Grammar in translations

I don't know about all of you but one of the things that really annoys me is when I read a series and there's tons of problems with the grammar. I think it goes along with bad translations in ruining good series. I know some series get editors later on and their quality improves but I find they don't go back fix the earlier chapters. I don't want to call any groups out but mixing present and past tense is one mistake I find in a lot of groups making. I don't mind when there's a mistake here and there but when the whole thing needs to be rewritten is where I draw the line. Do you have the same issues with this?

 

Once you try MTL, anything is better.

I am just thankful that someone took the time to try to translate the novels that I read.

 

Nah .. My english was C .. So yeah

 

Ooh, i agree with you..
Once i realize the translator isn't doing a good job on translating a series, i usually wait till other translators pick it up

 

Depending on the novel, I might bear through it nyaa. I tend to mentally edit it as I go though.

 

Since they already translated it, I don't care~
They give up some of their time for us, so I don't see the point in complaining as long as you can understand it~

 

Translators/Editors don't typically go back to previous chapters because it takes time to do so. They are going for fast releases within a certain margin of quality to make it readable. There is a semi-race for time as most cases you do want to release within a certain time-frame to keep interest appealing. For those Translators who are first starting, they improve over time and if they get proper editors they can iron out the chapters more quickly with better QA. But, its incredibly time consuming to edit things... The edit process frankly takes longer than the translation because that phase on most cases entails having to do localization and footnoting. Translators don't have a problem with reading it, its when they have to convert it into something the general mass will digest is where it takes a different spin. "hmm, It makes sense to me... How come nobody else can read it?" Sort of deal, which I am sure everyone has experienced being the former and latter in that scenario...

If you really like a series and have taken a college level english course and passed, you should consider joining a translation group as an editor. Volunteer to go back and edit previous chapters...

 

Exactly!

 

Hail the Deathblade and his retainers for they are awesome

Hail Shiroyukineko-sama for she(?) is gracious

Hail Sousetsuka, Satou rules

Power otterspacetranslation through warp
(Ran out of hails)

 

While I notice the bad grammar or "This has clearly just been adjusted from MTL" sentences, it's not that big of a deal. What I'd like to know is if the translators would be cool with me fixing all their chapters as I read through them and then sending them a copy of the edits.

Yeah, unemployment is boring. I really do have that much time on my hands.

 

Hail other translators, sorry I am horrible with names but good job on what you do.


Out

You are huggable

 

yea. If more people try to read ahead of those thousand chapters buffer with MTL, the complains would died down alot. So what if theres grammer mistakes? Atleast it comes with complete and understandable sentences. I bet that there isnt that many native translator to begin with.

 

good grammar = more immersion so... sadly this stops me from reading quite a few of the works released =/... Hachinante is a good example of this as I tried multiple times to read but the grammar just destroys me

 

Some grammar mistakes tend to make me focus on them and thus ruin the immersion which is never good. Even though they tend to ruin the reading experience in some cases, I have to admit that I haven't dropped a translation because of horrible grammar (or maybe I just don't remember any such instances). I've come to accept the grammar mistakes because I know that I can't expect a professional level skill from everyone who has taken up this noble cause of filling my free time (and not so free time) with light novel translations to read.
TL;DR.
Yes, grammar mistakes can be annoying and sometimes ruin the reading experience. For me though, the chance to read the plot matters more than the small details.
NB! For some reason writing this comment took way too much of my time.

 

Why not point it or help by becoming an editor...

Some are doing for free

Just be courteous when pointing their errors.

 

A decent high schol educaation is probably able to catch a majority of the mistakes as well. Most college students (like myself) have barely enough time to do much of anything. I can only do the little editing I do. College is hard man.

 

You could be a proof-reader instead, an hour a week or even every few weeks depending on the release schedule of the group your with. You can even be a past-work editor... Going to previously released chapters and editing those, which have no deadline at all.

 

Provide the fixed version at the bottom in the comment. Mistakes happens during translation, doesn't help when you mind go into autocorrect mode to rearrange a sentence in the original language to make sense in english. And then you've the articles and shit that you'd have to add into the sentence, otherwise it would look like broken english. Case in point would be "a the" "the the" "them they" are mistakes that appears quite often for me, to the point that I almost always do a search+replace function for "the the" >.> It helps that one's english is decent, but it all goes out the window once you start translating, especially if you have any sort of distractions (ie. didn't translate a paragraph cause you did it in your mind but didn't type it down cause someone's asking a stupid question).

Another thing is that tenses, while present in other languages, are used slightly different. To the point that sometimes it's implicit (present and past tense written the same way, uncommon) due to the previous sentences (ie. MC slapped someone, he continue to attack him into submission, in english, you'd have MC slapped someone, he continued to attack him into submission. Only need one character at the front of the sentence to denote that the entire sentence is in past tense as opposed to english that has it in every case a verb get used). It doesn't help that sometimes authors also makes mistakes in forgetting that 1 or 2 character that makes the sentence into past tense.

You'd need an eye for editing to fix those stuff, but for quite a many people, they can't turn off their own mental autocorrect. That's why there are editors. I mean, I'm a bloody pain as an editor since I'm so anal, but I'm horrible at editing my own stuff. So yeah >.>

See error? Post it and fix it at the bottom. Make sure you get it right though, cause a seemingly wrong sentence would actually be correct since you read it wrong (english is a shitty language in a lot of places).