Sorry, guys! Things in my life have swirled a bit out of control so I hadn’t had much time to myself to spend translating. It’s not a good excuse but I hope everyone can be a bit understanding. Hopefully things get back on track by next weekend when work’s settled and I’ve found a place to move in to soon. 🙁
On another note, when I had a moment, I saw PersonaJXT’s review on Happy Life. I’ll just like to kindly address the review that was written. Please understand that reading it made me feel frustrated. So what I’m going to write will sound aggressive and angry.
No, it’s not machine translated rather I use a dictionary to translate with as I still have really bad grasp in grammar beyond the basic N5 (Never went to a Chinese school and frankly, kanji’s always been a weakness of mine).
No, I do have knowledge in Japanese up to roughly N3 based on my knowledge of Japanese grammar but it’s not that adequate enough. It WAS good enough to get me through translating manga once upon a time back when I used to proofread for a manga BL group. But this is my first time using it to translate novels. IDK if you’ve read UD but UD’s much easier to translate than Happy Life because it’s shorter and uses simplier Japanese.
Also, it’s been years since I’ve put it to good use. The last time I had to use Japanese was in 2011, on the day I sat and finished my Japanese 5 test in uni. That also meant I never got the chance to actually sit for the Japanese translation classes as I graduated prior to taking Japanese 6. By then, you’re expected to have learnt ALL the Japanese grammar that’s sufficient to translate news articles. (Yup, there were classes for those). So yes, my translations whether it be grammar or kanji sucks. I also don’t use it to translate colloquial Japanese with their extra onomatopoeia because I barely encountered them prior to this.
Frankly, I did put out a recruitment post for people with better Japanese skills to come and edit my pieces for me when I started out. I, myself, am aware that I translate literally. It’s something that happens when you’re still unfamiliar with using the language constantly on a daily basis. However, I have yet to get someone who can whip my works to the same extent as the Japanese version. Since I can’t, then I can’t do anything about the mistranslations except keep translating and improving as I go along. Though it would still be better for someone to ACTUALLY point out my inconsistencies instead of sitting on the sidelines and just nodding disapprovingly. Fark, at least my Japanese is good enough to get me through all my mobile and 3DS games. (>.>;;; Then again, I also prefer more audio based Japanese games as listening to the words makes it easier to understand them rather than the reading. Like how it’s still taking me forever to finish Dai Gyakutan Saiban).
そもそもお前誰と思ってた！？他人の努力に馬鹿にされたいたなんて厳しいすぎるじゃないか？もしやお前が本当にスゴイならば是非この翻訳にやってください。
TLDR; I do have Japanese knowledge. It’s not a machine translation. Just give me suggestions instead of making me feel I’ve wasted my 6 hours on a chapter FUCKING trying to translate. =.=;;; If this was a bloody machine translation, it would have been … IDK? Less than an hour?!
Aww. Don’t feel bad about the haters. Really. I don’t understand haters, and their need to waste their life writing hateful comments.
Your translations are awesome. I really want to take the time to thank you for translating this. When I first read the chapter on Haruparty, I was super pysched for this novel. But no one translated it, and it ended up falling to the back of my mind in obscurity. But discovering that you’ve been translating it, with exceptionally good grammar (thanks to your editors as well), I was really really over the moon. There have been some translations I’ve read that really need an editor and a dictionary. Yours do not.
It truly is quality translation, and I hope you don’t give up. I know it’s a bit of a thankless task, translating for the sheeple of the big wide internet, but I just want you to know that there are people, like me, who appreciate what you do. So thank you.
Thank you so much for your kind words. I truly appreciate them.
I’m late to the party but I just wanted to say that your frustration is justified. You’ve worked hard, you do this without getting paid and yet some random dick head reader leecher makes an ignorant. Comment without having had to sit a single minute trying to translate a single line. I appreciate the work you do, you have more supporters than haters so keep doing what you love.
that really sucks… your translations are really great! I love Happy Life!! Sigh….. haters will be haters…
Also I gotta add it in- No offence, but (quality) mtls actually take longer than normal translations, although it still may not be 100% accurate. I find them quite good as long as it’s TLCed and edited by someone that knows the language