Discussion Differences in Translation between Japanese, Korean and Chinese.

Chinese authors write in a style similar to Old English.
It is uses more flowery language.
Korean novels and Japanese use more slang and the authors are usually younger even teenagers.
Chinese authors can even be Ph.D graduates who switched to a lucrative web novel industry.
Basically, Japanese authors can be high school dropouts.
You are basically comparing Chinese light novels(even though it's online) to Japanese web novels.
The Chinese novels are paid products.
The Japanese novels on Syosetu are equivalent to RoyalRoadL or Fictionpress or Wattpad.
For the Korean novels, given the smaller population in comparison to a China and the newer media influence to English audiences, Korean translators are very small.
You are most likely reading edited MTL since Korean novels are usually well published and use editors

 

I think it's mostly the way japanese people speaks vs english etc. You can only recognize it if you try reading it often. I don't just mean about omitting the subject though.
Not to mention they have a lot of words that can be translated in different ways depending on where you use said words. Mtl can't properly deal with that. And sometimes mtl just brainfarts and makes no sense at all.

 

For JP in my opinion, as mentioned in this thread, a lot of it is implied. Usually, you don't know if it's third or first person unless the author specifically gives it away. You need to be able to follow context and the situation to be able to understand what's being talked about. And their sentence structure as well is very different, and just the way they use their language.

For example, there are times where a character would go "blah blah ore wo..." but because it doesn't mention the verb, you can only infer what they're trying to say from the text before and after that. And half the time, you won't have a good guess as to what the verb was supposed to be.

Another is that I think there's more Chinese TLers that know good English than there are JP TLers. Almost all of JP TLers on this site know Japanese as a second or even nth language. Lots of nuances included in the text as well. It's a very nuanced language. Idk about CN or KR since I don't know those.

 

I have had Korean translators quote $300 to translate one chapter.
Maybe that is why they are endangered

 

It could also be that Korea (from what I’ve noticed in general) is more known for webtoons than they are for webnovels. Aka Japan and China are the go-to languages to learn when it comes to webnovels.

Japan because it’s common knowledge that Japan has tons of webnovels/light novels, and China because there’s just a lot of Chinese TLers? This is just an observation though.

Though I think any professional TLer would charge that much. I know of a JP TLer that charges $0.04 per letter. For webnovels that have a ton of letters, that adds up to a lot.

 

I cannot afford professionals but let us not kid ourselves.
Capitalism doesn't work that way.
Tommy Hilfiger and Walmart out source to sweatshops in Asian countries.
Americans use unpaid interns.
Japan and most of Asian exploit interns or rather apprentices and take credit for their work.
That is why the manga and anime industry is dying.
No one wants to pay the professional rate

 

True. Though I do think that applies to not just Asia but everywhere depending on the sector. Also, with manga and anime, it's just very oversaturated with so many people so that drives their rates down. But that's digressing from the thread's topic, but I do agree with things you said.

 

From what I know, it is no longer oversaturated. People are waking up to the abuse and picking other professions. The allure of being the next Osamu Tezuka or winning a prize is no longer a good draw.
https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/fe...ordable-housing-for-animators-matters/.119155

When thinks are free or too cheap. Someone is getting exploited or suffers

 

I think it's just the translator's language/writing skills and how comfortable they are with localizing the content.
Some examples of great English translations in Japanese and Korean:
Hako no Naka (BL /japanese)
Kill the Lights (BL /korean)
Legend of the Sun Knight (REG /japanese)

 

I think the fault partly lies in sentence structure. Although these three languages, being Asian and having common roots, have a similar way of expression (like answering "Saw" to "(Did you )see that?", completely omitting pronouns and context...) When it comes to grammar, Chinese has the easiest and Japanese has the most complicated grammar. And translators who try to preserve original text integrity get caught in this problem. Like you'll have a sentence: "Because of having my engagement broken due to false accusations, I'll go live an ordinary life in the border lands" (guess the original language). Lots of sentences in Japanese are sort of passive tense too, which is mostly unacceptable in English as it makes things hard to read for native speakers. Which may be why you find text translated from Japanese somewhat clunkier.

Also, Japanese has Subject-Object-Verb structure, while Chinese has Subject-Verb-Object like English. This is very simplified, since most sentences aren't just three words and exceptions exist. But it gives you an idea why it's a bit harder to properly structure the translated sentences. There's lots of editing going on there for sure. I can't say much about Korean, since I can only read it, but haven't dealt with its grammar. I know the grammar is even further away from the English one in some areas...like adjectives don't exist, they're formed by verbs... That's why you can notice a common mistake in Koreans who've just started out learning English - mixing up adjectives with the same root like bored/boring.

The reason MTL deals best with Chinese is its easier grammar that's comparatively closer to English. Of course, things like plurals, tenses and other stuff that miss there, or certain particles for nouns that you don't have in English, will always leave you with a strange translation. But at least it's understandable.

In the end, it depends on the translator's decisions and experience. Honestly, as long as it's not just edited MTL and they've put in some effort, it's all fine for me.

 

You know all three languages?
I am so jealous. I can learn anything but languages.
Maybe I need to date a noona or meimei to motivate myself

 

I know of all three languages. Can't say I actually know them. I've studied linguistics though. It really helps you understand a language's structure, pronunciation, closeness to another language, etc. It can kinda help you learn it. A noona can help you learn too, lol. But mostly watching lots of kdrama and reading a few grammar books will help you the most (Korean, that is). Korean is the easiest to learn to read though, that's no feat. It took me 2 hours - because the videos I watched that taught the letters and some related rules were altogether 2 hours. There's logic and pattern to the Korean alphabet, so I think it's excellent. I learned to read hiragana and katakana by taking a children's book in Japanese and opening a grammar book with the hiragana and katakana tables and reading them one by one until I remembered and started reading quickly. That took a few days and needed some brushing up regularly. As for Chinese characters, it's all repetition there. The more I see them, the more likely it is that my brain retains them. You also have to listen to a lot of movies or series to train you brain to recognize the sounds and separate the stream into segments and then words. If there're subtitles below, it really helps you pick up some phrases. Anyone who's a fan of anime has picked up some Japanese that way. Same for kdrama, lol.

Honestly, as long as you can learn stuff, it means you can remember stuff. Learning a language requires you to remember a lot. You can develop a strategy that works for you if you really mean to learn another language.