Traduttore = traditore

[Silentcook]

Dropping coins into a deep well.

http://katawashoujo.blogspot.com/2010/1 ... itore.html

[Scarlet Fox]

I think the only reason you need is because you want to. Any other reason is just not good enough. Egoism is most important, like you said.

I wish more people would realize this when it comes to many translation projects I've seen. Be it anime, light novels, manga, or anything, it's annoying to even me who knows only English when I see people acting like the translator is doing it for them, and they're taking too long or it's too imperfect for them. I guess 'not caring' about what others think is also important. Also, I don't really agree with the whole 'your translations will always fail' thing. If, for some unfathomable reason, you're doing it for others, if people enjoy it then that's good enough as a victory, I believe. If you're doing it for yourself, well, you killed some time and you got better translating. Victory. Kind of.

[vermithrx]

[T]hat boy is interesting. Maybe I am like that boy, or maybe you are. Maybe everyone is. Doing things you can’t do, just because you can.
~Rin Tezuka

There's a reason this is my favorite line from Act 1.

[trhvmn]

Translation is serious business.

Very serious.

[Wan-wanniche]

Translation is all too easy to fuck up. But, in my view, as long as the meaning is there and someone has done a (relatively) decent job with using proper sentence structures (per language of course) it's all well and good. If someone wants to bitch, they can do their own goddamn translation.

[Lawls]

"Doing work knowing you'll fail, striving every time for an impossible perfection."

*insert Shirou's rebuttal against Archers speech here*

despite the negative tone I found the post oddly empowering.

[delta]

DUDE THAT'S COOL AND ALL BUT WHAT ABOUT HONORIFICS

[Rocket Science]

Yeah no. Let's just not go there, shall we?

[Juno]

Let us honor the honorifics by keeping them to the languages that actually have any use for them.
Yes I know that message was not serious.

[Le_Shad]

By the way, the French translation is meh.

[Mirage_GSM]

... then, you're gonna hit a line spoken by Rin, and you're going to start weeping.

Actually I plan on calling dibs on Rin's storyarc when Acts 2-4 come online. I thought her scenes were a lot of fun to translate in Act 1 - as well as a challenge.

Regardless of which way you picked, there are two people out there who chose the other two ways and will in no uncertain terms inform you that you're wrong.

In another translation project, there once was someone who registered on the forums specifically to write half a page of text to praise our translation. That kind of thing does wonders to boost one's morale.

I only have two answers to this, and forgive me if they seem obvious: first, because you want to. Second, because you're going to expand an audience.

Naturally, I wouldn't invest so much of my free time into a project, if I didn't have fun doing it, but the other point is also valid:
Even though most members of the german target audience would be able to understand the english version of KS, but most still prefer waiting for a translation before going to the trouble of downloading it.

Doing work knowing you'll fail, striving every time for an impossible perfection.

Heh, each and every time I reread a chapter I have translated, I find another thing that I could change a bit so it sounds more natural. In that sense working on a VN is way better than translating print media, because you can tweak your work even after it has been "published".

But, in my view, as long as the meaning is there and someone has done a (relatively) decent job with using proper sentence structures (per language of course) it's all well and good.

Even getting the meaning correct can be harder than one would think. sometimes a comma, placed at the wrong position, can completely turn around the meaning of the whole sentence:

Code: Select all

Sie schafft es fast, das gesamte Regal umzureißen. - She almost manages to bring the entire shelf crashing down.
Sie schafft es, fast das gesamte Regal umzureißen. - She manages to bring almost the entire shelf crashing down.

But if that was the only important thing, few people would need a translation. A good translation - like any literary work - should immerse the readers in the story without them going "huh?" every three lines:
Does the resulting sentence sound like something that would actually be used in a conversation? Would character A speak using a sentence like that? Would he speak that way while aressing character B?
Then there's stuff you need to consider when working in a team, like consistency. (That can be a problem, even when you're working alone.)
Anyway, I do know that some people will not like our translation, but I'm still looking forward to feedback once it's out.

[SirMax]

Regarding the speaking the target language as a natural speaker issue, I have a friend who does some anime subbing who doesn't really speak Japanese, but his job is to take translated episodes and turn them from English to natural English. Do most translation teams have someone like that? Because a lot of them time it seems like having someone like that on any translation team would really improve the final product.

[Mirage_GSM]

Converting something from "language X" to "natural language X" is usually more work than redoing the job completely.
It skips the process of trying to understand what the original translator was trying to say. This is especially hard, if you don't have the original text as reference. I saved some of those bloopers from earlier projects, because looking at them now, they are hilarious, but I do remember the time I spent figuring them out...

Guessing game for those who know a bit German:

Er kam ziemlich wörtlich in der Kerbe der Zeit an.

What was the line in the original english version? Solution:
He arrived quite literally in the nick of time.

Of course, that's for really bad translations only. In our team here, we go over each other's translations for fine-tuning, and of course this improves the final product. Everybody makes mistakes or simply typos and it's always easier for others to find those than it is for yourself.

[Smoku]

Translation really is a tough nut ...

[Minister of Gloom]

positively. One of the most difficult mental challenges I had to face, and I only ended up translating about 30 scenes out of Act 1...
I can blame the fact that the supporters all disappeared all I want, but in the end, yeah, it was just very, very difficult.
And now I know that I will never be able to make a living as a translator. At least I learned something from the whole experience.