Pabloc

It is exactly the same. The ending and the sex scenes are both integral parts of the storyline. And while it may be true that removing the latter is easier and will usually cause less damage, it will cause damage (especially when done by an incompetent translator). Just for argument's sake, I'd say that in your average moege/charage, a well-written sex-scene can actually contribute much more to the story (in terms of relationship development) than a generic happy ending. For me, sex (preferably, but not necessarily explicit) is an integral, and perfectly natural part of romance. Most of the time, relationships that end on holding hands feel incomplete to me (and often they feel unrealistic). In some rare cases, I found them about as unsatisfying as an axed, cliffhanger ending. This is not even slightly sarcastic - that's honestly one of the main reasons why I usually can enjoy a pure romance story in 18+ VN, while in tamer formats, I often find this genre simply annoying. If for you H-scenes are nothing but a fap material, well, that's just YOUR point of view. Now, who is the actual pervert here, huh?

Her name is obviously If you want a detailed explanation - start with the little story in #26, then jump to the last paragraph of #63 and enjoy the epicness in next posts (up to #70 or so). Warning - G-Senjou will never be the same again. XD

You know what? I feel like translating a super-cute moege. Oh, but I'm not a big fan of happy endings, so I will not translate them. Those are not a part of the "VN experience" anyway. No, it's just a form of fanservice, that drifts away from the experience actual VN was supposed to give. I can tell, I know things. It's only the very end of each route, no big deal, you'll get over 90% of the VN translated just fine. Praise me! ^^ Hmmm, on second thought, that won't do. Without endings, it kinda makes no sense. Oh, I know! I'll just edit it a bit. Nothing much, I'll only rewrite all endings to make the protagonist and heroines die in a very horrible and veeeeery gory way. This will be awesome! And that's certainly what the original author wanted to give to the readers - he was just forced to write generic, boring happy endings because of better sales. Yeah, that's exactly how this VN was supposed to be enjoyed (I can tell, I know things), and that makes my translation actually more faithful to the original than the original itself! Praise me more! ^^ Of course, I will still release it under it's original title, and call it a translation - after all, it's a perfect representation of the source material. ^^ On a less sarcastic note - there are writers who don't write ero, there are seiyuus who don't voice ero, there are artists who don't draw ero and there are companies which don't release ero. Nobody forces anyone to put H in their titles - authors do that themselves, because - like you said yourself - people want ero (-> better sales). You can say whatever you want, but it doesn't change the fact that omitting any scenes in translation results in an incomplete translation at best. And if removed scenes happen to affect the rest of the story in any way, that results in a derivative work that's no longer a translation at all.

Ugh, this thread is bananas... -.-' A few points in no particular order: 1) A translation is converting the story written in one language into another, staying as close as possible to the original meaning. Period. It doesn't have to be literal (actually, it shouldn't), but it must include all scenes present in the original. Those can be rewritten to some extent if necessary, to make the whole story work well in a different language. However, cutting or severely twisting the original content as one sees fit is not an option here. 2) What Babiker brought up, when the original is altered to be more suited for the target audience, avoid possibly offensive stuff, etc. is NOT a translation. It's a localization (as already mentioned). That's a completely different form of art, that indeed allows, or rather - requires - a lot more adjustments to the source material. That includes even such liberties as changing the setting to the different country, replacing original names of characters or places to preserve their hidden meaning, changing references to existing people, pop-culture, folklore etc., rewriting potentially offensive scenes, and so on. This requires much greater effort from the localization team, and can easily result in a total trainwreck. Gyakuten Saiban -> Phoenix Wright is a good example of such approach (even kinda passable quality-wise). Both translating and localizing are valid forms of bringing foreign works to a different language/culture. Translation is obviously more faithful, while localization, being only one step away from the actual remake, is further from the source material, but can be easier to understand for an average reader, and if done right, may be just as good as the original (but that requires a huge load of effort and incredible writing skills). As far as the current VN fan-TL scene is concerned, an actually decent localization is simply unrealistic, so just forget about it. 3) Fan-translators can do whatever they want. That's a fact. If they think erotica is Satan's creation or something, they can always stick to all-ages titles. That's obviously the best idea. If they do want to translate eroge though, the ideal approach would be making a full translation, and allowing people to disable H-scenes if they want. That's the only really fair option, and it satisfies everyone. And that's how all serious groups dealt with this issue so far. Making a partial translation, by leaving the H-content intact, but untranslated, is also a valid option. It's quite similar to releasing only a few routes - simply an incomplete patch. The difference is that in the former case, groups usually plan to do the whole translation at first, but quit halfway because of reasons. Shit happens, I won't blame them for that. Planning to release unfinished patch from the start (that's not limited to H-scenes, patch for Hozuki's route from Sharin no Kuni FD also counts for example), is what I would generally consider a tiny little bit half-assed. Even if the translated part covers 99,5% of the VN, it's STILL incomplete. Of course, fantranslators can release unfinished patches, nothing wrong with that - if people care, they can translate the rest. As for actually removing the H-scenes entirely, whether the reader likes it or not... Well, of course fantranslators can do this too. But at this point it's not a translation anymore. And if they didn't make a huge effort to convert the entire story to fit their target audience, it's not exactly worthy to be called a localization either. It's pretty much a fanfic (or a revision if you want ). Again, nothing wrong with that, it still can be a good fanfic. Just be honest with your readers. 4) Companies release all-ages ports of their games mainly for a single reason - to target wider audience and sell more copies. I don't see them removing 18+ versions as soon as the all-ages remake hits the market though, and while they cut the sex-scenes, they frequently add something to the console ports make up for it. Translators who pick all-ages releases over 18+ ones, usually do so with that additional content in mind, not because they don't want ero. 5) MoeNovel is indeed related with Pulltop. Still, completely screwed up Engrish release isn't that surprising - Japanese companies generally don't give a damn about the Western market, and even if they try to release something overseas, they have absolutely no idea how to do it right. Nobody from Pulltop would bat an eye even if MoeNovel released a blatant machine translation or something. They probably just made up a quick remake of Ageha's route for the sake of censorship, most likely without any consultations with the original writer (or with any writers actually). We'll see how they deal with this issue in the console port. Oh, and the fact MN is related with original creators obviously doesn't make their version of KonoSora any more acceptable. And yeah, it's "their version" not a "translation" (much less "English translation"). To sum things up - yeah, translators can do whatever they want. And considering all that H-censorship and other TL-quality issues that are getting more and more frequent lately, anyone who is even slightly serious about reading VNs, should screw translations and start learning Japanese right about now. And now excuse me, there's some completely unreadable garbage (also known as "If My Heart Had Wings"), that's waiting to be salvaged for far too long already.

I don't really get the appeal of those titles. It's not even remotely interesting when they just replace the pictures of monstrously generic guys/girls with random insects/monsters/whatever (and add one or two relevant traits). It looks like a total cliché dressed up in fancy clothes, nothing more. Real insect connoisseurs should read stuff like http://vndb.org/v4866 instead.

I don't think any serious translator would really leave H-scenes untranslated. And I never saw a retarded trend like that in the past. Cross Channel and Tsukihime (and other similar cases) do have translated H-scenes. They got additional, all-ages versions to reach wider audience, not because their translators said "Screw it, let's release an incomplete TL, because sex is EVIL, lol.". Eien no Aseila never got anything cut out by translators - they just picked an all-ages port of a PS2 version (that has no H, but offers additional content instead, presumably much more worthy of a TL than an evil-rapefest-route). Nowadays, projects that consider not translating H-scenes do pop up here and there. But, I don't think a single one was actually completed so far, and most likely they never will. There's a very slim chance that people planning to release a half-assed, incomplete translation from the start are serious and determined enough to finish even that much.

Not necessarily. NTR as a fetish is all about jealousy. Sure, it usually comes hand in hand with cheating, but it's a broader term. As long as the protagonist is in love with the girl, she has sex with someone else, and everything is portrayed in a specific, heartbreaking, jealousy-inducing way, it can count as NTR even if the protagonist isn't going out with said girl. Childhood friends or sisters are likely candidates for this variant of NTR (I'm not an expert in this field, but even I bumped into a few titles like this, so it can't be that rare). So no, the Ef example does qualify as a reverse-NTR - although just barely. As for the topic - as a plot-device, NTR is similar to rape. If done right(?) it's a good drama/utsuge material. And since I like depressing, heartrending stories, I guess I could say I like those two themes, just as I like stories where my favorite characters die and make me cry for a week. When it comes to VNs, I like when all NTR/rape is avoidable - it makes the bad-endings very powerful. When it comes to NTR as a fetish though, unfortunately serious approach to this is even more uncommon then serious rape. In both cases, the girl usually gets instantly slutified, and everything turns into a semi-consensual orgy. That's simply stupid, and it's very boring H-wise too. When I'm going into a rape-themed H, I want grimdark stuff, psychological trauma etc., not some dull gangbang with a mindless sex-slave. And in NTR case, there's also the issue with main character, who is often just an annoying thrash who fully deserves to get his GF stolen. But, literally the biggest obstacle that prevents me from exploring the NTR genre, are seriously oversized boobs. Really now, this genre is infested with MILFs and other boob-monsters, how am I supposed to feel bad for the protagonist, when I'd actually run away from such girls? I could count on my fingers all NTR-oriented titles featuring girls that aren't very hard on my eyes. Eh, that's probably the only fetish besides bara and furries that I still didn't really explore. I guess I'll check out 1-2 NTR-oriented VNs someday soon, hopefully they will be better than those crappy H-animes and only slightly better H-mangas. ... Oh, this reminds me that I was planning to read Dark Blue since about a year ago. Damn you Real Life, give me some time for VNs. T_T

From the ones I have read, only http://vndb.org/v5461 seems to fit. It's very short, has branching plot (though no typical routes), no sexual content and should be easy to translate. I like shoujo-ai and darker themes, so this title was definitely to my liking, but it's a decent VN overall, especially considering it's freeware.

One serious question for BlankTranslations: Can you translate Aiyoku no Eustia? It seems you aren't so sure about that. You won't gain anything by half-assing something that is way beyond your abilities. But you can lose a lot - mainly your enthusiasm. If your Japanese isn't that good, you will have to put a lot of effort into deciphering sentences that are too advanced for you, and after releasing a crappy patch for such a popular VN as Eustia, you will be hit with a torrent of (now perfecly justified) criticism (with a fair dose of 4chan-esque trolling in the mix). You are confident in your English? How about trying to edit something? You could check the original script and see how it was translated, consult stuff with the translator and improve your Japanese in the process. And we would get a well edited VN. You have some semi-decent Japanese knowledge? How about trying to translate something short for starters? You'd see how it goes, which aspects of your Japanese still need some polishing, you could get an experienced translator to give it a quick TLC to point out your mistakes etc.. And we would get an actually finished project. I'm not telling you to drop AnE. If you think you are up to the task, by all means go on an do it. But keep in mind that a translation of a 65k-line title is a huge project - make sure you aren't tackling something far beyond your abilities, otherwise you will quickly burn yourself out. And half-assed translation causes more harm than good. Just my piece of advice. As for the comments... Well, I mostly agree with what Hometown and Life said, but I'd add one thing. You guys are conviniently ignoring an important issue. The vast majority of projects started by people with inadecuate abilities never gets finished, and those people end up discouraged for good and don't return to the VNTL scene ever again. (I'm assuming a good will here, and I'm only talking about people who are actually trying. Copypasting machine translations and other blatant trolling doesn't count.) People who stupidly encourage inexperienced translators to pick up stuff that might be far too hard for them, not only are showing their disrespect towards original work (by letting someone butcher it), entire English-speaking community (by practically preventing them from fully enjoying said work in English, ever), but most importantly - towards said translators themselves. And they don't even realize the harm such blind acceptance can cause. With your nice, encouraging words, you are telling them to struggle with something that is simply beyond their abilities. To spend a lot of their time and their energy on a project that will only quickly burn them out without producing any decent results. When your skills are insufficient, not only your TL quality suffers. It also takes much more effort to produce said TL, even if it's bad. A person new to the TL scene is almost guaranteed to misjudge the amount of time and skill that such project will require. He has a lot of enthusiasm, but it won't keep him going for too long if the script is simply too advanced for his shaky Japanese. Most of the time this results in projects left dead in the water and burned out translators. And on the off chance such project actually gets finished, the team will end up rightfully bashed by every sensible person. That's where such "beggars", who swallow everything indiscriminately, are leading aspiring translators - quick burnout and wasted effort. Sure, occasionally you will get a finished translation, but it will be crappy and won't represent the original work too well anyway. And for that one bad TL, you are willing to sacrifice the time and effort of ~10 or more aspiring translators who will drop their projects and disappear from the scene forever. How nice. You know what? That's even worse than 4chan trolls. They tell inexperienced translators that they should just kill themselves, while Fuwa-style blind supporters basically tell them to bleed themselves to death while struggling with an overly ambitious project. Too bad that usually nobody tries to push aspiring translators in the right direction, give them some hints and point out their mistakes in a civilized manner. And if somebody does, his/her voice is drowned by the constant "woow, you iz awesome, good luck lol!" and "kill yourself faget, lol!" exchange. Try encouraging people to tackle projects they actually can finish. Just that. Blind support causes people to waste their enthusiasm and produce nothing of value. Directing that enthusiasm in the right direction can help someone become a decent translator. If you don't respect the original work or the community, at the very least show some respect to the aspiring translators. Respect = constructive criticism and guidance (if you have some experience). Pushing someone forward for your own amusement, when you know he is heading towards a dead end is just cruel. Oh, and don't take this post as complaining about this particualr project. It's a general comment. Personally, I'm not that concerned about this TL. If I find it inadequate, I will just read AnE in Japanese. Because I can. ┐（￣－￣）┌ However, since I like VNs, and I kinda care about this medium, I enjoy talking about them with friends and obviously I'd like to see them getiing more popular on the West. Pile of dead projects or mistranslated BS doesn't exactly help here. As for everyone who claims that you have no right to criticize something you get for free - I will give you an arrow. For free. 100% charity. Well... actually I will shoot you in your knee with it. But hey, it's for free, so you can't complain. Who's first?

1 - Narcissu was created first, then the author added a prequel, Narcissu side 2nd, to explain his point better (it's not fanservice~y in any way). The 2nd English release contains the original Narcissu, prequel and a short epilogue for both stories. I don't know anything about Narcissu 3rd, but the first two titles are a complete story on their own. They can be played in any order (I read Narcissu first and Side 2nd later, and I'd say it works better that way). 2 - Togainu no Chi has standard mosaics, like on Fuwa screenshots (all erotic content in Japan must be censored like that). I don't know Kuro no Tsuki, but it's probably the same. 4 - Tsukihime was created first, so you aren't losing anything by reading it before F/SN. Besides, they aren't directly related, only are placed in the same multiverse.

Nope, dating sims are stats-based simulation games, while VNs are, well, novels. That aside, I'm not a big fan of dating sims, so I only tried Koisuru Oukoku that was already mentioned. Well, you can always try a classic - http://vndb.org/v241. As for VNDB, it only lists a few dating sim/VN hybrids, pure dating sims have no place there.

Here: http://vndb.org/v13223 Sounds like a perfectly generic moege, and features only big-breasted girls at that. Definitely not my cup of tea. There's no such thing as a "good translation tool". If you meant hacking tools, you could check TLWiki, but getting a dedicated hacker to deal with this will probably be more efficient.

^ Ah, that's a different story. I'd still go for grammar first, since it's necessary anyway and will let you start reading VNs earlier, but you will definitely need to grind Jouyou Kanji (and probably some more) as well. I'm surprised that you even thought of using machine translators in this case though. As for Kanji used in VNs, you just encounter them while reading. What you bump into depends on your choice of titles - you'll find different characters in SF, fantasy, nukiges, or slice-of-life.

No, after those ~2200 there are Kanji that Japanese government decided are above the highschool-level. Jouyou Kanji are the most essential characters used in everyday life. Real Life, that is. They aren't necessarily the most common characters that appear in VNs. Actually, they cover plenty of Kanji you will probably never encounter in eroge (like those used in names of prefectures for example). That's why I wouldn't really recommend starting with them. It will be pretty sad when you will finish cramming those ~2200 Kanji and start a random VN, only to discover that it uses ~250 characters that weren't covered by Jouyou and suddenly you can't understand anything. Oh, and putting them before Kana is simply the most illogical thing you could do, I seriously don't know what the author of that guide-thread linked earlier was thinking. Hiragana and Katakana are the first things you should learn, they are an absolutely vital foundation. As long as you know grammar well, you can read VNs even without memorizing a single Kanji - MeCab and/or JParser can deal with them nicely (and help with vocabulary too). Learning Kanji seriously increases your reading speed, but it's not absolutely essential (unlike grammar). Grammar is easier than Kanji and takes much less time (depending on your talent and dedication, learning it decently during summer break is quite realistic). You need it anyway, so you might as well start with the most vital stuff (you can learn Kanji later, or do both at the same time, why not?). Also, I'd say that learning-while-reading is much more efficient than cramming government-approved list of characters, since you will be memorizing only those Kanji that actually appear in VNs (a lot of them will be from the jouyou list, but not all). Of course, different methods work for different people, so you should pick one that suits you best and stick to it. In the end, you will need both Kanji and grammar. On a final note, most people mentioned this already, but machine translators do not work. At all. Atless, Bling, Gooble - it's all the same shit. Avoid them, unless you like deciphering random gibberish that has nothing to do with original text.

If you are going to use MeCab, you can pretty much ignore Kanji level. You'd have to really go out of your way and pick something especially complicated (I don't know, SubaHibi? Muramasa? LiarSoft's stuff?) to actually have any problems. MeCab recognizes almost all Kanji correctly, and when it fails (like with some weird terms in very weird nukiges), you can easily check those 2-3 symbols manually. As long as you know grammar well, you should be able to read almost everything.

Ugh, if it was that good, I would have finished the TLC long long time ago, even with my slow speed. No, the translation is rubbish. The worst fragments were those with aviation/aerodynamics infodumping (and they are rather frequent, in the common route at least). Vast majority of those made absolutely no sense whatsoever and needed pretty much a complete re-translation. While the other parts are somewhat less horrible, they have a fair share of blatant mistranslations too. Yeah, it's not completely unreadable, and it's better than machine translations - you will understand the plot. But, this is not a plot-driven title, so there's not much to get there really. When it comes to more important parts - humor and character interactions, the current translation butchers some of those quite mercilessly. This combined with crappy English will probably make this VN quite a chore to read. I have a low tolerance for inaccurate, messy translations though, so take this with a grain of salt.

@O. Van Bruce As it was already mentioned, all kinds of weapons could immobilize the opponent with one hit just fine. And that's kinda the point here - maces aren't somehow better (they only beat slashing weapons when the opponent is armored), and they rely on brutal, bone-mashing force, not finesse. Also, since the heaviest knights were often mounted, long polearms were much better at dealing with those (by unhorsing and knocking them to the ground, not by piercing joints). Single-handed hammers were often used by mounted knights too. While foot soldier's used them too, those were heavier than swords and required a lot of strength to stun and knock down the enemy, unlike those "finesse maces" you were talking about. Also, hammers often relied on piercing damage (of their spike) to deal the killing blow to the armored opponent. As for your stick example, the tip of the 80cm stick will have greater speed, which can compensate for a lower mass to some extent. 40cm stick+rock will be slower, but greater mass will increase damage. Everything depends on the weight of the 80cm stick, if it was heavy enough, it could cause more damage than the rock. That aside, ~11-12kg stone club is something damn heavy, good luck with swinging this monster using one hand.

I kinda agree with Steve here. Nothing beats a cute, innocent-looking loli wielding an oversized, ominous scythe (preferably smeared with fresh blood). That's just pure win. And what would she do? Well, generate a lot of nice, gory scenes. ^^ Scythes are one of my favorite weapons in general, they are just awesome. Only in fiction though, unfortunately they don't work that well in reality (being crude, improvised polearms at best). Though I also like poison, backstabbing, silenced sniper rifles and such. Sneaky assassination is simply much more practical than fair combat. @Katanas Yeah, they are certainly technological masterpieces. But the best? Not on the battlefield. Even masterwork katanas were still more vulnerable than their common western counterparts, but were expensive as hell, and only deadly in the hands of a lightly armored, agile and very skilled foot soldier (facing equally lightly armored foe). Your average western-style sword could have been forged relatively easily by your local smith, was far cheaper, more sturdy, versatile and easier to use. And even that common, accessible weapon wasn't much worse than a finely crafted katana (that only really shined in the hands of an elite samurai). Katanas are unmatched technologically, but in practice, many swords perform better. @Maces Wow, so many misconceptions there. Everything that you listed can be done with other weapons just as well (you can cut/pierce joints instead of crushing them). Also, blunt weapons have much less instakill spots than piercing or slashing weapons. You can only deal instantly lethal damage by striking the head really (but that part is vulnerable to all attacks), dealing instant-kill damage by hitting, for example - the chest, would be much harder than with a spear or sword. Maces rely on brute strength and weight much more than other weapons. You don't really need a lot of finesse here - just bash away. A long as you hit something with enough force, even if it's an armored part or a shield, you will cause some impact damage anyway. And, most importantly, your opponent can loose balance - and like you said, that's bad news for all heavily armored knights. On the other hand, due to his weight you need a significant force to destabilize such an opponent. It's probably unlikely to do with a single-handed mace (unless you hit from horseback, as a surprise attack or something). Also, blunt weapons aren't necessarily clean - if used effectively, they spray blood and brains everywhere. Well, just watch Bokusatsu Tenshi Dokuro-chan. If you want a relatively clean, light weapon that heavily relies on finesse, choose a rapier or something like that.

I always read the VN first, and I almost always ignore the anime adaptation (except for a few animes I have seen before I discovered VNs). Such adaptations are awful most of the time, and even if they are actually watchable, the are always weaker then the original (almost no exceptions), so watching them is simply a waste of time for me. And when I skimmed through Ef - a Tale of Melodies after reading the VN, I decided not to touch anime adaptations ever again, so I kinda automatically blacklist them now (even in case of most H-animes). Well, I prefer VNs as a medium to begin with.

X-Change Alternative is kinda readable. Story-wise, it's a dumb comedy, but rather passable for a nukige. "Romance" is mainly between the genderbent protag and girls. There are two guys that have their endings and H-scenes (with protag as a girl), there's a (temporary) futanari, and some rape (1 or 2 scenes, including gangrape, but if I remember right, the latter is on one of the guys' routes). Romance is very shallow though, obviously it's all about sex. Still, I'd say it's one of the less crappy titles among translated nukiges (not that it says much). As for X-Change 1-3, from what I heard, they are just retarded sex-romps. I didn't bother to read them though.

http://www.guidetojapanese.org/learn/grammar

My approach was kinda similar to what Bolverk recommended. However, I would highly recommend skipping the kanji part entirely. Deal with kana and grammar first - they are absolutely essential, and Tea Kim's guide is enough to familiarize yourself with how kanji work and other necessary basics. That's a relatively easy part and shouldn't take too long to memorize. But, to truly learn grammar, you will need some exposure. And that's when you start reading VNs, with the help of ITH+TA+MeCab/JParser. Yes, with little to no kanji knowledge. Reading first 2-3 short nukiges like that will be very slow, but it will really help you put your grammatical knowledge in order. After that, your reading speed should increase ~5x. And this is a good point to start thinking about kanji. If you start learning kanji from RTK or something, it probably won't help you too much with understanding VNs, especially nukiges. They are using rather specific vocabulary that is rarely featured in any textbooks - even after memorizing 1000 kanji, you would probably bump into multiple utterly undecipherable sentences during the very first H-scene (kinda discouraging). Studying while reading is a better idea. Since your main goal isn't learning Japanese, but reading VNs, focusing on vocab you encounter on the go will be much more effective. Knowing 200 VN-specific kanji is far more useful than memorizing 1000 from a textbook (still, basics are important, so memorizing ~500 from RTK definitely won't hurt). In short: learning kanji while reading VNs, and seeing how you are getting less and less dependent on MeCab/JParser is damn satisfying. Sitting and cramming random kanji is kinda boring. This looks like a rather easy choice to me. Everything highly depends on your personal studying style though, so try out different methods and choose the one that suits you the best. Also, it was mentioned already, but avoid machine translators. They are only confusing and useless.

Do you know Japanese? If "no" -> learn Japanese. If "yes" -> do you know it well? This is absolutely vital for being a translator (well, English is important too, but your posts suggest you are familiar with it). Sorry if this was too obvious, but a lot of people actually overlook this part, so I mentioned it just in case. Now, just pick a title you are interested in. If it's something that was dropped, try contacting someone from the previous team (preferably the team leader and/or the hacker), and get the partially translated scripts from them. If you want to start a new project, find a hacker first (maybe someone from the thread mentioned earlier) - he/she will deal with all technical details, so you don't need any special programming skills. What you should get in the end either way, is the text extracted from the VN, in the editable format. Now, you "just" have to edit that text file, translate all Japanese lines and replace them with English ones. Then, you send it back to the hacker, he/she does the necessary programming magic, and creates the patch. You will probably want to recruit an editor or two as well, to check the translated files and make sure they are well written (it's a must if you aren't a native English speaker and/or don't have good writing skills). If there's some text on the pictures, you will also need an image editor, to replace it with a translated version.

For me, both companies are kinda comparable. JAST is slow as hell, but they are generally licensing VNs with more complex plots. Also, such "big name" companies as Nitro+ usually don't give a damn about western market, so lengthy negotiations are kinda understandable. MangaGamer is faster, but that's mainly because they are releasing a stream of nukiges, that can be translated quickly and getting license for those most of the time is relatively easy (and cheap). Now, if they released a single nukige relevant to my interests, that would be great (oh well, I have some hopes for Noesis titles at least). However, when it comes to solid, story-heavy, hard-to-get-license titles like Ef or Innocent Grey's stuff, they aren't that much faster than JAST really. Also, some of their translations have only passable quality. When it comes to using fantranslations - all groups agreed to give/sell their work, nobody hijacked anything. And complaining about non-free translations makes no sense whatsoever - you get the chance to buy the dirt cheap official (uncensored) English edition, instead of shipping super-expansive JP version (in case you don't remember - only the fan patches are legally free, VNs themselves are not).