Discussion CN novels vs Western novels

It's actually pretty hard to write good prose in English whereas it seems a lot easier to do so in Chinese. English just has a lot more restrictions on word usage, and there are lots of traps to navigate. Chinese is a lot more straightforward and forgiving in comparison.

Counterpoint: Dan Brown is a terrible writer and I have yet to see a Chinese writer who is incapable of creating better prose.

 

it's not really about specific authors. it's about the type of novel/books in question. Rushly written web novel with a huge number of mistakes or inconsistencies, or well-planned book with editors. Not to say there aren't any trash books, but given a general case, published western novel wins hands down against Chinese or Japanese web novel. Not to mention, Chinese or Japanese novels are usually heavily oriented on their own culture with a ton of biases and limitations because of that. You would often find their people glorified and other people dissed in web novels. Western novels are just broader and tend not to be culture-oriented and even span multiple cultures.

 

This comparison are wrong on so many level.

Web novel vs published novel
Daily (or weekly) chapter release vs yearly release
Chinese (where some of the best part are in the way they play with word like poems) vs english (which have different way of playing with words)

Even in the western novel there is huge difference between harry potter and LoTR or Dan Brown vs Agatha.

If you want to compare chinese novel with western use “duke of Mt Deer”, “legend of condor heroes” series, art of war, or the four classic of China to compare.

Honestly when you compare the classic Chinese novel with current western novel, I feel that western novel is the fast food

 

I already pointed out earlier that the comparison should be with what books are actually popular in China as opposed to what Chinese novels are popular on NU. But I'm also making the specific observation that Dan Brown is awful, and the implied corollary that a lot of bestsellers are also terrible.

This is untrue. Firstly, while the OP states "Western novels", the examples given make it obvious that it only really cares about English-language books. Nobody really cares about what French or German novels are like. The English-language publishing world is more diverse than the Chinese one, but the difference isn't massive.

The Japanese webnovel industry may be extremely narrow; designed to have very little appeal to non-otaku readers, but the Chinese webnovel world isn't like that at all. It's a horrible mistake to conflate the two because there isn't all that much similarity other than that both have a lot of amateur writers.

 

What are you trying to say? There is a lot of great books by French writers, which are translated into a multitude of languages. Besides, unless the country is closed off, almost any novel that was published is translated overseas into many languages. Why are you saying English-language novels? Do you mean to say novels written by writers whose native language is English? You can't seriously expect anyone to list you a full set of novels to compare, right? Even if he listed British and American writers, it doesn't mean that German or Spanish writers, or any other for that matter, are not considered.

In addition, I did say you can't compare web novels with print-published books. You have to compare within the same class of novels.
And Japanese novels certainly do have a different flavor, compared to Chinese. They are both still inwardly oriented. If you can, point me which Chinese or Japanese novel writes about Britain or America as a main setting. At most, they are enemies and will get crushed. Each one always write in the novel their culture. Good luck finding Japanese novel where at least someone doesn't crave rice and soy sauce and Chinese novel where someone doesn't seek to find his face at least once and doesn't pay filial piety. Even if the setting is not Earth or it's a fantasy novel. There is only one Chinese novel that I know that doesn't read like a staple Chinese novel, it's Release That Witch. At least no one lost face in that one, and the name of the characters for once didn't come from historical China. But this one is the exception.

 

A translator just translate one language to another language, you need a edit to make sure that the translation and the sentences are correct, and a rewrite to rephrase the structure of the story, and a proofread to make sure there is no grammatical errors. What do you mean translator work alone in professional literature fields. Even Nicky Harman have her team of editors.

 

Who said that there was anything bad about books in these other languages? My point was that they're not the focus of this thread, and this is made clear by the fact that all of the writers given as examples write in English.

There are a ton of Chinese novels that do just this. In the last few months I've read a novel about the Soviet Union during World War II and one about the Holy Roman Empire during the Italian Wars. There are more that take place in the Roman Empire, Ancient Greece, and so on. They aren't as limited as Japanese web novels because what gets translated is only partially representative of what gets written.

 

Art of the war isn't a novel, it's more like a historical formation/army training manual. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Art_of_War
its not a good book, it's a book that killed a lots of people.

 

this is just a false assumption on your part. You can't say that because of one example listed this thread is all about Britain writers

Can't say what I don't know. Since I haven't seen them, I can't really tell they follow the usual trend or not. If it's true that there is a ton of them like that and they are not translated, I wish these would get translated more instead of all cultivation crap we get

 

You’re right that is not a novel, sorry about that.

Art of war is applicable to multiple condition not only for war. Business, relationship, marketing, etc. It one of my favorite books and I’m for sure are not killing people after reading it. Now reading news however bring up my inner serial killer soul

 

Critics like me are going to say that the world would be much peaceful with out that book, Japanese empire wouldn't be over trown 3 time without that, English and France and Spanish wouldn't go to war without that. But even if sung tzu is not going to write it, some one else is going to in the next 1500 years.

Some time it just seem that it have terrible quility controls.
Some bad writing in the translated version =/= bad writing.
The phrase 踢雪乌骓 can be translated into Ebony Steed Which Treads In Snow. In the Water Margin, the translator tried his hardest, but it is just not possible to phrase it any more elegant like the Chinese.

I do agree if it's scientific genre, Chinese do lack any scientific titles.

Its the scientific world of tmx file since the 2010s, translations join effort have already be the norms for Translator now days to keep the translation in check, all the text are going to went though a series of rewrites, the format/paragraphs and layout are all going to change anyways. Nicky Harman was a lacturer for translations and currently the co-chair for translation associations. Also know as the best female translation in the world. I doubt there is anyone better than translating than her.

 

I laughed when I read the title. Dear thread maker, Are you comparing CN authors like ergen or mao ni to the likes of George R.R Martin and stephen king ?

Come on dude, ergen is not even that good. Cuttlefish is a better writer than ergen

 

Pretty sure you don't know about how fuzz match works, it can help you match the style the pass translators used, you will know the exact word choices what should be used.
In fact, I my self can't keep my self staying consistent when there is a week between the use of the phrase, tmx is not just the glossary, it contains notes, dictionary, fuzz and comments. In the past, I have to keep looking back wards, getting my desk full of notes and reference, and all the difference translations for that sentence, and suggestion on which sentence is better.
Its all a mess, translation use to be a solo work because 1 people = a mess, 2 people would be a bigger mess. Thats why before machine aids come out, solo is better than working in teams. But the Era have changed.
You files no longer a mess on the table and scraps paper no longer filled the floor, you no longer have to digup you pile of scrap papers when you have find some some mistake in the past translations. There are now spaces for multiple translators working together. Even the current version of Wordfast and the more popular tools in the market supports file sharings.

 

I doubt that those war are caused by the book. The book is a tool, not some possessed script that will took over a general/king/emperor and make them declare war.

With or without the book, the war will happen. But I’m not an expert on history, so if you have source that art of war actually trigger a war (or wars) please share it. Will be a nice read for my brain

 

Dude they're not in the same league, vast majority of web novels are subpar to hard cover novels. No matter how popular a xianxia or whatever is it will never be comparable in quality to the likes of Harry Potter.
You could compare them to western web novels like Worm and Mother of Learning but again I'd say the best CN ones lose by a bit.
They simply lack drama and emotions a real novel should have, it's all about law of the jungle and power ups to the Chinese.

 

No, that's why the examples are Harry Potter and Dan Brown not A Song of Ice and Fire or a Stephen King's novel. On the topic of Er Gen, that's subjective. I only listed some of the popular cn novels (that are said to be well written) in no particular order. There is a Cuttlefish Novel in there too.

 

not like what you mean as a war fighting for a book or some thing, but look at Napoleon how France became so op when he have the book.
And read this articles https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fūrinkazan
Japanese even print those phrase on their flags.
Minamoto no yoshitsune wouldn't become a legend if not for the book.
You can read geikeiki.