Recommendations Translation 101. Haha

Discussion in 'I'm Looking For...' started by Ylle-QinMo, Apr 7, 2020.

?

Is google translate better than the mtl? Re in translation.

  1. Yess

    1 vote(s)
    10.0%
  2. Noo

    3 vote(s)
    30.0%
  3. Cant tell the difference

    1 vote(s)
    10.0%
  4. No comment

    4 vote(s)
    40.0%
  5. I'd rather use other mediums

    1 vote(s)
    10.0%
  1. Ylle-QinMo

    Ylle-QinMo Well-Known Member

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    Annyeong Mina!!! I am writing this thread in hopes that, well, that someone who is free and willing to give information about, where and how to get a good transaltion application, sites or any medium that can give accurate english, maybe not percent but 70 to 80 percent. I know well that google translate cannot do that job, well, I am not trying to boo them but just stating facts. Though they are helpful if the sentence is not quite lengthy. So Mina... Can I ask for your opinion? Recommendations? Or Suggestions?

    Thank you!
     
  2. RR Vocaloid

    RR Vocaloid RoyalRoad.com Slepragt

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    MTL’s for sentence structure and rough grasp of what might be going on. Online dictionaries for individual words and their meanings strung together with other words. Crying with spelling mistakes, old dialects, and sayings.
     
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  3. Eques

    Eques Translation machine (not)

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    I've long planned to write a translation guide, I guess I should get to it soon... (but no time)
    I personally use four translation sites (at the same time; NOTE - you should paste in the whole paragraph):
    https://fanyi.baidu.com/#zh/en/
    https://translate.systran.net/translationTools/text?lang=en
    http://fanyi.youdao.com/
    https://translate.google.com/ (as a backup, sometimes it makes the most sense)

    In addition, those to help me deal with idioms:
    https://www.mdbg.net/chinese/dictionary
    https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Wiktionary:Main_Page

    Also, usually, the MTL is Google Translate.

    EDIT: if the translation doesn't seem right, you should check the second and third meaning of the word.
     
    Last edited: Apr 7, 2020
  4. raitei

    raitei ⟪Procyon lotor paronomasiaabsentii⟫

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    You forgot aspirin to handle all the headache.
     
  5. Risuke

    Risuke Active Member

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    For Japanese, I go through a process for my translations while using a notepad to put my thoughts and translations while I work my way through the list.
    https://jisho.org/ - a dictionary for my baseline translation
    https://translate.systran.net/translationTools/text - a "smart" machine translatior that I sometimes use to get a rough idea of what is being said
    https://translate.google.com/ - I find that GT is best for translating small chunks. Like 2-3 words at a time.
    http://www.romajidesu.com/translator
    https://translate.weblio.jp/ - a mix of other machine translators to make sure the "smart" translations is conveying similar ideas.
    https://thesaurus.weblio.jp/ - a thesaurus for weird usages of Japanese idioms, sound effects, or just other unfamiliar terms you may find.

    In particularly complicated pieces of text, I break down the sentence and rearrage each section from SVO to SOV. (Japanese sentences are grammatically arranged in Subject-Verb-Object. English is in Subject-Object-Verb.) So something like this:
    タレのかかったかき揚げは、
    食めば揚げ物の香りと共にタレが染み出て、
    ゴボウやエビの風味が漂う。
    Literal:
    kakiage that is covered in sauce,
    if you eat [smell of deep fried food] smeared with sauce [to emerge],
    the flavor of burdock and shrimp had the aroma of.
    Converted:
    kakiage covered in sauce,
    deep fried food smeared with sauce if you eat something comes out,
    flavor of burdock and shrimp to emerge/come out.
    Translations:
    She took a bite, the aroma of deep fried kakiage smeared with sauce while the smell of burdock and shrimp filled the air.

    Also understanding the basic grammar of the language you want to translate really helps out in converting it into English. I'm sure there are a number of nuances for each language for tenses, emphasis, "not" meanings, and such. Sometimes machine translations misses these nuances or incorrectly uses it. And don't get stuck trying to literally translate it. Some things just don't translate well in English, so if necessary liberally translate it to convey it as accurately as you can into English. Just my tidbits and best of luck in your translations!
     
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  6. Illisaide

    Illisaide ╰(✧∇✧╰) Venti!~

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    See, this is why I gave up mtl-ing Japanese LNs and stuck to Chinese mtls. You Japanese translators are amazing and I appreciate you so much.
     
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  7. Risuke

    Risuke Active Member

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    It's just Japanese is such a painful language to learn. You need to know THREE written systems. I've basically given up learning the language and I compensate by really understanding the grammar so I can brute force my way through translations. I know enough to recognize the most common tenses and grammar particles and some commonly used kanji. It gets better over time once you get used to seeing Japanese the being translated. Only downside is that it messes with my English every now and then and I just need to take a break to reset my brain.
     
    Last edited: Apr 7, 2020
  8. chencking

    chencking [Daolord Grammar Nazi]

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    Google Translate is MTL. And there is no "good" MTL, because a MTLer cannot gauge the accuracy of a translation. It can be an useful tool - I use it as a convenient dictionary - but it is not a substitute for knowing the language.
     
  9. chencking

    chencking [Daolord Grammar Nazi]

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    Kanji is really difficult. Hiragana and katakana, on the other hand, are rather easy. The characters are always pronounced exactly how they are written, so you do not need to learn much.
     
  10. Risuke

    Risuke Active Member

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    Hiragana was easy to learn. Katakana on the other hand rarely gets used enough for it to stick. But they appear often enough that I have to check back to a chart to see what it means. When katakana is used for western words, it's simple enough. But occasionally an author will replace a kanji with katakana and you then have to search up the kanji with the same pronounciation and decided which one is the right one. That's my only miff with memorizing katakana. Kanji takes a long while to learn. And it tends not to stick without daily usage and practice.
     
  11. Kemm

    Kemm Custom title

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    The question does not make sense. Google Translating is just Machine Translating, but using specifically Google Translate. Any translation not done by a human is machine translation (unless your dog learns to translate or something like that).

    There are mainly two reasons why I dislike machine translation: it has low accuracy and it's stealing credit. The work is done by the algorithm, not by the credited translator. And if I wanted to read a machine translation, I would have fed the raw myself to the engine (not the first time I've done it when I don't have the patience to get a rough idea of what a text says).