[Release] Letters to Venus

[avonder]

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- Can you share your feelings? -

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Letters to Venus is a 12-hour expansion for Katawa Shoujo featuring a new main character, a host of supporting characters, and returning faces from the original game, taking place within both familiar and new locales.

Sonya Leonova. Birthday: June 16. Zodiac: Gemini. Hair: Gray. Eyes: Fern. Transferred to Yamaku from Russia, due to near paralysis through her own fault, but under circumstances not fully understood. Her father, a renowned academician, was able to afford the expense. Cold and strict, Sonya treats everyone with a certain degree of contempt, but very much appreciates other people's help. Very intelligent and well-read, making her one of Yamaku's best students, which she doesn't really care for. Unusually taciturn and unsociable.

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This project was originally developed between 2020 and 2023 in Russian by a team led by Ivan Larionov,

and is now available in English for the first time. See the original release here.

– Project page on itch.io –

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[scott1and]

Oh, wow! I never even knew this project existed. I'll definitely need to try this out.

[BestGirlLilly]

Can you tell us more about the translation?
Was it done by machine? Or by Human?

[avonder]

Can you tell us more about the translation?
Was it done by machine? Or by Human?

The translation was done by me. I am a native Russian speaker and a verified level C2 English speaker with over 15 years of experience of using English in everyday life.

[hdkv]

The translation was done by me. I am a native Russian speaker and a verified level C2 English speaker with over 15 years of experience of using English in everyday life.

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Not only you don't mention that you're not the author of the mod, and you never mention original authors anywhere, but you obviously lying about the quality of the translation, and everyone can check it by putting original Russian text into deepl and comparing the result.

Consider this your final warning. Stop lying to the community or you'll be banned.

[avonder]

Not only you don't mention that you're not the author of the mod, and you never mention original authors anywhere, but you obviously lying about the quality of the translation, and everyone can check it by putting original Russian text into deepl and comparing the result.

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Translation:

Hello, KS forums. I am "Fetish", aka Ivan Larionov, the team lead of Letters to Venus. I'm not able to write to you directly, so I'll just say that Avonder has my personal permission to translate and publish the project everywhere, and I've no problem with the lack of a link to the original page. It's no big deal. The Reddit post was made by a member of my team, and over there a link to a Russian-language social network makes even less sense. Don't fight. I'm in favor of any activity except hunger strikes.

I have maintained close contact with the developer of the original project throughout the devlopment of the translation and port to ensure its integrity. I've added a link to the VK page now, even though it was never a problem in the first place. It's no big deal.

The insinuations about the quality of the translation are a big deal, however. I suspect you aren't a fluent English speaker; what you should do is find one who isn't mad at me for reasons unrelated to this project and ask them about the quality of the translation. I worked with 4LS to develop the Steam version of Katawa Shoujo, including the development of the all-ages version of the script; the assertions about my understanding of English are, frankly, absurd.

The process used for translating the text is "MTPE"; the initial pass was done with DeepL, and two more editing passes were done over the result to remove all inconsistencies and errors. This process took hundreds of hours. This is a widely used and accepted technique in professional translation, and while it doesn't have the personal touch (отсебятина) of fully manual translations, I am perfectly fine with the result - as will anyone who will actually read it. You are indeed free to take any snippet and put it in DeepL to see the extent of work that has been done.

You are also free to finish your translation, and let the public compare the quality of the two. Just stop doing this... smear campaign or something you've spun up over this completely non-commercial project. Seriously.

[hdkv]

I have maintained close contact with the developer of the original project throughout the devlopment of the translation and port to ensure its integrity. I've added a link to the VK page now, even though it was never a problem in the first place. It's no big deal.

…until the said developer realized that he helped you assuming that you're the part of the other team. I have screenshots of that conversation as a proof that you're indirectly deceived Ivan Larionov, the original Letters to Venus leader.

И не надо мне тут пытаться выкручиваться, я тоже русский, если что.

The insinuations about the quality of the translation are a big deal, however. I suspect you aren't a fluent English speaker; what you should do is find one who isn't mad at me for reasons unrelated to this project and ask them about the quality of the translation. I worked with 4LS to develop the Steam version of Katawa Shoujo, including the development of the all-ages version of the script; the assertions about my understanding of English are, frankly, absurd.

The process used for translating the text is "MTPE"; the initial pass was done with DeepL, and two more editing passes were done over the result to remove all inconsistencies and errors. This process took hundreds of hours. This is a widely used and accepted technique in professional translation, and while it doesn't have the personal touch (отсебятина) of fully manual translations, I am perfectly fine with the result - as will anyone who will actually read it. You are indeed free to take any snippet and put it in DeepL to see the extent of work that has been done.

You are also free to finish your translation, and let the public compare the quality of the two. Just stop doing this... smear campaign or something you've spun up over this completely non-commercial project. Seriously.

I'll skip the part about working with 4LS since that's none of my concern: you can't use it as a shield to justify any other actions that you're making.

I have my assertions based not only on the fact that the huge chunk of the script is citing DeepL verbatim, but also can provide you a perfect example of your whole mistranslation of "Я леплю из пластилина" poem in the game. You literally lost the whole point of the said poem while trying to adapt it. Let me cite what's going on about it from discord:

So the thing is with the poem. It's a Russian poem. Basically, it's about the girl creating toys with plasticine, and at the beginning she calls her poorly-made toys "Clutz" and "Dummy" because they come out badly, but after her brothers say that it's her fault as a creator, that they're bad, at the end of the poem she calls her toys "Poor guy" and "Poor thing"
He lost the whole "understanding that its her fault" thing and from the very beginning she calls her toys "Poor girl" and "Poor guy"
I'm not even talking about the fact, that he haven't even tried to rhyme it

I'm afraid to ever think how you executed the latter part of the game, which contains an enormous amount of Russian culture references. And I'm not even bringing up the fact that some of the lines of the translation are translated wrong, losing all meaning or inventing things that were not present in the original Russian text!

You don't even bother to maintain integrity of your own statements, at first claiming in this very thread that you've made your translations by yourself and then backing off that you used AI tools to do it. I'm fine with using AI tools as a tool, but I'm totally against claiming that you've done some good work when it's obviously not the case.

Here is an actual report from English native who spent 20 minutes playing it:

"Now what... Will it always be like this?" (Better way to phrase it would be "Is this my life now?" or "Is this how it's going to be?")
This corner of the garden, hidden from view, I noticed in the daytime. (Why arrange the sentence like this? Better way: "This hidden corner of the garden, I noticed it in the daytime.")
Did someone heal and walk? (Extremely clunky phrasing. Better way: "Did someone's legs heal and walk away?")
Unable to resist curiosity, I move a little closer... (Missing "my" before curiosity)
"P...pp... please help..." (never put 2 constonants together, typically this would be written as "P... p-p... please help")
I can't just stand by and watch her lying like this, next to her chair, which she clearly can't lift. (Should not be a comma next to this)
"What do I... do?" (Better: What should I do?)
Like I have to perform a feat or give blood from a vein. (Wayyyyy too simple. Better: "I feel like I have to perform some great feat, or draw blood from my veins.")
I put the chair on its wheels, and gentely take the girl by the shoulders and under the knees. She, on her part, wraps her right arm around me and nuzzles my chest. (No. Better: I stand the chair up on its wheels and gently lift the girl by her shoulders and knees. On her part, she wraps her right arm around me and her face nuzzles into my chest.)

I have several English native speakers complaining the same way, because unlike you I actually interact with the community. I guess, at this point we can safely assure that your claims about your English skills and translation quality are false. Stop with the conspiracy and do your homework for once.

[whizvox]

Hello. I am a native English speaker. I am from the United States and English is the only language I speak.

This translation is abysmal. The first 10 minutes are littered with awkward sentences and seemingly missing words that I'd expect a 6th grader to produce. The first screen alone is 99% copied verbatim from DeepL, and the only difference I see made the sentence worse. You'd been better off keeping the original.

[Tibix]

This conversion, in its current form, is a disappointing release. I think perhaps the worst parts of this entire ordeal are your attempts to hide, twist, and manipulate facts where it makes sense for your narrative. Here, let's go through them:

• You have attempted to gain credibility while making this mod by stating you are a 4LS member, when you have nothing to do with them other than releasing a Steam port approved by a single member under questionable circumstances, you can't time travel back to 2012, sorry to break it to you
• You have attempted to gain credibility while making this mod by stating you are a member of the team who has been working on the LTV translations when you clearly weren't, even you admit that it's an independent translation
• You have attempted to steal credits, since you have not included any original credits for the mod until you were called out for it
• You have stated that you were responsible for the translation, conviniently ignored the question about it being machine translated for your first answer, and only then admitted that the bulk of the work was done by DeepL, others had to point it out

You could've at least tried to explore your options a bit before picking the path of least resistance by going with the most monotonic machine translator commercially available. While it works just fine for everyday life, it is utterly incompetent if you're translating anything worthy of being called art and/or literature. I'm not even saying you should've translated everything by hand, there's nothing wrong with using AI where it makes sense, but this effort is an extremely weak attempt at conveying a work of art that most likely sounds a thousand times better in it's native language given your current translation. Here, take a look, the output by Claude 3.5 Sonnet for the same passage as the screenshot above indicates:

All stars must die.

Even the grandest and most beautiful, even the brightest and most fiery. The fate of every star is predetermined from the very moment it first blazes into existence.

How do stars die? A brief flash, a fleeting pulse, and then the star smolders for ages until it turns to stardust.

Tens of millions of years. An eternity for humankind, yet merely a breath in the universe's story.

But no star vanishes without leaving its mark. Sometimes, a dying star transforms into something extraordinary - a neutron star. Neutron stars are a terrifying phenomenon of physics.

And I witnessed this with my own eyes.

Not on a planetary scale, of course, but it's hard to imagine a closer analogy. At least for me.

Or let us choose something that you could easily run locally on a consumer GPU, heck, even CPU, like Aya 8b.

All stars die.

Even the biggest and brightest, the hottest and most vibrant, their fate is sealed from the moment they are born.

How do they perish? With a brief flash, a fleeting pulse, and then a lingering fade, slowly turning to dust.

Millions of years. An eternity for us, but a mere blink for the universe.

But no star disappears without leaving its mark. Sometimes, a dying star becomes a neutron star—a terrifying physical phenomenon.

And I have witnessed this with my own eyes.

Of course, not in a planetarium, but a closer analogy is hard to come by. At least, for me.

Both of these options would've given you a much higher quality base to work with, but you didn't bother. I don't think you give a single flip about quality or respecting the original work.

[avonder]

…until the said developer realized that he helped you assuming that you're the part of the other team. I have screenshots of that conversation as a proof that you're indirectly deceived Ivan Larionov, the original Letters to Venus leader.

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Translation:

Fellas. Yes, there was a little misunderstanding; I'd believed there had been one team, then it turned out this wasn't the case and there were two translations worked on simultaneously. This is my errancy alone, I haven't been deceived by anybody, we'd indeed communicated about work with both translators, I'd just thought it was a single collective.

I am fine with there being two translations. I cannot judge their quality either way, due to my complete lack of knowledge of English.

Again. No one's deceived me, it's been crystal clear. Please don't fight. The history of developing Letters has seen enough fights and skirmishes already; just remember the A Cure for Dreams affair. I respect and accept any fan work built upon mine.

I'm in close contact with the original leader right now. He is reading your messages. He is asking you to stop.

your whole mistranslation of "Я леплю из пластилина" poem

You know what? You are right about the poem. I appear to have misread the second halves of the first and third verses and made them repeat completely. This will be fixed, and is a slip all projects this big have. Please report anything else your fervor digs up, the uninvolved reader will thank you.

that trainwreck Alex FRD wrote

Excuse me...? :) If this is who you have working on the "real" translation, I'm very interested in what the result would be. Sorry. Legs walking away...
You remember school, right? Some people there had had bad Russian grades. Unfortunately, being a native speaker sometimes doesn't automatically grant you amazing language proficiency.

Hello. I am a native English speaker. I am from the United States and English is the only language I speak.

This applies to you too, man. I'm sorry. I've talked to some English natives I know just to see that I'm not going crazy, and they have no clue what you're talking about either.

Tibix, blatant lies aside, both of your examples contain inexcusable reinventions of what the original text said. These are tools for plagiarism evasion, not translation. Sorry to disappoint you.

Vlad, you really should get someone not from your community (maybe the greater Katawa Shoujo community?) who doesn't have an emotional stake in this and consult with them about the quality of this work. I know you don't want to, but it'll be good in the long run. You appear to be deceived by some weird people right now.

I need to rest now. I know where the amazing statements like what I just put several hundred hours into not being a "labour of love" are coming from, but it's nonetheless a lot. Or you can invite some more of your friends here to spew vitriol, right's yours. My only hope here is bringing more Katawa Shoujo into existence.

[hdkv]

I'm in close contact with the original leader right now. He is reading your messages. He is asking you to stop.

And since when you're working as a delivery boy messaging on behalf of other people?

And, btw, he's in my DMs too, just so you know. Also, I highly doubt the "close" part of contact given what he said to me but I won't retranslate it because unlike you I'm speaking only on my own information and do not resort to hiding behind "big people names" to deliver my point.

You know what? You are right about the poem. I appear to have misread the second halves of the first and third verses and made them repeat completely. This will be fixed, and is a slip all projects this big have. Please report anything else your fervor digs up, the uninvolved reader will thank you.

I appreciate that. As I said earlier, do your damn homework. If you release something, collect the feedback and work on fixes.

that trainwreck Alex FRD wrote

Excuse me...? If this is who you have working on the "real" translation, I'm very interested in what the result would be. Sorry. Legs walking away...
You remember school, right? Some people there had had bad Russian grades. Unfortunately, being a native speaker sometimes doesn't automatically grant you amazing language proficiency.

Alex FRD is a teacher in college in the United States, just so you know.

Hello. I am a native English speaker. I am from the United States and English is the only language I speak.

This applies to you too, man. I'm sorry. I've talked to some English natives I know just to see that I'm not going crazy, and they have no clue what you're talking about either.

Bring your English natives that will contradict them and then we'll talk. We're all open to discussion. But I must point out that you have told us some messages ago that you have C2 level of English skills, and translated the whole work. So maybe, instead of pointlessly bickering back and forth… improve what you did?

Considering the final third of your post: it's great and all talking about "bigger KS community" until you realise that the target audience of your work is English-speaking community. And this community doesn't tolerate missing references and bad AI slops. I reiterate: do your homework. Fix your stuff, release updates and everyone will be happy.

[whizvox]

I'm going to make this simple.

I am capable of forming my own opinion. My conclusion on the translation's quality has nothing to do with my ties to Vlad. I am a volunteer on Katawa Shoujo: Re-Engineered, and that's how I know him. Whether the translation is "good enough", I'll let other people decide. I won't try to change their minds. I appreciate the work you put in to make Letters to Venus more accessible to an English-speaking audience.

However, what I, and several other people, have issue with is how this project is presented.

There is no mention of the heavy usage of machine translation on the original forum post or on the itch.io pages, which gives people false expectations of this being a proper translation. When originally questioned about machine translation, you skirt the question and say you're fluent in English.

Originally, you didn't even mention the original VN on those channels either, giving people false expectations that this is your visual novel and not just a translation of someone else's work.

When it is made apparent that DeepL is used, you say you spent hundreds of hours editing the text, try to hide behind the fact that your helped 4LS one time and that this is a non-commercial project, and that this is an acceptable translation "[to] anyone who will actually read it".

When it is made apparent that several people have problems with the translation, you say that you heard from other English speakers that they have no problems with it.

On Reddit, when someone pointed out some of the shoddy translations, you said "I'm the translator, not the editor, and it's not my prerogative to change these things" (Link).

Do you see what I mean? If you made it obvious from the get-go that this project heavily relied on machine translation, you wouldn't have gotten this much flak. Instead, you keep moving the goal post. Starting with "I am a native English speaker and did all the translations" to "I spent hundreds of hours editing the machine-translated text" to "other English speakers said they have no problems with it" to "it's not my job to edit the writing".

[scott1and]

I might wait until a more refined translation comes out, given everything that I've heard and seen thus far. Kinda glad I didn't jump straight it, otherwise it might have put me off the actual story if a more refined translation comes out.

[Alex FRD]

that trainwreck Alex FRD wrote

I like how the review presented wasn't even mine and yet you still felt the need to randomly "throw shade", as the kids say.

I can write a far more scathing review, if you'd like.