Discussion What motivates you to translate?

My full question would be, "What motivates you to do fan translations even when aggregator sites steal your work, or if you're thinking that your translations would be taken down at some point?"

I'm a fairly new translator myself (just started last month) and being new to the community, I'm finding it disheartening lately to do translations. Especially since I do MTL and it's a lot of work. And what if I end up translating 100+ chapters only for it to be taken down? Is it worth it?

Any thoughts? Experiences?

 

Absolutely nothing. I just did sometime. Perhaps I'll continue?

 

It will always be alot of work, and it will never feel worth it. Between the raw hate of readers, the sarcasm, douchebaggery and utter jackasses the internet breeds, there honestly isnt enough money in it for it to be worth the effort it takes to translate it. If you enjoyt he novel/book it will make it better at least, but honestly outside of truly paid official translator type work, you wont get enough for your efforts. Especially not for web novels.

 

For the Crazy Adventures of Wu Gate, it's because I really love the novel and I hope other people will read it and enjoy it as much I do.

 

My primary reason for translating is to help improve my Chinese skills.

Update: I should probably mention that it's somewhat relaxing due to the novel itself. I'd feel differently if

• the book were extremely long
• people negatively criticize the translation
• the book wasn't too interesting
• people kept urging me to quickly push out more chapters

 

I don't translate anymore, but when I did, I set a public goal and told myself I won't stop no matter how bad the novel got until I reached the goal, so it was basically guilt-tripping myself and a sense of obligation/duty.

Otherwise, it's because I enjoy reading the raws and since it's not too difficult to take the extra step to translate it, I just did it.

 

Money

 

Personally I’m in awe of every person who is WILLINGLY doing translations. Really to all of you guys/ girls who are translating something like those long and complicated novels in Chinese/ Japanese and all other languages.

Despite me speaking 3.5 languages I really dislike translating. “Hate” would be a better word, even, was forced to translate at school when younger, then one of my jobs also required written/typed translations, I really disliked doing those. So I really look up to all of you who are doing such a great job on regular basis. Thank you!

 

Sometimes I'm bored and I have something I feel like translating so I do it. Slowly. Veery slowly.

 

My answer is like, why did you have to study until university, and ended up as a small shopkeeper or maybe working in a restaurant?
Dont think about what you have made, but what you gained from all of it.

 

This. I don't know about translation, but if I have a hobby and someone pay me to do the hobby, as long as they pay for it my motivation would stay at maximum level.

 

Ah, I started translating because I wanted to translate since I find discovered manga scanlation community tbh.

I just found one opportunity and said... Hey, I wanna try it. I also started with MTL.

It was a lot of work, and I took 2 or 3 hiatus midway, but... Well, I still enjoy it, it's fun for me and I enjoy seeing the comments on the chapter, seeing people getting happy with my work.

This much was plenty for me back then~

Nowadays I also earn some from translating, it doesn't pay my bills, but helps out, so it motivates me to translate more.

 

I'm just doing whatever I feel like, plain and simple.

 

Do it for your own amusement and joy. I mean you started to translate by yourself and by your own choice so it can't be something that you dislike doing. If you start to dislike doing it and think it's a hard work I'd honestly advice you to take a break from translating for a while and sort your thoughts out or do something that makes you relax.

 

To improve my language skills first of all. But really I just wanted to share the things I found enjoyable with people who aren't that proficient at another language, it satisfies me to know that I'm helping someone and they love the work as much as I do.

 

Want to keep your motivation?
Simple ignore readers.
Turn off comments.
Let your motivation come from within yourself and don't let others motivate you.
Instead of translating to share to readers. Translate to improve your skill, earn money etc.
I started my website because there are too many dropped novels and I was pissed off by the fact that readers were begging translators to continue novels that they drop dropped.
Now, I my motivation is earning translators money. I don't give a shit about readers. Some readers are entitled punks.
I have setup about 10 websites for translators, covering all startup costs like domain registration and web hosting. I also provide Google ads for them to earn

 

Money is an extrinsic motivator and the money earned from ads is very little, especially when compared to the time it takes to translate.

If your motivation for translating is earning money from ads, it's very likely that you'll give up after only translating for a short period of time once you see how how low the $/hr translated.

 

In

It's a matter of perspective.
Either you reward yourself with a a cup of coffee after translating or you use reader comments as reinforcement.
Ads are not that bad, it depends on the cost of living.
Some places survive on $1-$4 per day. $1per hour would be awesome.
Again, my point is to motivate yourself with something you can control.
You can't control what others say

 

A good book is meant to be shared.

 

That is so true. I actually started translating as a hobby because there were so many good RAWs out there, but those that were to my taste weren't being translated (i.e. I wanted to see more rural romances like General to Plow the field). But translating started feeling more like a chore when exams came up.

I think this was actually what I needed to do in the first place. I was translating in the middle of school so I started getting frustrated. Instead of doing it for fun, I kept thinking of being able to update a number of entries per week. Anyways you guys are so helpful!