Translation Help Thread

[Seika]

People also tell me, "We had no writing in this country and therefore had to use Chinese characters. From this one fact you can know everything about the relative importance of our countries."

I answer, "I need not recite again how troublesome, evil, turbulent a country China is. To mention just one instance - there is the matter of their picture-writing. There are about 38,000 characters in common use, as someone has determined ... What a nuisance, a waste of effort and a bother! In India, on the other hand, fifty letters suffice for the writing of the more than 5,000 volumes of the Buddhist scriptures. A knowledge of a mere fifty letters permits one to know and transmit innumerable words of past and present alike .... Whatever kind of writing may originally have had, ever since Chinese writing was introduced, we have mistakenly become enmeshed in it ... In Holland, I understand, they use twenty-five letters. In this country there should be fifty. The appearance of letters used in all countries is in general the same, except for China where they invented their bothersome system. ... The opinion that the characters are precious is not worth discussing further.

What could have been.

[mewarmo990]

What could have been.

[rant]

It's less that Chinese is too complex (objectively there is no such thing when it comes to languages, it's just your point of reference) and more that Chinese and Japanese weren't fundamentally compatible languages to begin with.

For all his ignorance of linguistics, Kokuikou is actually right that introducing Chinese characters to Japanese was in many respects a poor decision. You could make the argument that it stunted the development of the language, and Japanese academia got tied down in the whole Confucian gentry-scholar bullshit culture until the Meiji Ishin basically. But like us, he had the benefit of hindsight.

anyway, that ship sailed back in the Nara period. It annoys me more that people decided to make it worse and simplify characters.

In China, where a massive proportion of the population was illiterate, someone thought it was a good idea to make characters look less complex (fewer strokes) without making the language actually any simpler to learn. There isn't a decreased number of characters to learn in Simplified Chinese - they just look different now, and in ways that no longer make sense. When you get down to the details, a lot of the essential linguistic aspects of the script are lost, because characters that were made of different semantic-phonetic components that once had structural meaning often got smashed into some new, unrecognizable form.

pure pictograms, fine, but the vast majority of hanzi are not pictograms.

But in Japan they already had a functioning syllabary! It makes sense to remove the number of characters in circulation, to the point that it can be done without compromising hango. But not to copy mainland China's stumbling attempts at language reform. (yes I know the simplified script is not exactly the same, but it doesn't change my point)

[/rant]

[Ossan99]

China main-land government did it and Japanese were never did it (small simplification did after WWII). Why Japanese should use foreigner's characters?

[mewarmo990]

Why Japanese should use foreigner's characters?

Well, that's exactly what I'm asking, but too late now.

[T-Toh]

Somehow, being able to read the characters on a Chinese tea box is like giving thanks to kanji exposure.

[lunarw]

A question. If a man was to say, start a translation on a new series, what should a man do? Does a man ask a permission? or does a man just starts a thread?

[You]

A question. If a man was to say, start a translation on a new series, what should a man do? Does a man ask a permission? or does a man just starts a thread?

you start the thread before paitouch finishes it before you.

[Mcjon01]

you start the thread before paitouch finishes it before you.

Probably too late.

[mewarmo990]

A question. If a man was to say, start a translation on a new series, what should a man do? Does a man ask a permission? or does a man just starts a thread?

Just do it.

The exception being if you intend to translate and publish something that someone here originally wrote. Then, since you can, you should get permission.

[ATTACKER]

A question. If a man was to say, start a translation on a new series, what should a man do? Does a man ask a permission? or does a man just starts a thread?

Depends on how manly a man can be I guess.

[lunarw]

Depends on how manly a man can be I guess.

I was rereading Dance of the Dragons. Looks like I was really influenced by what I am reading at the moment.

On another note, for 魔法使い in Fire Girl. Should I use Magician to follow other translations norm or does it mean like a wizard (a job in D&D)?

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Also, is it forehead twitching or eyebrow twitching?

[Paitouch]

Oh wow, please go ahead and do that.

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Thank god, someone is finally here to save me for once.

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I went with Magician for 魔法使い btw.

[Kotonoha]

release what you've done pai

[lunarw]

Doing this I really starting to think you guys are some kind of superhumans. How do you make the English sentence flow more smoothly? How do you know whether to add something and risk changing the meaning or translate it as it is and risk unnatural sentences?

[Mcjon01]

You waste six whole hours just thinking about lions and kittens, that's how.

[Kotonoha]

How do you make the English sentence flow more smoothly?

Sometimes if I put the translation aside for a while and come back and reread it later just on its own without comparing it to the Japanese text, I notice parts that sound awkward and fix them (when I didn't notice them the first time around because I was too focused on accuracy)

You waste six whole hours just thinking about lions and kittens, that's how.

HEY TOBIAS THIS IS FROM MAHOYO

[Mcjon01]

Sometimes if I put the translation aside for a while and come back and reread it later just on its own without comparing it to the Japanese text, I notice parts that sound awkward and fix them (when I didn't notice them the first time around because I was too focused on accuracy)

That's what I do, too. Then I let it sit for a while and go through comparing it to the Japanese text again, then I let it sit for a while and edit it for readability again. Then I delete it all and start over.

[Arashi_Leonhart]

Doing this I really starting to think you guys are some kind of superhumans. How do you make the English sentence flow more smoothly? How do you know whether to add something and risk changing the meaning or translate it as it is and risk unnatural sentences?

You study English and Japanese at the same time at a university.

Actually this is a terrible idea and I would not recommend it to anyone.

[Paitouch]

You waste six whole hours just thinking about lions and kittens, that's how.

I think in memes.

[mewarmo990]

You study English and Japanese at the same time at a university.

Actually this is a terrible idea and I would not recommend it to anyone.

Last semester I took courses given in English again for the first time in two years.

That felt weird. But it was nice to turn in a paper and not get 20% of my grade off just because I can't write like a native :|