Discussion Being a Japanese Translator Sucks Right Now

yeah, see, i've seen a buncha threads like this on NUF before. Readers are a bunch of whiny little biches tho and they always will be. Honestly you shouldn't have to even put up with it, they feed off your kindness like leeches. Sometimes i feel translators are even a bit masochistic.

Even if you could you cant really dish out a whole lot of chaps a day either or people will take you for granted even more so asking thme to support you money-wise for access to early releases isnt a bright idea in the first place. But they'll still bitch either way. Surprisingly enough i dont see this much with chinese novels despite them being like two thousand plus chapters long where a slow update rate would be even more concerning in their cases.

I think that idea you offered is pretty interesting, exactly how would you go about it?

 

Well I can't understand this whole quantity over quality when you have to figure out yourself what a sentence means because it doesn't make sense especialy since i'm not a native english speaker. But i wouldn't freak out over every little mistake I see we are all human and I don't even want to know how many mistakes I made in my post.

For release speed i don't care about it when a chapter comes it comes... when it's daily i'm happy about it. And when it takes a week oder two than so be it. You guys translate in your free time so you have other responsebilitys to fullfill aside from translating (Work, Family, Friends other RL stuff).

I apreciate the efforts of the translators who spend hours doing this and enjoy reading their translations.

 

You shouldn't generalized the whole country for that. I care about the quality, I care about grammar and I do speak English. And I also pay for the wn I read. >__>

 

I thank you for your efforts, honestly ever since the dmca agaisnt bakastuki i havent felt any real sense of a community in the Jp LN... but I still enjoy what little we get... so once again I thank you for your efforts.

 

Good Rant. Nom approved!






I read it all. This is worthy of some salt. I’m a-okay with slow releases. The only thing that keeps me from reading more JP novels are the genres. ^_^

 

The spiral still continue yey...

 

This is probably part of the problem with the unpopular ones being mostly cliched or just bad in general. The 'Korean wave' will probably drop in a few years once the D - M - C - A starts popping up for Korean novels or when people get sick of Korean cliches like they got sick of Japanese cliches.

 

from what I know, majority of translators in my group is pretty masochisic lmao. They even pouring salt to each other wound.


P.s: flowingcloud and I are in the same group

 

I would like to say that there are plenty of interesting Japanese novels that are either not paid any attention to or left to be discovered. Currently the community are either
1. I read isekai
2. I don't read isekai, so I don't read Japanese novels at all
If readers actually read other Japanese novels that aren't isekai, more people would be motivated to translate non-isekai Japanese novels.

 

I'm just speaking of the fact, and the current standing of many of japanese translations. I cannot account for minority when the countries I listed has over 50 million in their small land. what I'm saying is I can't account for people who can't even be considered a minority, 1-10 people won't change the generalization of over 10000-1 million> people

 

Lol

 

I don't often read Japanese novel coz I don't like issekai..
But after I read your rant,, maann.. I want to give you a hug.. you got it really rough..

and this's totally right. I'm one of them

 

This made me shed a tear. Yeah. Being a JP translator isn't really worth it. JP novels are way past their prime right now. Can't even support them because they are so goddamn overpriced as f. Started tling a good but not too eye-catchy novel to test the waters but I stopped because of lack of support and the hostile environment.

 

I'm rather simple minded in that regard I see a novel title i follow certain steps

1. The name is written in english -> i look at the synopsis and tags and if it sounds interesting I give it a try.
2. The name is not written in english -> i look at the synopsis and tags if it sounds interesting I give it a try.


EDIT: who cares about isekai or not if the story is interesting i read it.

 

Great post but it won't change anything.

The worst scum of the earth are always attracted to free stuff.
So that's why you get 75% assholes to 25% people who appreciate your work on all translations.

 

The thing that sucked up JP was the fact that it was a pioneer. DMCA for everyone cuz the companies didn't understand the valie of fan TL!
Now, for CN, they do. And they managed to rope them in and are earning pprofits. Japan needs to catch up.

 

I think it is caused by these things:
1. people are just too spoiled with fast release from CN novels.
cn novels has fast release because they usually has thousand of chapters(sometimes with only a few paragaph for each chapter), while jp novels tend to have 10 or so chapters per volume but with a long text.

back in the days we are lucky to get one chapter a week...

2. money
most people doesnt want to pay anything to read a novel while most translator translate only because they want to get paid, either by patreon/ad/etc. it is not a good combination.
even so, translator need money to live too.

3. a lot of readers think that translator owe them or something, they tend to be rude just to get a new chapter.
and people often forget that some translator are doing it for free because they like the novel or they want to improve their language.
and just to be clear, sometimes translator can be a dick too.

as for grammar thingy, everyone need to remember that even someone that born in english speaking country (UK/USA), and/or then live their whole life in english speaking country, doesnt always has perfect grammar. i am sure that even the people that complain about grammar doesnt have a perfect grammar. we are human after all, human are not perfect.

If everyone learn to be more patient, i am sure that most of the problem will be gone.

and if you think that being a JP translator sucks right now, take a break, or a long break if you must, play some game or something for a while. it might help. just dont get too stressed out of something that happened in the internet.

edit :
i forget to add something.
people need to respect DMCA notice too. there must be a reason why DMCA are sent. it can give you legal trouble too if you ignore it. who knows, maybe a wn/ln never get to be published/translated because someone already translated it and doenst adhere to the DMCA request. it is possible you know, even if the chance are small, very very small.

and there are some people who said that translator never need the author permision to translate. In my opinion translator need to have a permision from the author, and if the dont give it, then drop the novel. you need respect that author wish, wheter you like it or not.

 

The problem with Japanese translations in my opinion is that its way too homogenous, a few years ago it was the big titty harem craze now its the isekai with big titty harem craze. From what ive seen and read most translators pick up what they find interesting and fun not what people ask them to pick up, and the flavor of the month(fotm) atm are isekai harems/revenge/op.

 

I start with like most of people, manga to JP LN and then to korean and CN novels(Coiling Dragon, The Legendary Moonlight Sculptor) than stuck to CN because of mostly fast Translation and massive number of novels , This part we think same
JP novels still good in my opinion but you forget something, good JP novels have manga and anime adaptations this lower the number(I read overlord manga and watch anime but I keep myself to read novel because I very much like anime, at the sametime raeding Overlord novel, I read another novel in my must read list) justlike in last 2 year some good CN novel became manga but their manga and anime is not as good as novels and their novels way ahead of anime, manga and mostly finish(raws and some TL) I go to orginal source, I like that sh*ty manga adaptation, novel must be good but mostly JP adaptation is good and when anime is over mostly ahead of slow and regular JP translation.
There are massive number of anime and manga, all of them look each other and JP novel counter part. sory for bad engrish

 

I thought that was the norm since bt days. Am i wrong?