God Child translation project... has anyone got any bright ideas?

[Risu-chan]

So the last idea was for Pandora to translate from the Chinese edition, me to take a look over things to fix any quirks with names or sound effects, and we'd call it good.

Unfortunately, it's just not working out that way.

Here's a copy and paste of the email I sent to Pandora, Katze, and Carole, asking if anyone has any brilliant ideas that would let someone take over the majority of the translating and still end up with something that's accurate to the Japanese edition...

I'm sure Pandora's doing a perfectly accurate translation from Chinese -- but even back in Red Ram, Crisis and I already found several instances where the Chinese translators didn't know what the Japanese language was talking about! I set a timer for an hour and hoped I could get through the editing in that amount of time, but it's taken me 45 minutes so far and I've only gotten through five pages because I've
had to retranslate everything.

Some particular examples of things that had to be changed:

First couple pages:

From Chinese:
>Clehadault: Please remember,
> do not speak to the evil spirit.
>Clehadault: No matter what happens, do not break off the
>circle.

From Japanese:
You recall from the last time, yes?
You must never simply converse with the spirits on a whim.
[it's not "you mustn't speak at all," but "you mustn't speak at random"]

From Chinese:
>Clehadault: If my lords and lady do not comply with my
>instruction, I will
>not be held responsible for whatever might happen during the
>seance.
>Clehadault: This is the danger of performing a seance.

From Japanese:
If you fail to follow these instructions, no matter what happens during this seance, I will not be held responsible.
The task we undertake here is truly that dangerous.
[the emphasis is on THIS seance, not on seances in general, because of what happened the last time...]

From Chinese:
> The phenomenon involving the supernatural, an
attempted contact with the spiritual world?

From Japanese:
In the name of an experiment with supernatural concepts, summoning forth those spirits which are said to linger on, dwelling in the shadows -- is _that_ what this is...?

From Chinese:
>Legend has said that butterfly is a symbol of the human soul...

From Japanese:
I've heard that butterflies are the incarnations of departed souls...
[specifically incarnations or reincarnations, not just
images...]

From Chinese:
>Sir, we are very concerned that you have left your room without a word.

From Japanese:
Sir, it's quite an inconvenience for our guests to wander wilfully about.
[emphasis on the trouble the staff's being put to, not on concern for Cain]

From Chinese:
>Emile, who is interested in the occult, also became interested and persuaded Rukia to participate.

From Japanese:
My son Emile, who had begun to take an interest in the occult, dragged Rukia along against her will and told me that she wished to participate.
[it was specifically never Rukia's idea at all, and Emile lied to his uncle about whether or not Rukia agreed to it...]

That's the point where I realized I really was going to have to line-by-line every single bit of dialogue in the scene...

@_@ I don't know what to suggest at this point. I hate to have Pandora waste her time if I'm going to be retranslating
everything anyway, but I also hate to have people on the board waiting around until I have enough free time to translate... because y'all have seen over the past few months how much free time and energy my job generally leaves me with.

Help...?

I'm willing to hand off God Child and focus on the shorter things like Blood Hound and Ludwig if we can find a way to know that what's getting translated is what was said in the original. But too many things just don't survive a three language jump. (In Chinese one of the lines involved "green butterflies"; I can see where they got it from, but the original phrase was "pale butterflies"... it's everywhere...)

help...??

ed: took out the brackets that were turning some of the dialogue into attempts at HTML coding...

<font color="#660033" size="1">[ July 13, 2004 10:42 PM: Message edited by: Risu-chan ]</font>

[Risu-chan]

;_; I'm completely demoralized...

went back to the translation and here's the comparison of the very next line:

Chinese:
>Legend says that when butterflies--the symbol of the spirit--turn red, the power of the spirit is at its strongest.

Japanese:
It is said that when the butterflies which are the incarnations of souls shine with red light, the soul is angry, and...

;______; this just SO is not going to work...! I wonder if I'd be less depressed if I just resigned myself again to having to do all of it...

[Yuumei]

I've got God Child in Japanese and would be willing to attempt at translating, even though I kind of suck at translating .. but a friend of mine who's quite good at translating just offered to help me out and check over my stuff, I could even see if she'd be willing to translate a bit of it by herself ^-^;; ... if that helps at all? o.o;;

[Cheshirecat]

I owe Risu an apology.

Actually, now that Risu has pointed it out, I realize a large amount of problems lies in me. Some of the errors Risu pointed out actually are mistakes I made, not the problem with the chinese translation. Sometimes, when I saw things I wasn't sure of, or when I saw things that I don't think it translates well into English, I ended up twisting the meaning and here's the result. I think it has to do with another project I've been working on for another group and it so happens that the chinese translation I work from is pretty mess up. Also, I'm careless in that I didn't check my translation thoroughly and compare it with the scans. These are mistakes on my part that I cannot ignore. I'm terribly sorry. I am unfit as a translator.

And please don't think that I'm modest. Because I'm not. I'm ashamed to say that I didn't even realize the problems until now. Sorry for causing Risu so much trouble and pain.

[Arliona]

(I edited this post after doing some more research. Seems like I was confused by the cover numbers... -_-;;; ) Count Cain is licensed in France by Tonkam. In June, they published book 5 (I misread two... -_-;;; again) a.k.a. book two of the "Red ram". The title they gave it is "La marque du b?lier rouge 2". I know "B?lier" means ram, but I'm suddenly affraid of how they edited the pages to give it some sense. Anyway, maybe it would be easier for you to translate from French? I'm going in a one-month holiday in france in two weeks, and i'm going to buy the books, even if it means I have to turn every bookstore upside-down! They release a new book every two-three month (no Count Cain release is planed for August, still according to http://www.tonkam.com ). i'll be able to post more information, probably around September 15th (I'll compare with your scanlations). I'd be willing to make French-English translations, but I might not be the best choice because by the time they actually get to book 7, I'll have many exams, and next year will be worse.

<font color="#660033"><font size="1">[ August 02, 2004 12:23 PM: Message edited by: Arliona ]</font></font>

<font color="#660033" size="1">[ August 02, 2004 12:24 PM: Message edited by: Arliona ]</font>

[Yuumei]

I just found:

http://www.aptoshs.net/~echan/index.html

I don't know if you've all seen it before, but that site seems to have pretty good translations. The site's owner can be contacted at [email protected] , Risu-chan, if you check over some of her translations and think they look good, we could contact her to ask if she wanted to contribute?