I apologize beforehand if doing this is against some forum policy (at a vague glance, doesn't seem to be). Essentially I'd like some feedback on the chapter I did and also maybe some suggestions. Since the original post (in another thread) is not really being noticed, I decided to make a new thread! (yes, I know...) Therefore, here it is: http://forum.novelupdates.com/posts/112795/ Also to add on to what was said, I have experience in professionally translating from Chinese to English as well as English to Chinese (for money, at University level). My interest now is hopefully to get some active non-MTL-based translator to pick up "Arifureta" and "What Came to Mind During My Third Time in Another World Was to for Now, Get Naked." Therefore... if no one picks those up I might even be desperate enough to MTL them instead of doing proper CN->EN translations >_< That aside, still looking for prospective Chinese WN/novels in general, please note that I have taken a look at whatever has been suggested (Chinese wise) and not been picked up so far throughout the forums (most that are left are not of great interest to me), so please don't just refer me to the pickup request corner. Thanks in advance!
Yeah, I won't be so rude as to start posting MLT'd chapters without checking with Durasama first, just the rate hes going at kind of forced me to MLT the rest for myself...when I want to avoid doing so, not a particular complaint - just my own impatience I guess. So I hope more people join his team or help out translating Arifureta.
weird vocab at some places like "the woman omits but a mouthful of blood". Breaks in the sentences are odd too like I'd have gone with "already suffering from heavy injuries, forcibly breaking through space and covering great distances to another domain of god’s territory had only served to worsen her injuries"
First of all, thanks for the feedback! I just double checked and that's exactly how the author originally phrased it, would it be better if I changed the sentence structure and also breaks/conjunctions to improve the flow? I suppose in those two cases, I should have prioritized the flow instead of the literal meaning/phrasing from the author. As a side note: I feel that the original work was probably not of high enough quality to work on without changing the majority of grammar/structure, while not necessarily a result of the difference between English and Chinese. (A minor gripe but essentially he uses commas for everything, where there should be a full stop etc.)
yeah, this is a different language so the syntax is different. The reader is reading it in English, so flow is more important at times. As long as the reader doesn't lose important detail, changing it to suit the reader is fine.
Interesting. Not to be mean but I'm wondering what kind of paid professional translations did you do? For novels, I always had the dilemma of trying to use the same sentence structure or syntax or whatever. But what ends up happening is a bunch of really ugly looking translations. If you know Chinese, they don't like pronouns (I, he, she, etc.). If you translate as is, it's not like the translation is "bad". It's just ugly. I also suggest being careful with using comma and not stick with what the author uses. I don't know how professional translators work but to me, if you're going to translate it to another language, someone of the other language should be able to easily read and understand it. I dug out the raws and I understand it's the exact way the author wrote it but I really don't like reading a sentence with so many commas that isn't some regulations or something like that. Like I said, it's not "wrong" or "bad". It's just ugly. Maybe grab an editor who's good in English to flush it out to make it smoother.
Thanks for the suggestion! I shall take in consideration what you've said for future translations. I do want to stress that my English is probably proficient enough that I won't be needing an editor, but maybe a once-over after the initial draft would be required (I just once-through'd it without checking). Also to answer your question, I usually do translation work for Universities (research papers, official documents etc), on the side in my spare time, so the text I'm used to working with is quite different. EDIT: As for the structuring, I will be sure to change it as I see fit, since rereading it now, I can see that it is phrased quite awkwardly and rather more uncomfortable in English than Chinese, as can be seen in the quoted passage.
Well, I'm not trying to force you to get an editor or say that your English isn't proficient. But an editor's job isn't just flushing out your translations. He, or she, is there to toss in second opinions as well. I'm not sure about you but whenever I write anything, the first time, the second time or even the third time, I can get different opinions about it. At others, I just get a bit too focused on what I'm writing/doing that I miss out on things, even if I review it again afterwards. You know the saying about it's hard to edit your own work because you know what you wrote? And your mind can basically fill in the blanks or decode slightly complicated wordings? It's something like that.