#Translation Comparison

[fantasydreaamer]

Sugar Apple Fairy Tale

In vol 3. in the english translation when Bridget tolds Challe that she wants to buy him, he thinks that the old Challe, would have probably lead her on, then striked her down. Which is ruthless and tells you a lot about his deep hatred for humans and his dark past.

He probably would have done something brutal, like lead her on for a while, only to strike her down.

But I discovered that in the original japanese text, he thinks that the old Challe would have done something brutal like lead her on and then decapitate her head from the front!!! WHAT!? 😱 That's extremely brutal and violent. That shook me to the core when I discovered it. We know that he took a dark path of vengeance and wrath, but this makes it worse, he definitely was in his Kill Bill era in the past.

散々思わせぶりにしたあげく、正面から首を刎ねるような残忍な真似をしたかもしれない。 After a lot of suggestiveness, he might have acted brutally by decapitating her from the front.

[actiaslunaris]

SARS Fansubs:

Crunchyroll:

Netflix:

Rude.

@whackdreamer

[robbery-bankruptcy-fraud-plunder]

-1 translation point to Tapas

[quailfence]

[Plain text: Lines that hit real differently if you headcanon eustace/seb as a closeted trans woman / transfem during the events of aai2: end plain text.]

[Image description: Image 1: Excelsius Winner: You're no son of mine. Even you must see that.

Image 2: Eustace Winner: I... I thought if I became the best prosecutor out there, he'd finally accept me for who I am!

Image 3: Eustace Winner: My dad always said that clothes make you a man. But... I'm no man...

Image 4: Blaise Debeste: You should've just stayed as an idiot son! End description.]

Addendum to my previous post now that I'm basically done with all of their scenes in the official translation...

Lines that hit real differently if you headcanon eustace/seb as a closeted trans woman / transfem during the events of aai2:

[ fan tl: …you're really not worthy of being called my son. Don't you think? ]

Fan translation only:

[katleowriting]

Trying to decide if I should blog and share the chaos that is my comparing different translations of Homer's work. Or just vibe with it on youtube. Or alone.

Because my idea of a good time is looking at different translations and noticing the stupid little words they chose to do different.

Also then I need to choose where to share....

[transcriptioncity]

Back Translation Services and Using a Back Translation Company

The Art and Science of Back Translation Services Translation is the process of converting text from one language to another. This practice ensures that information is accessible and comprehensible to people who speak different languages. Among the various methods of translation, back translation stands out as a particularly rigorous and insightful technique. The Importance of…

[yrsonpurpose]

RED, WHITE & ROYAL BLUE (2023) book → screen (x)

[quailfence]

[Image description taken from alt: Screenshot from the Ace Attorney Investigations Collection. Simeon Saint covers his mouth while Edgeworth points at him. Saint says: Y-yes. Some kid named "DeWinner" or something? End description.]

[mxtxfanatic]

While flipping through mdzs to verify some stray thoughts of mine, I happened to fall into a translation discrepancy that I feel really, really emphasizes how important it is to have a proper grasp on the language you are translating before translating for a public audience.

Now before we get too deep into this, I want to reiterate that I am someone who does not understand Mandarin in any form but has been reading translations (both by humans and machines) for a few years now. However, because I have been reading translations that tend to follow the Mandarin more closely in grammar and because I haven't shied away from reading machine-made or bad human translations, I have noticed some places where mistranslations from Mandarin to English are common: pronouns, verb-subject matching, negatives, prepositions, and conjunctions. For this post, we will be focusing on the latter two.

In the lead-up to the Wen invasion of Lotus Pier, we are given a scene where Madam Yu whips Wei Wuxian, and in this scene, we are given a glimpse as to Madam Yu's average punishments towards the young ward.

While Madam Yu always pelted him with hostile words, she’d never really hit him hard before—two or three lashes at most, or being made to kneel or confined indoors, and it never took Jiang Fengmian long to release him from that.

—Vol. 3, Chapt. 12: Sandu: The Three Poisons, 7seas

In the past, although Madam Yu had always come at him with harsh words, she had never truly been cruel to him. The most that he’d been through were two or three strikes and being grounded. He’d also be let out by Jiang FengMian soon later.

—Chapt. 57: Poisons, exr

Reading these back-to-back, it should be very clear that though the same section is being translated from the same exact source, these translations do not say the same thing. The official stresses that Madam Yu had never hit Wei Wuxian "that hard" before, as well as saying that his punishments were a few lashes OR being made to kneel OR being confined, three separate punishments never taken together according to this diction. The exr translation, however, states that Madam Yu had "never truly been cruel to him" (emphasis mine) and that him being whipped was in addition to being confined. The emphasis on the strength of her lashings is absent, but an emphasis on the intent behind her actions—that she never meant to be honestly cruel to her ward—is established in its stead. (While this section as translated by exr does not mention kneeling, later scenes reflecting on Wei Wuxian's childhood in Lotus Pier do.)

Both of these translations... are wrong.

If we give exr the benefit of the doubt by virtue of being the original completed English translation of mdzs, then the official 7seas release should automatically raise red flags for the ways it seems to directly contradict the narrative that has existed for a few years before the novel was licensed. It doesn't help that the official has been riddled with many mistranslations and omissions from the very first volume, lowering any credibility it would otherwise have to stand on. But if we were to examine the rest of the exr translation, then the emphasis on Madam Yu's intent also rings false given the fact that we are told over and over again in this same translation that 1) Madam Yu is, in fact, unnecessarily, illogically, and erratically mean-spirited and cruel, and 2) Wei Wuxian knows this even at this time in his life (shoutout to the Lotus Pod Seeds extra) and understands her actions as targeted cruelty. What does the actual text say, then?

Although Madam Yu always spoke ill of him before, her hand had never been this viciously cruel. At most, she whipped him two or three times and ordered him to kneel down and be confined to his room, and he would be released by Jiang Fengmian sometime later.

—@jiangwanyinscatmom (emphasis mine)

Madam Yu has never been "as cruel" as in that moment when whipping Wei Wuxian, because normally she only whips him 2-3 times. She would whip him a few times and send him to the ancestral hall to kneel and be in confinement, which matches up to the memories that Wei Wuxian reflects on in other parts of the novel. This translation gets rid of the character inconsistencies that the other two translations create. So how did we get here? Remember how I pointed out those common Mandarin-to-English translation mistakes? Well, both the exr and 7seas translations fall into the trap of confusing conjunctions and prepositions. That's how we get a list of punishments rather than an order of events for a singular punishment type. That's how we get "not truly cruel" instead of "not as cruel." That's how we get these sections contradicting what we know about Madam Yu's personality and behavior from the rest of the novel through those two translations. Unfortunately, both translation teams just happened to flub in the same area in slightly different ways, and while I'm willing to give a multi-lingual grade-school student translating in their spare time the benefit of the doubt, a paid translator with a translation team hired by a professional publishing house should have better quality control than a spare-time hobbyist.

Also, just in case anyone wants more proof on what mxtx meant for us to take away about Madam Yu's treatment of Wei Wuxian from this scene, it was also apparently so important to mxtx for readers to know that Madam Yu was truly cruel to Wei Wuxian during his childhood that the act of her routinely whipping him whenever he was in her presence was something that was added into the revised mdzs. It was not in the original unedited version of the novel.

In the past, although Lady Yu always insulted or patronized him, she never laid a hand on him. At worst, she’d make him kneel for prolonged periods of time, but he’d always get bailed out by Jiang FengMian after a while.

—Chapt. 57. Act 12: Sandu/Three Poisons, Part 2, qinghe-nie

[hanhwrites]

sometimes i sit here and think 'yeah i'm a pretty normal person'. and then i remember that i am fully preparing myself to write a 20-ish page academic paper on how enjolras and grantaire directly relate to achilles and patroclus and that love and passion conquers fear and cynicism

[sukimas]

unfortunately i don't like the "you darn fool" translation of sannyo's little dialogue bubble. it becomes a little too measured when おろかものめが isn't really measured at all. [Fool]+[scorn indicator]+[scorn indicator]

[quailfence]

[Image description: two screencaps of the same scene from Ace attorney Investigations 2. The first is from the fan translation. Miles Edgeworth says, "The sight of that man still shines brilliantly in my eyes..." The second is from the official translation. Miles says, "That man's image will be forever burned into my memory."

[pikhachu]

[kimasousparky]

i post one (1) little luiasy doodle and suddenly im like "WAIT i've seen a lot of people drawing mario giving fire flowers to peach. what if luigi gave superball flowers to daisy???" djfbjfngk

[tragedyposting]

I wonder if the reason Les Misérables didn’t click with me last time I tried to read it (I believe I was 17) is that I was entirely unacquainted with the character of the Catholic Church as a sheltered Jewish kid and so Bishop Myriel was not a remarkable character to me and the details about what he did with his diocese were essentially just a list of invented facts and figures to me and essentially meaningless ones at that. This is already way more interesting to me than it was last time on page 8. Maybe I’ll actually make it through this time.

[zishuge]

The heavens will bless the kind. Since he is blessed, then he should go through hardships to gain knowledge and wisdom. Sooner or later, the truth will be revealed to the world. Story of Kunning Palace (2023) | Ep. 11