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*** astro has shared contact details with Joe. *** Joe: Hi astro, I'm wondering can u pls translate Aiyoku no Eustia? Me: sorry I really don't have time to take on more projects right now Joe: But it's a rly good game Me: I'm sure it is. look, I hope that you're not asking me to do it for free at the very least - I don't even know who the heck you are Joe: Well how long will it take u to do it? I can pay u $2000 at most depending on how long it takes Me: ...Do you have any idea how long the game is? Joe: No idk japanese so I've never played it before ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Well, this isn't really Tay's fault, but my rule of thumb is to always blame Tay. taypls

As any translator can probably tell you, Japanese jokes are a huge pain to capture in English. There are unfamiliar memes, cultural references, wordplay, riffs on kanji characters — none of which are particularly easy to convey to Western audiences. If you get lucky, a few nips and tucks in editing are all you need to make one of these unwieldy beasts work in English. If you get unlucky, however, you end up having to grab the rib spreader and do some major linguistic surgery. Sometimes the patients pull through. Sometimes they die on the operating table. These are their stories. Joke 1: Pearls before swine In this scene from KoiRizo, Soutarou has just finished giving one of the girls a bit of helpful advice passed down to him by his grandfather. The raw translation is below: Soutarou: “... That's the motto that they followed back then, I think. Well you know, according to my grandfather.” Riho: “Your grandfather's ball bag?” Soutarou: “A-Although I think that he got it from my grandmother...” Riho: “Ha ...?!” Soutarou: “...” Riho: “I just said a really strange thing ―!” Get it? Get it? No, of course you don’t. KoiRizo was intended as a literal translation, and read literally, this makes zero sense. At this point in my editing, the only choice I had was to go back to the original script, break out the Japanese > English dictionaries, and see if I could figure out what the hell was going on here. As near as I could figure, Riho meant to use the word “chiebukuro” — literally, “sack of wisdom.” She intended to say something about Soutarou’s pop-pop being a pretty smart guy, chock full of good advice. Instead, she uses “tamafukuro” — literally, “ball sack.” You can understand Soutarou’s confusion when Riho starts talking about his grandfather’s wrinkly old nuts. Nice guy that he is, however, Souatrou tries to give her a graceful out, suggesting it was actually his grandmother who provided the advice. Riho realizes her error and is appropriately mortified. Great. We’ve puzzled it out ... but at this point, the joke still doesn’t work in translation. “Sack of wisdom” isn’t a common English phrase, so the reader won’t catch the intended meaning behind Riho’s mistake. It just sounds like a plain old non sequitur right now. So our next task is to change her line to something that (1) works as a Freudian slip, (2) comes out of the blue, and (3) is sexually shocking enough to catch Soutarou off guard. The version I eventually settled on ran something like this: Soutarou: “... That was the common advice back then, I think. Well, you know, according to my grandfather.” Riho: “Your grandfather must have really liked giving you pearl necklaces, huh?” Soutarou: “A-Actually, it might have been my grandmother who liked giving out pearls of wisdom ...” Riho: “Ha ...?!” Soutarou: “...” Riho: “I can’t believe I just said that ―!” Here, we’ve keep the same basic structure, but rather than “sack of wisdom,” Riho tries (and fails) to say “pearls of wisdom,” a much more common English idiom. And now, rather than Grandpa’s gnarly ballsack, we have the even more shocking image of the old guy giving his grandson pearl necklaces on a regular basis. Soutarou still gets to save the day by pivoting to his grandmother, and then the rest of the joke plays out pretty much as originally written. Does it work? I hope so, but one could just as easily argue that I broke it. It’s a different gag; there’s no doubting that. But at the end of the day, I’d rather have a joke that works and maintains the original’s spirit than one that’s accurate to a fault. Joke 2: Deflowering the girls Here’s a joke I know I broke during editing. Smashed it to the ground and danced on the pieces. In my defense, it was looking at me funny. In the raw translation of this scene, resort manager Nagisa has just asked the staff to gather in their swimsuits for a big announcement: Nagisa: “I have a reason for calling you all here like this today.” Nagisa: “I'd like everyone to become the 'detergent' of the facilities.” Sango: “Detergent? Us?” Nagisa: “Oh, sorry. By detergent, I was referring more to advertising material.... In other words, I need you guys to photograph for an advertisement.” Again, another joke that makes no sense when read literally. And the only TL note I had to go on said, “This translation won't work in English.” Agreed. So I hauled out the J>E dictionary again, but had much less luck this time. At best, I came away with a wisp of a shred of a guess. My hunch was that Nagisa was using one very specific meaning of the word “senzai”— the foremost part of a garden, the loveliest flowers intended to set the stage and entice visitors in deeper — and Sango interpreted it as another more common meaning of “senzai” — namely, detergent. Nagisa clarifies her meaning, everyone has a chuckle, and the scene continues. I wasn’t sure if I was right — I’m an editor, not a translator — but lacking any better options, I decided to go with it. And I promptly flailed about like a clown being drowned in a bathtub. Right off the bat, I knew there weren’t any good English sound-alikes that would work here. So instead, I wrote about a dozen variations on garden and flower puns, but none of them managed to weave plausible misunderstanding with Nagisa’s actual meaning. Worse yet, they just weren’t funny. Next, I tried a few bawdier versions, but quickly abandoned those as well. This scene is going to get more risqué in a minute, but throwing in a sex joke right now would be tipping our hand too soon. (In one draft, I had Nagisa say she wants the girls to be the hook that lures visitors to the island. Sango replies, “What?! You want us to hook for you?” — i.e., she thought her boss wanted to pimp them out as resort hookers.) Having hit brick wall after brick wall, I decided to strip the joke down to its essence. What’s the basic structure here? Nagisa says she wants to use the girls to help sell the resort. Sango suffers a comic misunderstanding. Nagisa corrects her. The end. So that’s what I wrote: Nagisa: “There’s a reason why I’ve called everyone here like this today.” Nagisa: “I've decided to sell you.” Sango: “Sell us? Is that even legal?” Nagisa: “Oh, sorry. By ‘sell,’ I meant using you to help advertise the resort ... In layman’s terms, I need you guys to model for some publicity photos.” We lose the poeticism of the original — that image of the girls as flowers drawing visitors in — but in exchange, we get something that actually works as wordplay in English while still delivering the necessary plot info (Nagisa’s marketing brainstorm). It’s still not a particularly hilarious gag, but then again, neither was the original. In both examples, I ended up completely rewriting large chunks of each joke. And while I'm not entirely satisfied — I wish I could have kept more of the original language — I'm okay with the result. Editing is a balancing act. You want to remain as faithful to the original text as possible while maintaining the audience’s immersion in the work. If the reader suddenly comes across a joke that clearly doesn’t parse in English, that immersion is broken. They stop. They scroll back and re-read it a few times, trying to make sense of it. They wonder if they’re missing something, or if the TL team just messed it up. BAM. They’re now completely out of the world of the visual novel. The magic is broken. Because magic is only magic until you notice the strings. Or that dead clown in the bathtub.

Male Student B.

Mission 2: Operation Bleeding Hawk Alien Intelligence Reports Mission 3's Team Has Been Decided: Zebail Rhaspuint, Siegfried, The Trapezoid, and Turnip Sensei

Better stick to your sister amirite

Edit October 4th, 2015: The writing positions have recently been filled. Thank you to all those who were interested in the project and applied. Hello, everyone! My name is David, and I’m one of the writers for the visual novel A+ Switch. (You may have also seen me stalking around the Fuwa forums) Also, forgive me if this isn't the place for recruitment. I'm still unsure how the Creative Corner works, exactly. What we're looking for: A+ Switch is still in the very early stages of development, so we are in search of writers who are able to assist in creation of the characters’ backstories, routes, world lore, and overall plot—we are always open to new and interesting ideas that can help better the story. We believe that writing is the fundamental core that dictates all other aspects of visual novel creation. That being said, we are hoping to find individuals who are as passionate about storytelling as we are. Synopsis: A+ Switch tells the story of Kouhei and his struggle to cope with his younger sister Iori’s fatal illness. With Iori’s condition only worsening by the day, Kouhei wishes to do something special for her before the last autumn leaf falls. Obsessed with accomplishing his goal, he completely disregards his own deteriorating health; his nights are plagued by dread of his sister’s death, his appetite gradually wanes from the lack of sleep, and social interaction at school becomes a chore. Concerned about his state of mind, Kouhei’s school counselor advises—or rather, “forces”—that he visit her office regularly for psychological evaluations. It’s during one of these sessions that she recommends he be tutored by a selected group of upperclassmen to prevent him from falling behind in his studies while he deals with his issues. With not much room to argue, Kouhei halfheartedly agrees. He begins to realize, however, that the people around have their own fair share of problems, and that life may just be one big test to try and solve them. How will Kouhei fare? Title Screen Concept by Piichimi A+ Switch Opening Song (Produced by Outbreak, Sagisapon, and Geiky) https://soundcloud.com/davidaacosta-1/outbreak-shuuren-autumn-love-ft-sagisapon-geiky/s-grMbH Genre: A+ Switch will be a mix of Comedy, Slice of Life, Drama, and Romance. The visual novel also contains some adult themes. Some basic requirements of becoming a writer: ~ A good communicator who actively seeks participation in development or just random group chatter. (Communication is key with projects). It’s also encouraged to have Skype. You can find the program here: http://www.skype.com/en/download-skype/skype-for-computer/ ~ Being open-minded to new ideas and concepts. ~ Promptness and good time management to work on a regular basis. ~ An excerpt of previous work. ~ Willing to volunteer for free, as our project is a non-commercial visual novel. ~ Has fun. (The most important, I say) We do hope our project is able to interest you enough to apply for a writing position. If so, please feel free to send me a private message or leave a post down below. I’ll be sure to respond as soon as possible. Thank you so much for reading our request! We look forward to having the chance to work with you.

I'm a towards strangers/acquaintances a towards friends a towards best friends and a on Fuwa

If there was, I'm pretty sure I'd hate them instantly.

Whelp. Sorry for being late with posting this. I've been a busy guy, being outside of the house for 16 hours a day. Enough with the excuses though. Lemme present to you the theme for October! October will be the music month. What, you expected Halloween? Sadly, Halloween's a pretty used up theme, and people don't want to keep using the same thing over and over again, right? So for this month, the club will be focusing on visual novels that have a certain emphasis on music in their plot. This pretty much limits the selection, but that's all the more fun. We'll be forced to read from a pretty small range of visual novels. In English, that is. The visual novel for this month is: Symphonic Rain (Kogado Studio) Every month 'till it wins. Results: Winner, 15 votes (39.47%) Synopsis: Symphonic Rain takes place in a fictional city of apparently Italian heritage, where rain falls everyday. The locals there have adapted to this peculiar phenomenon, and carry on with their lives as if the rain was never there. No one takes an umbrella, no one wears a rain coat. The goal this month is to discuss the involvement of music in the plot of whatever's going to be picked this month, and how it did relative to your enjoyment of the game. Of course, you could pray again and again that Symphonic Rain be picked for this month (pls pls pls this month), but moege folks will fuck you up. No worries though. Have fun picking the visual novel you want to read this month. <3 Make sure to include spoilers when discussing important plot details! Also, if you want to provide feedback on how we're doing and give recommendations to further improve the club, you can drop by this thread and post your thoughts! Lastly, remember the rule: no lolis. Heh.

Yeah life can be expensive but I try to save up for anything I really want.

It's not really a joke, but whatever. Seriously though, the best choice to obtain physical copies is to have someone in Japan buy and ship them for you. Most of the online stores charge and arm and leg for eroge.

Forest is not a VN for everybody. Read it with that in mind.

"If you can't win what's gambled, you'll go crazy." - Mad Tex

You know what, I'd never seen the appeal of the one-eyed chick before now, but I think you might have just convinced me otherwise. I've never really done much for Halloween, although I must admit to enjoy dressing up (and I don't just mean popping on a bedsheet and going 'wooo' a bit, I mean really going for it). Might go on a cyclops girl hunt this year though...

might be an incentive to read g-senjou, oh well

Finished Conquest An "irreplaceable experience" indeed. Here's a fanart (spoilers obv) Probably gonna do True Ending + Holy Sword ending next and just YT the others / get them one day in the distant distant future, cuz 70% shares no ty

That was beautiful and made me tear up And then I heard "Archmage Thigh" at 1:16

We dont really celebrate halloween that much here, but ill be damned if I didnt use it as an excuse to make pumpkin pie, pumpkin pie is on my top 10 on most delicious foods. Also I would love to get a wii and fatal frame 4 or something, that could be fun! Or maybe I just do a horror anime marathon with myself. Or maybe nothing at all or maybe just make the pumpkin pie yeah just the pumpkin pie also take my profile pic in full resolution because its halloween related (also one eyed chicks are cute af, fite me)

Thought it was Umineko lol

Nope again

not so sure about that I think she is schierke from berserk there is even a child version of breatrice, I mean even Hidetaka Miyazaki said that he took a lot of inspiration from berserk and he is even going to add some combat stances that guts do in berserk in dark souls 3

More than a few kickstarters have ended up this way and I'm not overly fond of it either. Hell it's the main reason I decided not to back Shenmue 3...still looking forward to the game though...eventually. The shady practices of actual corporate entities jumping onto kickstarter is why I rarely back anything.

I hear what you're saying, Deep Blue, but I think if you're going to translate/edit a work into English, you need to do so primarily with native English speakers in mind. Otherwise, you end up cutting yourself off from a huge swath of idiom and poetics just because the non-native speaker might not have been exposed to them. The resulting prose would be functional yet totally flavorless. Anyway, I don't think I'd call the entirely of the native English-speaking world "a very narrow audience." This particular slang usage of "pearl necklace" can be found in the U.S., Canada, the U.K., and Australia. I don't know about New Zealand, but I'd have to imagine that if the Aussies are on board, then so are the Kiwis. All that said, I honestly feel bad that non-native speakers like yourself might be (literally) left out on the joke. So you have my apologies for that. If you ever find yourself in New York, I'll buy you a beer as a make-good. ​

regarding beeing hesitant, oh my: - pretty much coldhearted (though the world made me that way) - scheming - sadistic (more or less) personality - traits of insanity - emotionless - antisocial - unethical - ruthless - loyal ...see i´m mika, just without (quite beautilful) tits & manko

I've met characters I have something in common with, but I haven't encountered one who embodies me yet...

https://twitter.com/HuniePotDev/status/650373661271175168

As a non-native english speaker I didn't understand the first joke either, I had to look and see what "pearl necklaces" meant, is it ok to re-work a joke just for a very narrow audience, in this case USA? I know you are translating it into english so it make sense but you have to be american to understand it so it ends up being the same thing. When I looked for 知恵袋 and たまふくろ the joke made sense like you said and it was funny even if I don't know many phrases in japanese. But then again like you said if you translate it literally it just doesnt work. There is a lot of work into this type of translations like the one you are doing and that's something that anyone should appreciate and be thanks for even if you don't agree with the method of doing it like myself

I cooked this great curry stew last weekend

Seems to be a nice project. I have some ideas but unfortunately none of them fits this VN.

hibarin for life, she is my wifu <3 there is no reason to hate her by the end she is more badass than in the beginning takeru from muv luv emiya shirou from f/sn probably takumi from chaos head but her character is like that so i cant hate him

This is especially fitting considering I'm in the middle of a computer ethics lecture right now

It's not even a part of feminism, it's just a fairly small minority within the feminism movement have extremist views, it's like decrying all religion because of the extremist nuts or decrying all Alaskans because of Sarah Palin. There actually isn't a branch of feminism that argues for vengeance against men, but I have, for example, been to a University meeting of feminists where some people in the club have been hurt by men and have joined for reasons associated with that. This tends to taint their goals and their perspective, combine this with their general ignorance on the topic and history and you get the sort of 'feminism' that a lot of people are familiar with. Meanwhile in the background, learned people are writing interesting tomes about, for example, language disparity concerning genders and how there are many more insulting terms to put down a woman than a man, but you won't hear about this because a new book has been released by someone who believes if a man touches a woman it's a form of rape (an actual book.) Guess which one gets the media coverage based on what can move the most number of papers/attract the most number of viewers? That being said, you have the other side of the ledger where sexist pigs and people with agendas grab these headline grabbing pieces of work and seek to smear the entire feminism movement with it. These people on the internet are abusive to the point where the public view them as just as bad, or worse, than the extremist feminists. So you have a situation in most of society where rational people will seek to avoid feminism AND everyone who has the words 'social justice warrior' in their vocabulary. Too much bad press.

Interesting concept. Dealing frankly and effectively with depression, apathy and fear of loss is something that many stories attempt, while few succeed. If it's done well here, it could be a great read. I'm having a little trouble reconciling the dark tone of the synopsis with how lighthearted the concept title screen is. Of course, a "concept" is just that, but it may be worth your while to take whichever representation more accurately represents the true tone of the story (the text or the visual) and align the other to it more closely. That should help ensure that any volunteer writers know what they're getting into and what you'll be expecting from them. Good luck. Looking forward to how this turns out.

the pumpkin i carved for my son this year

I don't see the problem here.