[X] My Assistant

With some of my bounties, I've had some new and/or potential translators interested in doing one of my bounties, but were unsure about how to do the work. After sharing my advice and feedback with them, I thought since we had an editing thread, there should be a thread for newcomers about how to do a good translation work.

So here I go...


Greetings!

Welcome, new and potential translators! This is a guide and advice of sorts for those who are interested in doing translation bounties for credits and/or hath offered by E-Hentai members seeking for translations of doujins of their choice. You can find many of translation bounties here.

If you're going to do editing, please refer to this thread instead for editing tips. Check this thread for font suggestions, too!


Translation quality

First of all, please do NOT use machine-translation (or MT for short) sources such as Google Translate, BabelFish, Altas, etc. A lot of Japanese-English translators hate them with passion because they are - and never will be - as accurate as translations done by more experienced J-E translators. I once did some MT, and after some feedback and comparisons, and found out that even with my best ability (and cross-referencing multiple MT sources) I was only 60-70% accurate. MT misses out a lot on subtle nuances of Japanese language, and don't catch jokes and puns very well. (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/dry.gif)

That's why a lot of people who post translation bounties will not accept machine-translations.

Furthermore, MT works can destroy any potential J-E translator's desire to work on them, because once they're released those who aren't familiar with Japanese will immediately take them as granted to be 100% accurate and thus can be very difficult to convince otherwise. In some cases, this can be considered as insult to J-E translators, or make them angry (especially if someone machine-translated a doujin they were planning to work on).

So if you're going to translate, please at least have good understanding of Japanese. If you know Japanese, but aren't good with English (English as Second Language, for example), that's okay as there are some people willing to help proof-read your translation and clean up the English grammar for you. The point is, if you've got only couple of weeks worth of lessons, don't even bother. (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/rolleyes.gif)

Scripts

When translators translate a doujin, most of the time they translate only text in the balloons. This also includes sounds such as screaming, moans, panting, etc in them. SFX sounds that are outside balloons are rarely translated, because most of time it's too much of effort and time-consuming. And besides many people prefer to leave them untranslated since they look better than translated into English.

While most people prefer to have translations as close to Japanese as possible, not "Americanized," it's not always that simple. Japanese can be difficult to translate at times, I know, as I've tried myself. I'm just not good enough because I haven't studied as much as I should've. So translators do their best to keep translations as close to original while making sense.

Regarding the formatting of scripts, it usually depends on the translator's preference and/or the person asking for translation's preference.

Since Japanese is read from top to bottom, from right to left, the translations should be done accordingly.

The most basic (which probably would be suitable for those new to translating) is would be to have the translations separated into lines, one for each balloon, and separated by pages.

Here's an example of one of scripts I got:

p6
That day

p7
The Earth looked
slightly sad

p8
Like I said!! It's impossible to control the center with only the golden four!!
It's fine!! Because "geniuses coexist"!!
In reality it wasn't those four, but the defensive midfielder in the match against Korea who had better controlling skills. Even in the Confederations Cup...
No!!
If given time, the European team could have greater potential!!
I wonder? Inamoto didn't even participate in the matches.
Guggugu~ gerogerogerogero (frog sfx)
Alright that's enough!! Go back to work, stupid frog!!

Each balloon are translated separately, making it easier to make distinction between them. If there are dialogue broken up into multiple balloons, they should be treated accordingly, by breaking up the translation into their respective balloons in way that they make sense. This is important because dialogue broken up into multiple balloons may indicate hesitation, slowness of speaking, or nervousness on the part of person speaking. Lumping them into one line will lose that.

Not to mention they drive editors crazy trying to figure out how to break it up when typesetting. (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/blink.gif)


Some translators may have their own preferences or method for their scripts. I once had a translator who did bit extra step of translations by panel per page like this: (P1 = panel 1, P2 = panel 2, etc)

Page 2
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
P1
=21st Century
=Yokohama

P2
=Even in the new century
=I still can't quit.
=Senpai!

P3
=You're late.
=Someone big is gonna show up to today's reporter interview, too...

Few translators go extra step of including Japanese along with their translations, but that's usually their preference. But for editors, this can be great help because they don't have to worry about guesswork for text placement, since they just have to look for the balloons with the Japanese that were just translated.

んっ
Ngh.

あっ すみませボーッとしてて
Ah, sorry, I was daydreaming.

朝ご飯の支度手伝いますね
I'll help you make breakfast.

Regardless of how you want to do your script (or how a person asking for a translation prefers), as long as you make it clear and easy for people to follow with the doujin using balloon by balloon translation, you should do fine.

Finally, you also should try to preserve certain punctuations such as "..." and "--" because they are indications of inflections in dialogue, such as uncertainty or emphasis, among others types.

Sending scripts

When you've finished your translation script, there are few options that you can use to send it to the person who's asking for translation. If it's short one, you can just copy & paste the script into a PM message to that person. For longer ones or more complicated scripts, it would be simpler to upload it as text (.txt), document file (.doc), or rich text file (.rtf) to a file hosting site and PM the person the link to that file.

Popular file hosting sites include [rapidshare.com] RapidShare, [megaupload.com] MegaUpload, [www.mediafire.com] MediaFire, [depositfiles.com] DepositFiles, among many others.


More experienced translators or editors, please feel free to share your input and advice for new and potential translators! (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

This post has been edited by lightshader: Aug 13 2011, 18:32

For starters, this is an excellent guide. Secondly, my input.

For the part about conjoined bubbles, one translator (who's name escapes me) would simply write out the dialogue and put a couple spacers like "//" in between the appropriate spaces which (like you said) can be very difficult to determine alone.

As for file sharing sites the best ones amongst them are megaupload and mediafire. The way rapidshare changed now it's unusually difficult to download anything from it without getting the run around, and MU holds things much longer (like if you had to redownload a script a month from now) and mediafire just skips a countdown altogether.

Lastly it's probably a good idea to to mention that if you sincerely plan on doing (or are currently working on) a translation in the bounties, be sure to accept said bounty with a comment like "yes, I am working on this now".

It'll not only separate you from the trolls, but also avoids the frustration of having someone come from behind and snatching it because they didn't know anyone else was working on it.

This post has been edited by Super Shanko: Aug 13 2011, 07:30

Well, I've done 40+ translation bounties, so I guess I'm qualified to chime in.

I generally agree with lightshader's outline (good job!). In terms of the format I use, it depends on if I transcribe the Japanese script or not. I usually insert the Japanese script if there's a lot of kanji I have to look up or I can use a KanjiOCR program to lift the text directly from the images. However, if the text is handwritten and/or the Japanese is simple enough that I don't have to look anything up, I translate from the image directly and don't transcribe the Japanese text.

When I submit an English-only translation script, I double-space for separate bubbles and single-space for conjoined bubbles. I also try to indicate when text is outside bubbles (usually by using parentheses). An example of a script I recently did can be found here. Note the legend I placed at the very top.

In terms of translation tips, I guess the most important thing is to read over your translation and make sure it makes sense in English (or whatever language you're translating to). Japanese is a real language that follows logic and rules; if what you come up with sounds like nonsense, that's a pretty good sign you've made a mistake somewhere.

Hi guys,
I am relatively new to this forum, being confident at my English <-> Chinese translation proficiency, maybe I can help out from time to time.

Pop me a PM when needed. Looking forward to the bounties (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

When I first started translating from ancient Latin, my professor would often (and painfully!) chew me out because I translated one sentence at a time, resulting in a translation that was technically correct, but sounded like a drunkard's speech if read aloud.

So, i guess the lesson to learn from my experience is...always be mindful of the context whenever you translate.

this is my method -

page number/total

italic indicating narration or headings etc
(character name): blah blah
(character name): blah...

(space indicating a new box)

(character name): blah blah
(character name): blah...

new page number/total

We do not translate sound effects.

Ah yeah, and of course to translate a manga/doujin based on famous characters it would be muuuuuch better to at least have some general knowledge about the subject.

I remember once seeing a Kingdom Hearts rookie translation where all of Axel's "got it memorized?" had been replaced with stuff like "Understood?" or "You get it?"

While technically correct, stripping a character of their own verbal tics or recurring statements means stripping the whole manga of a lot of its flavour.

Unusual (but interesting) way of putting it. Just a question of interest to the translators: when it comes to adding suffixes like kun/chan and so on, does it matter (to you) whether or not the character(s) themselves are Japanese? Like if you were to do a fullmetal alchemist doujin, would you add them or leave them out altogether?

This post has been edited by Super Shanko: Aug 28 2011, 10:08

Unusual (but interesting) way of putting it. Just a question of interest to the translators: when it comes to adding suffixes like kun/chan and so on, does it matter (to you) whether or not the character(s) themselves are Japanese? Like if you were to do a fullmetal alchemist doujin, would you add them or leave them out altogether?

I have two ways to go about that...

First and most obvious, has the series been localized to English? If so, I'd stick to the translated names unless you intend to deviate (let's face it, there ARE names that just suck once localized, especially when part of a pun)

Second... I judge by the mood of the manga as a whole. In general, the darker it is, the more I will try to keep names "English". Light-hearted works are better suited for cutesy stuff like the suffixes though.

Basically it all comes down to intuition. I usually try to drop suffixes though, unless the stuff could use an extra layer of sugar. Think Moe.

First of all, please do NOT use machine-translation (or MT for short) sources such as Google Translate, BabelFish, Altas, etc. A lot of Japanese-English translators hate them with passion because they are - and never will be - as accurate as translations done by more experienced J-E translators. I once did some MT, and after some feedback and comparisons, and found out that even with my best ability (and cross-referencing multiple MT sources) I was only 60-70% accurate. MT misses out a lot on subtle nuances of Japanese language, and don't catch jokes and puns very well. (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/dry.gif)

What kind of MT did you try? Did you paste the image straight into the MT, or did you actually transcribe all of the text from the doujin and paste the text into the MT?

I mean, if you have the skill and spend the effort to get all the kanji out accurately, you might as well start using kanji compound dictionaries and the like. At that point, I am guessing it doesn't count as MT anymore. But MT does seem like an option until you think about why it's so bad, so thank you for warning people against using it.


Someone else posted that you at least need JLPT2 in order to be a translator. I'm wondering which aspects of JLPT2 are necessary, and what would prevent a JLPT N3/N4/N5 reader from translating properly if they put in effort into looking things up. Would the lack of grammar knowledge at these levels be an issue?

I mean, if you have the skill and spend the effort to get all the kanji out accurately, you might as well start using kanji compound dictionaries and the like. At that point, I am guessing it doesn't count as MT anymore. But MT does seem like an option until you think about why it's so bad, so thank you for warning people against using it.

Even if you go through the text word by word, looking things up in a dictionary, without knowledge of grammar you will get things wrong. And that's without considering things that you won't find in a dictionary anyway, because the pronunciation was messed up by an... overly excited character or something.

Someone else posted that you at least need JLPT2 in order to be a translator. I'm wondering which aspects of JLPT2 are necessary, and what would prevent a JLPT N3/N4/N5 reader from translating properly if they put in effort into looking things up. Would the lack of grammar knowledge at these levels be an issue?

Lack of grammar knowledge and (most likely) a lack of experience actually using the language outside a classroom. You can easily translate generic no-story-just-porn doujinshi with less knowledge than this, but you're going to have a hard time with any artist that actually makes an effort to make their doujinshi an interesting read. Look at the crap CGRascal puts out and you'll know what I mean.

Lack of grammar knowledge and (most likely) a lack of experience actually using the language outside a classroom. You can easily translate generic no-story-just-porn doujinshi with less knowledge than this, but you're going to have a hard time with any artist that actually makes an effort to make their doujinshi an interesting read. Look at the crap CGRascal puts out and you'll know what I mean.

Grammar is actually fairly easy to learn compared to vocabulary, simply because there's so much less of it.
If you know a fair amount of grammar, you can bullshit your way through most translations by making use of dictionaries and you'll still produce accurate translations, provided you invest enough time in them.
Conversely, if you know a lot of words but suck at grammar, your translations are most likely going to suck.

Grammar is actually fairly easy to learn compared to vocabulary, simply because there's so much less of it.
If you know a fair amount of grammar, you can bullshit your way through most translations by making use of dictionaries and you'll still produce accurate translations, provided you invest enough time in them.
Conversely, if you know a lot of words but suck at grammar, your translations are most likely going to suck.

Key phrase: if you know a lot of grammar. Hence the need to possess at least JLPT2 level grammar knowledge. (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

Grammar: powerful stuff.

Key phrase: if you know a lot of grammar. Hence the need to possess at least JLPT2 level grammar knowledge. (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

I went and looked at a [www.tanos.co.uk] list. You don't need to know all of those as such, since you can look them up in case you don't know them.
You do need to know enough to make looking up stuff feasible, though, in particular enough to read explanations that are entirely in Japanese.
Can't remember the last time I saw さしつかえない used in a doujin, for example (or at all, I didn't know it actually). Anyway, if you know most of N3, I think you can work out a lot of stories already.

Edit: Whether the time you need to produce an accurate translation with that level of skill would be better spent learning more grammar is another matter.

This post has been edited by Thot: Mar 7 2013, 10:56

Whenever I feel i'm stumbling over grammar (or just dealing with really long sentences in general) i'll just translate it twice. First into something as literal as I can make it (no matter how garbled it sounds) and then i knock that into acceptable English from there. It likely loses some coloring or nuance, but it helps that i'm also a decent writer of my own accord, so i can translate the spirit of it well enough, if not the letter.

In my scripts i tend to affix letters to everything, in order of how it appears on the page (and if i'm confused about what bubble goes next, i'll leave a note for the editor about how i navigated the page). That system worked right up into i rammed head-first into Black Dog...

Yea, Black Dog is a real SOB with his pages. Like a novel with naughty pictures.

Unusual (but interesting) way of putting it. Just a question of interest to the translators: when it comes to adding suffixes like kun/chan and so on, does it matter (to you) whether or not the character(s) themselves are Japanese? Like if you were to do a fullmetal alchemist doujin, would you add them or leave them out altogether?

Localization > Translation

Fan groups and other amateurs that do anime subtitles and so forth are the only ones who leave that sort of thing intact. Professional translations do not, with rare exception. The ultimate goal of a translator should be for their audience to never suspect it was originally in a different language to begin with, and that means doing away with stiff, literal translations and "'pinku' is Japanese for 'pink'" in the margins.

One of the hardest parts of this is understanding the discrepancy between language color in Japanese and English. Japanese tends to convey nuance and color through differences in grammatical structure, "unspoken" words, and unique wordplay, whereas English does it through extensive word choice and a significantly wider array (and more liberal usage) of idioms. There's a lot more to it than that, but it would behoove any translator to sit down and really think about how these major differences should factor into their translations.

As a very basic example, there are exponentially more creative ways to say "Let's go" in English than in Japanese. If you just translated every instance of it literally, it would get repetitive and fail to take advantage of the flexibility of the English language, not to mention it makes characters seem flat and unnatural. In English writing, it's generally considered bad practice to repeat the same words in a short span, whereas that isn't really a thing in Japanese. Logically, you should want to choose different synonyms in English for repetitive terms/phrases in Japanese, or else your work will sound off and unprofessional. As long as the meaning is intact, you shouldn't be afraid to mix things up. People have all sorts of different speech patterns and habits in both languages, but they don't really overlap; consider how a character would speak in English, what words and tone they would use, then adapt the source material to their language rather than adapting their language to the source material. There is no proper Japanese equivalent of "Let's mosey," so you would never see that in a rigid translation, but if that phrase would fit the character then you shouldn't be afraid to use it. An intrinsic quality of good English writing is its tendency to glorify the verbosity of the English language, and failing to span the deeper reaches of the dictionary will doubtlessly reduce the quality of any translation whether or not the Japanese script was that wordy to begin with. Such is the essence of superior translations.

Translators can sometimes get hung up on Japanese nuances and things like titles/suffixes, and I think this really misses the point of translation. It's great that you have the ability to appreciate a work in its native language, but don't project that onto a different audience; you have to give them something to appreciate in their own language. Keeping the word 'senpai' in a translation just because it doesn't have a perfect English equivalent misses the point of why there is no perfect English equivalent. Step outside of your comfort zone and find a way around the word, don't force your audience out of their comfort zone by introducing foreign elements to your translation. There's no doubt this is much harder to do than some people may realize, and while the differences between bad translations and good translations may be obvious, you should strive to understand the much more subtle differences between good translations and great translations.

I realize this is all kind of deep and thoughty in the context of translating porn, but if you have any skill in translation, you'll inevitably want to expand your horizons. Hopefully some of this will be of help to that effect.

One last bit of advice I have to offer: do your own editing if you can, or work with an editor to decide on the final wording, but don't let them have free reign over your script. It is inevitable that if you simply provide a plaintext script, some of the words will need be changed around or rewritten to accommodate speech bubbles or for other aesthetic purposes. Since I do both, I find much of my word choice depends specifically on how it fits on the page; very rarely do my initial translations fit unchanged. Leaving those changes in the hands of someone who can't understand the nuances of your translation will make it suffer in the end, and people who read it are going to attribute that to you rather than the editor. Do everything you can to make sure every last word is of your choosing, and if your editor has a problem with that or is unwilling to work with you, find a different one. It's your translation, not theirs.

Oh, and don't go sucking up bounties and spewing out loads of terrible translations just to get your rank up, or the rest of us will hate you forever.

What kind of MT did you try? Did you paste the image straight into the MT, or did you actually transcribe all of the text from the doujin and paste the text into the MT?

I mean, if you have the skill and spend the effort to get all the kanji out accurately, you might as well start using kanji compound dictionaries and the like. At that point, I am guessing it doesn't count as MT anymore. But MT does seem like an option until you think about why it's so bad, so thank you for warning people against using it.
Someone else posted that you at least need JLPT2 in order to be a translator. I'm wondering which aspects of JLPT2 are necessary, and what would prevent a JLPT N3/N4/N5 reader from translating properly if they put in effort into looking things up. Would the lack of grammar knowledge at these levels be an issue?

For your info, ( sorry wrong info I am outdated ) (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/laugh.gif)

I think it's only for fluency and accuracy/context of the Japanese text. Usually, in higher levels you will be

more accurate and understand better especially the heavy-text one. As long as you follow all the good

Grammar and its equivalent English/Japanese.

This post has been edited by Frostbite: Apr 3 2013, 17:05