I'm currently on chapter 52. But one thing kept annoying me throughout. I don't know if its the author or the translator but most likely the translator. The MC here chose bladesmanship since its easier to use than a sword. blade = 1 edge. sword = 2 edge. An example would be a sabre. Anyway, the story kept on interchanging sword and blade. There is this weapon the Mc uses which is a common weapon for practice and other purpose in his buddhist temple/sect which is called a buddhist commandment blade. But in one scene, the Mc's master used it to train swordskill. See here: The quietness was broken… Peace Quietude Split… it was such a feeling. He narrowed his eyes and kept his body and feet still. He used his four fingers of the right hand as a sword and performed the style following the understanding and thought. The wind blew with no sign and it seemed to blow the world. Chui Yizi bit the belt. At this happy moment he felt sad. He felt like he'd been laughed at by a sparrow when he failed at his first attempt to fly. He was angry and hateful. Then he saw a palm stop in the distance. It shivered and stepped back to the corner. Two wings covered its head. It seemed to be afraid of Peace Quietude Split. Then a few more sentences later: "Each movement cleans the mind. This is 'Ananda Oath-breaking Bladesmanship'… " Meng Qi sighed. Luckily, he'd gotten the Gist of Trueness. If he hadn't, it would have been more difficult to understand bladesmanship. No wonder few monks of Shaolin could successfully use Ananda Oath-breaking Bladesmanship. Meng Qi was totally aware that he knew very little about Ananda Oath-breaking Bladesmanship. There was still a long way to go to master it. I tried to google what this effin weapon looks like and even then the author/translator kept on saying 'sword' instead of blade whenever someone is training using the buddhist commandment blade. As he had broken through in advance, he returned to Xuan Bei's yard two hours earlier than usual. When he opened the door, he saw Xuan Bei carrying a Buddhist Commandment Blade and smoothly practicing his swordsmanship. Like wtf is contradiction. Anyone who read the raws? is this the same with thunder/lightning in chinese character basically meaning the same thing?
I would say is severe lack of English knowledge. They know what is written in chinese but don't know enough English to make a consistent sentence to save their lives. This are the consequences when someone who shouldn't be translating, translate
Literally the next chapter: "Oh." Meng Qi remembered he had once used this excuse to practice his swordsmanship. Though he was a little skeptical, he bid farewell without saying anything else. Unsurprisingly, Meng Qi found his master Xuan Bei practicing his bladesmanship when he returned to the yard. That puzzles me alot as even if i didn't know much english or my vocabulary is limited, i would still spot the difference of spelling of swordsmanship and bladesmanship. That alone is a huge glaring sign that the two are different. There's also google, just typing both terms would give me answers. So i think it's more of they wanted to pump chapters out for money since this is a novel from qidian where every chapter you have to pay $$ to read.
You are underestimating their lack of English. Your "Google" is the English one, I bet they can't even use that one and understand sh*t in it. If their translator/dictionary shows the same definition, then swordmanship and bladesmanship just means the same thing and is ok to swap them. You need way more knowledge of a language to understand that's just isn't true. This novel translator clearly don't have it. Edit: Here I'm even assuming that aren't just editing MTL'd chapters, wich if they were then your question doesn't even make sense, they don't even understand the text in this case
Gu Changqing lifted the whip and pointed to the west. "You now have such a strong enemy and you have lost contact with your Master and Junior Brother. You can directly go back and return to Shaolin safely and ask for help and no one would blame you. However, you decided to enter the dangerous Immensity Sea to find your Senior Brother. You have great personal loyalty. You deserve the title of 'Xia'." To be honest, they simply don't care about the quality of their work and instead pump out readable chapters regardless of any mistakes to earn money. I've come across alot of mistakes here and there reading this shit but i'm still reading though i'm slowly losing interest, i might drop it at a later time, probably at 100s.
I will just say the neverending flood of chinese novels are enough to be picky even with the edition quality and still having a lot to choose from. Don't beat yourself with "it had good potencial"/"its just the bad translation" novels, at the end of the day one just can't enjoy it as much they wanted to.
I'll probably be dropping it soon. My annoyance with the translator just got to a new level. The translator tried very hard to seem eloquent by using words that aren't frequently used. Taking in mind the quality of the translation itself and now using words that are rarely used in real life, this author is just on another level. Here are some examples: Fortunately, Shen Zui was by his side. He was using a seemingly average long sword, but it seemed to have a blood mark imbibed within. Shen Zui's sword art was based on a circular motion. Its defense was air-tight, obviously derived from the Tai Chi sword art. The translator couldv simply used absorbed, assimilated. No matter what "business" they had done for a long time, they were always losing their élan, and so were the horse bandits. Energy, Style, and Enthusiasm couldv been used here. I find this level of superficiality is ridiculous, having to bear the horrendous quality of the translation and now encountering new words(which i'm quite happy since i learned two new words today but at the same time, they're words i wouldn't even use in real life.), it's left a bitter aftertaste in my mouth. Instead of putting effort into adding unnecessary words into the translation work, why couldn't he just improve his translation quality or maybe hired a better editor if he had one. It won't be long now, i'm just at 130th chapter and it's already forced me to vent my frustrations on this forum. I'll probably be dropping this at 180th-200th chapter. Edit: I'm not even reading an english literary book here, it's simply a xianxia webnovel yet this translator already forced me to google twice just for the sake of his self-image. I would think this is an original sin for an author and by extension to the translator as he is also responsible for the novel. Annoying the reader with crappy translation work and now forcing the reader to break in and out of reading just to google words that couldv been replaced with a more familiar/frequently used word.