If you’re a fan translator, thank you.

[Happiness+]

I know it’s hard being a fan translator because for one you might get cease and desisted if the company finds out you’re translating their intellectual property, two it could be such an arduous task, third people will shit all over your translation for being “too literal”, “ bad prose” etc. I sincerely want to thank you all for helping the medium grow to this level. So, if you’re struggling right now with a translation:

Please. Don’t. Give. Up.

Because learning Japanese isn’t like picking up Spanish or French, it’s such a huge learning curve and nobody aside from the most dedicated of fans are willing to learn it just to read JVNs. I became a fan of this medium the moment I read Fate/Stay Night by the God and Goddesses of Mirror Moon. After that, I read Fate/Hollow Ataraxia. That wouldn’t have been possible without you guys. While there’re companies that will localize VNs, they have to localize only the ones they can make a profit off of or have permission to do so. Which is very limiting. There’s so many God-Tier JVNs like Mahoyo that remain untouched or the fan translation group gave up. You guys translate visual novels out of the kindness of your heart. I couldn’t be any more grateful. If I met any of you in person, in real-life, I would buy you a beer and give you hug. It’s the least I could do, because people forget how small this community really is. We’re extraordinarily niche. There’s many otaku who have no idea what a visual novel is and they might never even heard of it unless there’s an anime adaptation of said visual novel. But they wouldn’t be able to read it, unless it was translated. Such as the case with Fate/Stay Night and many other visual novels that were adapted into anime. 

 

If you’re working on translating a visual novel, please finish it, you may not know, but there could be someone out there who will read your translation and join this amazing community. I am proof of that, and everyone else here who cannot read Japanese is proof of that. I want you all to know that. I want you all to know how important each of you are. Especially, when elitists are quick to belittle all your efforts. Keep going. Keep pressing forward. 

 

Fan translators are the unsung heroes of the visual novel medium. You sacrifice time, effort, and many other things to put something out there without any pay. Translating has been such a thankless job, so I will extend my thanks and I hope many others will do the same. Especially since Fuwanovel is home to fan translations. There wouldn’t be a EVN renaissance without you. Hell. There wouldn’t be a fandom or a community here, since you guys literally make visual novels popular in the west. 

[Renka]

Aah, you made me cry... literally. Just reading this is more than enough to keep going. Thanks for your kind words.

[ittaku]

You're welcome. Thanks for the feedback

[Infernoplex]

6 hours ago, Happiness+ said:

...third people will shit all over your translation for being “too literal”, “ bad prose” etc...

Careful with that. You might provoke those people who do that. And... that doesn't go just for fanTLs, but for translations in general. Both official and non-official. Back in the day, we didn't have such strong opinions about translations, but nowadays, all translations are considered "shit" (except a select few which most people seem to agree on that it's good). I, for one, don't care anymore and think that if one wants to read a good translation, he/she should just read in Japanese, provided that he can survive years of learning it.

Also, thank you for the kind words.

[Ren'ai Arrow]

Greetings, this is Sekai Project.

We love fan translators too! They really help to reduce our workload so that we can release our licensed visual novels in a timely manner like with Tenshin Ranman and Dracu-Riot. If you're ever thinking of going official we also treat our translators really well and pay them on time, just ask Arudoc. Don't forget to support our upcoming Kickstarter!

[kokoro]

Thanks for wasting your time? lol 

[namiultedjapanXD]

I can't even express my gratitude to those translating great VNs. There are so many fantastic and maybe even life altering VNs out there that and yet to be released. We never would be able to even get a single drop of any of these vns if it wasn't for people taking their time to translate them. It would be such a shame if all these great VNs remained only in Japanese, and to never be discovered. If it wasn't for fan translations of some of ym favorite VNs, I never would have started to learn how to read japanese. 

[McDerpingheimer III]

If you are competent and have delivered a quality product (i.e. translates from one language to another properly, reads well in the second language), then I agree, endless gratitude and praise to you. If you have not, I'll still give you many thanks and compliments if you can recognize your issues, fix them, and learn for later. If, however, you don't care about quality or are too stubborn to accept constructive criticism, and you fail to acknowledge your issue or improve, then fuck you, you're a cancer to the VN community and only promote the accumulation of garbage.

[Ranzo]

Yeah, thanks to the fan translators from back in the day that helped me discover this pretty cool sub genre of entertainment. I probably wouldn't have found it if I hadn't sought out the translation of Galaxy Angel. So yeah I hope you guys can actually finish all those projects that you started so that I can either play them or leave them languishing in my to play folder till the end of time.

[Stormwolf]

9 hours ago, McDerpingheimer III said:

If you are competent and have delivered a quality product (i.e. translates from one language to another properly, reads well in the second language), then I agree, endless gratitude and praise to you. If you have not, I'll still give you many thanks and compliments if you can recognize your issues, fix them, and learn for later. If, however, you don't care about quality or are too stubborn to accept constructive criticism, and you fail to acknowledge your issue or improve, then fuck you, you're a cancer to the VN community and only promote the accumulation of garbage.

You are one of the reasons people are reluctant to translate. "Constructive criticism".. yes, i've heard that term tossed around tl threads, but it has been almost nothing but shit talk and borderline harassment. It takes reading half your post to see you're the type as well, with your somewhat arrogant attitude and all. Do take this as constructive criticism and see how easy it is.

 

[McDerpingheimer III]

4 hours ago, Stormwolf said:

You are one of the reasons people are reluctant to translate. "Constructive criticism".. yes, i've heard that term tossed around tl threads, but it has been almost nothing but shit talk and borderline harassment. It takes reading half your post to see you're the type as well, with your somewhat arrogant attitude and all. Do take this as constructive criticism and see how easy it is.

 

The shit talk and borderline harassment comes after they refuse to acknowledge issues and establish themselves as the last type, so sorry, but no.

[Stormwolf]

4 minutes ago, McDerpingheimer III said:

The shit talk and borderline harassment comes after they refuse to acknowledge issues and establish themselves as the last type, so sorry, but no.

Its not. I've seen it time and time again that criticism is laced with acid. And when this obviously doesn't make a translator happy then it just makes things worse. And to be honest, if you start acting like a shithead because the translator is hard to deal with then you're exactly like i imagined. 

A translator does things out of his free time. He might nit be the best in japanese, but he still does his best. I respect that regardless of the results. I'm not nearly as lenient with official translators.

[McDerpingheimer III]

5 hours ago, Stormwolf said:

criticism is laced with acid

It's easy to say that when criticism is inherently a negative message at someone, seeing as criticism involves highlighting flaws.

5 hours ago, Stormwolf said:

And when this obviously doesn't make a translator happy then it just makes things worse.

Putting aside that it's not clear what you actually meant here, someone who puts out work should be ready for issues to be pointed out, so they shouldn't be expecting only happy praise.

5 hours ago, Stormwolf said:

And to be honest, if you start acting like a shithead because the translator is hard to deal with then you're exactly like i imagined.

I don't see anything wrong with calling someone out for being unable to accept criticism and improve their skills, or making it clear to others that they are such a person, or how that constitutes "acting like a shithead." "Hard to deal with" is a nice way to minimize the fault of the translator, though.

5 hours ago, Stormwolf said:

A translator does things out of his free time. He might nit be the best in japanese, but he still does his best. I respect that regardless of the results.

"Doing one's best" constitutes improving and growing, not just blindly assuming one's work has no issues and ignoring anyone who speaks to the contrary, or saying that quality doesn't matter because they put in effort.

[AustriaVNFan]

I can only agree with the OP. I have the highest respect for everyone who sacrifice their time to bring new UT VNs to a wider public. The only other option is to learn Japanese and that's not for everyone. I have been learning Japanese now for like 1 1/2 years and I must say it is probably the hardest thing I have ever tried. I am not stopping and I am not saying it isn't worth it, but it surely isn't for everyone.

So as long as it's better than a google translation and it's good enough to grasp the story of a VN I will always be thankful towards the translator. You fan translators are never

On 11.2.2019 at 3:50 AM, McDerpingheimer III said:

a cancer to the VN community

 

[Stormwolf]

11 hours ago, McDerpingheimer III said:

It's easy to say that when criticism is inherently a negative message at someone, seeing as criticism involves highlighting flaws.

Putting aside that it's not clear what you actually meant here, someone who puts out work should be ready for issues to be pointed out, so they shouldn't be expecting only happy praise.

I don't see anything wrong with calling someone out for being unable to accept criticism and improve their skills, or making it clear to others that they are such a person, or how that constitutes "acting like a shithead." "Hard to deal with" is a nice way to minimize the fault of the translator, though.

"Doing one's best" constitutes improving and growing, not just blindly assuming one's work has no issues and ignoring anyone who speaks to the contrary, or saying that quality doesn't matter because they put in effort.

Criticism might be inherently negative, but it's important to convey the criticism in a gentle way. As you say, criticism is inherently negative and absolutely no one likes to be criticized. I'm sure a lot don't grasp this fact. To be criticized means to not be good enough. At least to the receiver. 

"learn japanese/english or stop translating" is some regular shit you see in fan translation threads. This is not constructive criticism. It generally boils down to a lack of skills in either of those. How do you objectively criticize that? It's not something you can improve because people say so.

Translating is a good way for people learning Japanese to progress naturally as you need to think and figure things out. Absolutely no one can say they're not allowed as it's none of yours or others business.

 

[McDerpingheimer III]

On 2/12/2019 at 9:00 AM, AustriaVNFan said:

So as long as it's better than a google translation and it's good enough to grasp the story of a VN 

I mean if you just need to understand the story, you should just read a wikipedia plot summary or something. VNs are a literary medium (hence visual “novel”), so that means words and how they’re used are important. If you cannot recognize the importance of prose and replicating its effect, then you may as well read plot summaries, because that’s what you get if you strip out the words from a VN.

[AustriaVNFan]

 

3 minutes ago, McDerpingheimer III said:

I mean if you just need to understand the story, you should just read a wikipedia plot summary or something. VNs are a literary medium (hence visual “novel”), so that means words and how they’re used are important. If you cannot recognize the importance of prose and replicating its effect, then you may as well read plot summaries, because that’s what you get if you strip out the words from a VN.

Well, let's just agree on 'Some people need less to be happy than others'

[ittaku]

2 hours ago, AustriaVNFan said:

Well, let's just agree on 'Some people need less to be happy than others'

As I discussed in the translation quality cutoff thread: