I'm planning on establishing a sort-of TL Academy in the future, to inspire and aid wannabe translators with any level of experience, whether they be complete beginners with no experience or even current translators, machine translators, or machine-assisted translators. I currently intend to focus on translating Japanese webnovels, possibly expanding in the future. So, it would be great if you translators out there could give me some tips and advice, and maybe explain your translating process?
Hi am a machine translator who is slowly practicing at Diwasteman and am wondering how would you aid others. Will it be a place where we place questions and you try to answer or will it be like a blog where you will post how to interpret difficult and complicated sentences structures, certain grammar and particles etc.
But you're a translator yourself! Anyway...uhhh... when I translate, I look at the raws. Then I translate. If there are any parts that I'm uncertain about, I leave that till the end. When working on the uncertain parts, I use google translate and systranet to help me, and I also check with online dictionaries~ If that doesn't work, I search on forums and stuff for a solution. If even that doesn't work, I ask other translators. If the other translators don't know, I either go jump off a cliff, make a guess and leave a note about it or simply translate it the best way I can. Hope this helps (it probably won't but anyway...)!
Well~ at the moment, I have a small group on skype with whom I'm working with at the moment, who will be my guinea pigs. The plan is to start with the basics, make a few guides and watch as they slowly level up from level 1. See what issues they encounter, try to think of an explanation/solution to help them. I think the goal is to make some kind of group chat x wiki thing and build a self-sufficient community in the end, where more experienced people will help those with less experience and develop as everyone gets more experience.
For translating Japanese, Translation Aggregator is a great tool for all types of translators. when you copy Japanese text it can give you over 10 machine translation from different sources if you are aiming for pure MTL. As a MAT (done personally since i have no motivation to do it constantly for the public), the part i use the most from it are the dictionaries (Mecab, WWWJDIC, and JParser). I still have all the machine translations visible since while the translation of entire sentences can be questionable (and sometimes extremely strange, unreadable, and/or funny), it can give some nice wording or phrases you might not normally think of using. For people learning to translate Japanese, learning the Japanese grammar can go a long way. http://www.guidetojapanese.org/ has a nice grammar guide
if you want to trying to step up your japanese .. first learn how sentence structure works and particle function .. try to differentiate which one is subject and object next you can understand word by word using google or rikai-kun .. for me the hard part is english (or usually german, which is freaking hard to understand ) term which absorbed into katakana and some dialect hard at beginning but if you do it regularly , you accuracy can be far ahead of MTL
Spoiler: Story of a certain newbie Welp.. I has a newbie group which composed of very few people, like 4-6 ppl.. And we used to be fired up to MTL a certain wn, well if u know vermillion.. Yeah we used to translate that.. Well, saying used is a bit exaggerated since all the members were bitten by rearu raifu (final exam) at the moment i created the blog to post the chap, and so only chap 0 (which was supposed to be an intro took more than 3k words?) was posted, the next chap was then almost finished, but suddenly i saw in this novelupdate that nanodesu posted some chapter of this series.. (i never really checked but yeah, since its not just 1 chap, i assumed they took the role of tl-ing it) and so we, being depressed for being late, useless and newbie in mtl, received a big hit in our head and heart, since in the first place we are mtl-ing because nobody tl-ing the series even after the loooong wait, and the one that pick it up was a senior-sama, much less refuting, we couldn't even think of trying to catch up, patch up, or whatever u could call as trying to take back the series.. In the group only me alone was fired up to mtl the wn, the other members was only half-assed in doing, they dont even want to reduce their gaming time to tl this, even tho the games they played were all offline or single player oriented.. A noobie Hikikomori that still taking diploma No proper jap knowledge Broken grammars Half assed member A brat nonetheless We, rather, i know our place We're nobody So my spirit have been broken thoroughly.. Sorry but no.. /* if u're interested in reading my one and only shit chap, google noob-mtl blogspot or something along that way.. Read in mobile for best view, i love reading wn from phone after all */
When mtling chinese if you don t understand a sentence erase some key caracter until you understand the meaning of the word one by one ^^
Read the text, hover rikai chan in ufamiliar kanji, agonizing to choose the correct meaning, write the translation, read again, reword, read again, reword, lost patience, write whatever I think correct, repeat and rinse.
Hi, I mtl too. I use online dictionaries and TA, if I encounter a rly hard sentence, i convert the characters into katakana, roumanji and see if it somehow make sense, and/or search for examples of how the unknown characters can be used on the web, if i can't find it..I'll be running around asking everyone or else /wrist
i pretty much only use http://nihongo.j-talk.com/ (setting detailed, romaji) and http://jisho.org/ . also google but not google translate if you can't find the meanings in the dictionary(for example sound effects, and some kanji) , you can get the idea of the words by looking at the pictures (like for example google this 触手 and look at the images) and it also helps when you are thinking about kana names(this process is quite complicated.) i actually have a very low kanji vocabulary but because of http://nihongo.j-talk.com i was able to overcome that weakness but the cons is that you'll become reliant on it, lowering the rate of learning kanji. also for the tips newbies. watch subbed anime, though don't just watch try and listen to their words and try doing your own translation and comparing it to the subs. note: the anime sub translating kinda works different with the way TLers TL WN. read how other people TL their stuffs, each TLers has their own ways to translate and how the cope with their stuff. they are many ways to translate stuff for example nanda korya!? can be "what the fuck is this!?" "what in the world is this!?" "oh my god!?" and etc. though the main point here is they might have a better and accurate way to express the words or the sentence more than you. don't feel jealous about them but learn from them. Our senpais doesn't care if we did it the same way as them, after all everyone just want a good translation. don't translate in a bad condition or mod, TL is mostly brain work, and in bad conditions or mood, your mind will be less flexible and creative. because you are distracted by you conditions or mood. good condition produces good translation not bad condition. So learn when to rest and don't force yourself lastly have a goal, yes have a goal motivate yourself, but make sure you goal is something shallow, let it be something deep, something connected to your personally or life. don't translate for leechers but for your goals. because once you have reach the point when people are spamming "when is the next chapter?" or "next chapter motha fucka!" will just motivate you less(though it might be different for some) anyway to lazy to think more about tips, i hope this helps
Though I am new to the translating scene, I'll explain how I translate: Spoiler: It's really detailed.... I think I'm machine assisted. Not fully reliant on machine, but not too reliable on my own translation. So the "best" of both worlds....not really. Bear with me, as this may be long. Note that if I'm saying you, I am not actually meaning the OP, but to people who have yet to translate or are thinking about it. I am but a lowly machine assisted translator, compared to some others. First I read the raws of what I'm currently translating (i.e Weakest Skeleton), which generally takes me 2 hours to read per chapter(whether its out loud or in my head and the length of the raws). Some words are tough due to kanji, in which I use Rikaikun on google chrome. I used to translate sentence by sentence, reading along as I translate each individual sentence. But that proved to be a bit difficult, as some of the sentences work better when reading ahead. Thats why I started reading ahead and am able to understand the context of a possible "difficult" sentence to translate. Though there are a variety of Japanese slangs or other terms, doing a good search for that in google does help. Second comes translating it. Since I mostly use my Mac to translate, I do not have access to Translation Aggregator. Unless there is a Mac version for that, I mostly enter all the tough sentences, paste by paste(having tabs of several Japanese to English machine translation tools and others). It takes awhile, but it sometimes does what it needs to be done. When pasting any sentences I am having troubles with or if I am second guessing myself, I primarily use these 4 sites: Excite.co.jp , translation.infoseek.ne.jp , freetranslation.com , bing.com/translator . Yahoo's honyaku is almost similar to excite. Systran made no sense at time. Babylon is similar to systran, in which it was hard trying to decipher the actual meaning. In addition to the machine translation sites, I also use whatever I learned in class(words, grammar, etc...), when I studied abroad, or the previous chapter. Another tool would be using Japanese thesaurus, to try and read the different meaning it could have. I primarily use this: thesaurus.weblio.jp/ , and its been a great help. And then theres the sfx/onomatopoeia, which is difficult at times. I use these sites and just search for the words(after knowing what it means the first time, there's usually no need to check the second time as you'd understand it): thejadednetwork.com , searching Tofugu onomatopoeia, http://www.baka-tsuki.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=2485 (Obtained from Bakatsuki. A collection of sfx). And then there's extra. http://zokugo-dict.com/ (Japanese slang search, though you'd have to search if you think it's a slang and it would be entirely in Japanese), (though I hardly use it, http://www.hiragana.jp/en/ would basically convert a page containing kanji into hiragana using furigana... Using Rikaikun on Chrome basically erase the need for using this.) If some of the names that the author created does not have furigana above it, I try to take a guess using this: http://tangorin.com/names/ (basically list common family name and given names), though I do go back to correct it once the authors has mention it anywhere(thats why its good to read ahead!) As well as being decent at Google-fu. Third would be actually deciphering the sentence and attempting to construct it in English/language of choice. This is where it can get mind-boggling. You'd sometimes have to play around with the wording so that it may be understandable in English(Takes lots of practice. I gradually got better at doing this, as I spent more time translating). Though I am an American, my writing is not the best (Professors says I like to drag on a lot). Like using the Japanese thesaurus, English thesaurus (thesaurus.com) helps in choosing words. Using Word, I first insert the raws in small portion(plugging an entire chapter may make it seem more difficult). Under each sentence/paragraph, is where I would insert my translation. This part will take the longest (imo). After completing the chapter translation, I then open a fresh page of word and copy the English portion only. This is where I have to re-re-re-read it and attempt to fix any odd flows, correct the sentence structure, rewordings, etc... After that, comes editing, which does not take long, though it does include the umpteenth times that you've read it(Being solo, I try to make the edits grammatically correct, but it's good to have another person edit). After everything is done, next comes formatting it into your blog(if you need to do so). (Knowing basic HTML and CSS can get you past certain things, as Wordpress likes to limit its free user) If one were to have experience in Japanese grammar already and could read the basics(Katakana and Hiragana along with some of the basic kanjis), some of the sentence would be easily understandable. As other has stressed, learn some of the basic grammars as it will help in the long run(I recommend using Genki 1 and 2 as that is what I'm currently using). Genki 1 contains some of the basic grammars that you will see in lots of web novels. Genki 2 would contains many more such as たら form, ば form, ちゃう form, ず form, させる form etc etc.... in which you might not understand it, if you have never touched up on the grammar yet. But, several machine translation sometimes get it right....sometimes. I found that as I translate, some of the Kanjis progressively become recognizable, which means I am learning. Translate a story that you would like, but don't force yourself to overdo it. Have realistic goals as well, don't aim for 7 chapters a week if you know you can't do it(unless you're a pro, magician, hacker, w/e). Some readers will start to say "Why are you not fulfilling your promise" or other things. Don't give up, just like your MC won't either. Learn from all this to improve your translation, grammar, knowledge of Japanese language, etc etc... tl;dr Read ahead, translate to the best you can and then actually put it into language of choice, EDIT, submit and learn from all of this.
I was directed to this page and was asked to "describe" my translation progress in detail and provide some helpful tips. Spoiler: Useful Links Add-on for Chrome (Rikaikun) Add-on for Mozilla (Rikaichan) Jisho - Dictionary Tangorin - Dictionary Translation Aggregator MeCab Lingoes SFX Thesaurus - Grammarly - For Grammar/Editing HackPad - Alt for Google Docs Spoiler: Images of my screen while translating Spoiler: Japtem Chrome Add-on & TA Spoiler: Japtem Add-on & Lingoes Spoiler: HackPad & Rikaikun (Chrome Add-on) Spoiler: Translation Process I've read the comments above, and unlike some of them, I do not like reading the chapter before translating it. Why? Because sometimes when I read ahead, the laziness kicks in, and I don't want to go back and translate them. Most of the time, I read the raws out loud -- sometimes with the help of MeCab -- and sometimes I get a web-app to read it out loud to me. I usually translate paragraphs after paragraphs. However, sometimes when it doesn't make sense, I read the next few paragraphs. Then, I go back and translate it. If I don't know a word, mostly it's the Kanji that gives me trouble because the Japanese language uses both Simplified and Traditional Chinese, I use a dictionary to look it up. To me, the most challenging part during the translation process is to attempt to construct the sentences into proper, readable, understandable English. Make sure you know who your readers are and cater to them. I've had someone actually tell me to use less profound words because English was not his native tongue. When I finish translating a chapter, I get a friend read through it and edit it. Of course, you can do your own editing but we tend to miss a lot of things, that's when fresh eyes are needed. Spoiler: Helpful Tips Learning Japanese In my opinion, the easiest way of learning Japanese is to watch anime and read the sub-titles. When someone is interested in translating a novel, chances are, you have watched a decent number of animes. Pick your favorite and rewatch them. Sentence Structure The first thing you need to know in order to start translating is the Japanese sentence structure -- Subject-object-verb (SOV) while English is SVO. Example: English My sister, gave, her keys, to me. Subject, verb, direct object, indirect object. Japanese My sister, me, her keys, gave Subject, indirect object, direct object, verb. Particles - Postpositions Please visit Nihongo Ichiban for a longer list. ga - Subject marker o (wo) - Direct object marker wa - Topic marker I hope this is helpful to someone...
I occasionally translate some chapters of Chinese novels, even though my Chinese isn't that great. First I copy and paste the Chinese text into a site called http://mandarinspot.com/annotate, which basically breaks up sentences into words or phrases and then gives possible definitions for those phrases. I also use Google Translate, Bing Translator, or online Chinese dictionaries if the definitions given by Mandarinspot don't seem to fit. Then I read over the entire chapter or section once and ask members of my translation group if there are words or phrases I'm unfamiliar with, since they're a lot better at Chinese than I am. Next, I translate the chapter or section. When I'm done with that, I read it over a few times and reword some awkward parts that work in Chinese but not in English (thesauruses are really helpful), then I double check it with the Chinese text to see if I mistranslated anything.
What do you mean? Do you mean something like Nanodesu Academy? As my first language is Chinese, I can't really help much about giving tips for translating. But if you want to let someone learn Chinese, it's best to have a experienced person guide the learner from the very basics of Chinese, as Chinese words are normally made up of several basic strokes to form a word.