Thyndd

You could try Planetarian for a change of pace: it's short and good. Plus, a lot of people consider it to be the magnum opus of Key studio... though that you will have to decide yourself

I mean, it's not like I actually feel any sexual attraction towards anime characters (what I find arousing are the situations, not the characters per se), so I dunno, but my husbando is

Here I am just barely at episode 6 of Alternative. I must be careful not to read any spoilers Things are starting to move ever so slowly.

Ha, that slipped my mind. I remember watching some gameplay and it was silly but funny (though I don't recall if it was that or Kusoge), especially the references to other VNs and animes. The problem is that my friend wouldn't get half of them Heck, I don't even know how many I missed myself. If it's good I'll definitely check it out myself sometime, but my friend is not into gore and sick stuff at all, so I think this is a big no-no.

Oh man, I happen to know that I don't know if going full nukige would be going a little overboard though

Anything lighthearted and comical should do the trick really. What I should avoid is anything heavy or way too serious. Cute stuff is OK, as well as h-content, no problem. Gore is not ok though

So tomorrow I'm meeting with a close friend of mine and y'know, instead of the good ol' plan of watching a movie, we agreed to have some fun reading a VN and roleplaying some. Do you have any ideas of a short and hilarious VN? Thank you!

Well, trust me, it's not. The problem here seems to arise due to both of us having different definitions of what grammar is, so let me clarify what I mean. When I talk about grammar I am referring to all the structural tools a language has to incorporate the participants of the "message world" into the discourse. Grammar is what binds words together and tells us how they are related in the message. So, what I mean when I state that every language is able to codify the same information using different grammatical means, what I am saying is that if there is no suitable word that works in that specific case without requiring more grammar than the bare minimum to make it grammatically acceptable, you can link a bunch of words together and make for that meaning, using in the process more grammar. I agree. Nothing to argue about. Well duh, it was sarcastic, so Oh, as a language nerd, I'd never do that. I've spent quite a lot of time reading about all kind of languages, so I'm confident enough to say that I know very well how different, and also how similar languages are. And languages are indeed amazing, because in spite of knowing it too well, very often I find out one that throws me for a loop

The thing is, I never said there was a one-to-one correspondence between words. In fact, by that standard there is no word that perfectly translates to another language, ecompassing all the meaning. When doing a translation, we look at the context and choose one suitable correspondent in THAT context which more or less shares the same semantic content, or at least most of it. There are cases of words that are really difficult to translate naturally, no matter what context they are in. In this case a lot of meaning can be lost, if you don't find a way to rephrase it in a natural fashion. Or you know, you can always add a translation note and call it a day. And on a side note. If you can explain the concept, then it's by no means untranslatable. I know that you are referring to particular semantic pieces, but what I said is that every language is able to codify the same information, employing for that purpose different grammatical means.

Sure, I should be able to read Portuguese and the topic does get my interest, so that text would be appreciated I'm aware that thought is not the same as language. That's why every piece of writing will have as many interpretations as people reading it. In that sense it's just impossible for the translator to play a passive and objective role in the translation. However, I still think you should only be allowed to interpret the writing so much. As for how languages differ, from a technical point of view and as far as modern linguistics and UG is concerned, every language should be able to codify the same message and they only differ in the grammatical means they employ to do so. In that sense, the role of the translator would be to notice what each language codifies naturally and use that knowledge to make a translation as accurate and natural as it gets: it's a balance between both. The cultural differences and expressions can be a real pain in the ass, but, and this is only my personal preference, I'd rather have a bunch of translator notes than having the meaning completely changed. Damn, I'd rather read a dozen books about that culture. But sure, that's me, and I get why some people would like to feel the work as familiar in terms of language and culture as possible.

I'm not a fan of numerical rating, or at least, I don't think it's a system of one degree of freedom Never a single number has accurately reflected my critical view or overall enjoyment of what I consider a piece of art.

Damn, I heard that there was barely any censorship of violent content and that the only difference are 2 h-scenes that are not even that good. But if it could affect in any way my experience then I sure have to get that patch. EDIT: But from what I can see, the patch isn't even available yet? What a bummer...

Muv-Luv Unlimited, done! Yay! I've only read Meiya's "route" but as far as I know the differences among routes are limited to a couple of scenes and h-scenes which I don't even have because steam, so I don't think I'm missing anything important... hopefully. Man, I'm so pumped for Alternative. This is gonna be fun

Everything that could be said has already been said, but anyway. I think there are two types of "bad translations". The first kind is that that you immediately realise it's bad because of things like: -Lack of translation "memory", that is, they don't keep a consistency or a record over time. If something has been translated before in a certain way, unless there is a good reason to change it, it must remain that way. -Lack of context awareness. Very similar to the previous one, but in a short span of time. This tends to happen when the translator hasn't even taken a comprehensive read of the source material. In extreme cases, they don't even know the gender of the characters they are translating. In less aggravating ones, you might find a line that was supposed to be, say, sarcastic, but it doesn't sound like it at all in the target language. -Lack of understanding of the linguistic differencies of both languages. Every language is different in which semantic and pragmatic features they express grammaticaly, even though the essence of the message they convey is the same. A good translator will be able to grasp that essence and express it in the target language in a way it sounds natural for any native speaker. Even if you don't know anything about the original language, this is something anyone can notice. Then there's the second "kind" of bad translation. This looks good, and doesn't apparently fall in any of the errors described above. What happened here is that the translator just altered that essence of the message I talked about before. A translation should be natural and at the same time impartial. It's your window to the work of the author, which should be transparent, and you have no right to change it. Obviously in many cases you can only notice this if you know the original language and read the original work. This is the reason this kind of bad translation is the most dangerous. As for the OP original question... Well, it answers itself when you mull over what a bad translation is, doesn't it?

Welp, we are on the same boat, kinda I'm still reading unlimited, though I hope to catch up soon. For now I can say that it's at least a nice change of pace. Let's see if I can get to Alternative ASAP, now that here where I live holidays are drawing near.

Well then, with some dedication today I polished off MuvLuv Extra's Sumika's route. I'm told that getting Meiya's ending will not take more than one more hour since both routes only diverge at the very end... and oh, I'm so glad to hear that As for the other routes, I'm planning on playing Ayamine's because I read that it contains some important characterization (plus to be honest she's probably my fav girl of the cast; kinda reminds me of Rin from Katawa Shoujo). Tama I dunno, I might read it, but as of now what I'm planning on skipping are Chizuru's and Marimo's routes, unless any of you strongly advice me otherwise.

I can work without food nor sleep, no problem, and it doesn't have a negative impact on my mood (on the contrary, weirdly enough when I lack some serious sleep I tend to behave as if I was drunk, laughing at everyone and every silly thing ). However, I do need my daily shower, and if for whatever reason I can't have one I get all cranky

Spot the differences:

Both. Sometimes at the same time.

Sure, morality is subjective and it greatly varies across regions and periods of time. However, what we can observe during this last century is an effort to make of ethics a more logical system, according to which there is nothing wrong in porn since it doesn't harm anyone.

Perhaps saying that "all women working in the porn industry are whores"? If by "whore" he meant "woman that makes money out of sex" then it's by definition obviously true, but I think he was trying to imply that these "whores" have questionable morals, and I don't see why that must be true. Now really?? A shame that a topic like that would be immediately closed by the moderadors, but I am genuinely curious about whether that's true.

Finally started Muv-Luv Extra. I'm like 3-4 hours in and nothing happened, but of course I already knew beforehand how this one goes and wasn't expecting anything interesting to happen in the first place The slice of life and humor is not half as bad as the cringey harem tropes. That is the one thing that really puts me off, but oh well, I'm a patient man and I'll have faith in my perseverence being eventually rewarded One thing that really keeps me motivated is Alternative's opening. It's epic af. Can't wait to read that.

I also feel like there's some bayesian problem with it, when it comes to the perception of people in general. Childish people perhaps tend to lean towards fiction, and since they usually stand out more than people with their feet on earth, it's easy to mix up "the probability of liking anime given that you have a childish personality" and "the probability of having a childish personality given that you like anime".

I mean, maybe she is doing porn BECAUSE she is beautiful. The prettier the more chances to win a casting. That would be my guess, at least.

Ok, I feel it's really important that I clarify something. Everything I theorized about japanese society and its relation with japanese media was just an attempt to offer a less crazy alternative to the hypothesis that our friend in the video spout as the truth. If I tried to sell them as anything more than my subjective take on the matter I'd be falling into the same error as him, which is talking about something I have no idea nor proofs to offer. I wouldn't pay much attention to that part of my post, as it was intended as just a particular example of the seemingly extended preconception of a correlation between japanese media liking and immaturity, which is the topic I really wanted to focus on.