the wrong paragraph?
|
|
#
?
Jan 11, 2015 20:29
|
|
|
Dan7el posted:Kind of cool to see them running around with a legendary hero, level 100, NPC turned sentient. I'd be asking all kinds of questions about his origin. I get the idea these level 100 NPC legendaries might be some kind of artifacts from the beta version of the game. I don't know why but I do. I'm not even sure if their origin is important. You know how MMO quests sometimes have plot NPCs? Those are Ancients. Elias Hackblade is one of the most visible ones, to the point he's in the box art. Some people have theorized Runderhaus might've been the main NPC for a new questline.
|
|
#
?
Jan 11, 2015 20:35
|
|
|
darkgray posted:Another issue is that light novelists (and mangaka, at least) often resort to a set of very established and stereotypical speech patterns, which turn out to be completely invisible in translation. There are ways to write dialogue in Japanese that absolutely and unmistakably identifies the speaker as a boy, a man, a girl, a woman, an old man, an old lady, a servant, a lord, a king, etc, etc, in literally a single line. darkgray posted:And I also somehow liked Tolkien better in Swedish, since his English text is wooden and dull as dishwater.
|
|
#
?
Jan 11, 2015 22:16
|
|
|
It was kind of weird seeing the bad guys give a People of the Land aren't real speech when every thing we've seen about them basically shows the opposite. It seems like it is one of those things where even if they are all programmed they all act so real that they are for all intents and purposes.
|
|
#
?
Jan 11, 2015 22:34
|
|
|
Perhaps it wasn't just adventurers who made the transition to this world. If the potl were originally just npc's in the game, they could have become real people after the apocalypse. Before, I was under the impression that the potl were the preexisting inhabitants in a fantasy world that was somehow linked to the game. But if that isn't the case, then it may be that the apocalypse was when that world was created and that every inhabitant originally came from the game.
|
|
#
?
Jan 11, 2015 22:45
|
|
|
darkgray posted:What? You want me to post Swedish excerpts that fail to make you laugh? Did you quote the wrong paragraph? I thought the NPC level 90 cleric in Kanami's party was pretty cool. Loved her dual-wielding shields. Not only with Rudy, but with others -- I hope they story-line continues to develop original-NPC-type characters into real "people". I wonder if Kanami is the author's trend-setter in a way? She led the off-beat-yet-highly-successful-non-guild of players and was famous for it. Left that, and is now leading a new group of NPC-PC-mixed on a traveling tour.
|
|
#
?
Jan 11, 2015 23:24
|
|
|
Dan7el posted:I thought the NPC level 90 cleric in Kanami's party was pretty cool. Loved her dual-wielding shields. Not only with Rudy, but with others -- I hope they story-line continues to develop original-NPC-type characters into real "people".
|
|
#
?
Jan 11, 2015 23:30
|
|
|
Drifter posted:I'm actually curious, what is an example of that? I don't carry around any specific examples, but the light novel BakaTest always comes to mind first. It's extremely dialogue heavy (extremely), and all the characters have their own individual way of speaking, so somehow the author can juggle conversations between 5-6 people simultaneously without ever adding a "said Foo" or "Bar whispered". Main character will use 僕 (boku), cool friend uses 俺 (ore), nice girl goes with 私 (watashi), bouncy girl has あたし (atashi), strange guy uses わし (washi), kind of thing. In English they all translate to "I", which is way too neutral to transmit any information about character. Even when people talk about things other than themselves, because of the syllabic nature of the language, dialects are very easy to put on the page, so you can give people different hometowns, and they'll automatically speak nothing like each other, yet in translation it's once again neutralized. Of course there are regional differences in English (and Swedish) as well, but not necessarily something that shows in text, since spelling is standardized. And certainly not something that will permeate every sentence. On top of that you've got politeness levels (which have been purged from Swedish in the past 50 years), which also let you easily separate characters. In senpai-kouhai conversations, one party will be using casual copula (da), while the other is constantly in polite copula (desu). Again, something that can be bridged in English over time, but hard to get across in single lines.
|
|
#
?
Jan 11, 2015 23:44
|
|
|
I gotcha. Dialect2. Thanks. That's certainly much more challenging to do in English. darkgray posted:On top of that you've got politeness levels (which have been purged from Swedish in the past 50 years), You goddamned Swedes 
Drifter fucked around with this message at 00:05 on Jan 12, 2015 |
|
#
?
Jan 12, 2015 00:01
|
|
|
Serious Frolicking posted:Perhaps it wasn't just adventurers who made the transition to this world. If the potl were originally just npc's in the game, they could have become real people after the apocalypse. Before, I was under the impression that the potl were the preexisting inhabitants in a fantasy world that was somehow linked to the game. But if that isn't the case, then it may be that the apocalypse was when that world was created and that every inhabitant originally came from the game. Counterpoint: We know nothing of the non game world. If the central mystery lies outside the game's scope we probably should have seen something by now yet all we got was Rigan's history exposition.
|
|
#
?
Jan 12, 2015 00:05
|
|
|
Dan7el posted:Thanks Darkgray. You answered my question. I think the short answer is: No, light novels aren't as bad in the original language as they appear when hack-translated online. The long answer is: Read professionally translated light novels or learn the original language. Yeah. But that's not to say the original can't be bad, it's just not so bad that you want to burn it. Mostly it's simply adequate to the point where you don't care about how it's written, and only notice how bad the plot and characters are! I don't presume to tell you that the issues I've mentioned are why fan translations are bad either, really, it's just to highlight that Japanese authors work under different rules, and as a consequence the structure of Japanese prose can be quite different from what we're used to. In a literal translation, that sticks out pretty severely.
|
|
#
?
Jan 12, 2015 00:13
|
|
|
Drifter posted:loving finally we're back to good stuff. That was a very solidly fun episode. I think that's the crux of this show for me: when it doesn't take itself too seriously it's really entertaining. Compare this episode to the one with Nerdlord giving his "we're gamers" speech and it's like night and day.
|
|
#
?
Jan 12, 2015 00:34
|
|
|
Mo_Steel posted:I think that's the crux of this show for me: when it doesn't take itself too seriously it's really entertaining. Compare this episode to the one with Nerdlord giving his "we're gamers" speech and it's like night and day. What a fuckin' wasted episode that was, jesus christ.
|
|
#
?
Jan 12, 2015 01:26
|
|
|
What's more, they aren't actually gamers any more. They are actually adventurers. Being the first to do a dungeon is an adventure now. It isn't really any different from Kanami's unabashed thrillseeking.
|
|
#
?
Jan 12, 2015 01:34
|
|
|
Mo_Steel posted:I think that's the crux of this show for me: when it doesn't take itself too seriously it's really entertaining. Compare this episode to the one with Nerdlord giving his "we're gamers" speech and it's like night and day. I find it very interesting just how polarizing that speech was. Some people resonate with the speech and find it to be one of the best eps, while others find it to be super nerdlord bullshit.
|
|
#
?
Jan 12, 2015 01:50
|
|
|
Kyte posted:I find it very interesting just how polarizing that speech was. Some people resonate with the speech and find it to be one of the best eps, while others find it to be super nerdlord bullshit. The problem I had with the episode was where it was placed. We had JUST finished wasting time with a subpar Akatsuki subplot, and just when things are getting interesting, we mess with the pace by having a guy rant about why he plays MMOs. I didn't even finish the episode. The guy's speech could have been awesome, but the whole thing came at the worst possible time and I just wasn't having it.
|
|
#
?
Jan 12, 2015 02:13
|
|
|
Serious Frolicking posted:What's more, they aren't actually gamers any more. They are actually adventurers. Being the first to do a dungeon is an adventure now. It isn't really any different from Kanami's unabashed thrillseeking. Aren't they, though? Sure, it's a different type of gaming - they're no longer the "sit in a dark room all night never making eye contact with another human" sort - but they still approach the adventuring with the same mindset. Like you say, to them adventuring is basically just thrillseeking. It's for fun & challenge, rather than being a life or death battle or something. Compare to, say, first arc of Sword Art Online. So that's what that speech was about; the same mindset that they had when they were playing an MMORPG and devoted their life to being the first guild to beat a new raid for no reason other than to see if they could do it, is still the same mindset that's moving them forward now. Sure, now there's an actual reason for them to do raids, but Shiroe hadn't told them about it when they signed on. They didn't even know about any of the weird Villain in Glasses plotting that was going on, they were fighting just to fight, just like they always had.
|
|
#
?
Jan 12, 2015 03:28
|
|
|
That speech could've been great if it had been for just like five minutes or so, but it dragged on to the length of a whole episode, and just felt very repetitive. It felt like he was saying the same thing over and over, and kept hitting the same "high notes". It greatly overstayed its welcome! Like, I think they kind of missed the point of an inspiring speech. In movies they're almost always short and punchy. "An hour of wolves, and shattered shields the age of Men comes crashing down! But it is not this day! This day we fight! By all that you hold dear on this good Earth, I bid you stand! Men of the West!" Something like that, which fits into less than a minute. William's just dragged on and on.
|
|
#
?
Jan 12, 2015 03:35
|
|
|
Well it's a Japanese speech. Japan is terrible with conciseness.
|
|
#
?
Jan 12, 2015 04:17
|
|
|
I liked the speech, but it's true it came in a bad moment. We went a lot of episodes (even after that) without what truly makes Log Horizon grand. Thankfully that will be fixed next ep!
|
|
#
?
Jan 12, 2015 04:43
|
|
|
DrSunshine posted:That speech could've been great if it had been for just like five minutes or so, but it dragged on to the length of a whole episode, and just felt very repetitive. It felt like he was saying the same thing over and over, and kept hitting the same "high notes". It greatly overstayed its welcome! Yeah definitely. I very clearly got the impression that I heard the entire speech, front to back, two times. One time would have been good. I mean, it made sense in context, the dude's an anti-social thrillseeker, not an Orator, but just 'cause something makes for tactical realism doesn't mean it makes it fun to watch.
|
|
#
?
Jan 12, 2015 04:49
|
|
|
Seeing Leonardo (COWABUNGA!) was cool, and made me think of a guy in our Guild Wars 2 guild. He patterned one of his Charr (big lion dudes with goat horns) alts as the Beast from Disney's Beauty and the. The character's name is Be Our Guest. Not everybody takes MMOs super serious, and sometimes people use the character creation / gear system to try and get as close as possible to some other IP. Nice to see exactly that reflected here.
|
|
#
?
Jan 12, 2015 05:07
|
|
|
Dzhay posted:Probably the latter, as Rudy says (s)he's "obviously" a boy. A bit late on this, but whatever. I won't pretend to be an authority on this either, but from what I'm hearing Tetra sounds just hyper and... well, tomboyish, kind of like a girl trying to sound a bit more like a boy in order to sound cute, if that makes sense. She emphasises and deliberately drags certain parts of her speech which definitely doesn't sound boyish or manly in the least, but on the other hand I don't think she really uses any overly girly words either. She even uses the boyish boku, as was mentioned, but it's not unheard of with girls and obviously fits her character. Anyway, I really liked the episode, and as weird and disjointed as it was, it sort of worked like that when you imagine it was just a story the narrator was telling, skipping to the good parts as he went along. DEEN, I'm trying here. I'll trade Rudy for Leonardo any day though.
|
|
#
?
Jan 12, 2015 05:44
|
|
|
This was like my go-to show for it's first season and I was really hyped to know there was a second season coming and then I found out it was Studio DEEN and inevitably found myself considering the pacing a result of their ham-fisted handling compared to the first season which seemed to have at least some sense of how not to be dragged out as hell. I heard about the William speech before I saw it and stopped watching the show, has the pacing improved at all or am I just going to hate myself for trying to give this show a chance again?
|
|
#
?
Jan 12, 2015 09:49
|
|
|
DEEN isn't to blame for this, the director and writers have remained unchanged. They're only to blame for the drop in animation quality. I haven't watched since the murderer arc so I'm curious about how things have been going down as well. I've never been a fan of the action in the show but the stuff outside that has always been compelling to me, so it has been a disappointment to me that the 2nd season has been so action-heavy.
|
|
#
?
Jan 12, 2015 12:54
|
|
|
Srice posted:DEEN isn't to blame for this, the director and writers have remained unchanged. They're only to blame for the drop in animation quality. Wait what, am I just entirely missing the irony in this post or have we been watching different shows. Like 50% of season 2 cour 1 was Akatsuki mopes. With another like 30% being taken up by people talking.
|
|
#
?
Jan 12, 2015 17:24
|
|
|
I'd say that they actually cut down on the amount of Akatsuki moping from the source material.
|
|
#
?
Jan 12, 2015 17:28
|
|
|
In case anyone's interested, here's a primer on the glossed over details.
|
|
#
?
Jan 12, 2015 20:07
|
|
|
Kyte posted:In case anyone's interested, here's a primer on the glossed over details. The worst mistake here is that they transliterated the dog people monsters they were fighting as "noles". They're loving gnolls, dammit! Crunchyroll, you are such garbage.  (also I don't even care if someone from the Japanese side told them to translate it like this, it's the job of the person who actually knows English to overrule some dumbass decision like that, like an editor telling the translator his translation is janky and awkward)
|
|
#
?
Jan 13, 2015 01:52
|
|
|
XboxPants posted:The worst mistake here is that they transliterated the dog people monsters they were fighting as "noles". They're loving gnolls, dammit! Crunchyroll, you are such garbage. Sometimes you don't get a choice in the matter. As translator you don't own all the intellectual property rights, and being too lippy/insubordinate about things like that will make publishers less likely to hire you.
|
|
#
?
Jan 13, 2015 02:28
|
|
|
Kyte posted:Well it's a Japanese speech. Japan is terrible with conciseness. Yeah it's not like the Japanese are renowned for their short form poetry or anything.
|
|
#
?
Jan 13, 2015 02:30
|
|
|
Hagop posted:Wait what, am I just entirely missing the irony in this post or have we been watching different shows. Like 50% of season 2 cour 1 was Akatsuki mopes. With another like 30% being taken up by people talking. Hm? It's exactly as I said. I enjoy the show more when they're all about finding practical solutions to problems. Stuff like cooking, negotiating with NPCs, etc. I wasn't a fan of the murderer arc since I feel the action is the weakest part of the show so an arc about a super powerful bad guy made it tough to keep my interest going. I wasn't a fan of the monster invasion stuff from season 1 either!
|
|
#
?
Jan 13, 2015 02:46
|
|
|
Neeksy posted:Sometimes you don't get a choice in the matter. As translator you don't own all the intellectual property rights, and being too lippy/insubordinate about things like that will make publishers less likely to hire you. True but I don't think this was one of those cases - Gnolls may be D&D monsters but they get used with the same name in pretty much every other fantasy MMO in existence without an issue. To me this just looked like an issue of clueless translators not knowing what a gnoll was. (also it wasn't really a big deal on its own, just a bit eye-rolling, but it is part of a large pattern of sloppy unresearched subtitles that is kinda lovely for something that you're actually paying for)
|
|
#
?
Jan 13, 2015 03:46
|
|
|
One other possibility is that they knew but rather than dig deep into whether or not they could use the gnoll, they went with something that wouldn't get CR screwed down the line. Though I figure the translators/editors just didn't know.
|
|
#
?
Jan 13, 2015 05:28
|
|
|
Argas posted:One other possibility is that they knew but rather than dig deep into whether or not they could use the gnoll, they went with something that wouldn't get CR screwed down the line. I've heard that some of the people who tl what gets simulcast apparently don't even get to see the episode half the time? So if all else, they lose out on the most important aspect of Japanese: it's context based.
|
|
#
?
Jan 13, 2015 05:34
|
|
|
XboxPants posted:True but I don't think this was one of those cases - Gnolls may be D&D monsters but they get used with the same name in pretty much every other fantasy MMO in existence without an issue. To me this just looked like an issue of clueless translators not knowing what a gnoll was. No I mean sometimes you get a publisher in Japan who has it in their mind that "NO THIS IS HOW IT IS SPELLED, gently caress YOU" and that you can't convince them otherwise. So you end up accepting the name as Reon instead of Leon because the artist spelled it that way in English on some promo art or something. That was my experience dealing with manga publishers back in 2004, so hopefully it's gotten better since then. quote:Well it's a Japanese speech. Japan is terrible with conciseness.
|
|
#
?
Jan 13, 2015 07:44
|
|
|
Neeksy posted:There are times when it's much more concise than English. This just happened to be one of those times where he spoke like he wanted to hear himself talk. As if the budget depended upon it.
|
|
#
?
Jan 13, 2015 08:25
|
|
|
Srice posted:Hm? It's exactly as I said. I enjoy the show more when they're all about finding practical solutions to problems. Stuff like cooking, negotiating with NPCs, etc. I wasn't a fan of the murderer arc since I feel the action is the weakest part of the show so an arc about a super powerful bad guy made it tough to keep my interest going. I read your post as a complaint that their had been too much action in season two.
|
|
#
?
Jan 13, 2015 17:07
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 3, 2024 00:28 |
|
|
Something the show hasn't touched on yet (much): the actual fluff of the Elder Tales setting, beyond what makes it MMO like. We have clerics and chapels, are there gods? The clerics/shamans(/druids?) seem to work like the arcane casters, mechanically. Elias mentioned "fairies" in the last episode, what's their deal? Summoners pull creatures out of... somewhere; are those creatures sapient? (Summoners seem really overpowered, from what we saw last episode. Teleporting halfway across the world seems a bit broken.)
|
|
#
?
Jan 14, 2015 15:05
|
|
