Translation Help Thread

[Reiu]

I don't mind, if that means I get to see another round of tantrums like the one over that Hiroyama tweet for Prisma Illya.

[Rafflesiac]

What's a Mutsuri, in terms of romance and relationships?

Rakudai's confusing me.

[Paitouch]

むっつり (muttsuri) is like a closet pervert in this context. Baka-tsuki can't translate or transliterate.

[Rafflesiac]

Thanks.

And they keep calling people Itsuki, but does that mean "that guy" or "that one" or something?

[Paitouch]

I checked the translation and it looks like they're writing itsuki in for 野郎 (yarou), and I can't think of a reason for them doing that other than baka-tsuki is retarded.

[Rafflesiac]

Thanks again.

[Mcjon01]

I checked the translation and it looks like they're writing itsuki in for 野郎 (yarou), and I can't think of a reason for them doing that other than baka-tsuki is retarded.

Sorry, that's my fault, I stalk baka tsuki projects, run the raws through Google Translate, then go through and suggest random nonsense for literally every piece of output to throw off the algorithms.

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Machine translation technology was actually perfected years ago, I'm the only reason it still comes out looking like crap.

[DrJones]

This is a wild guess, but couldn't the typo be 自然意外? "Unexpected nature" or "natural surprises" makes sense to me in that context.

[peanuts]

I don't think Japanese works that way.
It's just a brain fart and I bet it'll be fixed when the Mahoyo vita mk ii port comes out in 5 or 6 years.

[QUOTE=Reiu;1661096]The easy option is to just take out the 以外, so you get something like "I've been scared of Mother Nature ever since I ran into a wild Monobear in the mountains as a kid."
I thought that 以来 at the end was closer to him saying the last time he was scared of.....


Oh?
Maybe this is him thinking that things outside of nature might have scared him before he ran into the bear, and after that nothing could top it.

[Mcjon01]

I thought that might be it, too. But then, I might just change it to something like "the last time he'd felt like this was blah blah bear stuff" even though it's not right just because it flows better between "oh shit I guess I'm scared of secret wizards" and "nah I guess the bear was way worse after all".

[mewarmo990]

I recently got somewhat interested in The Magical High School Underachiever because it's on TV. Found the novels, looked at Baka-Tsuki out of curiosity, and holy translations of (wrong) translations Batman! Pretty obvious it was done from a flawed Chinese version.

Why do people think this is an acceptable practice?

[peanuts]

Easy.
Because no one reading it can tell the difference, or the ones who can don't want to take a look.

I thought that might be it, too. But then, I might just change it to something like "the last time he'd felt like this was blah blah bear stuff" even though it's not right just because it flows better between "oh shit I guess I'm scared of secret wizards" and "nah I guess the bear was way worse after all".

And this sounds like a reasonable fudge. At least it makes sense.


Also kind of late but maybe you could have done "He hasn't been scared of anything outside of nature since that time...."

[mewarmo990]

Finally taking a course on academic writing in Japanese. I suck at it.

[mewarmo990]

Question for native or near-native speakers, or anyone who understands the nuance.

What is the difference between 来る（くる. きたる？） and 来たる? I think I have an idea, or I might have learned at some point, but I would like a second opinion.

来たる seems to be an older usage. I believe 来る is like これから来る while 来たる is more like もう来ている.

Context is 「遅くとも来たる」 vs 「来るも遅し」. My working assumption is that the former is "taking their time but they're coming" while the latter is "they'll come but they'll be late".

[DrJones]

Maybe is written that way to differenciate きたる from くる when there's ambiguity?. My studying materials list 来たる as "upcoming, coming, next". So I read the former as "Coming next as the latest", while the latter sounds like "even though they'll come, they will be late".

[peanuts]

The 来たる is an older usage but it's also 連体形 meaning it's supposed to function as the adjective to whatever noun comes after it, or may not come after it (but would be alluding to it anyway). It could be either talking about something happening in the past or the future, depending on whatever the context is. We'd really need to see more.
Meanwhile the latter one seems to be more likely to be a case where they CAME, rather than they WILL come.

According to my coworker anyway.

Still need more context.

[Paitouch]

"Coming next as the latest"

This one's definitely not right here though.

[mewarmo990]

New question. context omikuji.

失物：ズバコーン

I don't know this onomatopoeia but it sounds like something getting knocked down? Tried to confirm witha near-native friend but he wasn't 100% sure either.

The 来たる is an older usage but it's also 連体形 meaning it's supposed to function as the adjective to whatever noun comes after it, or may not come after it (but would be alluding to it anyway). It could be either talking about something happening in the past or the future, depending on whatever the context is. We'd really need to see more.
Meanwhile the latter one seems to be more likely to be a case where they CAME, rather than they WILL come.

According to my coworker anyway.

Still need more context.

文脈はおみくじです。

「待人：遅くとも来たる」や「待人：来るも遅し」と書いてあります。

連体詞の用法を知っていますが、やっぱりこの用法は動詞のようでしょう。けれど用法をはっきり区別ができま せん。大学生としてちゃんと国語文法コースを一つしか取らなかったので、母語話者に比べて少し紛らわしいと 感じています。

この場合「来たる」のほうが「これからやってくる」という意味だと察するが、いかがでしょうか 。

[peanuts]

In that case, you're right on both accounts, and the 来る was a mistake for きたる. You wouldn't use くる in omikuji for some reason.

Is what he said.

[mewarmo990]

Much appreciated.