NekoNyan, New Localization Company from Saku Saku Translation Team

[Dreamysyu]

1 hour ago, Kabu said:

I'm going to choose to be optimistic here. SP aren't generally known for the highest quality releases and I like to believe that now without that horrible company breathing down their necks the work is going to be much higher quality and that they'll do what they can to work with their customers to deliver the best experience possible.

 

28 minutes ago, VirginSmasher said:

Optimism is usually nice for new companies, but with the track record the people involved have on 2 releases with Sekai Project means that that kind of quality isn't a coincidence. We'll have to judge that with their first release though.

I'd say, hope for the best, prepare for the worst.

[VirginSmasher]

3 minutes ago, Dreamysyu said:

I'd say, hope for the best, prepare for the worst.

I'd keep no expectations personally.

[novurdim]

Well, I brought it up myself, but I do think you are overreacting a bit. SukaSuka's and Hoshimemo's weren't nearly as bad as Libra's translation. I daresay that if Libra had a translation like those two, it would be deemed absolutely passable for the first release and we wouldn't have any serious debacle about Mikandi.

Edited February 3, 2018 by novurdim

[Rin91]

16 hours ago, novurdim said:

Well, I brought it up myself, but I do think you are overreacting a bit. SukaSuka's and Hoshimemo's weren't nearly as bad as Libra's translation. I daresay that if Libra had a translation like those two, it would be deemed absolutely passable for the first release and we wouldn't have any serious debacle about Mikandi.

While that may be true, Libra is a very low-profile title compared to Hoshimemo and SakuSaku. It was also Mikandi's first project, so they had some amount of "sympathy" and could screw up a small amount and still be fine. They screwed up so badly that none of that mattered though, and when a company as experienced as Sekai Project does the same they pretty much deserve the backlash, in my opinion.

Having said that, I do hope the horrible state of Hoshimemo and SakuSaku were mostly the fault of Sekai's management/time contraints and that NekoNyan will deliver better quality now that they're freed of those constraints. Probably wishful thinking, but I'd like to give them the benefit of the doubt until I read Fureraba.

Edited February 4, 2018 by Rin91

[Zenophilious]

23 hours ago, Rin91 said:

Having said that, I do hope the horrible state of Hoshimemo and SakuSaku were mostly the fault of Sekai's management/time contraints and that NekoNyan will deliver better quality now that they're freed of those constraints. Probably wishful thinking, but I'd like to give them the benefit of the doubt until I read Fureraba.

Ehhh...the main translator of both SakuSaku and Hoshimemo's TLs (and now NekoNyan), Akerou (aka Christian Ehrmanntraut) has stated several times that one of the reasons he got into translation was to polish his English, which isn't his first language, as he's German.  That doesn't necessarily mean that everything he produces will be crap, but looking at several parts of Hoshimemo's TL, it makes a lot of sense.  Some of the strange phrases that Fred highlighted in his review, like "I relish in my memories", "spinning on our heels", and "stroke of sharpness", sound like things someone with a sub-par grasp on English would think makes sense.  People that haven't fully mastered a language tend to struggle with idioms, slang, and other parts of a language that are more complicated to learn than the easier, more logical parts, like grammar and sentence structure.

Now, there's no way to prove that he translated those lines himself, or was even responsible for them at all, but I'd argue that signs like that should at least make people wary of anything they produce until they actually have a product out that people can evaluate.  If their translations are good, I'll be more than happy to buy their VNs, but I won't do so until they prove themselves.  I'll repeat what I said in the Sol Press thread: it's a good idea to wait for results before buying VNs from a newly-formed translation company.

[Deniz]

Hello,good-bye seems interesting, it looks like Sharin no Kuni.Others generic.

[Rin91]

20 hours ago, Zenophilious said:

Ehhh...the main translator of both SakuSaku and Hoshimemo's TLs (and now NekoNyan), Akerou (aka Christian Ehrmanntraut) has stated several times that one of the reasons he got into translation was to polish his English, which isn't his first language, as he's German.  That doesn't necessarily mean that everything he produces will be crap, but looking at several parts of Hoshimemo's TL, it makes a lot of sense.  Some of the strange phrases that Fred highlighted in his review, like "I relish in my memories", "spinning on our heels", and "stroke of sharpness", sound like things someone with a sub-par grasp on English would think makes sense.  People that haven't fully mastered a language tend to struggle with idioms, slang, and other parts of a language that are more complicated to learn than the easier, more logical parts, like grammar and sentence structure.

That does paint a pretty bad picture of his involvement in the projects, I admit. But I'd still like to hold on to a glimmer of hope that there was more happening behind the scenes that contributed to the bad quality. That it wasn't all on them. Though, as you said, we'll find out when their first title is released.

[Chuee]

19 hours ago, Zenophilious said:

Ehhh...the main translator of both SakuSaku and Hoshimemo's TLs (and now NekoNyan), Akerou (aka Christian Ehrmanntraut) has stated several times that one of the reasons he got into translation was to polish his English, which isn't his first language, as he's German.  That doesn't necessarily mean that everything he produces will be crap, but looking at several parts of Hoshimemo's TL, it makes a lot of sense.  Some of the strange phrases that Fred highlighted in his review, like "I relish in my memories", "spinning on our heels", and "stroke of sharpness", sound like things someone with a sub-par grasp on English would think makes sense.  People that haven't fully mastered a language tend to struggle with idioms, slang, and other parts of a language that are more complicated to learn than the easier, more logical parts, like grammar and sentence structure.

Now, there's no way to prove that he translated those lines himself, or was even responsible for them at all, but I'd argue that signs like that should at least make people cautious of anything they produce until they actually have a product out that people can evaluate.  If their translations are good, I'll be more than happy to buy their VNs, but I won't do so until they prove themselves.  I'll repeat what I said in the Sol Press thread: it's a good idea to wait for results before buying VNs from a newly-formed translation company.

Hi, please do not spread misinformation. 

As far as I know, he never said 'multiple times' that he got into translation as a way to practice his English. What he did say was that he started SakuSaku as his first translation project so that he could improve his English writing abilities before tackling Irotoridori no Sekai (which is his favorite game). Which doesn't even have anything to do with his 'subpar' grasp of English. Who wouldn't want to practice something first before tackling something more difficult? If you want to make something as good as it can be then experience is kind of necessary. 

Also, with regards to the 'strange phrases' you mention

• I relish in my memories

If you google this phrase you'll see multiple instances of people asking what if the usage of that is correct or not. So it's probably not unreasonable to think that even native speakers struggle with this sometimes, which you know, isn't unreasonable. Being a native speaker doesn't give you some special power that makes you a perfect master of the English language, and completely incapable of making grammatical errors. 

• spinning on our heels

Inclined to say this is a typo, considering heels and wheels differ by a single letter. I've never used nor seen this idiom myself so it probably slipped past my eyes. 

• stroke of sharpness

Wasn't even written by him, so there you go. Maybe this isn't as conspicuous a phrase as you think. 

[Zenophilious]

1 hour ago, Chuee said:

As far as I know, he never said 'multiple times' that he got into translation as a way to practice his English. What he did say was that he started SakuSaku as his first translation project so that he could improve his English writing abilities before tackling Irotoridori no Sekai (which is his favorite game). Which doesn't even have anything to do with his 'subpar' grasp of English. Who wouldn't want to practice something first before tackling something more difficult? If you want to make something as good as it can be then experience is kind of necessary.

Yep, I was wrong on that one.  I went back and checked, and he was referring to SakuSaku itself, not translation in general.

If you actually go back and read what I said, I said those mistakes sounded like ones that someone with a subpar grasp on English would make, not that Akerou is incapable of properly understanding English.

1 hour ago, Chuee said:

• I relish in my memories

If you google this phrase you'll see multiple instances of people asking what if the usage of that is correct or not. So it's probably not unreasonable to think that even native speakers struggle with this sometimes, which you know, isn't unreasonable. Being a native speaker doesn't give you some special power that makes you a perfect master of the English language, and completely incapable of making grammatical errors. 

That would be understandable if it was one of a few errors, except that the rest of the script is riddled with them.

I never claimed that native speakers were inherent gods of the English language.  Most people I know that struggle with it are native speakers, in fact.  However, I don't think anyone is going to claim that non-native speakers don't tend to struggle with certain parts of the language more than the average native speaker.

1 hour ago, Chuee said:

• spinning on our heels

Inclined to say this is a typo, considering heels and wheels differ by a single letter. I've never used nor seen this idiom myself so it probably slipped past my eyes.

The saying, if it's the one that means "to make no progress despite making an effort", is actually "spinning our wheels".  Searching google with "spinning on our wheels" only really comes up with results for "spinning our wheels".  The only results that appear when searching for results containing the exact phrase "spinning on our wheels" are blogs, and I wouldn't trust the average blogger to know good grammar or the proper usage of idioms.

1 hour ago, Chuee said:

• stroke of sharpness

Wasn't even written by him, so there you go. Maybe this isn't as conspicuous a phrase as you think. 

Uh...I specifically noted that there wasn't any proof he was directly responsible for any of those lines.  That doesn't make it any less incorrect or awful-sounding.  You can't just swap in synonyms and have sayings still be correct.

Let's face it, he was the lead translator on both SakuSaku and Hoshimemo, and both releases weren't all that good.  Hell, you even admitted that SakuSaku's release wasn't that great.  It's not that absurd to look at both releases and think that the people they have in common, which we know to be at least Akerou and you, might be the cause.  Was it just a fluke that both TLs were mediocre?

[Veshurik]

Interesting, that man reacted somehow on that criticism or no?

Just interesting, how far rumors can go...

[chuushajou]

I don't really like posting here, because I'm a loner and there's a lot of politics in this community. However, when I think about the number of sub-par translations that have been released lately, I've come up with something that most people haven't really considered. Everyone here can even try this at home, if you're bored.

Get a friend who doesn't write English very well, and ask him/her to write a short story. Then, edit it on your own to get rid of all the mistakes. Afterwards, send the edited copy to a third person, and ask that person how good it looks. My experience is that the edited version usually looks worse compared to if you had wrote it yourself. I think that's what the underlying issue is when it comes to translation quality. Many people in this community think that a "native English speaker" or someone who is good at writing is also the type of person that will solve all their problems. Hell, I've even seen a fanTL group looking for such a person recently. In reality, when you're editing a script where many of the sentences have some kind of mistake, you're constantly asking yourself "does this look good?" "what about this?" "or this?" and so on. Because let's face it, whether a sentence feels natural or not isn't always a black and white issue.

I don't mean to say that this approach can't work. Copyediting is a real profession, the people at NekoNyan are experienced, and I don't know what their translation process is like. It's just that when I'm reading Konosora, Hoshimemo, Libra, Sakusaku, Tayutama 2, etc. that's exactly what I'm imagining. One person translating, and the other person editing the hell out of it. I'm just wondering when someone here will realize that this is one way of churning out an awkward script.

[Nandemonai]

Well, the ordinary writing world doesn't work this way.  Random House and MacMillan and all the others do not edit author's manuscripts for them.  They certainly employ editors, who do in fact edit manuscripts.  But editors don't rewrite them.  Instead, an editor's job is to read the work, and identify everything that need to be tweaked to make the script better.  Then they send back a pile of feedback to the author, who then rewrites the book themselves.

Fan translation projects do this not because it's a good way to work, but because it's the best they can do with what they've got.

[Dreamysyu]

5 hours ago, chuushajou said:

Get a friend who doesn't write English very well, and ask him/her to write a short story. Then, edit it on your own to get rid of all the mistakes. Afterwards, send the edited copy to a third person, and ask that person how good it looks. My experience is that the edited version usually looks worse compared to if you had wrote it yourself.

Mmmm, I am not sure this is completely fair. Recently I've noticed that for me personally there is a certain "uncanny valley" when it comes to quality of writing. Simply speaking, when you read a disastrously terrible translation with lots of mistakes and completely incomprehensible sentences, you notice that and not how bad the actual writing is.

Yeah, sure, a good native editor won't solve all problems. A translation can't be good if an editor can't understand the original text he/she is working with. Also, it should be obvious, but the translator should actially understand Japanese.

[kyrt]

So here's my policy when it comes to new companies; first impressions are everything.