Fan Translation Roles and Tips

[Clephas]

Generally, one of the most common factors that causes a team leader to burn out is when people drop out or stop working and he has no way to find out why. Many leaders burn out as a result of the frustration of repeatedly hunting down replacement tls and other staff, as well as failing to meet the goals they set. Basically, burnout is an emotional phenomenon as well as a physical and mental one. The more frustration you experience on a project, the more apathetic you become and the closer you get to burnout. If the leader doesn't shift his burdens to someone else at this point, the group can collapse either from neglect or the leader losing his temper and saying something he doesn't really mean.

Edit: The reason I included constant conversation with the members as a leader's job is because that is the only really effective method of maintaining members' loyalty to the project. Considering that most fantls start out with nothing but enthusiasm, something has to be there to hold them when the enthusiasm begins to fade or they'll vanish on you. Signs of this usually include a slowing in work, followed by unrelated complaints about relatively minor issues. At this point, most are trying to convince themselves they are somehow right to abandon the project by creating grievances in their mind. This is in the case of a 'moral tl' who feels a sense of obligation but who is on the verge of burnout. Ones who don't care what others think will generally just drop off without any prior sign other than a slow drop in the work rate. Regardless, taking care to remain engaged with your members is the job of the leader that is most likely to keep both sides from burning out completely. It reminds them they aren't alone and that someone is hoping for them to finish their work on a personal level, as opposed to the more general sense of the fanboy community. (this is basically psychological manipulation, but that is the essence of good leadership when you can't drag people around using your charisma) One last warning... do not ever put projects on complete hiatus. Your project will die, without a doubt if you do so. There are exceptions, but you should never be so arrogant as to believe you are that exception.

Edit2: A few final words, then I'll stop lecturing. Holidays. While some fantls work harder over the holidays, the vast majority of your members won't have time to do the work on major holidays and at the very least you'll have to plan to reduce their normal workloads during such times. This is especially true for high-travel holidays like Thanksgiving or Christmas in the US and New Years in non-Christian sphere countries. Reduce the personal workloads during those times but add in more scripts to the section you set aside for anyone to work on as they have time.

[OtonashiP]

For new translators, I suggest taking short term routes till you get used to it. Alternatively, if you're feeling burned out on a certain route, play another route on the game or just play a whole new game itself. Based on personal experience, translation for the first time is a lot of times repetitive, As you translate you sometimes forget some common things such as grammar, adjectives and etc. You'll also feel that you translated a lot of things the wrong way so you'll go back to line 1 on a script again, Once this happen burning out is imminent. So the best tip is just to continue moving forward and finish the whole route first and leave it up to the TLC (if you have) or just check it yourself after you're done with the whole route.

[Joshyan]

It seems like project will success or fail depends on translator(s) status, mostly.

If the last translator drop out or MIA and leader can't find another translator in time, that project will fail for sure.

Another role can find a replacement easier than translator

A few tip for newbie translator

- Ignore the grammar : Especially when you didn't skill with English, it causes less stress and can do it faster too, make you burned out slower. It is an editor's job to make your engrish into English.

- Check your schedule : Translating VN is time consuming progress. 1-2 hours per day is the idea schedule for translator to translate VN.

- Don't lazy : Try to translate at least a small number of lines that you are comfortable with everyday, it's maybe slow but slow progress is still a progress.

- Stay in contact : It's important to keep you and your team a high morale, make you burned out slower and sometime can make you more motivate. This also lets team leader know that you aren't MIA.

- Keep update your progress : It helps your team morale as they see the progress is up and not stall.