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Sol Press looking for newer/lesser expererienced translators for future "experimental" releases


NowItsAngeTime

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5 hours ago, Infernoplex said:

Oh, God... oh GOD!!!

They... oh my... now that's indeed something that would make me go WTF if I see it in a translation. I definitely need to check out Fureraba when I get the time.

From what I remember, rub a dub wasn't used in Fureraba's localization.

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12 minutes ago, NowItsAngeTime said:

From what I remember, rub a dub wasn't used in Fureraba's localization.

Hmm, my memory might be a bit fuzzy, but I certainly remember it from one of the translated VNs that I've played in 2018. But if not Fureraba, then what could it have been... Probably not Chrono Clock, as it was based more around british slang... hmm... Now I'm confused... Maybe it wasn't quoted in full, but some variation of it? Nevertheless, for some reasons I associate it with Fureraba...

Edited by adamstan
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9 minutes ago, NowItsAngeTime said:

From what I remember, rub a dub wasn't used in Fureraba's localization.

Oh, it most definitely was. I thought I even had a screenshot of it, but apparently not.
At any rate, it's the sort of think Kyousuke might say, occasionally. Most characters wouldn't say that and don't.

BONUS:

Spoiler

Random images I found whilst digging through my screenshots:

o9iAflX.png

 

Can you guess the context?

8vJg74g.png

 

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7 hours ago, adamstan said:

Second one is ridiculous, it definitely crosses the line for "overly literal" and goes right into "half-translated" territory :P I don't think I've seen such a thing in VN translations (except some odd instances of leaving "Itadakimasu" untranslated - I think it happened in Kanon).

It's been a while, but, I believe, while Ixrec's translation of Cross Channel didn't go this far, it did leave a lot of not so widely known Japanese words (like 'kouhai") untranslated like that. I don't remember seeing anything worse than that in VNs. While this picture is definitely an exaggeration, I've actually seen some light novel fan-translations that were pretty close, desu no. :makina:

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11 hours ago, ittaku said:

Triggered. Note the 'What you want.'

n7CiW.jpg

I really like the Crunchyroll translation on this image. I think that's the general idea of what most of the fans are after and used to.

People are just afraid of translations like Hadena and 4Kids *cofcofwhichsometimesifeelthatwegetthosecofcof*

Edited by nekofuwafuwa
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Being a translator myself, I have no problem with rewriting a sentence to make it sound more natural in the other language, as long as the meaning stays the same. In Fureraba, however, I found quite a few instances which the English sentences were different, sometimes completely, from the original in term of meaning or, how do I say this, the "feel" of them? Like, the sentence was supposed to be quite polite, but the English one sounded pretty rude and forceful. 

Not to mention those very unnecessary translations of a simple yes/no/umm to a longass line of 5-6 words. They are not exactly bad, just, you know, unnecessary.

About honorific, wasn't SolPress the one that "invented" the option that allow people to switch between with and without them? Why can't we just use that? I mean, I'm all for keeping the honorific, but obviously not everyone has the same opinion.

And the thing about people being "ungrateful" toward translators, Idk what you mean, and not quite sure about your definition of "ungrateful", but taking in criticism is a really good way to improve your skill. Also, if you are doing a fan trans, then sure, since everyone is getting the patch for free, they just have to deal with it. However, when it's a commercial product and people are paying for it, then they have all the rights to demand the product to be worth their money. It's just common sense.

 

One more small thing, please stop using imperial system in translation...............

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54 minutes ago, Satsuki said:

Being a translator myself, I have no problem with rewriting a sentence to make it sound more natural in the other language, as long as the meaning stays the same. In Fureraba, however, I found quite a few instances which the English sentences were different, sometimes completely, from the original in term of meaning or, how do I say this, the "feel" of them? Like, the sentence was supposed to be quite polite, but the English one sounded pretty rude and forceful. 

Not to mention those very unnecessary translations of a simple yes/no/umm to a longass line of 5-6 words. They are not exactly bad, just, you know, unnecessary.

About honorific, wasn't SolPress the one that "invented" the option that allow people to switch between with and without them? Why can't we just use that? I mean, I'm all for keeping the honorific, but obviously not everyone has the same opinion.

And the thing about people being "ungrateful" toward translators, Idk what you mean, and not quite sure about your definition of "ungrateful", but taking in criticism is a really good way to improve your skill. Also, if you are doing a fan trans, then sure, since everyone is getting the patch for free, they just have to deal with it. However, when it's a commercial product and people are paying for it, then they have all the rights to demand the product to be worth their money. It's just common sense.

 

One more small thing, please stop using imperial system in translation...............

Ungrateful was with respect to fan translations. If you pay for something you have the right to get what you paid for, but the problem is there are so few translators they get worked too hard with too short a deadline and in that scenario it's not their fault if quality drops off. Solpress does indeed have the honorific toggle option - which means we have to do even more translation for the same (very low) fee by the way. I'd love to translate in English instead of American, but that's not up to me. As for changing units, I flatly refuse to do that.

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1 hour ago, ittaku said:

Ungrateful was with respect to fan translations. If you pay for something you have the right to get what you paid for, but the problem is there are so few translators they get worked too hard with too short a deadline and in that scenario it's not their fault if quality drops off. Solpress does indeed have the honorific toggle option - which means we have to do even more translation for the same (very low) fee by the way. I'd love to translate in English instead of American, but that's not up to me. As for changing units, I flatly refuse to do that.

Erm... Why? The metric system is used in most countries of the world. The only notable country using the imperial system is the US.

I honestly hope that I just misunderstood your meaning with that sentence, otherwise I'm just straight up confused with this reasoning.

You say that you would love to translate in English instead of American, but that's not up to your choice. At the same time you flatly refuse to change the imperial system that is the one used (mostly) only in America? Keeping the metric system even don't give the trouble of converting the values to the translators...

...Why? Seriously, why?

Again, sorry if I got things mixed and I really hope that I did so! :blink:

Edited by nekofuwafuwa
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2 minutes ago, nekofuwafuwa said:

Erm... Why? The metric system is used in most countries of the world. The only notable country using the imperial system is the US.

I honestly hope that I just misunderstood your meaning with that sentence, otherwise I'm just straight up confused with this reasoning.

You say that you would love to translate in English instead of American, but that's not up to your choice. But at the same time you flatly refuse to change the imperial system that is the one used (mostly) only in America? Keeping the metric system even don't give the trouble of converting the values to the translators...

...Why? Seriously, why?

Again, sorry if I got things mixed and I really hope that I did so! :blink:

I flatly refuse to CHANGE TO IMPERIAL is what I mean. Haha.

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Maybe he meant that he refuses to change FROM metric while translating (which is used in originals, as Japan uses it)?

EDIT:

Looks like it :D

BTW It seems that my memory of Fureraba wasn't as unreliable as I was afraid ;)

2 hours ago, Satsuki said:

About honorific, wasn't SolPress the one that "invented" the option that allow people to switch between with and without them?


Unfortunately, probably because of aforementioned short deadlines and similar reasons, it doesn't work as it should - from the SolPress titles I've played so far (Sakura Sakura and Hitotsuba), it was always obvious which version was the "true" one, as the other one had various hiccups. Probably because nobody had the time and money to retranslate it using different style that would suit the selected option the best - there were just quick replacement-like edits, and IMO they were not enough.

Edited by adamstan
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3 hours ago, Satsuki said:

And the thing about people being "ungrateful" toward translators, Idk what you mean, and not quite sure about your definition of "ungrateful", but taking in criticism is a really good way to improve your skill.

The problem is that you can't actually get a lot of good criticism. Usually it's 99% vague autistic screeching. With that said I'd love for that autist anon on 4chan to go through one of my translations in case I let some mistranslations slip through, I can just ignore whatever things I don't care about in his evaluation. That's only the reading-the-japanese side of translation though which is not that big of a part of it. It is incredibly rare to get critique on an actually useful level, and it's certainly not going to come from the fans who actually get upset about most translations.

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Speaking of weight and measurement systems, a VN I used to work on had one of those lines where I had to make a choice regarding metric/imperial system. Let's just say I am too European to start using "feets" instead of "meters". I hope my American friends will be able to forgive me, for I cannot imagine in my mind what 26.2467 feets stands for, but I sure as hell can imagine how long 8 meters is.

Actually, it was not one but a couple of lines. And there was also a line where I had to choose the paper format, LOL. I forgot what it was about, but I recall finding out that the standard paper format size in USA is not the same as everywhere else in the world, including Japan. I think I just left all units and sizes as they were in the Japanese script xD

Edited by Infernoplex
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4 hours ago, Zakamutt said:

The problem is that you can't actually get a lot of good criticism. Usually it's 99% vague autistic screeching. With that said I'd love for that autist anon on 4chan to go through one of my translations in case I let some mistranslations slip through, I can just ignore whatever things I don't care about in his evaluation. That's only the reading-the-japanese side of translation though which is not that big of a part of it. It is incredibly rare to get critique on an actually useful level, and it's certainly not going to come from the fans who actually get upset about most translations.

I got you covered bby.

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56 minutes ago, Infernoplex said:

Speaking of weight and measurement systems, a VN I used to work on had one of those lines where I had to make a choice regarding metric/imperial system. Let's just say I am too European to start using "feets" instead of "meters". I hope my American friends will be able to forgive me, for I cannot imagine in my mind what 26.2467 feets stands for, but I sure as hell can imagine how long 8 meters is.

Actually, it was not one but a couple of lines. And there was also a line where I had to choose the paper format, LOL. I forgot what it was about, but I recall finding out that the standard paper format size in USA is not the same as everywhere else in the world, including Japan. I think I just left all units and sizes as they were in the Japanese script xD

Ever17's loc is actually the most amusing for using american units; it loses the different depths of the park differing by arc numbers. I think I caught it anyway using either the voiced line or dividing the feet by 3 or whatever, but it was still pretty funny. I wonder if 17 yards would've made sense?

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On 5/28/2019 at 12:46 AM, NowItsAngeTime said:

"Prose" has become my least favorite word in the VN community because it allows these poser weebs to do their 'holier-than-thou' act of what they think a real translation is (or parroting what people in elitist groups say is a good translation). Especially from those who haven't tried to learn Japanese at all.

the words of someone who’s never read a book

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No I dont read books like that and apparently Im supposed to be doing so in order to be a "real" visual novel reader

So Im supposed to know what this magical thing called prose that applies to MAYBE 5-10% of all Japanese based visual novels that have actual plot

I dont know if these Ernest Hermingway fans noticed but most Japanese visual novels are high school romance comedy slice of life shit.

I know you guys are in love with your plot VNs, which is fine, but you're forgetting the prose you care so much only applies to the 5% of VNs the faux-JOP raves about.

Im sorry my IQ isnt 200+ to understand stuff stupid elitists like to brag theyre experts about but just think their values apply to everything

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28 minutes ago, NowItsAngeTime said:

No I dont read books like that and apparently Im supposed to be doing so in order to be a "real" visual novel reader..............

.......... Im sorry my IQ isnt 200+ to understand stuff stupid elitists like to brag theyre experts about but just think their values apply to everything

>> saying prose, style & whatever linguistic subleties there are to literature do matter shit, as long as it´s written text, but on the other hand turning choleric upon translators/editors start using heavy swearing, memes, etc etc etc....... *sigh

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55 minutes ago, NowItsAngeTime said:

So Im supposed to know what this magical thing called prose that applies to MAYBE 5-10% of all Japanese based visual novels that have actual plot

that's very true but also remember that those are more likely to be the big ones that people like to say are good and that some people also like to translate poorly

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1 hour ago, NowItsAngeTime said:

No I dont read books like that and apparently Im supposed to be doing so in order to be a "real" visual novel reader

So Im supposed to know what this magical thing called prose that applies to MAYBE 5-10% of all Japanese based visual novels that have actual plot

I dont know if these Ernest Hermingway fans noticed but most Japanese visual novels are high school romance comedy slice of life shit.

I know you guys are in love with your plot VNs, which is fine, but you're forgetting the prose you care so much only applies to the 5% of VNs the faux-JOP raves about.

Im sorry my IQ isnt 200+ to understand stuff stupid elitists like to brag theyre experts about but just think their values apply to everything

1. Nobody said you had to read books to be a "real" reader. You're making connections that aren't there. It was a jab at your "arguments" against prose mattering in a localization.

2. Yes. As you've shown in the past, you have no clue about what prose is and how it affects reading experiences, and people right criticized you for it. If you don't know what it is, just don't talk about it. Simple.

3. I'm aware. The prose argument doesn't even apply to those VNs. With those, it's more TL/editing mistakes more than anything.

4. That 5% consists of some of the biggest VNs in the scene, so obviously people will care if somebody unqualified tries to TL it. If you can't write at the same level in English as the original writer can in Japanese, what's the point?

5. Weren't you the one who said that prose is only in about 5% of VNs? Obviously if that were the case, their values wouldn't apply to everything. Plus, these "elitists" care about the source material and want to see it localized in the best way possible. The people who don't want anything they love localized are stupid, that's fair, but maybe don't fault people for being passionate about maintaining prose when you have no clue what it is by your own admission.

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The problem with thinking 'prose' is all about muh chuunige or whatever is that much of comedy is just as dependent on good unmetered writing as whatever the so-called prose nerds like. Would Grisaia's common route, which could well have continued into moe style routes rather than what it actually does with a few tweaks, really have been close to as good with a lame translation? Good prose doesn't have to mean big words or descriptions tinted dangerously close to the violet end of the spectrum either. Nailing character voice, which seems to me like something you'd want in a character-focused moege to make the girls feel alive, is entirely a prose problem, and indeed a translation quality problem.

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