Original text 修真分为10个阶段：开光，融合，辟谷，金丹，元婴，出窍，分身，合体，渡劫，大成。 Translation (I know it's a bit liberal) Cultivation is divided into 10 phases: Awakening, Harmonizing, Cleansing, Golden Core, Nascent Soul, Spirit Severing, Form Separation, Form Completion, Tribulation Crossing, and Great Completion. It sounds a bit off any suggestion or anything?
I think they sound pretty good '-' then again I'm probably not the best person to confirm that with cuz my Chinese is about subpar at best.
Golden Core could also be just Gold Core, though it doesn't sound bad as it is... it's been used in ISSTH, Xian Ni, WoC and probably some others... I've seen Dujie and Dacheng in ST without them being translated... actually those in ST weren't translated at all except for MC's personal cultivation technique's stages and stages after immortal ascension... The others don't sound familiar, maybe you find something in other novels that are already being translated... By the way, what are you translating? Edit: I think I've seen Dacheng being translated as 'great success' or 'great success stage' in some novels where they talk about the degree the MC mastered a technique or something... like in Xiao Cheng -> ... -> Dacheng or maybe 'perfection', not sure...
I'm translating Legend of Xing Feng. I am aware that it already has some chapters out, but have decided to re-translate it from the beginning. The previous translator posted a message 2 months ago saying that they had dropped it for any who may be wondering. Also regarding your post. I've also seen some instances of the untranslated version, but am trying to find a way to translate it because I know for a lot of readers that kills their immersion.
Sounds more like unification of body rather than completion, serving as antithesis to previous stage of separation/division.
You could also first try to understand what the cultivation stage implies and then translate it according to it... For example in ISSTH: qi condensation - condensing qi... foundation establishment - literally building/establishing the foundation core formation - forming a core nascent soul - creating a nascent soul spirit severing - severing something... If the author at least thought out the cultivation and not just put something like this stage is stronger than this one, then the next one is stronger and so on... though this might take some more effort. I'm no translator so I'll leave this to people who actually know what they're doing...
Well I'm translating as I go so I don't really know exactly what it stage implies aside from that which can be understood form the name and the literal translations until I get further along.
(Please note that I don't know Chinese, so this post is based on me going off MTL.) Looks like the author might have taken inspiration from this? http://baike.baidu.com/view/736956.htm In which case, I would recommend renaming the "Spirit Severing" stage. From what I can tell, 出窍 is just when the Nascent Soul is mature enough to be able to exit the body and do stuff on its own. (Quite different from ISSTH) Not completely sure, but I think 分身 might be the Nascent Soul forming a clone separate from the main body? And then 合体 is possibly the clone and main body fusing back together? I don't know, but maybe that'll give you a lead.
That part is actually somewhat present in ISSTH too, that the Nascent Divinity can live without the body and do stuff... though I'm not sure whether they can actually get out of the body on their own initiative.
I would say it sounds fine as is (I know nothing about Chinese) and if you find any conflicting issues, cross that bridge when you come to it. You can always go back and edit. If you think you'll end up coming back to change it (for instance if later on in the novel, you actually come to understand the underlying meaning behind the different stages and feel your translation was off) keep a record of where the terminology was mentioned in the chapters, should be pretty simple to keep a word document open of "potential future edits". Editing is a huge part of writing, so don't expect to get things right from the get-go. Better to prepare for potential editing, or know that you'll have to edit in the future than stress over trying to get things perfect initially.
Yeah I plan to do something like that and if we come across things later that clarify previous terms and change them we will ofc edit it . Btw thanks everyone for the replies it's very helpful stuff XD
as for my suggestion... the awakening should be described, whether it was soul or ki? so maybe like Qi awakening stage? and what is harmonizing done? like Body and Qi harmonizing? Body cleansing stage? Golden core, nascent sould and spirit severing doesn't pose much problem.. form separation should be something about separating body & soul / spirit? or what is the process? and tribulation crossing... can you call it transcending or transcendence stage? coz it was too literal.. great completion can be considered someone who crossed tribulation so can you call it celestial stage? ahahaha... idk man.. that's just some of my idea...