howto:translate

This morning I woke up to someone saying they wanted to help translating, and asking how one goes about it. I thought I could just link them to howto:translate, but it turned out to my great surprise it didn't exist.

So 葉月 and I took a few moments to put together a howto:translate quickly. Read and discuss! Additionally, I think this should be linked when someone tries to make a translation note the first time.

A note not to add linebreaks before translation notes and to fit note boxes to text and not dialogue boxes on non-square boxes would be nice but otherwise looks really good. (I would do it but you're quite clearly better with wording than I am.)

Admittedly about 90% of those words are 葉月's, but I'll gladly take credit for all of it. All funny business aside, I'll add that.

> However, leave honorifics in place. They're an extremely important clue that does not map to the English system of Ms./Mr. at all.

This is really not true for any larger text*, but maybe it is here. Still, it's in kind of a strange place, since I think completely understanding what they're saying implies knowing what to do with them.

• http://easternstandard.pbworks.com/myths

Looks good. Could hopefully be condensed a bit when the details are sorted out. Should probably include a rundown of all the translation related tags, check_translation and partially_translated aren't mentioned.
And the honorifics issue is touchy... There's translators in both camps here, and I think trying to pronounce an official policy on it hopeless. I'm a bit afraid someone will get the idea to go on an edit spree to 'correct' other people's notes.

In the "step by step", lines such as "Repeat until all the text has been translated." seem a bit superfluous. Maybe it could be restructured slightly by moving the admonitions up to the top section and making the bottom just "How to add notes"?

And there's too much bold, it's distracting. I don't think "don't" needs to be bolded at all.

I originally wrote "don't put honorifics", and 葉月 changed it, haha. I don't care that much, but in my opinion in almost all cases honorifics can be translated or left out.

Perhaps this would be a good time to discuss these things and set a standard either way.

Absolutely leave honorifics in. No ifs ands or buts.[*] Attempts to translate honorifics are almost uniformly disastrous and read horribly.

[*] Okay, I lied somewhat, it's vastly more important when the setting and/or characters are Japanese, as they usually are. Nevertheless, leaving them in is usually best practice even in other cases. But it's Japanese settings in particular that I will never budge on.

I usually drop the honorifics, unless I feel they influence the meaning of the comic, in which case I just leave them in rather than try to translate them.
I don't think stuffing in a bunch of sans and chans adds anything to the translated text as long as it's business as usual.

They stink of Japanophilia, I really don't like them. I don't really read that much translated stuff here to be honest, I only pushed to create this since, well, it needs to exist. So I'll certainly yield to majority opinion.

Dropping the usual honorifics is *slightly* better than translating them, but it can come back and bite you in anything longer than a single image if the characters decide to change, or even worse, drop honorifics for whatever reason. Not to mention tricks such as referring to someone as "mistaa" instead of -san. It's just a landmine and really not something you can translate appropriately, because it models a structure created for Japanese and not English. Don't touch it and it won't blow up in your face.

スラッシュ said:
They stick of Japanophilia, I really don't like them. I don't really read that much translated stuff here to be honest, I only pushed to create this since, well, it needs to exist. So I'll certainly yield to majority opinion.

It has fuck all to do with Japanophilia, and a lot more with not being fucking stupid and pretending that Japanese is in any way similar to English. Neither you nor me are Americans, so at least you could stop insisting so much on English being the best choice for everything. Like it or not, we're dealing with materials originating in Japan, and they *are* specifically Japanese.

スラッシュ said: They stink of Japanophilia, I really don't like them.

That's a terrible reason. It's half a step removed from just going "lol weeaboo". Like Hazuki said, you're dealing with Japanese text here. I wouldn't drop or change titles in any language, Japanese or not. I really hate when attention to cultural nuance is blown off as simple fanboyism.

I'm definitely with Hazuki and jxh on the honorifics issue. In my opinion, it has nothing to do with japanophilia/weeaboo/etc and everything to do with social and cultural issues that are largely absent in English. Granted, many times it's just "-san" over and over, but in context, it's important because its omission means a very different relationship between the speaker and listener. Will the average reader understand said relationship? Maybe not, but I still think it's imperative to at least preserve what the artist/writer intended in the first place, since honorifics are a really big deal in Japan.

A couple of questions though:

1)
I'm one of the people that use "~" for extended sounds when the actual text in Japanese uses one as well, and many instances for its use can also be found in English (e.g., a long sigh, verbal crutches, etc.). I see the rules saying to discontinue its use, but I'd rather not type in a ton of redundant letters (i.e., "Aaaahhhh") if I can help it. Is it 100% a no-go, or should I just start using a dash or something? Or alternatively, should I just leave it off entirely?

2)
Sometimes I put the word in Japanese in italics and make it a link to a wiki page or an equivalent explanatory site. Personally, I believe that's better than putting in a convoluted explanation or a large chunk in tags. Am I correct in assuming that doing the above is OK in that situation?Examples:post #538661
post #574380
post #575227

recklessfirex said:
Granted, many times it's just "-san" over and over, but in context, it's important because its omission means a very different relationship between the speaker and listener.

Exactly.

I'm one of the people that use "~" for extended sounds when the actual text in Japanese uses one as well, and many instances for its use can also be found in English (e.g., a long sigh, verbal crutches, etc.). I see the rules saying to discontinue its use, but I'd rather not type in a ton of redundant letters (i.e., "Aaaahhhh") if I can help it. Is it 100% a no-go, or should I just start using a dash or something? Or alternatively, should I just leave it off entirely?

That's a tough one. Is ugly, but it's also pretty hard to render in English otherwise. Personally I try just to do it with repeated letters if possible. But it's unlikely that it'd get anyone's wrath on you to use it, it's just somewhat unsightly.

Sometimes I put the word in Japanese in italics and make it a link to a wiki page or an equivalent explanatory site. Personally, I believe that's better than putting in a convoluted explanation or a large chunk in tags. Am I correct in assuming that doing the above is OK in that situation?

Yeah, it's fine. スラッシュ was complaining about it, but honestly I don't see any better option. It's not like you can "translate" nattou or ofuda or whatever.

recklessfirex said: 1) Is it 100% a no-go, or should I just start using a dash or something? Or alternatively, should I just leave it off entirely?

I'm pretty accepting of any of the proposed methods, really. Extra letters, ~, -, whatever. It gets the point across.

2) Sometimes I put the word in Japanese in italics and make it a link to a wiki page or an equivalent explanatory site. Personally, I believe that's better than putting in a convoluted explanation or a large chunk in tags. Am I correct in assuming that doing the above is OK in that situation?

I don't see anything wrong with it, but it depends a lot on the situation. If there's a reference to an obscure (to us) Japanese celebrity or something, an inline link seems like a good idea. If it's a brief explanation of a kanji pun, I'd prefer a tl note in the box. Well, not like there going to be an obvious explanatory link available for a one off gag like that anyway.

~ in translated text is a pet peeve of mine, and I will remove it if it's particularly bad, like stringing together a bunch of them. I don't think it belongs in a properly punctuated English sentence.

I'd suggest just omitting it most of the time. It's usually not something that needs to be explicitly shown, certainly not for sighs and the like. If that's not possible, whatever effect is intended should be replicated with the appropriate English punctuation, repeated letters or the like. Leaving it in isn't an option, because ~ simply doesn't have that meaning (or indeed any meaning) in English. A fine example to show that punctuation needs to be translated, too.

A few things:

Do we have a formal romanization policy yet? If not, it might be good to link "our romanization rules" in section 7 of part 1 to forum #31038 or other relevant discussions.

On the topic of making notes "as small as possible", what is the consensus on text that stretches over a picture? I normally size the note to cover the entire text unless doing so would completely cover another note, my rationale being that people can click the image to remove notes if it's a bother, but I've seen some pictures where that situation is handled with a small note in the corner. A policy one way or the other would be a good addition to the wiki.

I no longer remember where on the forum this came from, but I have a bookmarklet that links Ctrl+Z to 'create a new note', which is extraordinarily useful when translating long images so I don't have to keep scrolling back up to do it. If anyone else knows where that post is, I think it should be linked in the wiki.

Ooh I did not know that existed, that does sound extraordinarily useful (although an alternative would be to just make a whole bunch of notes at the start instead).

I think it'd be better to finalize the romanization discussion and then link to the resulting howto:romanize...

Since we are setting policy here, I have two questions, both regarding translation notes.

We're saying here (and it has long been at least
some users' preference) to not use line-breaks before translation notes. Is this hard and fast? I suppose it should be for consistency's sake, but I do the opposite, as I like the separation the extra line provides. Is there good argument for one way over the other aside from aesthetics?

The other question is in regards to "In particular, do not leave notes saying 'literally blah blah'". That's another will-be rule I regularly violate, as I like to sometimes point out nuances, connections, or references that aren't essential to comprehension, but can sometimes help better understand the situation, topic, or peculiarities in a passage.

I think my translations are generally good enough to be understood on their own, so the notes are just gravy, but is this something we as a group officially frown upon?

Found it; forum #22629. I'm not sure whether it would be better to copy/paste the code into the wiki or just link the forum post.