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darkgray posted:Why a light novel doesn't necessarily have to be bad just because the translation is: http://www.tcj.com/confessions-of-a-manga-translator/ That's interesting, though I'm not sure if I agree with the implication that manga translating is more complex (or even as complex) as translating a novel. While manga presents its own challenges (like he mentions, having to fit everything into speech bubbles), the challenges novels present seem a lot more difficult to deal with. In manga, you're always looking at what's in a specific panel and each segment of writing that needs to be translated is generally shorter. With the occasional exceptions (like puns or something), it isn't that difficult to at least give an acceptable translation of what you might see in an average manga panel. But with a novel you might end up needing to completely restructure several whole paragraphs to make them sound good in English. Prose ends up being a much bigger consideration when you aren't just dealing (primarily) with dialogue. I'm also not entirely sure what he means when he says that the words are 95% his. Like, I guess in some trivial sense that literally any translation of Japanese to English is going to involve a bunch of words that weren't in the original Japanese (for the context reasons he mentions in the article, with Japanese relying more on context and being less explicit). But in most cases it's not exactly difficult to know what is being said, and I don't think something like adding the subject to a sentence where, in Japanese, the subject is implied by the context really constitutes it being in your own words. This isn't to say that there aren't situations where the Japanese needs to be almost completely rewritten; a lot of Japanese humor comes to mind, like the puns he mentioned. But that certainly isn't close to 95% of what you see in an average manga. Overall I agree that someone needs to be a great writer to be a great translator, but I think that it usually doesn't require the same level of writing ability as translating a novel (like the Murakami translator he referred to), and someone with a solid grasp of both English and Japanese should be entirely capable of producing a good translation of most manga (with some exceptions like Zetsubou-sensei that are heavy on language-based humor). Almost every translation that I've disliked has been the result of the translator obviously not being very fluent in English (or just being a really lovely writer). While I have no doubt that a great writer would produce a better manga translation, the difference isn't as dramatic as it would normally be with novel translation. Someone who isn't a great writer trying to translate an actual serious Japanese novel would be a complete train wreck.
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Mar 7, 2016 19:00
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I have low standards, and I can usually muddle through some engrish as long as the underlying story is interesting enough. What really annoys me and takes me out of the story is when the translator decides that the best way to preserve the original feel of the work is to leave half of the words in japanese and then cram in a bunch of translator's notes to explain what the hell is going on. I'm not talking about calling someone onee-sama or what have you, I understand that in english addressing someone as brother or sister can have different connotations, and if the translator decides to leave it in Japanese I'll just treat it like a nickname. No, it's poo poo like this that I cannot understand: Footnotes from a chapter of Wordmaster posted:(1) Uun: Japanese equivalent of ‘Hmm’. Sound indicating deep thought. Why not just write "Hmm" instead of "Unn" and skip the explanation? Avulsion fucked around with this message at 03:51 on Mar 8, 2016 |
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Mar 7, 2016 19:48
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Oh man, (Rokka Volume 3 Chapter 2 spoilers) poor Chamo  She is in such terrible pain after Nashetania activated that blade gem thing. I did like how Nashetania didn't randomly become stronger after revealing herself and that Hans and Fremy were still more than enough to gently caress her poo poo up and make her retreat. Hans owns and I am very happy he survived Volume 2. My guess for the seventh is actually Fremy; I'm wondering if Tgurneu might have some sort of control over her, even if she isn't voluntarily helping him. I can't really think of anyone else who would be the seventh.I like how Hans initially just seems like a "playful assassin" sort of character, but he also knows when to be serious. He's easily the most competent member of their party aside from Adlet. vvvv Ah yeah, sorry about that. Didn't think about how talking about a character directly implies that they'd still be alive. Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 20:37 on Mar 7, 2016 |
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Mar 7, 2016 20:08
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Maybe you want to refrain from giving out character names when talking about later volumes, in case people consider them spoilers.
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Mar 7, 2016 20:14
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Avulsion posted:What really annoys me and takes me out of the story is when the translator decides that the way to preserve the original feel of the work is to leave half of the words in japanese and then cram in a bunch of translator's notes to explain what the hell is going on. My personal pet peeve is when somebody translates "Aaa" as "Ah". Yes it can mean that, but 90% of the time it's being used as "Yeah" or "Sure". It doesn't even make any sense if you try and say it out loud so why do people keep doing it? 
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Mar 8, 2016 03:48
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BlitzBlast posted:My personal pet peeve is when somebody translates "Aaa" as "Ah". Yes it can mean that, but 90% of the time it's being used as "Yeah" or "Sure". It doesn't even make any sense if you try and say it out loud so why do people keep doing it? Ah.
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Mar 8, 2016 04:55
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(Rokka end of volume 4 spoilers) At this point I'm completely unsure about who the seventh is. I was pretty sure it was Fremy, but now it turns out Fremy is the Black Barren Flower and Tgurneu specifically mentioned them being separate people in the epilogue. I can't think of anyone else who could be the seventh, though. Out of the remaining people: Hans - Tgurneu was going to be totally okay with Mora killing him and was not expeting Rolonia to revive him, so probably not him. Chamo - Tgurneu was also going to be totally fine with her dying from Nashetania's blade gem, so probably not her. Mora - She was already a "fake seventh" and we've seen a bunch of stuff from her first person perspective, so unless she's a sleeper agent or something it's not her. Rolonia - First person stuff from her this chapter and as Hans mentioned after the events of Volume 4 Tgurneu is obviously not attempting to prevent her from dying. Goldof - First person stuff from him, so unless he's some sort of sleeper again he isn't the seventh. Fremy - Black Barren Flower, so not the seventh. Nashetania - Partner of Dozzu, so not Tgurneu's seventh. Adlet - We've seen his inner thoughts a lot, so unless he's a sleeper agent he isn't. So basically everyone has very strong evidence against them not being the seventh. All this considered, I imagine it must be one of the characters who have not have any first person stuff revealing their inner thoughts. In other words, Hans or Chamo (not including Fremy since she's 100% not the seventh). Between those two, I would go with Hans I guess, though I really hope he isn't because Hans owns and is seemingly the only smart dude in their party aside from Adlet himself.
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Mar 8, 2016 22:19
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BlitzBlast posted:My personal pet peeve is when somebody translates "Aaa" as "Ah". Yes it can mean that, but 90% of the time it's being used as "Yeah" or "Sure". It doesn't even make any sense if you try and say it out loud so why do people keep doing it? Fun.
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Mar 9, 2016 09:45
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I feel like my least favorite thing about JP novels -has- to be all the loving onomatopoeia. It's the epitome of terrible writing and the stories that have even small amounts of it are immeasurably worse as a result. It's also loving annoying to read/parse.
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Mar 9, 2016 11:22
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FriggenJ posted:I feel like my least favorite thing about JP novels -has- to be all the loving onomatopoeia. It's the epitome of terrible writing and the stories that have even small amounts of it are immeasurably worse as a result. Some stories read like the script to a manga or anime instead of an actual novel, which is probably deliberate in many cases.
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Mar 9, 2016 18:31
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Spider manga has updated again, and the spider poses are fantastic as usual. Can't wait till she gets super-sized and start trolling across the countryside.
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Mar 10, 2016 06:19
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Chapter 516 of ISSTH was posted, and the parrot does not disappoint this chapter. All hail Lord Fifth!
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Mar 11, 2016 05:50
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Deadly Ham Sandwich posted:Chapter 516 of ISSTH was posted, and the parrot does not disappoint this chapter. All hail Lord Fifth! With Lord Fifth, who dares cause strife?!
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Mar 11, 2016 07:22
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How many mouthfuls of blood do these assholes have to cough up?!
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Mar 12, 2016 06:29
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blastron posted:How many mouthfuls of blood do these assholes have to cough up?! Algid posted:Other blood measurement units: drop, 10% increments in reference to a person or creature, and pond/lake/sea/ocean.
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Mar 12, 2016 15:44
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blastron posted:How many mouthfuls of blood do these assholes have to cough up?! For dramatic purposes: enough to cover all people within spitting range from head to toe. May also be possible to spray like a fountain for 5 minutes straight. I decided to do some browsing on NovelUpdates to see if there's any new interesting translation projects. Oh hey, something titled "If You Got the Power of Flight, Invisibility, and Teleportation, What Would You Do?" sounds mildly interesting, let's see what the tags and summary say. Tag posted:Rape by Male Lead  I hope the translations for that stuff is a pile of unreadable garbled word salad.
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Mar 12, 2016 17:47
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The first thing all cultivators learn is how to cultivate a pouch of blood in the back of their throats. Evolution works in mysterious ways.
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Mar 12, 2016 18:23
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just caught up on the last few chapters in issth and holy poo poo yo
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Mar 13, 2016 18:17
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UberJew posted:just caught up on the last few chapters in issth and holy poo poo yo I'm worried about Mr. Wang collecting on his debt
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Mar 13, 2016 18:51
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van fem posted:I'm worried about Mr. Wang collecting on his debt / 
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Mar 13, 2016 20:10
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I've started back up with desolate area again after a long break, and it is kind of absurd how reasonable and effective the black white school is. They actually educate students and there are no doublehitlers present. But then, I guess IET usually doesn't bother with the absurdly hostile and ineffectual cultivation academy thing. It still strikes me as bizarre after all of the terrible, terrible wuxia wn's I've read, though.
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Mar 14, 2016 03:30
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I think the hostile sect/academy thing makes sense more or less in-universe most of the time. Cultivation resources are at a premium so only the best get the best. Add to that the competition to prove you're the best and you get murder-school.
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Mar 14, 2016 04:43
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FriggenJ posted:I think the hostile sect/academy thing makes sense more or less in-universe most of the time. Cultivation resources are at a premium so only the best get the best. Add to that the competition to prove you're the best and you get murder-school. Nah, because they spend all their time fighting over scraps while protagonists with secret advantages and wealthy doublehitlers feud above their heads. If you want to produce exactly two students worth anything, sure, it works fine. But one of them will betray everyone and the other will either destroy the school or make enemies who destroy the school. The black white school was surprising to me because it seems to be in the business of raising loyal and talented immortals instead of being a cheap narrative shortcut to provide people for a psychotic protagonist to murder.
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Mar 14, 2016 05:46
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Serious Frolicking posted:Nah, because they spend all their time fighting over scraps while protagonists with secret advantages and wealthy doublehitlers feud above their heads. If you want to produce exactly two students worth anything, sure, it works fine. But one of them will betray everyone and the other will either destroy the school or make enemies who destroy the school. It's the same point ISSTH made. The Reliance sect was you typical double hitler murderhobo institution and it was the shittiest sect around. It was also a ploy to keep the school down by a gigantic turtle, but that's just par for the course from ISSTH.
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Mar 14, 2016 06:52
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ISSTH also really doesn't act like Meng Hao is a morally straight guy, either. Sure, he does a decent chunk of good in the world, and there are definitely lots of cultivators who are far worse, but at the end of the day it acknowledges that he's a self-interested kleptomaniacal rear end in a top hat. But he's our self-interested kleptomaniacal rear end in a top hat.
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Mar 14, 2016 07:01
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Even reliance sect was better than that zombie puppet sect from xian ni. If you join, tough it out for a century or two and avoid getting killed for no reason, you can be roughly equivalent in power (but not freedom) to people from other sects until your puppet inevitably gains sentience and steals your body. Like, there was no other possible outcome. Their cultivation method absolutely always resulted in sentient corpse puppets stealing their creator's body. It was the silliest drat thing, and I don't think Er Gen really thought it through.
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Mar 14, 2016 07:38
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Cynic Jester posted:It's the same point ISSTH made. The Reliance sect was you typical double hitler murderhobo institution and it was the shittiest sect around. It was also a ploy to keep the school down by a gigantic turtle, but that's just par for the course from ISSTH. Yeah, Reliance Sect basically being "It sucks because it was made 'competitive' in order to destroy it" is almost self-aware, but then you have a poo poo ton of other sect/clans that still do all the usual Xanxia cliche in it, so.... IET is usually pretty good at making "clans/sects that actually try to make sure they are loyals to each others", which is nice, but he isn't the only one, it's just that a lot of the more popular/first translated Xanxias have all the shittiest cliche sects. Things like Demon Diary, World of Cultivation also have that, and usually in a more fleshed out manner. Then there are things like True Martial World, where the MC is basically the most assholish guy of the sect and more or less the only betrayer there- but he obviously coats it into terms to make himself believe he isn't the most evil guy there.
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Mar 14, 2016 08:49
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Arkeus posted:Then there are things like True Martial World, where the MC is basically the most assholish guy of the sect and more or less the only betrayer there- but he obviously coats it into terms to make himself believe he isn't the most evil guy there. Are you thinking of another Xianxia besides TMW? The MC there is milquetoast xianxia goodguy.
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Mar 14, 2016 09:36
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I can't really think of any of the standard Xianxia genre MCs not being some degree of murderhobo rear end in a top hat. It's like a standard requirement to the genre in order to get ahead of the other muderhobo assholes, and it's what the women in these genres swoon over. The bigger your murderhobo goatse is, the more they swoon. Only in subversions of the genre do you get "not quite" murderhobo assholes, or perhaps even a decent guy that isn't all about loving over your fellow man just to get ahead.
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Mar 14, 2016 10:24
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I remember reading some comments on Novel Updates about how some Xianxia novel was awful because the MC was "too Japanese LN-like", which is to say that he wasn't a complete rear end in a top hat who'd pick fights for the silliest of reasons. I've come to understand that most of the people reading these things are teenagers. I've actually been diving through Novel Updates a lot recently, maybe I'll write a post on my thoughts on various stuff.
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Mar 14, 2016 10:32
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BlitzBlast posted:I remember reading some comments on Novel Updates about how some Xianxia novel was awful because the MC was "too Japanese LN-like", which is to say that he wasn't a complete rear end in a top hat who'd pick fights for the silliest of reasons. My biggest issue with the archetypal JP protagonist is their lack of assertiveness, not only relationshipwise, but even worse, in terms of the story itself. The archetypal CN protagonist suffers from much the same thing, only instead of being influenced by outside forces to go do fetch quests or whatever, their own blood thirst sends them spiraling into a psychosis fueled rampage across the known universe as their murdersprees pull in more and more enemies. The lack of agency on both sides annoy me.
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Mar 14, 2016 11:19
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jwang posted:I can't really think of any of the standard Xianxia genre MCs not being some degree of murderhobo rear end in a top hat. It's like a standard requirement to the genre in order to get ahead of the other muderhobo assholes, and it's what the women in these genres swoon over. The bigger your murderhobo goatse is, the more they swoon. Only in subversions of the genre do you get "not quite" murderhobo assholes, or perhaps even a decent guy that isn't all about loving over your fellow man just to get ahead. Here you go: http://shiroyukitranslations.com/ztj/ Ze Tian Ji is about a polite, honest, and slightly naive young monk from the sticks who comes to the big city to visit a library and stumbles into a world of political intrigue. He is incredibly polite and straightforward, but his naivety and sometimes cryptic way of speaking causes everyone to mistake him for some kind of machiavellian mastermind. It's also notable in that it features a crippled-and-unable-to-cultivate protagonist who doesn't get possessed by a demon/god/old-guy-in-a-magic-ring after three chapters and turn into some unstoppable killing machine who is somehow incredibly attractive to women despite being a complete rear end in a top hat. Instead, the MC spends 100+ chapters trying to avoid fights and read books while the rest of the world comes up with increasingly convoluted plots to drive him out of town because they believe he is a supervillain out to destroy humanity.
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Mar 14, 2016 11:35
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Cynic Jester posted:Are you thinking of another Xianxia besides TMW? The MC there is milquetoast xianxia goodguy. I think he must have meant Peerless Martial God, which is easily the worst example of a hypocritical MC who murders anyone who glances at him wrong and then preaches at everyone about how you shouldn't just go around killing people.
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Mar 14, 2016 14:09
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Silynt posted:I think he must have meant Peerless Martial God, which is easily the worst example of a hypocritical MC who murders anyone who glances at him wrong and then preaches at everyone about how you shouldn't just go around killing people. Oh yeah. It comes so close to being excellent, over the top satire on the whole genre then just keeps playing it straight. I'm pretty sure the MC has yet to travel anywhere without encountering someone that he kills.
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Mar 14, 2016 16:22
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Cynic Jester posted:Are you thinking of another Xianxia besides TMW? The MC there is milquetoast xianxia goodguy. No, I meant TMW- the MC basically has either everyone bending over to help him or people being rivals or people being minions... If someone is bending over to help him, he screws them and steals from them. If someone is being a rival, he screws them over doubly and, steal from them, and then pretend they are assholes for not accepting their death nicely. If someone is being a minion, he then make sure they can't develop or have a mind of their own and anyone who has close to the same temperament he himself as is classified as a "bad person" who must be killed.
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Mar 14, 2016 16:40
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Serious Frolicking posted:Even reliance sect was better than that zombie puppet sect from xian ni. If you join, tough it out for a century or two and avoid getting killed for no reason, you can be roughly equivalent in power (but not freedom) to people from other sects until your puppet inevitably gains sentience and steals your body. Like, there was no other possible outcome. Their cultivation method absolutely always resulted in sentient corpse puppets stealing their creator's body. It was the silliest drat thing, and I don't think Er Gen really thought it through. The entire point of that 'sect' was that it isn't actually a sect though, it's a cultivating tank for new bodies. The so-called disciples are tricked into cultivating corpse puppets, but those are actually the corpses of cultivators who were powerful enough to hold together their souls upon death and rich or connected enough to pay the zombie sect to raise a 'disciple' for them to take over. Some of the more talented pawns get the privilege of actually joining the sect by getting their souls transferred into some other poor sucker after their bodies are harvested, but the rest are just thrown away or killed if they learn the truth and try to flee.
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Mar 14, 2016 18:23
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Mygna posted:The entire point of that 'sect' was that it isn't actually a sect though, it's a cultivating tank for new bodies. The so-called disciples are tricked into cultivating corpse puppets, but those are actually the corpses of cultivators who were powerful enough to hold together their souls upon death and rich or connected enough to pay the zombie sect to raise a 'disciple' for them to take over. Some of the more talented pawns get the privilege of actually joining the sect by getting their souls transferred into some other poor sucker after their bodies are harvested, but the rest are just thrown away or killed if they learn the truth and try to flee. Oh, did xian ni actually revisit them? I quit reading during the dead sea period and never picked it back up. The first time around, they simply provided corpses that people could buy and jump into if they had lost their bodies. No subterfuge or waiting involved. The sentient corpse puppets were presented as something that happened naturally and not a deliberate action by cultivators without bodies.
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Mar 14, 2016 18:53
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Arkeus posted:No, I meant TMW- the MC basically has either everyone bending over to help him or people being rivals or people being minions... I really think you're thinking of another novel. This doesn't sound like TMW at all. I can't think of any stealing going down so far, except maybe nicking energy using his incredibly overpowered energy control thingy. You mentioned sects earlier and the MC isn't in one.
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Mar 14, 2016 19:45
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Serious Frolicking posted:Oh, did xian ni actually revisit them? I quit reading during the dead sea period and never picked it back up. The first time around, they simply provided corpses that people could buy and jump into if they had lost their bodies. No subterfuge or waiting involved. The sentient corpse puppets were presented as something that happened naturally and not a deliberate action by cultivators without bodies. No, I remember that slowly being revealed as their sinister secret, back when the protagonist first joined them. Of course, the translation back then was barely intelligible, but I remember thinking that the corpses actually being in charge, so to speak, made much more sense given the inevitable end result you mentioned.
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Mar 14, 2016 20:01
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Mygna posted:No, I remember that slowly being revealed as their sinister secret, back when the protagonist first joined them. Of course, the translation back then was barely intelligible, but I remember thinking that the corpses actually being in charge, so to speak, made much more sense given the inevitable end result you mentioned. Their primary business was in providing bodies to order, with higher cultivation bodies costing more. There was never any mention of cultivators serving as zombie puppets, even temporarily. They would kill people to use their corpses as puppets, yeah. But those corpses that gained sentience were essentially copies of their master, and had nothing to do with the original owner of the body. People in that setting could just inhabit any dead body without any special efforts. Even the mc did so, though he spent some time as a death cloud first.
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Mar 14, 2016 20:08
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