Discussion Are translators usually native to the language they're translating from?

You are probably correct, OP, in that many translators are not native speakers of the language they're translating into. But that is not always the issue. Some translators actually feel that the "adapting" the translation part is unnecessary, or they might even actively reject the idea. Still others are new to translating, and haven't learned they don't have to move every single word from the original sentence into the translated sentence.

For example, you might see some seemingly random words left untranslated (I'm looking at all the people who leave words like "neko", "imouto", and "keikaku" in their translations) or they'll have 10+ notes at the end of the chapter explaining slight cultural differences which they could have adapted by changing a word or two (and before anyone gets on my case, I'm not saying cultural notes are bad; I use them too. I'm just saying sometimes there's an easy adaptation fix instead).

Another example is one you gave, that "don't move randomly" may have been due to a lack of English knowledge, but it could also be because the translator thought every word of the original sentence had to be there. So in that case, "don't move", leaving out the "randomly", would have been against what the translator thought about translating. I don't know what the actual reason is, as I don't know who translated that of course. My point is simply that there are many possible reasons for a bad translation.

 

Be still - don't move
Don't move randomly - you can move but be mindful of your movements

 

There are all sorts of reasons for this in the world of WN translations. Sometimes it’s the result of a non-native English speaker translating from their native language or another second language. But even a lot of native English speakers translate this way.

Part of it is that people are used to bad translations and even think that translations are better the more literal they are.

Some translators naively want to "preserve" what the author wrote—even if the author would never write like that if they spoke fluent English. You get shit like "don’t move randomly" instead of "don’t make any sudden moves" because the latter requires you to commit the sin of doing more than swapping out one word for another.

Then there are the people, some of whom you can find in the replies above, who value the exotic tone you get when culture-based cliches are left in and whine about excessive "localization" if more English-appropriate alternatives are used. In which case, the translators might cater to them even if they do know how to write better.

(That said, there is definitely such thing as too much localization. But using perfectly ordinary English equivalents for phrases that wouldn't stand out to a native speaker as culturally specific ain’t it.)

Other translators, usually those who aren’t sufficiently fluent in what they translate from, believe that Asian languages "sound weird", so of course that weirdness will be reflected in English. Really, that "weirdness" is an artifact of their own poor fluency since all languages sound normal to native speakers. But they don't try to improve because they think their translations are already accurate.

So in cases where the translator is a native English speaker, you still get bad translations because of mistaken ideas about how translating (and language in general) works.

 

most translators are using mtl, then editing mtl.

few translators are using translating as a tool to learn the language, but often these translators do not do much

there are a few people who do know the language, for example retired martial king translator who is Australasian born chinese but these are few, because these people would just rather read the raws instead of doing the thankless job where u translate and people pick apart your grammar.

honestly i would rather go out and have a nice dinner vs sitting at home, translating a novel for peopel to read and then get insulted for translating a novel to read (yes that happened to me)

rainbow turtle said a long time ago that she was using mtl and editing it as well, but im not sure if she is still doing edited mtl

 

I feel like it’s each to their own opinion about whether a translation is “bad” or not. To some (like OP) if it doesn’t read like native English, then it’s considered “bad” and I don’t agree with that.

I personally believe that Asian literature is written rather differently compared to Western literature, and translating it and changing words to make everything seem more “normal” in English makes it lose part of its style.

I’ve also found that English, at times can be rather non-descriptive in which one word in another language needs two or three in English to clarify, which can contribute to additional words in the description of an event.

As for the “Don’t move randomly.” example given, I assume the Chinese was something along the lines of 不要乱动. The third character is probably where the translator got the “randomly” from since the other three characters just mean “Don’t move”. It’s up to the translator what they want to do and depending on the context the translation could be different but I don’t mind either way.

Some post above said a few things about how some translators are lazy. If we are talking about professional translations that people pay for, then sure go ahead and criticize them because someone is paying for a service.

But if we are talking about fan translations that most of the novels on NU have, then I personally feel insulted. Regardless of whether a translation is to your taste or not, fan translators are not getting paid or only get donations, yet they still take their time and energy to translate for others. How can they be lazy when they are taking the initiative to do something that is free for the reader?

If you want to help make the translations you are unsatisfied with better, then you can take the initiative to do so and offer to edit or something.

At the end of the day translators take time to translate the works you read, and if the translation is not up to your standard, then I would advise you to learn the language yourself so you can better understand the stories and difficulties of translating.

 

I speak English as my native language. I learnt Chinese as a pre-teen.

What can I say, I turn my English mind off when translating, and unless I spend fucking ages on the script, don't expect proper English from me. Changing the sentence structure pains me inside as I try to keep as much of the work as close to the original as possible, but I realize that can't be done without some concessions, so I give in and change the sentence to actually make sense in English.
Every time I do this, I bleed on the inside.

 

Because s/he said her/ his mother is stupid. I could understand if their mother abuse them or something but saying her mother is stupid for that reason? Nah. Rude asf. Also, you could work it out without going to China. Make friends with Mandarin native speaker online and have conversation everyday, watch dramas/ songs without subs and there are a lot more ways to improve without going to the mainland. That's what I did when I learned French, I went on Twitter and start making friends with French people. We are living in advanced world, not Ming dynasty.

 

I really admire people who can make a web novel read like it was natively written in English like Bookworm's TL. That requires some real effort that I don't have.

 

Answering the title's question, the answer is... It depends.

For CN novels, there is a decent amount of Chinese descendants that started translating CN>EN, so they were already fluent in CN when they started... How many are those? No idea, but I know they exist at the very least.

For KR and JP though? I never heard of a single person that knew the language in advance, pretty much everyone needed to study it either because they wanted to read the raws or for work or some other reason...


What is very very common though, is the TL not being a native English speaker, which tends to make their grammar not perfect~

 

I don't translate LNs or WNs, but I'm a translator IRL (English to Russian). Although I haven't read many LNs as of yet, some that I've seen made me wonder the same thing. I think that because it's a hobby, people can't find editors to edit their translation. That's the main problem! IRL you always have an editor, even if you're translating to your own native language.

People who said that it's alright to change sentences are correct. To make the translation sound native, you can change sentence structure (even going as far as making two sentences out of one), wording, etc. In fact, it's a common mistake of beginner translators not to do that.

And as for editing, I once helped one fan-translation of a long Durarara fanfiction as an editor, and it was an awful experience. Because I had to rewrite whole sentences sometimes, the translators took great offense. Even changing one single word seemed to offend them, let alone rewriting whole sentences! IRL people learn to translate that way, from an editor, but online... well, maybe I was just unlucky to run into people who didn't want to learn.

Anyway, it's amazing that so many people translate and read Asian LNs and WNs, despite all the difficulties.

 

Yeah, it's pretty much impossible to find editors for fantranslation, so most people end up working alone... But well, at least we have fun with it~

 

Yeah, pretty much no one has editors, except for (possibly) the paid translators. I suspect that many of those professional translations (QI, for example) don't have any real editors, just proofreaders.

 

Dude, I'm gonna assume you are either in primary or secondary school. You don't expect to whine on public, "mummy is stupid cuz she didn't teach me Mandarin. " and proceed to be a snowflake when someone told you're the stupid one here.

I don't know your story is true or not since you start mentioning your tale after I talked about abuse. Nvm. I'm not gonna start on someone who's not mature yet. Go on your life and I pray that you will grow cuz you ain't getting anywhere like that. Amen.

 

Uhmmm, I wasn’t whining. It’s you that focused on those words, thought my filial piety wasn’t enough and still insisting on saying that I was the stupid one even after I told you that I tried every possible method and I would have appreciated more efforts from my mom when I asked her help. Even more if it is possible. It’s you that ignored my explanation on why I have reasons to say that my mom is stupid, it’s not like I like to invent things and write them here if I could spend the time in other ways and in more interesting things. It’s you that doesn’t believe me and didn’t appreciate that I kinda opened my heart, and hurt my shy side. It’s you that is immature, by throwing harsh words when the other party was trying to be respectul and reasonable.
Anyway, I kinda was correct when I assumed you would drag on (yeah sorry me too because I am sensitive) it wouldn’t have changed even if I made examples before. I noticed that you don’t really pay attention to what I wrote... (for example, my original sentence was: “my mom is stupid AND she stopped talking to me in chinese when I was 7 years old” and not “mummy is stupid cuz she didn’t teach me Mandarin” which sounds childish, because MOMMY is more an affectionate and attached word, that CUZ make it seem like there were problems with language only, and a mother language can’t be TAUGHT but is learned naturally. Instead, MY MUM IS STUPID sounds more a fact that is proved more times, that AND unify two sentences, the second sentence may could be another thing, STOPPED TALKING etc. may be strange because she had no valid reasons to do it. Or another example, before you even wrote “abuse”, I wrote “the language is NOT THE ONLY THING I am trashing her for”)
Judging someone’s age by how they write things or tend to think is very superficial...
By the way, I hope you pray very hard, let’s see if I can survive for more than 2 years. If I don’t, that’s your fault. Remember, I am still “immature”, so I need your blessings! Hope you reply to me! I am waiting for you!
Oh yeah, last thing, I am curious, tell me, does gender, age and possibly study interests kinda matter for you?

 

Omg, I didn’t think of that! Yeah, receiving feedbacks is very important for every “creator”: authors, artists, translators, public speakers, language... I agree with you!

 

Native English speaker, but I grew up in an area where cultures blended together, so our local slang (pidgin) incorporated words from various languages, Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Tagalog, Ilocano, Portuguese, Hawaiian, Samoan and others. Point being I grew up finding an interest in a culturally diverse community.

Translating from Japanese into English. I lead with intent by context vs direct word by word translation. In most cases where I am stumped I usually bother my coworkers who used to be Japanese Nationals or are Americans of Japanese descent whose parents taught them their language. And If I can't really get an answer, I bring it up in the Translator's Corner.

As for my translations, I specifically chose the current story (In my signature), mainly because I'm used to military jargon, because my relative was prior military and he always rambled about his glory when he was drunk.

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Moving on I'm a one-man show, so I translate, proofread, edit, provide references if possible and stuff like that.
Kudos to @Aletx , where it helps to have readers point out flaws in the reading, and providing constructive feedback.

There are times where I've had readers point out my mistakes or flaws in my work. And sometimes I receive just blatant you suck comments (which I delete/ or hide from public view). At other times, there's comments about the authors writing or complaints about the direction of the story. While I'm pained from the negative reviews, I still try to translate because:

[1] There are still readers who enjoy this story. Not everyone will be happy to read the plot, but for the few that do, I'll keep going.
[2] I can still better my language skills, my current web series uses info-dumps and exposition, basically "telling vs showing".