Poll: Assessing interest in text-hooking resources to play Japanese visual novels

[sanahtlig]

Poll Objective: To gauge interest in coverage of text-hooking, a method to extract text in real-time from Japanese visual novels to facilitate machine translation or dictionary lookup.  Text hooking with dictionary lookup is often used by Japanese learners as part of the "learn by playing visual novels" method.

Poll: Assessing interest in text-hooking resources to play Japanese visual novels

[Zalor]

Alright, I submitted my answers. Chiitrans is my favorite btw (thanks Deep Blue for introducing it to me). 

[Deep Blue]

Thanks for adding the link to the results! seems like chiitrans it's more popular than everyone believes, so far is winning  

lol it seems you have some haters 

[DarkZedge]

Alrighty done with it aswell, I myself use Chitrans and now I'm starting to try and make a different one work but so far Chitrands + Atlas works well even if sometimes makes a few mistakes or doesn't know some words

also(i know it's silly) but I hope we surpass Reddit on votes brought to the poll!

I screened and cropped it 

 

It was an interesting poll, thanks for linking it to us

[bigfatround0]

I highly doubt fuwanovel will beat /r/VNs. That place is full of people that are obsessed with polls.

[DarkZedge]

26 minutes ago, bigfatround0 said:

I highly fuwanovel will beat /r/VNs. That place is full of people that are obsessed with polls.

I think you're missing a word there! 

And it doesn't hurt to try! we must protect Fuwa's honor!

[sanahtlig]

55 minutes ago, DarkZedge said:

And it doesn't hurt to try! we must protect Fuwa's honor!

Oh, that's easy.  Just don't do this.

[DarkZedge]

5 minutes ago, sanahtlig said:

Oh, that's easy.  Just don't do this.

Who would do that?

I still get lost on reddit

[bigfatround0]

12 minutes ago, sanahtlig said:

Oh, that's easy.  Just don't do this.

I never noticed how toxic /r/vns can be. Holy shit.

 

I'm probably no better though.

[Arcadeotic]

r/vns can be really butthurt about Machine Translations, but yoy get used to it as time goes by.

Good poll, and I kind of expected there to be a thread on reddit full of clashing opinions about the poll

The results were interesting

[sanahtlig]

What really aggravates me is that I convinced someone--a person much more adept with text hooking than me who's been a mentor to me in the past --to seriously consider implementing one or more of the ideas in the initial question of the poll.  You know what was holding him back and his initial response to the idea?  "But I'll be labeled [incorrectly] and ridiculed as someone who machine translates [by all the community elitists]."  I thought the notion was ridiculous.  Then what happens next?  I make a poll to explore user interest in the sorts of text hooking services he could provide and his unfounded fears were confirmed!  He could very well backpedal after seeing this reaction and decide that such a toxic community isn't worth the effort.

[Arcadeotic]

9 minutes ago, sanahtlig said:

What really aggravates me is that I convinced someone--a person much more adept with text hooking than me who's been a mentor to me in the past --to seriously consider implementing one or more of the ideas in the initial question of the poll.  You know what was holding him back and his initial response to the idea?  "But I'll be labeled [incorrectly] and ridiculed as someone who machine translates [by all the community elitists]".  I thought the notion was ridiculous.  Then what happens next?  I make a poll to explore user interest in the sorts of text hooking services he could provide and his unfounded fears were confirmed!  He could very well backpedal after seeing this reaction and decide that such a toxic community isn't worth the effort.

It's a valid fear. r/vns is full of so-called "elitists", who look down on machine translations and even parsing to an extent. And I can assure you that if this poll wasn't linked to there, the result would've been largely different. However, that place is one of two major VN communities, so that isn't exactly an option.

I've used machine translation and text-parsing a lot, and now that I'm learning Japanese, I'm still using text-parsing and MTL. They are a major help to those still learning this language, and this amount of shunning and ridicule doesn't feel mature. I'd understand if it was something along the lines of "I understand the merits of machine translation and parsing, but I prefer to read VNs in their original form, and thus don't feel comfortable using them any longer". Instead, in certain communities, we get this sort of backlash, and it's never nice to look at.

I agree that learning Japanese is the best way to read VNs, but not everyone has that kind of time to put into learning this rather hard language, so parsing and MTL are great alternatives to read these games and learn Japanese at the same time. Even if it doesn't help you or you think it's a waste of time personally, it doesn't automatically mean it's a "worse" choice and should be shunned and given this kind of treatment. This elitism is really aggravating, and it would be for the better if such an attitude would be left and buried entirely.

[Dergonu]

Alright, took it. 

Chiitrans is my go to program. 

(Thanks Deep Blue  ) 

[Down]

3 hours ago, DarkZedge said:

Who would do that?

I would.

I have no idea what can be defended about machine translation. It's pure garbage and while I don't really care about telling other people how they should read x or y, I don't think there's any point in pretending we've read the same thing if one has read a machine TL and I've read the actual VN. I don't think that's "elitism".

[sanahtlig]

44 minutes ago, Down said:

I would.

I have no idea what can be defended about machine translation. It's pure garbage and while I don't really care about telling other people how they should read x or y, I don't think there's any point in pretending we've read the same thing if one has read a machine TL and I've read the actual VN. I don't think that's "elitism".

Check the context.  It was clearly brought up in that thread to make a pinata out of me and anyone who isn't in their social clique of machine translation bashers.  If that's the sort of mean-spirited, derisive tangent you'd want to inject into an unrelated topic, then I wonder what you're doing as a Fuwa moderator.

[Darklord Rooke]

2 hours ago, Down said:

I don't think there's any point in pretending we've read the same thing if one has read a machine TL and I've read the actual VN. I don't think that's "elitism".

 

4 hours ago, sanahtlig said:

"But I'll be labeled [incorrectly] and ridiculed as someone who machine translates [by all the community elitists]."  I thought the notion was ridiculous.  Then what happens next?  I make a poll to explore user interest in the sorts of text hooking services he could provide and his unfounded fears were confirmed!  

Sorry Down, but you're arguing a strawman here. What you've described isn't elitism, the behaviour on display at Reddit and described by Sanah is, though. Pretty toxic place, Reddit.

EDIT: More specifically, the coming together of users to ridicule, downvote, and taunt other users for holding ‘inferior’ viewpoints. Worthless circle-jerking. It’s a rubbish practice, and certain people over at Reddit really should grow up.

[tymmur]

I didn't take the survey because it seems a bit pointless since I'm not really using them. I really tried, but I don't like the result. They tend to make VNs less enjoyable, or perhaps not at all. Machine translations are not accurate enough and the dictionary approach takes such an effort that I get nowhere in the story. Also it usually requires running in windows mode, which also distracts me from the VN itself.

 

I totally love Translation Aggregator though. Setting it up to use jParser, it becomes a really useful tool for reading Japanese text in general. Copying text and I get it in romaji and dictionary lookup as well. Quite useful for text documents and web pages. Sure just providing some URL to google translate is a lot easier, but the accuracy of the info you get is a lot worse.

 

I believe TA+jParser is a good way to learn how to read Japanese. From what I have tried so far (and failed), the study guides (books and online alike) tend to focus on a bit of vocabulary, then some hiragana, then a bit of kanji, then a bit of grammar, more vocabulary and so on. The problem with this approach is that I learn a bit of hiragana, then forget it because I'm not using it and suddenly it's mandatory to continue. Often there is no real focus because you have to learn all of it. However my new plan (when I get time) is to study grammar intensively. Once I figured that out, TA+jParser should help me continue as it deals with shortcoming in kanji/hiragana and vocabulary. I will then learn those as I need/use them and with a bit of luck I will remember them. At least I will not really have the issue that I learn something and then I forget because I'm not using it in the next chapter. Time will tell if I'm right about using this approach. I have a hunch it will work much better for me than the average person though as it seems to match my systematic way of thinking.

 

11 hours ago, Arcadeotic said:

It's a valid fear. r/vns is full of so-called "elitists", who look down on machine translations and even parsing to an extent.

 

The same can be said about VNDB, at least it could before they banned a bunch of people for making the boards a very hostile place. It goes as far as VNs shouldn't be translated because they are meant to be read in Japanese and if you want to read VNs, you are supposed to train yourself to be fluent in Japanese. It also seems that if something is translated, it should be targeted at US citizens only and rewritten to match American culture. This has lead to people wanting to ban translators for using British English and harassment of people not as familiar with US culture/folklore with claims like they would not be worthy of reading VNs if they can't even adapt to something that simple.

 

I do not use the term elitists about such people. I think of them as fanatics or fascists, which to some degree is the same thing. Fascism is a very misused word today, but ti actually mean the concept of making other people think/do the same as you. Not by arguing them, but by force to leave them no choice. Wanting to ban people for using British English not not enjoying a specific VN classifies as fascism. I was about to write that the internet is a scary place, but I will actually broaden it and say people as a whole are scary.

[kingdomcome]

Sanahtlig I think you convinced me to try a VN using machine translation, probably will be good for mind development.

[DarkZedge]

On 4/8/2016 at 4:01 AM, Dergonu said:

Alright, took it. 

Chiitrans is my go to program. 

(Thanks Deep Blue  ) 

Same here *highfives senpai*

It was thanks to many people that I got to using it though, you among them i believe 

[sanahtlig]

5 hours ago, kingdomcome said:

Sanahtlig I think you convinced me to try a VN using machine translation, probably will be good for mind development.

I regard machine translation as a stepping stone to learning Japanese.  Once you get a taste of the full spectrum of games available if you don't limit yourself to English games, you'll become more motivated to take the next step.  Most people get stuck at the starting phase of learning Japanese because you can't actually read anything until you've acquired near-fluency.  Machine translation allows you to see through the language barrier, even if the resulting picture is fairly distorted.  It can also help you pick up some basic vocabulary early on through matching voices with the output, especially since MT will always give the same translation for the same word (human translators often won't).

[Down]

3 hours ago, sanahtlig said:

Most people get stuck at the starting phase of learning Japanese because you can't actually read anything until you've acquired near-fluency.

What? Of course you can. All you need is the kanas and some basic grammar. The first things you read won't be easy at all and you probably won't understand half of it but you can start reading pretty quickly, and if your ultimate goal is reading VNs it's not a bad way of doing things.

[sanahtlig]

1 hour ago, Down said:

What? Of course you can. All you need is the kanas and some basic grammar. The first things you read won't be easy at all and you probably won't understand half of it but you can start reading pretty quickly, and if your ultimate goal is reading VNs it's not a bad way of doing things.

With text hooking, yeah.  Without, no.  And the learning curve to read VNs with just parsing is still pretty steep.  There's still a significant investment required before you get any return at all.  For a beginner, that can still seem like a very high barrier for an uncertain return.  A taste of what it's like to play any VN you want can provide the necessary impetus to make that investment.

[tymmur]

At some point we made an experiment with the Musumaker translation. I tried translating around 20 lines using TA+jParser. Afterwards RaurosFalls (the real translator) reviewed and corrected the translation. I then read the result more closely to see how well I did.

 

Conclusion:

* Hiragana knowledge isn't that important (relatively speaking). I used romaji furigana due to not being strong in hiragana

* Vocabulary isn't that important due to being able to look up everything quite fast. Most of the time just hovering the mouse of a word is enough (not always)

* Grammar is very important. More or less all mistakes were grammar related.

 

The issue is that the tools provides you with the correct words, but you have to know the grammar in order to put them together correctly. Without a proper understanding of grammar, you get "Jack punch Bill", but can't tell if it is "Jack punches Bill" or "Jack is punched by Bill" or "Jack wants to punch Bill" or even the negative version of each, like "Jack didn't punch Bill". This is why I say in order to get started, the most needed skill is grammar. Don't get me wrong. The other skills are useful and needed in the long run. I'm talking about how to get to the point where you can read the first line somewhat reliable and without resorting to guesswork.

 

Particles is usually a unique topic. However for this post I include it in what I refer to as grammar. After all it is a tool to tell what is the main object and so on, which is usually referred to as grammar.

 

I think once the grammar has been mastered, it would make sense to switch the furigana to hiragana. It shouldn't be done too late as hiragana is important to master as well, but doing it too early distracts the focus from grammar and the learning process becomes overburdened, which in turn makes people run away screaming and they learn nothing.

[sanahtlig]

I've gotten multiple messages from those looking to get into text hooking.  I've connected with a collaborator who is considering a long-term commitment to provide expert coverage of text hooking.  In the meantime, I suggest those interested in text hooking (especially machine translation) check out the following guide.

An Aero-Gamer’s Guide to Using ATLAS