onomatope*'s lastest title - Kyuuketsuki no Libra - is coming to Steam

[Chuee]

Well, pretty much. Still haven't seen any way to translate it that wouldn't make the sentence sound extremely dumb.

Well, actual Japanese people never talk like that to begin with from what I've heard, so it's supposed to sound a little dumb. If the sentence sounds dumb in English you're probably doing it right, since it seems like it's there to imply that the character is dumb and naive. 

[Darklord Rooke]

1. To generate this discussion and see what people have to say. Obviously desugate has really picked up steam. Which is great. Debate shows passion for the art and loving or hating it is a much better response than no response at all. Yes, it is a marketing test. Thank you for participating.

Welcome to the forums.

What you'll probably find is different responses depending on what section of the community people come from. /a/ fans, or fans immersed deep in Japanese culture are fine with the inclusion of Japanese words randomly through the script, but these sorts of people and this sort of practice has a bad reputation almost everywhere else. On the other side of the spectrum, over-localisation has a bad reputation inside this exclusive Japanese fanbase, but is usually considered fine in the mainstream. There's really no way you'd appease all fans, you'd know this, so you'd just have to pick a path and make it as palatable to others as possible. I should point out that excluding translation notes in a translation which is contains foreign words is not the way to make it palatable to others, it kinda ticks people off. Maybe I'll translate a story from Egyptian, then litter the work with meaningful Egyptian words and see what sort of impression you take away from this?

 

2. Its not so much a verbal tick as it is a mental tick that reveals itself verbally. Lycorice is an interesting and fun character. The desu appears only a short number of times. We present it when she herself repeats it. She says desu once just about all the time. Whats interesting for us is why she says it twice. She is confirming her answer to who she is speaking to. She is confirming to them she understands what they are saying to her but maybe more importantly, she is confirming her response to herself. Yes, there should probably be a footnote about it or have it mentioned in her character profile. She's a couple of beers short of a 6 pack that is true.

See, that doesn't come across at all. It's an interesting character trait, but it fails to be interesting when people can't share in it (like the majority of the English speaking audience.) So if it's not explained it ceases to be a mental or verbal tick, and just becomes 'a meaningless foreign thing.' So yeah, please footnote it or localise it. I drop stories immediately when I encounter random foreign words which are not widely known and not translated, because it's almost always a sign of people who don't know what they're doing. In fact, this is probably the only instance I've known of qualified people who have tried to do it. 

Enjoy your stay, ignore the rabbidness and good luck with the future kickstarter  

Edited November 26, 2015 by Rooke

[Deep Blue]

Hi

One of the translators on the project here.

We decided to leave the desu in the English version for a couple of reasons.

1. To generate this discussion and see what people have to say. Obviously desugate has really picked up steam. Which is great. Debate shows passion for the art and loving or hating it is a much better response than no response at all. Yes, it is a marketing test. Thank you for participating.

2. Its not so much a verbal tick as it is a mental tick that reveals itself verbally. Lycorice is an interesting and fun character. The desu appears only a short number of times. We present it when she herself repeats it. She says desu once just about all the time. Whats interesting for us is why she says it twice. She is confirming her answer to who she is speaking to. She is confirming to them she understands what they are saying to her but maybe more importantly, she is confirming her response to herself. Yes, there should probably be a footnote about it or have it mentioned in her character profile. She's a couple of beers short of a 6 pack that is true.

I see a lot of Japanese work that completely gets the life sucked out of it by poor translators, translators in a hurry or translators who are not qualified at a cultural and or language level for the work. I think Western audiences deserve better.

About us. We've worked in translation for literary, film, music and television projects both in Japan and in Hollywood. We've been translating for almost 20 years. We are native Japanese and English speakers. We live and work in Tokyo and love Japan. Desu.

KumaDog, desu.

 

I don't know if the campaign is going to succeed or not, there is no way to please all the fans, maybe it is the right choice to make maybe it is not, but I like how you are being honest and very open about this issue with all the people and audience, that's why I've chosen to support the project. This is something that you don't see in any company, so much feedback and communication between the company and the audience itself.
Just waiting for the KS to be available so i can back it up  

[CeruleanGamer]

Have an on/off option in the settings for desu and other verbal tics with a TL note explaining what they are.

If it's set to "on", put them in untranslated

If it's set to "off", just ignore the tics entirely.

roflmao. oh my god I knew someone was gonna suggest this. Great idea +1  

Edited November 26, 2015 by CeruleanGamer

[sanahtlig]

Even better: Add an option to display Japanese dialogue instead of English dialogue and leave everything untranslated.  There's no better translation than no translation!

Edited November 26, 2015 by sanahtlig

[GoGO88]

Fuwa Elite...thank you for that. There does need to be something done for the desu repeats (says 2 times). For the singles we are just leaving them out entirely. The issue with replacing the cheerful confirmation of her high tension (hyperactive in a positive way) to herself is that it is one of the markers, only one, that we use to identify the tone of her character. She's trying to be serious but she just is not... lol. That said we may drop the desu completely

There's a girl at our local supermarket who is kinda like Lycorice. She is just past high school age. She is ALWAYS UP and ALWAYS TOO CHEERFUL. Her voice is laced with sugar and she is always trying to ingratiate herself to every...single...fucking...person....she....meets. She means well but... Sometimes I just want to go over to her and find the off switch.

If you are familiar with "Funashi" that is another good comparison.    

[sanahtlig]

Fuwa Elite...thank you for that. 

Pst... "Fuwa Elite" is a title and not a username.

[GoGO88]

Even better: Add an option to display Japanese dialogue instead of English dialogue and leave everything untranslated.  There's no better translation than no translation!

The best translations are works that remain true to the characters and to the dialogue and story lines. The translator is not the artist. The translator is the vehicle for the original artist to be voiced in a new language. Cutting out dialogues or changing stories and characters is absurd and amateurish. Since MG was brought up I've been looking at some of the descriptions and character profiles of the games and VNs. Some are great but many are dreadful. They make no sense in English.

 

Fuwa Elite...thank you for that. 

Pst... "Fuwa Elite" is a title and not a username.

I'm new.

[Satsuki]

Fuwa Elite...thank you for that. 

Pst... "Fuwa Elite" is a title and not a username.

Seems like Tay will have some more works to do.

[Narcosis]

Even better: Add an option to display Japanese dialogue instead of English dialogue and leave everything untranslated.  There's no better translation than no translation!

Yeah, TIME TO LEARN JAPANESE

Hi

One of the translators on the project here.

We decided to leave the desu in the English version for a couple of reasons.

1. To generate this discussion and see what people have to say. Obviously desugate has really picked up steam. Which is great. Debate shows passion for the art and loving or hating it is a much better response than no response at all. Yes, it is a marketing test. Thank you for participating.

2. Its not so much a verbal tick as it is a mental tick that reveals itself verbally. Lycorice is an interesting and fun character. The desu appears only a short number of times. We present it when she herself repeats it. She says desu once just about all the time. Whats interesting for us is why she says it twice. She is confirming her answer to who she is speaking to. She is confirming to them she understands what they are saying to her but maybe more importantly, she is confirming her response to herself. Yes, there should probably be a footnote about it or have it mentioned in her character profile. She's a couple of beers short of a 6 pack that is true.

I see a lot of Japanese work that completely gets the life sucked out of it by poor translators, translators in a hurry or translators who are not qualified at a cultural and or language level for the work. I think Western audiences deserve better.

About us. We've worked in translation for literary, film, music and television projects both in Japan and in Hollywood. We've been translating for almost 20 years. We are native Japanese and English speakers. We live and work in Tokyo and love Japan. Desu.

KumaDog, desu.

Best of luck to you and your team, GoGO88. I'd wish there'd be more translators like you; people who actually understand, translation and localization are something a lot more complicated than just changing words from one language to another.

[Crimrui]

Heh, I would always leave desu wa from Ojou-sama type in the translated versions, I just love how they pronounce it and it's unique. You can't find stuff like that in English Anyway, GoGO88 good luck to you. I'm looking forward to the Kickstarter. ˇˇ

[CeruleanGamer]

Fuwa Elite...thank you for that. There does need to be something done for the desu repeats (says 2 times). For the singles we are just leaving them out entirely. The issue with replacing the cheerful confirmation of her high tension (hyperactive in a positive way) to herself is that it is one of the markers, only one, that we use to identify the tone of her character. She's trying to be serious but she just is not... lol. That said we may drop the desu completely

There's a girl at our local supermarket who is kinda like Lycorice. She is just past high school age. She is ALWAYS UP and ALWAYS TOO CHEERFUL. Her voice is laced with sugar and she is always trying to ingratiate herself to every...single...fucking...person....she....meets. She means well but... Sometimes I just want to go over to her and find the off switch.

If you are familiar with "Funashi" that is another good comparison.    

If a character is already using desu, no need to add another one thats for sure. Otherwise it loses its flavor and uniqueness to that one character who uses them a lot.

Edited November 27, 2015 by CeruleanGamer

[Conjueror]

I don't think one questionable choice is reason to accuse the entire staff of being incompetent (with the accompanying blow to morale that would bring).  I think it's better to judge their work as a whole (as seen in the first gameplay video), rather than obsess on one particular aspect.  To say as a potential backer, "I have no confidence in your translation after this desu fiasco, even if you fix it, because it shows your staff is incompetent.  Not funding this!" would be quite the melodramatic turn.

Ah, sorry, that came out much harsher than I intended. It's just that the strange translation philosophy set off an alarm bell in my mind, and I thought it wouldn't hurt Mikandi to check if the guys they hired really know what they're doing while it's still not too late. All I want is for visual novels to grow and be recognized by general public, and including weeaboo lexicon that is alien to everyone except the already established audience in official translations doesn't bode too well for that. I've already seen some mainstream people mocking Steins;Gate for including all those redundant japanisms, and therefore not sounding like a professional translation (and it didn't have anything even close to desu afaik).

In any case, I have yet to see "desu" transliterated in any of the professionally translated novels and video games that I've gone through, and I don't see why visual novels should be an exception to the rule. Godspeed to Mikandi for trying to localize more of our niche medium, but translating it in the language that only the established fanbase would ever understand will only hold it back, regardless of how good the actual translation is.

[sanahtlig]

 Ah, sorry, that came out much harsher than I intended. It's just that the strange translation philosophy set off an alarm bell in my mind, and I thought it wouldn't hurt Mikandi to check if the guys they hired really know what they're doing while it's still not too late. All I want is for visual novels to grow and be recognized by general public, and including weeaboo lexicon that is alien to everyone except the already established audience in official translations doesn't bode too well for that. I've already seen some mainstream people mocking Steins;Gate for including all those redundant japanisms, and therefore not sounding like a professional translation (and it didn't have anything even close to desu afaik).

In any case, I have yet to see "desu" transliterated in any of the professionally translated novels and video games that I've gone through, and I don't see why visual novels should be an exception to the rule. Godspeed to Mikandi for trying to localize more of our niche medium, but translating it in the language that only the established fanbase would ever understand will only hold it back, regardless of how good the actual translation is.

You're voicing the same sentiment as Rooke.  Let's be clear: this is a Kickstarter initiative for Kickstarter backers.  Kickstarter backers are clearly NOT the mainstream audience.  The game may be sold on Steam afterwards, but first and foremost this is a translation for the small section of the community that funds games on Kickstarter.  We should reexamine our assumptions that the audiences on Steam (and elsewhere) and Kickstarter are equivalent with equivalent expectations.  You and Rooke are championing a translation for the mainstream.  But what if that's not what the hardcore fans supporting this on Kickstarter want?  Appealing to the widest audience possible is usually--but not always--the best strategy.  But sometimes it's best to focus on appealing to a specific target demographic.

Remember: MiKandi Japan's goal isn't "Make visual novels popular in the West".  It's to get this particular game funded.  While those goals may be mostly compatible, they won't always align--and they don't need to.

Edited November 27, 2015 by sanahtlig

[Conjueror]

 Ah, sorry, that came out much harsher than I intended. It's just that the strange translation philosophy set off an alarm bell in my mind, and I thought it wouldn't hurt Mikandi to check if the guys they hired really know what they're doing while it's still not too late. All I want is for visual novels to grow and be recognized by general public, and including weeaboo lexicon that is alien to everyone except the already established audience in official translations doesn't bode too well for that. I've already seen some mainstream people mocking Steins;Gate for including all those redundant japanisms, and therefore not sounding like a professional translation (and it didn't have anything even close to desu afaik).

In any case, I have yet to see "desu" transliterated in any of the professionally translated novels and video games that I've gone through, and I don't see why visual novels should be an exception to the rule. Godspeed to Mikandi for trying to localize more of our niche medium, but translating it in the language that only the established fanbase would ever understand will only hold it back, regardless of how good the actual translation is.

You're voicing the same sentiment as Rooke.  Let's be clear: this is a Kickstarter initiative for Kickstarter backers.  Kickstarter backers are clearly NOT the mainstream audience.  The game may be sold on Steam afterwards, but first and foremost this is a translation for the small section of the community that funds games on Kickstarter.  We should reexamine our assumptions that the audiences on Steam (and elsewhere) and Kickstarter are equivalent with equivalent expectations.  You and Rooke are championing a translation for the mainstream.  But what if that's not what the hardcore fans supporting this on Kickstarter want?  Appealing to the widest audience possible is usually--but not always--the best strategy.  But sometimes it's best to focus on appealing to a specific target demographic.

Remember: MiKandi Japan's goal isn't "Make visual novels popular in the West".  It's to get this particular game funded.  While those goals may be mostly compatible, they won't always align--and they don't need to.

Ah, I see how it can make sense from the business perspective now.

It won't change my personal opinion about it (that one line) not looking like a professional translation, though (and I've seen that line mocked all over the net in the past few days, so I'm not even sure how many of the established audience like stuff like that, regardless of their ability to understand it).

My opinion is that the best translation (and really the only one that should be acceptable in a perfect world) is one that you would never guess was a translation to begin with (like most Haruki Murakami novels for example), and transliterating "desu" kills that outright.

[Chuee]

Well, even if Weaboos have heard of the word 'desu', how many of them are going to actually understand what it means in this context? 

[GoGO88]

The best thing a translator can do is to remain true to the original author while writing in a style that is understandable to readers of the language the story is being translated to. English readers from all over the world should be able to understand the translation and get the feeling, flavor and emotion of the original author's intent. This is all we are trying to do.
Again, we only added the desu to lines spoken by Lycorice when she uses it in dialogue where it would not be normally used at the end. When she uses the term in the regular or normal grammatically correct way, we never show it. I agree with Conjureror that the next phase should open the doors for more people to enjoy VN and game work, Manga, etc., work coming out of Japan without ignoring the core fan base.

That's why I agree with Sanahtlig's comment about casting too wide a net. It is why so many Hollywood movies are so awful. But the translation should remain faithful to the original author.

 

[Darklord Rooke]

Again, we only added the desu to lines spoken by Lycorice when she uses it in dialogue where it would not be normally used at the end. When she uses the term in the regular or normal grammatically correct way, we never show it. I agree with Conjureror that the next phase should open the doors for more people to enjoy VN and game work, Manga, etc., work coming out of Japan without ignoring the core fan base.

Most of the core fan base didn’t recognise this subtlety, a few did but many did not, so make sure to explain it or the trait you’re trying to show will be wasted  

[Deep Blue]

 Ah, sorry, that came out much harsher than I intended. It's just that the strange translation philosophy set off an alarm bell in my mind, and I thought it wouldn't hurt Mikandi to check if the guys they hired really know what they're doing while it's still not too late. All I want is for visual novels to grow and be recognized by general public, and including weeaboo lexicon that is alien to everyone except the already established audience in official translations doesn't bode too well for that. I've already seen some mainstream people mocking Steins;Gate for including all those redundant japanisms, and therefore not sounding like a professional translation (and it didn't have anything even close to desu afaik).

In any case, I have yet to see "desu" transliterated in any of the professionally translated novels and video games that I've gone through, and I don't see why visual novels should be an exception to the rule. Godspeed to Mikandi for trying to localize more of our niche medium, but translating it in the language that only the established fanbase would ever understand will only hold it back, regardless of how good the actual translation is.

You're voicing the same sentiment as Rooke.  Let's be clear: this is a Kickstarter initiative for Kickstarter backers.  Kickstarter backers are clearly NOT the mainstream audience.  The game may be sold on Steam afterwards, but first and foremost this is a translation for the small section of the community that funds games on Kickstarter.  We should reexamine our assumptions that the audiences on Steam (and elsewhere) and Kickstarter are equivalent with equivalent expectations.  You and Rooke are championing a translation for the mainstream.  But what if that's not what the hardcore fans supporting this on Kickstarter want?  Appealing to the widest audience possible is usually--but not always--the best strategy.  But sometimes it's best to focus on appealing to a specific target demographic.

Remember: MiKandi Japan's goal isn't "Make visual novels popular in the West".  It's to get this particular game funded.  While those goals may be mostly compatible, they won't always align--and they don't need to.

Ah, I see how it can make sense from the business perspective now.

It won't change my personal opinion about it (that one line) not looking like a professional translation, though (and I've seen that line mocked all over the net in the past few days, so I'm not even sure how many of the established audience like stuff like that, regardless of their ability to understand it).

My opinion is that the best translation (and really the only one that should be acceptable in a perfect world) is one that you would never guess was a translation to begin with (like most Haruki Murakami novels for example), and transliterating "desu" kills that outright.

You are talking about a translator which is also a famous writer...how many people can you name that will actually be willing to translate a vn that are both recognized writers and also translators? 

Is like saying that the translations that Borges or De la Serna did are actually very good... it's pretty obvious. I don't know many translators from other languages (i'm spanish speaker)

[Darklord Rooke]

 You are talking about a translator which is also a famous writer...how many people can you name that will actually be willing to translate a vn that are both recognized writers and also translators? 

Translators who aren't writers either have someone on their team who can write, or an editor who does that job. Pevear and Volohnsky is a very famous example, award winning duo where V will translate the text as literally as possible and P will write it in a way which works in English but doesn't lose the original meaning. 

[Conjueror]

The best thing a translator can do is to remain true to the original author while writing in a style that is understandable to readers of the language the story is being translated to. English readers from all over the world should be able to understand the translation and get the feeling, flavor and emotion of the original author's intent. This is all we are trying to do.
Again, we only added the desu to lines spoken by Lycorice when she uses it in dialogue where it would not be normally used at the end. When she uses the term in the regular or normal grammatically correct way, we never show it. I agree with Conjureror that the next phase should open the doors for more people to enjoy VN and game work, Manga, etc., work coming out of Japan without ignoring the core fan base.

That's why I agree with Sanahtlig's comment about casting too wide a net. It is why so many Hollywood movies are so awful. But the translation should remain faithful to the original author.

 

Well, good luck on your endeavor. I don't agree with your treatment of Japanese speech quirks, but your heart seems to be in the right place at least.
Hopefully, your game gets funded all right.
 

Edited November 27, 2015 by Conjueror

[Deep Blue]

 You are talking about a translator which is also a famous writer...how many people can you name that will actually be willing to translate a vn that are both recognized writers and also translators? 

Translators who aren't writers either have someone on their team who can write, or an editor who does that job. Pevear and Volohnsky is a very famous example, award winning duo where V will translate the text as literally as possible and P will write it in a way which works in English but doesn't lose the original meaning. 

My point was that he was naming a famous writer which is also a translator himself, also you are giving me an example were both of them speak and understand the same language that are translating, give a literal translation to the best writer who cannot read the original script to edit it and I'm sure it's not going to do a good job with it.

[Darklord Rooke]

 My point was that he was naming a famous writer which is also a translator himself, also you are giving me an example were both of them speak and understand the same language that are translating, give a literal translation to the best writer who cannot read the original script to edit it and I'm sure it's not going to do a good job with it.

Pevear started out not understanding the language he was helping his wife translate, although he confesses he picked some Russian up over time (which would be only natural given his extensive exposure.) The key here is communication, that is you engage in plenty of it.

My point was that while it would be difficult to find someone willing to translate VNs that can both translate and write at a high level (although they exist,) there are a fair few people floating around the fanbase who are proficient at Japanese, and quite a few individuals who can write very decently, and so the logical thing to do is to form a team.

Edited November 27, 2015 by Rooke

[Deep Blue]

 My point was that he was naming a famous writer which is also a translator himself, also you are giving me an example were both of them speak and understand the same language that are translating, give a literal translation to the best writer who cannot read the original script to edit it and I'm sure it's not going to do a good job with it.

Pevear started out not understanding the language he was helping his wife translate, although he confesses he picked some Russian up over time (which would be only natural given his extensive exposure.) The key here is communication, that is you engage in plenty of it.

My point was that while it would be difficult to find someone willing to translate VNs that can both translate and write at a high level (although they exist,) there are a fair few people floating around the fanbase who are proficient at Japanese, and quite a few individuals who can write very decently, and so the logical thing to do is to form a team.

I not sure if it is possible to gather a team like that but I would love to see one in the future.

[Darklord Rooke]

 I not sure if it is possible to gather a team like that but I would love to see one in the future.

I heard some good things about MDZ and Darbury? I dunno, I didn't read it but people thought it was good on Reddit?

Team's like this aren't infallible, indeed Pevear kinda knows conversational Russian, probably not to any meaningful extent for a translator, but even so it enables critiques like this:

A husband-and-wife team, Larissa makes a literal translation as close to word-for-word as possible and then Richard tidies up her copy. (He hasn’t mastered the language himself, not even at a conversational level, which is why I feel comfortable criticizing their work so harshly. I may not know Russian—but neither does Richard Pevear.) ...

They make a worse blunder in the scene where Mrs. Khokhlakov is explaining to Alyosha that Dmitry might opt for a temporary-insanity plea. “Suppose we have a person who’s perfectly sane, and suddenly he’s suffering from diminished responsibility,” is what Avsey has her say. “Come to think of it, who doesn’t suffer from diminished responsibility these days? Don’t you, don’t I? We all do.” P & V translate the crucial phrase as “fit of passion”—“Who isn’t in a fit of passion these days?” That’s readable, but utterly wrong. Elsewhere they have “stupid” where Avsey has “absurd,” “brief” where he has “direct,” and “be healed by you” where he has “be redeemed through you.” (Those three are from the page preceding the famous “Rebellion” chapter, if you would like to check the context.) Gary Saul Morson, a professor of Russian literature at Northwestern, compared this tone-deafness to “someone translating Paradise Lost from English into Russian who had somehow missed that Milton was a Christian.”

...

The unfinished couplet is about a soldier. The original Russian doesn’t give a translator much to go on: Google Translate renders it “Soldiers will pack carry / And I for him . . . ” P & V make a decent attempt, managing to work in a mild profanity:

The soldier boy will pack his kit
And drag me with him through . . .

But we must concede the superiority of the Avsey version, which, unlike P & V’s, makes me laugh:

The soldier will march to seek his luck
And leave me dying for a . . .

http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/firstthoughts/2013/01/the-pevearvolokhonsky-hype-machine-and-how-it-could-have-been-stopped-or-at-least-slowed-down

But while they have their weaknesses (no translation will be perfect, and they will ALL be heavily criticised whether they're professional or not) it's still a workable arrangement imo.