Your Translation Sucks

As a native English speaker with a moderately good command over the language, this list contains the most common errors I come across on LN/WN translations. The errors happen for understandable reasons because the structures of Japanese and English are so different, but regardless if your translation contains any of these pattern it will sound awful to any native speaker.

This is my first blog post on NUF, so I'm not actually sure it's possible to edit them after they are published, but assuming they are this list will be updated over time.

Reasons your translation sucks:

• Using the word "brave" as a noun. Apparently Japanese has two similar words that both could be translated as "hero" but sometimes an author uses both in the same story with each one having a slightly different meaning. I don't know where translators got the idea that using "brave" as a translation for one of those words was a good idea, but to an native speaker it is highly abnormal for "brave" to be used as a noun. If you absolutely need to distinguish between two words that almost mean "hero" but are slightly different, use "champion" or some other commonly used synonym instead. It might not be perfectly accurate but at least it will read like a proper sentence.
• Monster race / monster / demon / etc. Japanese mythology has a large number of various fantasy species that have no direct analogue in English. It's better to not even attempt to translate those because the English words you will use will bring along inaccurate preconceptions with them (especially variations of "demon"). Readers who come across unusual names of creatures in a fantasy novel (mazoku, for example) will adapt quickly and figure out the meaning from context. In English literature it is not uncommon or particularly unexpected for an author to invent new races, so this could actually be considered a common practice.
• Honorifics. In Japanese the relationship between the people communicating or being referenced has a very large impact on how a sentence is constructed in a way that simply does not exist English. There are three ways a translator can handle this:
  1. Write the sentences in natural English, ignoring the extra information that the honorifics provide. This is a perfectly acceptable solution. When a Japanese person tell you that he would like you to save his brother who is currently being eaten by a dragon it's very important to him that you understand whether the brother is older or younger, but for English speakers that information simply isn't important so we just don't mention it. In practical terms this means changing sentences to include character's first names in places where some other word was used in the source text. In English referring to another person by their first name is normal and using a title of some form is rare.
  2. Leave the honorifics in. This is also a perfectly acceptable solution. English does not have honorifics but we do have nicknames. If a native speaker with no background knowledge in Japanese reads dialog where one character refers to another character as "onii-chan" that native speaker will interpret it as a nickname. After they encounter this same nickname being used by various characters in various contexts they will eventually come to understand what it means. If the translator instead translates that as "older brother" the reader will be annoyed and confused because that's not a natural way of speaking.
  3. Attempt to translate the honorifics into word like sis, bro, older brother, uncle, aunt, etc. If you do this your translation is awful and you should feel bad.
• Dialects. Sometimes characters in stories speak with non-standard accents and translators attempt to replicate this by picking some non-standard English dialect that seems like the closest pick. Don't try this unless you are a native speaker with at least a masters degree in English literature and even then you're likely to butcher it.