Discussion Opinions on MTLers?

Discussion in 'Novel General' started by dimsumdimsum, Dec 19, 2020.

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  1. dimsumdimsum

    dimsumdimsum Well-Known Member

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    So I recently started MTLing a novel on my blog! I also have a super cool and super nice Chinese editor!! Not to mention, in my TN notes I try to explain some Chinese phrases or leave links where people can learn more about them.

    I started a twitter account for my blog and since twitter is basically fine-tuned to each user because of the people I followed I got a timeline related to chinese novels (yay!)

    Today I logged on and actually saw tweets that said stuff like:

    "absolutely appalled at the audacity of thinking that running texts through a machine translator and then tweaking it to your own understanding based on absolutely no previous context or cultural background is equivalent to an actual translation..

    and thinking that it's actually worthy of donations too..."

    as well as

    "amazed at how people think translating is putting text into a machine and letting it do the job for you, then editing the text based on your understanding of the language used for translation"

    not going to lie lol this kinda hurt my feelings

    I agree that people who just run it through a machine translator and upload it like that in a barely readable format aren't "truly translating".

    But in these tweets they were talking about people like me who use machines to translate the text and then go on to make it readable, I didn't think there was any problem with this... I've read a bunch of novels from MTLers which are so detailed and who leave TN notes that actually help me learn a lot :/

    I feel like people don't think a lot of work goes into it when embarrassingly enough, each chapter I do takes about 4 hours because i take the time to research all these idioms and find accurate alternatives to words and phrases. I also specifically looked for Chinese editor, because I was afraid of being incorrect.

    Idk i feel like these tweets are a bit mean...

    What're your opinions on MTLers?
     
  2. Alchyr

    Alchyr Master of Procrastination

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    MTL definitely does have a very wide scale, from "I put this into google translate, here it is" to "I spend long hours working on this, checking the translation for accuracy, to ensure the maximum quality".

    I'd consider someone who does MTL more of a Very Detailed Editor than a true translator.
    Since most of the "translation" is done by software, and it's mostly cleaning/checking for accuracy that's done afterwards.
     
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  3. FIEND

    FIEND i eat crayons

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    ur clearly different from the literal mtlers who frustrate the shit outta readers. Sometimes their mtl translations are so bad I resort to mtl websites like comrade mao. But ur not like them so dont take their words to heart, thanks for translating either way. i always appreciate a translator
     
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  4. Rakshanu

    Rakshanu Immortal Ero

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    Look man, let the butthurts stay butthurts.

    Even if you switch to proper TLing, those who wanna bitch will bitch about and it won't donate anyway.

    There have many cases of "Translators" pumping up crap sometimes worse than MTL's ( especially when webnovel.com started, It was a full on clown fiesta).

    What it matters is, You enjoying what you do. Not everyone is desperate for high quality literary translations, Some just wanna know the story of what happens and can use their brain to connect most of the dots, MTL has almost equal reader base as of proper, because translators take ages to complete anything - especially in chinese novel cases.

    So just enjoy what you do, ignore the butthurt and people who want MTL will flock regardless.

    I mean Im literally using OCR to grab text from Kakao and running through papago and soft editing some stuff for one novel and for me its perfectly fine and readable and people who want to know the story are happy with it, then wishing for translator to pick this up and release a chapter.
     
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  5. Saitama.sensei

    Saitama.sensei [[xiantian lifeform]]

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    I agree with @Alchyr
    Besides, haters gon’ hate, no matter what.. decency is a scarce trait that’s hard to find in humanity nowadays
     
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  6. Nightow1

    Nightow1 Well-Known Member

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    There is a wide range of MT, for me, I use google translate not because I don't understand the language, it's that I can't recognize the words. Once it is in "pingying", I can use conversational Chinese to figure it out. In reverse, there are those that don't understand the language at all and use MT to figure out the meaning, which often fails badly because the Oriental languages are very insanely flexible, a sentence cut short in the wrong place (which machines often do) changes the meaning completely. (This is ironically demonstrated by the hilarious menu phrase of "fucked until exploded duck" which is a "correct" literal translation)

    Why don't you put a sample of your work up and we can see the situation for ourselves?
     
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  7. lehur

    lehur ぼく愛エリス

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    Who care, nowadays bad, cos the user too lazy to make it better, I read mtl in 2014 isekai smartphone by rtd and was good enough, you just get the lazy guy now
     
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  8. dimsumdimsum

    dimsumdimsum Well-Known Member

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    I translate Dage, so far 1 chapter is public so you can check it out if you want :))

    Never really thought about it like that but it does make sense!! Suddenly I feel really smart being an editor haha

    Thank you!! This really raised my spirits!! Translating really had become a fun hobby and I'm happy that people even read mine :p
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Dec 19, 2020
  9. Shaiole

    Shaiole Mad scientist

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    Cant please everyone...
    Anyways....remember that those who comment on blogs only make up small percent of the viewers.
     
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  10. SoulZer0

    SoulZer0 Heaven Refining

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    I read mtl(comrade mao and lnmtl) all the time, I have to say that I at least understand 60% to 70% of the story anyway(when I compared it to the actual translation). You put some effort, so your translation probably isn't that far off.
     
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  11. Westeller

    Westeller Smokin' Sexy Style!! Staff Member

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    Human translators are relatively scarce. Human translators of particularly high quality are scarcer still; it's definitely possible for a manual translation to turn out worse than a machine translation. Machine translators are a large and important part of this community, and the reason we can read many of these novels.

    Their quality can, as others have said here, vary wildly. Some machine translators spend quite a lot of effort on their work. At least one I know of put so much work into their translating that they eventually transitioned from machine translator to manual. Others, on the other hand, may not put as much effort into it. Machine translation can vary, then, between alarmingly poor to downright professional in quality. That the former receives criticism is, I think, unavoidable.

    That machine translators as a whole do is, on the other hand, unfortunate.

    And even when the editing is on the lower end of quality, there's still something to be said about the translation being provided at all.
     
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  12. oblueknighto

    oblueknighto Blue Person

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    MTL is usually bad quality. That's my opinion of MTL.
     
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  13. TheDefend

    TheDefend Public Dental Support

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    It can be categorized in 3 part, RAW, REFINED, AL-DENTE
     
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  14. raitei

    raitei ⟪Procyon lotor paronomasiaabsentii⟫

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    MTL's accuracy is, to be honest, can't achieved what a true (and proper) TL would, with a varying degree of readability. Personally, I'd prepare some coffee and/or aspirin (don't follow my example) before jumping on any MTLs, just in case.

    But those comments were more of a harassment based on a generalized opinion rather than a critique, so just ignore their shitty asses and just rolled as you learn more about it along the journey. Don't get discouraged, and just prove them wrong.

    A good MTL practice is just like developing aged wine; it refines the more you do it.
     
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  15. Arkantos

    Arkantos Well-Known Member

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    I dont read machine translations since they destroyed my English. But i dont care if you do it. It still requires a lot of effort and passion.
     
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  16. ilovepriestnovelsthanks

    ilovepriestnovelsthanks New Member

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    Thank you so much! I literally made an account because I'm really happy someone is finally willing to translate Dage. English is my second language so trying to mtl myself destroys my english..and I need it for work.
    I don't see why people are complaining, no one is willing to translate the novel anyway nor anyone has declared their plans of doing so, you're also working with the person who knows chinese and doing your best to check with the dictionaries, you aren't selling the results of your work either so please keep it up and ignore those people.
     
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  17. jjbookworm

    jjbookworm Well-Known Member

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    Just going to put in my point of view, as a translator, native Chinese person and also as someone who has been in the danmei fandom for nearly three years.

    First of all, I personally think that there's no really huge problem with MTL as long as they are like OP here, who knows that machine translation can be unreliable and does a lot to try to correct that, it's just that some machine translations, especially those that come from Google translate are barely edited at all and are absolute gibberish.

    These novels are not the property of the translators in the first place, so it can be understandable that asking for donations can make some people uncomfortable, as it feels like you may be making money off of a work that is not yours, and this is even worse when those barely edited MTLs do it.

    Second of all, on Twitter there's been loads of drama where MTLers caused tension in the fandom, with the most glaring case being the one of Qiang Jin Jiu, where an MTLer tweeted about how the og translator was too slow (og translator was releasing one chapter every three to five days and was translating multiple novels on their own), then proceeded to share their MTL on the public tag then claiming it was just for language practice.

    While there was no direct attack against the og translator, og tl was still incredibly upset. And for good reasons too.

    Translation takes a lot of time and effort, and all of that is given by the translator of their own free will.

    However, many many readers prefer quantity over quality, and even when they know the translation is obviously better though slower, many still choose to read the MTL.

    This can be upsetting because it feels like translators can be so easily replaced, and that their work was for nothing.

    And for me personally at least, when I choose to translate something, I chose it because I'm passionate about it; it's special to me. So I would put in 110% of my effort to make sure other people will be able to see how special it is as well, and to bond with them over it.

    Most MTLers....Are not like that from what I've seen. Though some translators aren't like that either ngl.

    These are just the reasons why people would tweet things like what OP mentioned, and in my opinion, it's very understandable but it's also understandable that OP was hurt by it, but I just want to give a gentle reminder that they probably really didn't mean it personally and that those tweeters may think differently about MTLers if they ever saw how dedicated OP is, which is impressive btw, so please don't get discouraged.

    From my experience at least, MTL is usually absolutely horrible but it's also true that there are bad translators as well. It's really all about how much effort someone puts into their translation, and also about how they treat the people around them.

    (I'm really talkative, I know, sorry agsjjdkd)
    P.S: One thing I also wanted to mention but didn't really know how to fit in with what I said above is also the helpless feeling that I get when I see something I really like, maybe even love, having a wrong translation, which would consequently affect the readers interpretation of the story and it's characters deeply, and knowing that this is what most people will go off with as their reading/watching experience, and being able to do absolutely nothing about it.
     
    Last edited: Dec 19, 2020
  18. Deleted member 301766

    Deleted member 301766 Guest

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    The majority of my reads of machine translated novels has been a negative experience. Many times it's low-effort, barely able to comprehend English themselves, people that I've come across who boldly states they "MTL" their novels. And to be completely frank, if I'd been the original author of those particular novels, I'd be pretty pissed off.

    That said, as long as you're upfront with the way you're translating, put in the necessary effort to make it readable, and try to make sure it's accurate, I do not think it's any more wrong to post an MTL of a novel than a "proper" translation. And while donations is probably a bit of a grey area for many, I am fully of the opinion that people should be allowed to spend their money however they see fit. Be it on a huge barrel of vaseline on a very intoxicated night (Don't ask...) or on a (good or not, MTL or not) novel translation.
     
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  19. dimsumdimsum

    dimsumdimsum Well-Known Member

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    This was really well- written thank you! I honestly had no clue about the Twitter incident with that MTLer and that definitely pretty rude of them. I can also see how people have bad opinions on MTLers since there are those that put 0 effort...
     
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  20. Guan Zhong

    Guan Zhong Well-Known Member

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    I've written two responses to this and then deleted them because I felt they came off too harsh, lol. So let me just say that I don't mind MTLers, I think they should keep doing what they're doing. But I do get annoyed at the emphasis placed on how much work they put into it.

    Just keep in mind that MTLers have Google translating AND creating sentences for them. Translators have to create every sentence from scratch. MTLers also still leave in mistakes that someone who can read the original language would never make in the first place. Guaranteed those mistakes are there. And the translator had to put in a lot of work learning the language, learning to read it, before they even started translating. So how much work do MTLers really put in compared to translators? How many sentences in your chapters are either unchanged or only slightly altered from what Google gave you? That's a rhetorical question cause I already looked and know the answer. It's a lot.

    It feels bad to not be respected for your work so I understand how you feel about those quotes you posted. But translators often feel that MTLers don't respect the craft of translating either. That's where those quotes are coming from. The donation thing is another matter.
     
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