Oretachi ni Tsubasa wa Nai translation

[dowolf]

This seems strangely familiar...

 

Anywho, once again, this is a translation of the first part of Oretsuba I've been working on for a while and decided I'd share what I've got, rather than continue to tinker indefinitely without telling anyone. I distinctly remember having more sentences here before, but I'm too lazy to spend the time rewriting them. So let's cut to the chase and repost the link:

 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/6k92cnbt59po2bs/Oretachi%20ni%20Tsubasa%20wa%20Nai%20part%201%2020150810.docx?dl=0

 

Next up, it's time for me to be thankful for the first (and probably only) time in my life that I usually select the "flood my inbox with notification" options whenever possible:
 

(Wahfuu): "Honestly? Past the opening, I could really start seeing the Japanese behind alot of the lines. It's almost like you are trying to keep the exact same placement of the words relative of the sentence, sometimes. I'd have to really analyze to see any like, TL errors or anything, but I would say the english isn't really up to par with the quality of the Japanese writing. And Oretsuba only gets more insane, with people who speak in Rap and whatnot."

Sorry for not responding to this earlier. (And in hindsight, good thing I didn't!) I didn't have the time to give this the attention it needed before leaving for work this morning, and typing on a phone is for people with nothing more to say than can fit in a tweet.

Anyways, if you could give concrete examples of what you're looking at when you say that, I would highly appreciate it. I definitely agree that it could use some light editing before really being in a "publishable" state, so to speak (this is the first time I've ever showed anyone else more than snippets of this >_>), but I don't feel my translation is as disastrous as your post makes it sound.

To some extent, due to the limitations of the VN format, there's no getting around the "sounds-like-a-translation" problem. For instance, take this excerpt:

"Takashi: Uh, I didn’t mean it like that… But then, why would you—

Asuka: I felt bad for you.

She looked back up and answered bluntly. The relaxed yet annoyed tones of her voice caused me to flinch."

Obviously, there's a bit of weirdness here. For instance, the ellipse in the middle of Takashi's line would really like to be replaced with some prose, and separating the dialogue and the prose describing how the line was spoken isn't something that happens in a regular English-language novel. The line describing Asuka's action really wants to occur before she speaks; however, I can't move it there in the translation because I can't insert additional text boxes. Moving it inside the dialogue box (She looked up and bluntly answered, "I felt bad for you.") is an option (and obviously what this sentence really should look like), but a problematic one.

First, you have to remember this sentence is voiced. If there's one thing I learned translating Majikoi, it's that people really don't like it when what they're hearing doesn't match what they're reading, even if they can only understand one word in a hundred (why hello there "Kuri"). Adding unvoiced prose is therefore going to sound jarring to a lot of those people.

Secondly, Oretsuba has one of the smallest textboxes I've ever seen while also boasting one of the highest characters/line ratio in any VN. Where most VN authors write in sentences, Jackson writes in paragraph. And don't get me wrong--I love that. But it also means that getting the translation to fit inside the text box is a challenge in and of itself. The longest line from what I've posted is about 70 words/400 characters, while the text box fits a paltry 108 characters. I assume this is "fixable" (though I admittedly don't have the technical know-how to "fix" it myself), but if I went this route? I'd be asking my hacker to give me boxes that can fit 100 words/550 characters, which seems beyond the realm of possibility. Subdividing lines into multiple boxes would help here, of course; but personally, I don't want to do that. If the goal is to make the phrase "whole," for want of a better term, I feel like adding a break point elsewhere would ruin the point.

This does, admittedly, cause additional problems. The last sentence in the excerpt above really wants to be "She spoke in a relaxed yet annoyed tone, which caused me to flinch," but then I have three sentences in a row that all start out the same way. I feel this would be a worse stylistic error than what I have at present.

And if I can go on a bit of a digression (and this is my topic, so just try and stop me! ), there's been a passage floating around VN circles over the past week or two from Coμ with two competing translations, one by Ixroc and one by Moogy. Ixroc's is highly literal, while Moogy chooses to be extremely loose. But personally, I think both translations are bad; I wouldn't want to replicate either style. Ignoring the mistakes in each, let's look at their stylistic failings. The problem in Ixroc's is obvious: he is so literal that it loses both the original text's clarity and its beauty. Yet on the other hand, so does Moogy's. He makes every sentence so roundabout that reading his text feels more taxing on my brain than reading the original--and my native language is English. This should not happen. Furthermore, when you change every metaphor to the extent he does, you wind up changing the meaning of the underlying lines. Even if the resultant work were as beautiful as the original (a debatable point), I would argue that, at that point, it's not a translation anymore.

I'd rather aim for a middle ground: to write something that is clear and eloquent in the English (which is why I characterized the "sauce" line earlier as a mistake, rather than merely a line in need of editing); but at the same time, it should still feel recognizable to someone who's read the original Japanese. Moogy's fails utterly in this last regard.

Now, with all that said, if you have a better solution to this sort of problem, believe you me--I'm all ears. It's not like I posted this expecting everyone to say it was the best thing ever >_> But constructive criticisms are much nicer than blanket ones.

[Mr Poltroon]

Downloaded it just so I can claim that I have.

Who knows? Maybe one day I'll be bored beyond belief and notice it lying there on my desktop (FAT CHANCE).

 

Oh, did you also know I'm a DoWolf fanboy? You know the Ace Attorney Investigations 2 Fan Translation? I watched yours first! That's why I'm posting here. A primitive attempt to show interest and love, and promote my ultimate objective that is to get you to translate more Japanese stuff I can't read.

[Funnerific]

Thank you for what you're doing and for the food for thought on VN translation.

[Chronopolis]

I haven't seen the japanese.

 

I didn't how Moogy's translation introduces new statements/concepts that aren't in the original prose. Though the idea of having prose in a translation is not a bad one. Many TL'ers don't really read a lot of novels in english, so they aren't used to reading prosy English. I still probably will stop to reread prosy Japanese and prosy English, but only with the English I'd react "wtf is this stuff", just because I'm not used to having to decipher English prose. Even though I falter at seeing prose, it's moogy's liberalness, rather than roundaboutness that I disagree with.

 

 

 

It took place on a clear April afternoon less thana month after I entered high school.

When I returned from repelling Gretagard’s nonhuman invaders, it was already lunchtime at Beautiful Skies Academy.

The brand-new room was blindingly white. Outside the window was the neighboring high-rise, alongwith Yanagihara City’s faintly white sky.

 

Anyways, the translation seem alright. There are some things that don't really work in English, what I mean by that, is that the English doesn't deliver a satisfactory impact, or the focus is on a weird place.

 

The tumult of my classmates, whose names I hadn’t even all memorized after only a month, was so peaceful I was jealous.

 

The hubbub of my classmates, whose names I couldn't even all remember — it had only been a month — felt so peaceful I was jealous.

 

Noontime here in this paradise was so tranquil. It made the blood-soaked fields of battle I’d just returned from, where men had fought and died, seem utterly false.

 

Noontime here in this paradise was so tranquil. It seemed to deny the very existence of the place I had just come from, those blood-soaked fields where men had fought and died.

 

I haven't checked the Japanese but it seems fine. Anyways, a good editor could take this and fix up all the small English weird things and restructure some of the English sentences. The result will be pretty fine, as in there's pretty few people who can do better. If said editor can write, that's even better.

[Conjueror]

Yeah, those sentences Chronopolis pointed out bothered me a little as well.

 

To nitpick a little bit further; it's easy to overuse weak/vague words like was/go or things/that when tling from Japanese, and sometimes you have like five sentences in a row that keep repeating "was", sometimes even twice in the very same line:

 

The brand-new room was blindingly white. Outside the window was the neighboring high-rise, along with Yanagihara City’s faintly white sky.

[Wahfuu]

Sorry for not responding to this earlier. (And in hindsight, good thing I didn't!) I didn't have the time to give this the attention it needed before leaving for work this morning, and typing on a phone is for people with nothing more to say than can fit in a tweet.

Anyways, if you could give concrete examples of what you're looking at when you say that, I would highly appreciate it. I definitely agree that it could use some light editing before really being in a "publishable" state, so to speak (this is the first time I've ever showed anyone else more than snippets of this >_>), but I don't feel my translation is as disastrous as your post makes it sound.

I didn't really want to make it sound disastrous, as truly disastrous would have to be something written below a 4th grade level. At the very least, I see an honest effort behind yours and it's definitely not the worst thing I've ever seen by a mile.

Secondly, Oretsuba has one of the smallest textboxes I've ever seen while also boasting one of the highest characters/line ratio in any VN. Where most VN authors write in sentences, Jackson writes in paragraph. And don't get me wrong--I love that. But it also means that getting the translation to fit inside the text box is a challenge in and of itself. The longest line from what I've posted is about 70 words/400 characters, while the text box fits a paltry 108 characters. I assume this is "fixable" (though I admittedly don't have the technical know-how to "fix" it myself), but if I went this route? I'd be asking my hacker to give me boxes that can fit 100 words/550 characters, which seems beyond the realm of possibility. Subdividing lines into multiple boxes would help here, of course; but personally, I don't want to do that. If the goal is to make the phrase "whole," for want of a better term, I feel like adding a break point elsewhere would ruin the point.

I believe Grisaia actually had an issue similar to this? They had to actually expand the textbox because the textbox couldn't contain translated Fujisaki text. If we were to actually consider a full Oretsuba release then you'd definitely want something like this, having full access to the engine would be a god send.

Ixroc's is highly literal, while Moogy chooses to be extremely loose. But personally, I think both translations are bad; I wouldn't want to replicate either style. Ignoring the mistakes in each, let's look at their stylistic failings. The problem in Ixroc's is obvious: he is so literal that it loses both the original text's clarity and its beauty. Yet on the other hand, so does Moogy's. He makes every sentence so roundabout that reading his text feels more taxing on my brain than reading the original--and my native language is English. This should not happen. Furthermore, when you change every metaphor to the extent he does, you wind up changing the meaning of the underlying lines. Even if the resultant work were as beautiful as the original (a debatable point), I would argue that, at that point, it's not a translation anymore.

This is pretty random as I wasn't really talking about that, but I might as well address it.

I think the only really questionable part of Moogy's translation was Picture book > blue bird. It invokes the same sort of feeling but it's quite a change from the original, for sure. But Moogy's is close to a replication of the experience of Comyu than Ixrec's is, and that's the line. I don't really care about excessive literal sentence structure and word choice, as I define translation via a replication of an experience from one language to another. And honestly, no offense, but I really don't find Moogy's hard to read at all. But you aren't the only person I've heard say that, so maybe it's just me.

Anyways, I wasn't trying to rag. But lines like this:

Small particles of light, ones reflected in none of the eyes around the room, flickered from my body and disappeared like sparks from a campfire.

I can basically conjure the japanese in my head. It just reads and feels like a translation. And that is something much worse for a game like Oretsuba. The game is 100% based on its text, it has no real plot or anything. I just have to question if you currently have the english writing ability that brings Jacksons writing ability to life.

[Darklord Rooke]

Japanese like to use a billion adjectives sometimes, but in English that just sounds awkward, and makes the whole thing hard to picture. I'd probably do away with "thin" and "hooked".

 

There's other options apart from omission. If you wish to keep the added information, you’d just have to reword the sentence – He furrowed his feminine eyebrows, eyebrows he had groomed into a thin, arched shape.

 

Or you could disguise all the adjectives – He furrowed his eyebrows, eyebrows he had groomed into a thin, arched shape that was feminine in appearance etc etc

 

Obviously the tone would likely be changed in the last example, but I’m just showing options. 

 

But this is all stuff a good editor will fix. There's always a billion adjectives in translations xD

[dowolf]

 

To nitpick a little bit further; it's easy to overuse weak/vague words like was/go or things/that when tling from Japanese, and sometimes you have like five sentences in a row that keep repeating "was", sometimes even twice in the very same line:

Yeah, definitely. I know I made a concentrated effort at one point or another to wipe out a lot of those sentences; I guess I have to go even further.

As for deleting information outright: Every single instinct I have screams "nooooooooooooooooooooo" at the thought of doing this, which means you're probably right (at least in the hand-raising case). I dunno. Food for thought.

 

 

SImilarly to the TV line, the vague words like "go", "here" and "once" make it very hard to tell what the sentence is trying to say unless you read it like 2-3 times. The main problem with it is that it's not quite evident that by "here" he means the school, and during my first reading I thought he was talking about going to that exact spot for three years in a row.

Mm, yeah, I can definitely see the confusion now that you bring it up. That's an easy one to miss, since I know what I mean >_>

(The chair line, incidentally, is on a list of lines I've never been happy with, as is the bad-taste metaphor. Though you are definitely write about replacing "sat down" with "plopped.")

As for the eyebrow line, I changed it to "He knit his feminine eyebrows, which he had groomed into thin hooks," by the way. I think that strikes a nice balance between avoiding adjective overload and not falling into wordiness (Haneda can't get too wordy because... well, because that's someone else's job ).

I brought up the Ixrec/Moogy thing because I thought it interesting how other well-known translators handled this sort of issue, and why I didn't want to do things their way. But since you enjoyed Moogy's take on things, perhaps that helps explain why you view mine the way you do.

 

 

Anyways, I wasn't trying to rag. But lines like this:

 

Small particles of light, ones reflected in none of the eyes around the room, flickered from my body and disappeared like sparks from a campfire.

I can basically conjure the japanese in my head. It just reads and feels like a translation. And that is something much worse for a game like Oretsuba. The game is 100% based on its text, it has no real plot or anything. I just have to question if you currently have the english writing ability that brings Jacksons writing ability to life.

 

Really? I like that line myself, if I'm being perfectly honest. I'd be curious to know how you'd word it.

[Conjueror]

Small particles of light, ones reflected in none of the eyes around the room, flickered from my body and disappeared like sparks from a campfire.

 

This sentence bothered me a little too, but I didn't bring it up because it would be extremely tricky to fix. Personally, I find the "ones reflected in none of the eyes around the room" to come off kind of clunky, particuarly the "ones" part. It puts a bit too much of unwarranted emphasis on those particles. There should be a more elegant/subtle way to introduce the idea that no one could see them.

 

Though still kind of meh, I'd probably find a construction like "Gathering not a single glance from the eyes around the room, small particles of light flickered from my body and disappeared like sparks from a campfire." to be bit less in your face with "look no one can see them!!!". Either way, this is the type of sentence I'd like to sit on for a while (or preferably just tell my editor to figure out xD).

[Chronopolis]

 Yeah, definitely. I know I made a concentrated effort at one point or another to wipe out a lot of those sentences; I guess I have to go even further.

It's tricky because if you think too hard about it while translating you won't get any translating done. So separate translating and editing is good.

Another problem is that it's hard to read one's own translation as a fresh set of eyes. I can do a better editing your translation then if I translated the lines myself. It's always an option, instead of looking over one's TL many times (I'm guilty as charged) to get an editor or another (english-proficient) people to look at it, and then discuss their ideas.

 

Small particles of light, ones reflected in none of the eyes around the room, flickered from my body and disappeared like sparks from a campfire.

"disappeared like sparks from a campfire" The imagery is fine here.

Yeah the "ones" particle in english takes too much emphasis. "reflected in none of the eyes around the room" is pretty good and expressive, but as always the noun modification is a bitch in English.

Most of the struggle with this line is phrasing that information in a different way.

 

誰の目に映っていない小さなあ光の粒が、僕の身体からひっそりキャンプファイヤーの火の粉みたいに立ちのぼって消えてゆく

Unseen to all, little particles of lights rose up from my body, drifting and disappearing in the air like sparks from a campfire.

A whopping 2 commas, but it possibly has some form of rhythm. If I'm not misguided, the last comma makes the "like sparks from a campfire" seem like a mostly added thought, with a wistful tone. Not having that comma makes the "drifting and disappearing in the air" clause and imagery stand less on it's own. I think, anyways. Commas seem like they can be used to get thoughts which are clunky in English, as far apart from each other as possible. But you can't overuse them, only for places where it's absolutely necessary, otherwise the English becomes very stilted.

 

Hoarse moans and death rattles still lingered in my ears, but that was only an illusion.

"Hoarse moans" doesn't really have the desired impact here. "Death rattles" is ... possibly mostly used metaphorically. I guess in prose here it fits. If someone knows what the word means the imagery is very strong.

I tried TL'ing the original line, but eventually ended up getting something similar to yours.

-> I felt the hoarse moans of the dying still trapped in my ears, but that was just an illusion.

[dowolf]

Hmm. Those are ideas, but I really don't want to lose the "reflected in none of the eyes around the room" bit. Merely "unseen" feels so dry in comparison. Maybe I could just tack it in front and use "though" instead of "ones"?

 

 

"Hoarse moans" doesn't really have the desired impact here. "Death rattles" is ... possibly mostly used metaphorically. I guess in prose here it fits. If someone knows what the word means the imagery is very strong.

[Conjueror]

Hmm. Those are ideas, but I really don't want to lose the "reflected in none of the eyes around the room" bit. Merely "unseen" feels so dry in comparison. Maybe I could just tack it in front and use "though" instead of "ones"?

 

Yeah, it definitely flows better with "though". It's your translation so you can surely keep whatever you want; at this point it's more or less subjective stylistic preferences talking anyway.

 

 

"Death rattles" is ... possibly mostly used metaphorically.

 

Isn't he talking about his experience in Gretgard there? I'm too lazy to check the game again, but I'm quite sure the phrase was used literally. What rather bothers me about this line instead is the "but that was just an illusion" part, again with that accursed "was". It's also kind of confusing whether he means that the sound in his ears (which he does in Japanese) or his whole experience in Gretgard was an illusion (which is a very bad idea to imply ).

[Chronopolis]

Are you sure? I definitely got the impression the phrase was literal.

About death rattle, I wasn't sure at all. I was just going off a googling.

 

Yeah, it definitely flows better with "though". It's your translation so you can surely keep whatever you want; at this point it's more or less subjective stylistic preferences talking anyway.

Ya agreed. Sorry I was just posting ideas without much thought.

[dowolf]

I mean, it's fine. All of this is helping me a lot.

[XReaper]

personally i would go with:
 

Unbeknownst to [the eys of] those around, little particles of light were being emitted from the body of mine and ascended heavenwards like sparks send out by a [nightly] campfire.

 

[storyteller]

Seems a bit over-dramatized.

I personally might have opted to use dissipated rather than disappeared, though.

[Darklord Rooke]

Hmm. Those are ideas, but I really don't want to lose the "reflected in none of the eyes around the room" bit. Merely "unseen" feels so dry in comparison. Maybe I could just tack it in front and use "though" instead of "ones"?

 

It's poetic, but my concern with the ‘reflect’ line is how clear the image is to the reader. As in, when I read the line I didn’t think it meant the specs of light ‘were going unseen’, mainly because ‘reflections in people’s eyes’ don’t usually indicate people noticing or seeing something. Well, at least not in English, or I’ve never heard of it anyway, and I don’t get the logical basis for it to work as an original metaphor. I’m now looking at google to see if it’s ever been used this way, but I’m coming up with nothing and I need to run. You might want to double check that word ('reflect') works in English how you intend, because if it doesn’t it presents confusion to the reader which might not be apparent in the Japanese *shrugs*

[dowolf]

personally i would go with:

 

Unbeknownst to [the eys of] those around, little particles of light were beeing emitted from the body of mine and ascended heavenwards like sparks send out by a [nightly] campfire.

 

Yeah, that is far too chuu2 for Haneda.

As for reflect: So the original Japanese is an idiom for "visible," but I sort've got the impression that the specs of light weren't actually there, that it was all in Haneda's head. So... *shrug*

[Darklord Rooke]

As for reflect: So the original Japanese is an idiom for "visible," but I sort've got the impression that the specs of light weren't actually there, that it was all in Haneda's head. So... *shrug*

 

Ah, that's different then. I was in a rush this morning, but I suppose the problem is I'm getting different information from different translators

 

Okay. If the lights flickering up from the body cannot physically be seen under normal circumstances, that is to say even if people were looking at the lights they would not see them, then Dowolf’s imagery is better. Chrono’s, Conjueror’s, and XReaper's are vague in nature because they limit information, leaving it up to the reader to fill in the blanks, and they’ll usually go for the most normal and obvious reason – which in this case would be they failed to see the lights flickering up from the body because their attention was focused on other matters. So in this instance this would be an undesirable case of limiting information. Dowolf’s clarifies why by indicating the light did not cast a reflection, and therefore was unable to be viewed. I think it would need to be reworded in English to achieve the desired effect. Unless, of course, it was clarified in another line and you don't want to hit the audience over the head with it. In that instance you could go for something more subtle.

 

However, if the lights flickering up from the body remained unseen due to mundane reasons, like inattention, and not because it was a physical impossibility, then Dowolf’s is a little confusing, mainly due to that phrase not being used that way in English.

 

So it would depend on the context I guess, but I'm getting slightly different images

[Darklord Rooke]

Okay, so I had a talk with Conjueror and maybe a tentative suggestion of 'Going unnoticed, and casting no reflection' would be worth considering? Apparently, the line holds a subtle double meaning, playing off the literal translation of 'not seeing/noticing' but could also mean literally being 'absent' from the scene.

 

Also, maybe consider specks instead of 'small particles'? Because you don't need 'small' in front of particle, it's a redundancy, but speck is more evocative of an image.

 

So a quick example (it's not great but just an example) - Unsighted, specks of light began to drift from my body, and casting no reflection in nearby surfaces they slowly rose through the air before dissipating like sparks from a campfire. 

 

Maybe this gets across the idea? Dunno... But your translation so it's up to you

 

EDITED: Paraphrased.

[Chronopolis]

Rooke, since you took an interest in that line I'd thought I'd explain it.

 

In the line  誰の目に映っていない小さなあ光の粒が、僕の身体からひっそりキャンプファイヤーの火の粉みたいに立ちのぼって消えてゆく

the phrase "誰の目に映っていない"

is clearly https://kotobank.jp/word/%E7%9B%AE%E3%81%AB%E6%98%A0%E3%82%8B-396396

referring to .

Literally: To not be(/appear) reflected in their eyes.

It's is used to show what they were seeing/perceiving.

For example if someone was brainwashed or hypnotized into doing some task, you could use the phrase to say they weren't perceiving you.

Or if you were staring through your hands, totally lost and not focused on them, you could say that your hands weren't "reflected in your eyes".

 

Imagine staring into the classmates eyes. What's reflected in their eyes, is very easy to connect to what that person sees. So the image of "not be(/appear) reflected in anyone's eyes" is like you have an close up glimpse in their eyes, and you can tell they aren't seeing it.

 

So the particles aren't reflecting off anything else.

Which is why people's TL's either expressed the phrase/metaphor literally: "Reflecting in people's eyes", or expressed the meaning "they weren't perceived visually".

 

Word choices...mm..lots of options, none of them are perfect.

[Tamaki Sakura]

How about this?

 

"Unnoticed by anyone in the room, specks of light quietly rose from my body and flickered out like sparks from campfire."