Discussion Let's talk about the quality of translations

First and foremost I just want to say that I don't want to attack any individual. At most I want to attack this community which I am part of. And although this is mostly just my unstructured ranting I do think that there is a big problem in this community and just mindlessly reading novels without complaining won't help anyone.


So I want to know why a decent majority of all (mostly Japanese )webnovel translations are complete and utter trash.
Rarely do I find a sentence without any mistakes in it.
I do understand that most translators aren't very proficient at speaking and writing English, that's fine
because they have editors don't they? At least many say they have? But like I said above rarely do I find
a single sentence without mistakes in it and that is with the novels where there is a supposed editor
assisting the translation. So I do hope that those editors at least don't get paid for their "work".
Next point what is wrong with the consistency of new chapters. The only times I see consistent updates is when the novel has an update frequency of 1 chapter ever other week or every month. And well, I don't believe that those small bite sized webnovel chapters take more than a few hours to translate.
Now you might say that the translators are extremely busy and are thus unable to be consistent.
But then I would suggest don't start something if you aren't able to commit to it.
Why do I so rarely see distaste within the community towards bad translations?
Why do people keep saying "thanks for the translation" when the translation is complete trash?
Why does no one say "hey author here are 100$ go and take some English lessons"?
Why is this community such a circle jerk?
Why do people not give constructive criticism?
Do the people that speak proper English enjoy terrible grammar and sentence structuring?
Is it fun to get ripped out of your experience of reading novels because it is riddled with mistakes?

 

How about you become the translator/editor than ranting??

Also JP novels isnt a thousand chapters before it gets completed so they can take their time and wont have to take years before its finished, unlike CN.

If you dont want to read trash translations, you can stop reading. Simple?

 

Because most of us are leeches, myself included, contributing nothing to the translations.
Because many of us understand that the general writing quality that comes from authors of light novels/web novels are not as high as they should be, but we don't care enough to do anything about it because we are leeches.
For those that pay the translators, you can't force someone to be better, unfortunately.

 

I dont see how that is a valid argument ?
your products are of poor quality and trash
"how about you become a software engineer"
how is that a reasonable response? if some is of poor quality you know you dont have to be in that field to know it?

 

Apply to be an editor mate.

I don't bother with my writing even in my language classes so I can't care less about it while reading.

 

I've seen maybe a few 1k+ JP novels. Whereas for CN...
CN writers if they have on 17k, qidian or some other site, they all get paid one way or other, or am I wrong ?
KR have munpia monopoly, but they should still get some payment.
JP have syosetsu which is entirely free as far as I know ,meaning that JP writers don't get any payment until they're licensed or similarly.

Those are beside the point, but still facts.

As for why there's little distaste for individual translator quality ?
We don't talk about that. Because they're still human and if everyone was to give (constructive) criticism, some would actually gratefully take it, and some would rage on how the readers are ungrateful leechers.

But putting it frankly, if it's better than MTL, people usually have no problems other than a minority trying to improve, usually with visible grammar problems, rather than reading the chapter's raws, then commenting on a better translation.

Not everyone reads the raws and would therefore know the actual basis for translation and not everyone knows the languages needed to translate it fluently . And even if they did, they might not be willing to tell them that.

Hence the comments about poor translations are therefore mostly about grammar faults or word choices.

 

OP is stating that some translations are trash and looks like editors arent doing their job. If he can find those faults and rant then why wont OP become a translator or editor.
Every single whiner rants about the translations, then why wont they fill up the spot that they find is problematic?
They want good, readable translations, then do it themselves and if they cant then shut the hell up.
They dont help the translators/editors due to their whining. Seen novels got dropped just because every freakin grammar error is spammed and faulted.

 

You could also be the one to give 100$ so they take english class~

 

I find the same problem for most JP translated LNs too. It's hard for me to understand and get deeply into the stories because they just not make sense the way the stories are translated. As an ESL speaker, I find it hard to understand with my already limited English proficiency, and some translators just don't give a crap.

BUT, there are some cases, where the translators already stated in their announcement post, they are not proficient on either English or Japanese or both. So, their works are kinda how they improve they language.

And some, of JP translation is not really a translation, they are improved version of MTL, so...

JP sentence structure is different than normal SVO in English, I think? And their sentences always ommitt out the subject (he/she/I/they) especially in dialogue (?). Anyway, their writing style is just different. The editors will get major headache to changed them to fit with proper English style (they are not professionally paid to worth the effort, mind you).

Personally, I hate bad translation. Do you think people don't try to criticize? But, what do you expect?

1. Get professional editors? (They're mostly volunteers)
2. They can't improve their English overnight.
3. They may not read your comments among hundreds other comments.
4. Some are fan translation, they don't get profits and only updates if they have time (no time to triple checked)
5. Some translators easily get discouraged, and stop translating (some people are too harsh)
6. Too lazy man (esp that comment section that used Email, or sign in to comment shit or that I'm-not-a-robot thing. But I love Disqus)
7. At least you don't have to MTL especially the JP one. You'll go dizzy in no time. Be grateful you're introduced to that story and they update it on time.

There's this quote, 'If you don't like it, read something else'. And that's exactly what I did to most Japanese LN - I dropped them, no need to waste my time. Find better translation. Moved on.

 

Every single whiner does not help because they are not invested. Why would a person assist with the translation of a project that does not grip him. Leaving a negative comment and dropping a project after chapter 10 is much easier for a person than investing ones own time into something.

 

so you are a jaded individual I mean you could have simply said " hey if you see errors in the translation try to point them out to the translator so they can improve on it in the future" I would be more accepting of your opinion but you seem to be a disgruntled "edgy" fellow

 

Your rant can simply be solved if.. you opt to become the editor for some of the novels that you read to be able to edit them and have no mistake.
A better solution than a rant.

 

If I had the ability to edit/translate novels I'd just do it for myself without wasting my time here.

 

You do have the ability to spot the mistakes in the chapters. What makes you say you don't have the ability to be an editor?

Not enough time, personal problems, not feeling confident in yourself regarding editing officially or?

 

Confidence. I suck at placing commas.

 

I always find it funny when people suggest that someone complaining about editing issues should apply to be an editor instead. On top of having to read the poorly edited translation anyway, they are now tasked with fixing it too! It solves the issue for other people, but it actually doesn't help the person complaining at all.

 

And also why would a person who has just read a shitty translation think
"Oh boy I don't want other to read such a shitty translation so I better waste my time to help others"
Ridiculous.

 

Better than ranting on NUF for poor grammar and poor editing.

As i said before, if he can point out the error then why not help. If he dont want to then shut the hell up. Grammar Nazi's should just hide behind their screens and shut up.

If you dont want to read shitty translations then you could stop reading that novel rather than being a grown up whiner.

 

Alright... Let me try giving an in depth answer.

You and I probably read different WNs, because I read plenty with very few mistakes on the English... Most WNs I read do have a mistake or two per chapter, but I just shrug it off.

Actually, editors are pretty rare, I don't have any, and most people I know don't have any either.

Also, if you're talking about the JP WN translation scene, almost nobody is paid (including the translators), on the CN WN scene, there are 4 sites that have paid staff and pretty much everyone else works for free.

So... Both editors and translators are, more often than not, are volunteers that just so happened to want to share the novel with others, their level of English doesn't matter much in that case.

Correct, people are busy and are unable to dedicate their free time to translate more than weekly or even monthly chapters.

Personally speaking, I take around 4h for an easy chapter with around 2500 English words... That might not seem much for you, but you need to realize translators are people with their own hobbies and their own life. They also love reading, playing videogames, dating, oversleeping and all the same stuff you like.

Translation is a hobby that they dedicate as much time as they want... If they dedicate 30 minutes per day to translating (which is a totally acceptable pace for a hobby), they would release 1 chapter every 8 days... In other words, weekly chapters.

Doesn't seem that strange now, does it?

If it does, than stop thinking of translation as a hobby and start thinking of it as volunteer work, it's something that you enjoy doing, but you earn nothing aside from some thanks from the people you helped... It's hard to dedicate yourself much to it everyday, so 30 minutes per day is more than enough for most.

The ones with monthly (or slower) release paces usually have either very very very long chapters or are very very very busy.

Well, there are multiple answers to this.

Did you ever start a game and stop it midway, without ever finishing it, even though you were liking the game?

That is the simplest answer and I think it speaks more than enough, but let's give another...


Ever heard of Baka-tsuki? Pretty much where the translation scene started... Baka-tsuki was ran 100% by volunteers and had a pretty slow release pace... Why did nobody ever complain? Simple, there was nothing else to read, so people were happy that there were some people willing to spend their time translating.

Right now the translation scene changed quite a bit, and you can choose from a wide variety of choices... But then... Why not translate something that you can't dedicate yourself to? If the readers don't want to read it, that's okay, they lose nothing. If they do want to read it, you're adding more variety to the nigh infinite amount of novels out there.

It's as simple as that, nobody loses anything from more novels being translated, so... Rather than translating without committing yourself to it, the better question is "Why not translate without committing yourself to it?", it's as simple as that, you can do it, you want to do it, so why not do it? It's free and it's your own use of your own free time for your own selfish whims.

Having something to read is always better than the option of reading it on google translate after all~

Because people are happy that they have something that fits their taste available for themselves.

Again, much better than going to Google Translate and reading what it spills out for you.

A bad option is always better than a terrible option that is much better than no option~

Oh, that one is simple, and I can advertise a manga as well while replying to it, so... Let's do it!

Ever heard of Mage and Demon Queen? It's a webtoon hosted at line. And the author has a patreon and asks for people to support them.

Now I ask you, if I had 100$ to spend monthly (because English classes cost a lot more than 100$, so this would be a monthly payment) on someone's English classes that would take months to bear fruit... Why wouldn't I support the patreon of an author that is trying to make a living out of their work instead?

The people translating those WNs are volunteers, they'd probably get offended if you did that actually. There are simply better uses to my hard earned money than giving it to someone on the net and hoping they fulfill my whims to spend their own free time in learning English... It just... Won't happen.

If you have that money though, feel free to try it out, I certainly don't have it.

I think you mean how we all protect the translators and badmouth people that don't respect them? Well, because the vast vast vaaaaaaaast majority of translators are volunteers, it's nice to respect people that are doing charity.

They may not be the best people at doing charity, but it's much better than having less people doing charity.

They do! They actually do!

If you look at the comments section of some novels, it's not that uncommon to see people helping out in fixing typos, or even some rare (really rare) cases of people that can read the raws and helping out with some sentences the translator was confused about.

People do give constructive feedback!
... They do it to the limit of their reach though, since they still have no idea on what was on the raw after all, they can only look at the English text.

Nobody enjoys terrible grammar or sentence structure, but it's better than trying to check what google gives you.

If you enjoy a certain novel, and the translator is bad... Either you stick with what you have, or you drop it. Many people drop novels when the translation quality falls, don't get me wrong, there are plenty of novels I dropped for it myself... Other people are happy enough with the LQ work, because they love the series enough to like that~

Nope! It's why many people read the awesome translations, and not nearly as many read the poor translations.

But when you're doing charity, you don't care for how many people are reading your work, you care about the ones that are reading~

So... Giving an overall reply, the resume of it is that people like the translators and appreciate the hard work translators put on it, it's always nice to receive high quality translation, but we can't expect that from someone doing charity, it's just not how things work.

People get happy with what they get, because if they badmouth the translators, the translator will probably get discouraged and drop the novel, so you'll go from LQ translation to no translation of said novel... And well, most people prefer having a LQ translation in that case.

Does this clarify?

 

The leech doth protest too much.

This is the reason why I read directly from the RAW. The perk of knowing some Japanese.