Discussion To translators or machine translators

Discussion in 'Novel General' started by Messageboy, Apr 1, 2020.

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  1. Messageboy

    Messageboy Well-Known Member

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    For those who translate chinese novels, have you ever left out parts of raw text that are nationalism or ever consider leaving out the nationalism parts of the text when it doesn't make much difference to the story.

    For example I have been reading chinese novels of a chinese passing or reincarnating in japan or alternate japan. The main character is in a japanese body by blood, family and etc. So he knows and speaks japan most of the time, at least other japanese people can understand the MC language but the author at times have the character say something but want to highlight that he spoke in chinese then just the default language. It is very breaks the attitude since it doesn't really matter if he speaks chinese due to being surprised or just for no reason. We understand what words the character is saying and the character isn't speaking to a chinese person in the story, so it just pointless and annoys me.

    There are some authors that write a sentence about china when it clearly doesn't matter to the story and looks out of place of the current situation that you are reading. Removing the sentence completely wouldn't affect the story.

    So have you either removed these bits, thought of removing them or decide to strictly translate everything regardless?
     
  2. lnv

    lnv ✪ Well-Known Hypocrite

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    I can't exactly judge by context and I'm not a translator, but I will note it isn't uncommon for someone who spoke one language then another language to throw in words from one or the other. I don't think putting in a few words that are of a different language is a problem. Now the nationalism stuff can be annoying though.
     
  3. IceLight303

    IceLight303 Well-Known Member

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    I asked my friend his their response "No, I always try to stay as accurate to the authors original writing. Unless I have to change something for it to make a little more sense in English. I consider it a type of censoring, which I am against. Sometimes that means I have to translate stuff that I don't agree with, or is very racist. So I don't take something out or change something unless necessary to get the author's original message across. "
     
  4. replay

    replay ★Milk and Honey smelling Merchant★

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    hmmm then for english readers to get the chinese nationalism thing. . .
    translator should change it to America?
     
  5. Messageboy

    Messageboy Well-Known Member

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    You misunderstood, I don't mean they use the actual language. I mean they describe the character using that language when for most of that chapter they were speaking japanese to the other characters.

    Example:
    "So you file it like that." Lee Xai told the assistant before leaving the building. ((Language implied to be japanese since the character is in japan, his current body is born japanese and raised by a pure japanese family. His soul is instead a passing chinese. He also keeps the memories and knowledge of original body. ))
    Lee Xai leaves the room and is heading down the stairs but is startled by a passing cat. "What is that?!" Lee shouts out in chinese.

    This example is what I mean where the author for whatever reason has to say the character spoke in chinese instead of just not adding that part, it doesn't matter to the story or the reader that random moment was done in chinese.

    It breaks the mood heavily when the author writes like that when there no reason for us to know it was spoken in chinese or for the character to speak chinese. It would be fine if the character meet another chinese and author is informing the readers that the two characters are speaking in chinese so that other non-chinese characters in the story doesn't understand what they are saying.

    So it actually lowers the quality of the story when used wrongly by those authors, so as translators would you try to improve the quality by removing or changing such parts that clearly doesn't lower or change the quality/story.

    What I mean by changing or removing is only parts that doesn't impact the story at all. So if the story has a nationalism or racist plot point, I understand not changing or removing it. On the other hand if it something that has 100% nothing to do with the plot/story or matters at all then would you remove/change it or even consider doing so.
     
    Last edited: Apr 2, 2020
  6. lehur

    lehur ぼく愛エリス

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    otakutranslate full mtl
     
  7. Amaruna Myu

    Amaruna Myu ugly squid dokja (●´∀`●)

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    I do whatevery I feel like doing at that point in time
     
  8. DragonMage18

    DragonMage18 Outcast

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    I am not a translator or writer, but I can say that you should be carefull about removing/changing anything.
    Afterall even those outlashes can be a way to show their personality, reveal information, set the mood and so on.
    Well I should also say that if the nationalism is constsant, it is just anoying.
    So just do what YOU feel is the right thing to do.
    Tho you could remove it and just add a TL note saying 『another speach about the gloriius china... 』 or something along that line.
     
  9. MangoGuy

    MangoGuy Rambling Mango

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    It is actually true that when someone can speak multiple languages, when they are genuinely frightened/excited, they often tend to express themselves in their native languages. IN the above case, I think the Chinese stress is to indicate this. Eitherway, in general, the job of a translator is to translate, not censor. Yes, censorship. That is what this editing out of certain lines means.
     
  10. ATrueStory

    ATrueStory Villainesses, Historical Shit, Noble Circuses

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    Agree with this response. I do official and unofficial translation from time to time but not on novels.
    The job is to translate, not editorialize the work. Its not my call to remove or add whatever and I dont get to judge what is good or bad, approriate or not or so on. Not my place and my job. That's a form of censorship and its also not my.place to decide what ia good or bad for the audience. I translate the work and let the readers judge for thensleves. What one reader might not like might be okay or great to others. If I start doing that, even it is unofficial, I might be more of an issue than simply translation like misunderstanding that I stole the work because there are alterations to the material. It may come off to others that it is an altered version of the work

    Re:quality of the material. Again not the job of the translator. Quality of the material is already determined by the author, editor and publisher. Quality in translation is how seamsless the understanding of the text, not how to tweak the story.
     
    Last edited: Apr 2, 2020
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  11. nonononononono

    nonononononono NONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONO

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    Author was trying to emphasize the instinctive reaction.

    You can't ask MC to forget about what he had learned in the previous life. For example, even if I have been learning English and living outside China for a few years, if I fucked up something I would still say "Cao" in frustration, instead of saying fuck.
     
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  12. IceLight303

    IceLight303 Well-Known Member

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    Yeah my friend use to do translate as a job too. They would always complain about spelling errors and obvious errors. One example was for a medical document and the machine used was was autocorrected to a dinosaur name.... That stuff is something they will correct (after verification), but the way a writer writes isn't, sometimes the original author can be really redundant and makes it really hard to read. Like you said the point is to translate to change the work.
     
  13. IceLight303

    IceLight303 Well-Known Member

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    That wouldn't be good. There are many people of different countries who read the story. Should a version of each story be written for each country? There is nothing wrong with the author liking their country... It's not a translator's job to censor a work for things that people wouldn't like or help them relate better. If that was the case then dog food, dog something (as a way to curse it), and a bunch of other slang would be changed to the English equivalent. Personally I like dogs, slang across different countries would make it difficult and it's better to stay true to the original work.
     
  14. IceLight303

    IceLight303 Well-Known Member

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    I don't personally think it ruins the flow of the story. If anything it seems like it might be foreshadowing. Someone could be catching onto them. I had two novels that did something similar, on always pointed out how one character had a mole on there hand, the other one was pointing out how a character would tap their chopsticks a particular way. They ended up playing small parts in the novel. I'm sorry it ruined the flow for you but I think the translator was right to do that. Even if it doesn't end up playing a part in the novel.
     
  15. Shibb

    Shibb Well-Known Member

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    Depending on the topic, I'd say it's okay to leave it all in most of the time. Just add in a translator's note if I feel uncomfortable with the message it's spreading or if it's factually incorrect. However, some stupidity should be edited or changed. There is no way I'm putting in something as dumb as walking up to the bartender and asking for a "cocktail". I'll change it so it actually is a proper cocktail name based on description/drawing.
     
  16. tides

    tides Well-Known Member

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    youre a translator not an editor.

    but there is one dude that doesn't get this and he's the translator of i have a manion in a post apoc.
    that dude did everything from rewriting scenes, to censoring all by himself, all according to his mood which is why sometimes there are still adult scenes in the translator novel.

    but then theres was also a novel where i read where the translator rewrote a ton of fights all by himself and made the novel better. but he did put a huge disclaimer that what he did is closer to fanfic than a proper translation
     
  17. Wujigege

    Wujigege *Christian*SIMP*Comedian

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    When you start removing part of the plot or adding.
    It becomes fanfiction.
    The solution is simple. Stop reading the type of stories that have racism.
    I am dumbfounded at threads like this.
    You knew what you were getting into but just keep torturing yourself
     
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  18. ludagad

    ludagad Addicted to escapist novels

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    I've never had the opportunity due to the nature of the novels I usually pick lol. But no, I'd never cut out anything from the original text. I'd put a note at the end of the chapter explaining a bit about the author's growing-up political climate and ask for the readers' understanding.
     
  19. AliceShiki

    AliceShiki 『Ms. Tree』『Magical Girl of Love and Justice』

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    I can't talk about nationalist bits because I never found them in the novels I read myself, but sometimes I make cuts and remove parts of the original text because it doesn't feel very meaningful and the story flows better without it.

    Of course I won't cut anything from the story itself, but sometimes you can just rewrite 3 paragraphs into one and it'll flow a lot better while still conveying the same message... >.>
     
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  20. TrevorMTL

    TrevorMTL Member

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    I don't see a point in removing nationalism, or really any part of the story. That's how the author intended it to be, and if you remove it, you'll have to remove every instance of a hint of nationalism. It's just not worth the hassle IMO. Of course, you can do what you want and I doubt the readers will care as long as it's entertaining and makes sense.
     
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