#because some of the sources give personality or skill based meanings to suffixes

[redwolftrash]

i wanna explain every goddamn facet of what i’m doing with the affix doc but i can’t because. i fear that it will simply be Too Much for someone not well versed in my blend of autism and visual learning

[jeidafei]

D.Gray-Man Chapter 231 Translation Notes

Hi DGMers! jeidafei from Kougeki Scans here. I’m a total newbie to scanlation and I’ve never made my own note before. However, I’ve read all THREE versions of the DGM translation for reference, (This just goes to show this fandom’s undying love for the subject matter) and noticed some discrepancies between scan groups...

Not to say who is wrong or right, as translators are also humans (unless AI got over its Google Translate phase and take over our jobs someday!) with different experiences and backgrounds, and as such there is no such thing as right or wrong in a translation. 

So, in addition to my translation, I would also like to give readers the opportunity to interpret things freely without the language barrier as well, and maybe share some of my knowledge regarding Japan and the Japanese language accumulated from over a decade of learning Japanese (mostly through D.Gray-Man and Ghibli animes XD) and around three years of living, studying and working full-time in Japan.

1. “生々流転” (seiseiruten or shoujouruten)

The cover art is mind-blowingly beautiful this time. So much so that I’ve been secretly wondering whether Hoshino-sensei spent even more time on the cover than the actual content itself and that’s why we have 20 instead of, like, 40 pages.

Anyway, it also gives us this little conundrum...

@panthaleia has already done a marvelous analysis here and you should check it out! so I won’t be going into details much; I would just like to give you a definition and leave it to your imagination. I admit I’m pretty much stumped by this as it isn’t clear what exactly Hoshino-sensei is referring to by this concept.

Japanese culture and language takes heavy influence from Chinese since ancient times, and there are plenty of these four-letter Chinese idioms in daily use, called 四字熟語 (Yojijukugo), some of which can be challenging for non-native learnersーand even the Japanese themselvesーto fully grasp its concept, considering the wealth of yojijukugo-themed dictionaries and games published in Japan. 

The Japanese definition of 生々流転 goes as follows:

すべての物は絶えず生まれては変化し、移り変わっていくこと。▽「生生」は物が次々と生まれ育つこと。「流転」は物事が止まることなく移り変わっていく意。「生生」は「しょうじょう」とも読む。 (source)

A compilative translation of the above and other versions in the source would be nothing is unchanging; all existence is born, constantly changes (and dies) in a cycle that repeats itself endlessly. The emphasis seems to be put on the term of “constant change” and the “neverending cycle” of all existence, rather than the birth and death of living beings, however, and thus I believe my own and Mangastream’s translation of it as “Circle of Life” may not be comprehensive of what Hoshino-sensei is trying to convey. 

In my opinion, it could either be interpreted literally to mean the cycle and flow of energy and soul-force that Past!Allen had mentioned to Nea all those years ago, or considering the plot of the current chapter it can also refer to the story coming full circle and returning to the point of its birth, by taking Allen back to Eddystone...Edinston...Edinburgh...Edinsーargh dammit I give upーwhere his story began with his meeting with Mana Walker.

Speaking of which...

2. The Town Where Allen Began

Mangastream called it Eddingston. Starbuds called it Edinston. The D.Gray Wikia adopted Edinstown and that’s what I decided to go with for now. 

However, the actual Japanese text is  エディンストン, phonetically E-din-su-ton. Thus, the most phonetically accurate would probably be Starbuds’ Edinston. Edinstown can be transliterated back into Japanese as エディンスタウン, whereas Eddingston would probably be エッディングストン to the Japanese folk (I’ve highlighted the difference in spelling).

There you go! Now y’all can call it whichever way you want! 

3. Why is Allen so alarmed?

Right after Mana said that he draws all those little “I am here”s like a street graffiti punk so God would be able to find him, Allen looked as if he had recalled something significant. Seeing as Allen is about to tell the tale of his beginnings, this would probably be clarified in the next chapter. However, in my opinion, Mana saying “so he would be able to find me” is reminiscent of this sentence back in Reverse: Lost Fragment of Snow:

Back when he still remembers Nea and his purpose of searching for him, Mana was taking every measure to make sure Nea recognizes him, as he now looks different from his 17-year-old self. Sure, Mana might actually be referring to God this time as he said it; we’d never know until the next chapter at the least, but the memory of Mana’s words back at the circus must have been what shook Allen to the core.

4.  はじまり 

The term はじまり (hajimari) or “the beginning” seems to be the central theme in this chapter; appearing on the cover page, the first page and the last page of last chapter, emphasizing the fact that both Allen and the plot has now come full circle and returned to where “Allen” began. 

This cliffhanger freaks me out though, as I couldn’t see how Hoshino-sensei could tell Allen’s story without repeating Reverse: Lost Fragment of Snow, as that is stated to be the story of how Allen came to be:

Anyway, my fear and frustration of waiting-six-months-for-new-developments aside, hajimari is a very popular to the point of cliched concept in Japan, in my opinion. If you go to karaoke in Japan and type in hajimari in the machine, it would come up with a SH*T TON of songs containing hajimari in the song name, with hajimari no uta (The song of beginnings) and hajimari no basho (The place where it all began, which is also mentioned in this chapter) being some of the most repetitive. 

As much as the cherry blossoms are a symbol of Japanese culture, the Japanese people themselves regard the month when the cherry blossoms bloom, April, and the season of Spring, as the marker of new beginnings, of significant turning points in life. The start of school term, start of fiscal year, start of working life and end of childhood, Your Lie in April , etc. all happen in April. 

This phenomenon is especially remarkable in Japan. Being the country of uniformity, virtually every school and workplace throughout the country would start their activities in April. 

In my experience, Japanese aesthetics revolve around the changing seasons and times a lot, and countless pop songs that are released around March-April would sing of the blooming cherry blossoms swaying to the wind and new beginnings for students graduating from high school or university. In the same manner, songs coming out in Winter would feature slower melodies and the distinctive, ringing, Christmas-ey chime from the likes of music boxes, glockenspiels, triangles or celestas, and songs released in Summer would usually be quicker, livelier with lyrics retelling a fun trip to the beach, firework shows and sunshine (－and bikinis, if you’re listening to AKB48!).

To someone who came from a tropical country with three pretty much indistinguishable, unpleasant seasons (Damn-you-Summer, Damn-you-Summer-with-Rain-and-Floods and Damn-you-Summer-with-Three-Days-of-Winter), the beauty of the Japanese seasons and how the Japanese culture and lifestyle intertwine so closely with it has always fascinated and charmed me.

5. The Gratitude Dilemma

In addition to the seiseiruten conundrum, this chapter also throws up some more challenges for translators. One notable example for me being how to accurately capture the essence of this panel:

Both Starbuds and Mangastream worded this bubble very differently, and I won’t say who is the most accurate, but I will explain my choice of wording the best I can (with a few tips to weary Japanese learners along the way, hopefully). The actual Japanese raw is below:

My atrocious highlighting skills aside, we can clearly see the emphasis given to the suffix てあげよう (te-ageyou) here. 

Allen didn’t say it straight out that he’s pitying Kanda or the like, but he’s using the te-ageru form, which means “ [doing something] for your sake” . 

The concept of gratitude is important in a strict, seniority-based society like Japan, and accordingly there are two verb suffixes just to show gratitude: when someone else does a favor for us: te-kureru, and when we receive a favor from someone else: te-morau. 

Yes, there’s a difference. And this is one of the most troublesome head-scratchers and trick-question-subjects for intermediate learners of Japanese taking the JLPT test (and translators of Japanese songs and manga as well), as to make things worse the Japanese usually omits the subject and/or object of the sentence. 

My tip for making sense of this is for te-kureru, the other person must be the subject of the sentence, whereas for te-morau, I/me must be the subject.

Starting to see now why so many of my classmates gave up on Japanese and why so many anime subs/manga translations are sometimes inaccurate? 

We also get another instance here:

(watashi ha kami ni) mitsukete-moraeru you ni would literally mean something along the lines of so (I) could be found by (God) for my sake. I put parentheses here to show you how both the subject and object of this sentence is omitted, and why we must be extremely careful in cases when it is less clear than this who is doing what for whom. To learners, you MUST pay attention to the conjunctions. 

For the sake of convenience and more natural speech I just used so God would be able to find me. 

Back to Black Allen, te-ageru or its more casual/demeaning form te-yaru, on the other hand, is used for when we’re doing a favor for someone’s sake and should be used sparingly/carefully to people of the same status or lower, as it could sound patronizing depending on context. So Allen using it to Kanda is meant to be very cheeky and infuriating, as if he’s trying to emphasize that his giving up is more out of pity/sympathy for Kanda’s hapless persistence than his own being tired of or incapable of escaping.

Because in reality it is just as he personally admitted in the earlier page: he’s got no money and cannot elude the Order without Kanda’s help, and decided to just twiddle his thumbs and wait around for now. 

But food and a man’s pride are everything to Allen...

That’s all for now. I hope you enjoyed our translations. See you in three months, fellow DGMers! 

[makeitwithmike]

How to Automate Twitter To Get Attention and Grow Your Followers

By Jeff Bullas

The social web has amplified many truths about humanity.

Some of us will do anything to get noticed and build a brand. This even includes some new dubious tactics such as fake news and alternate truth. They have been used to both divert and attract scrutiny.

The reality is that most people love a bit of attention. It is how we are wired.

Attention seeking can come in many forms and constant posting on Facebook and other social networks has now become part of that routine and habit.

Too much sharing can see us being accused of being a narcissist. The question that it raises….. where does narcissism and a healthy self worth start and stop?

It is a question that I wrote about in the New York Times titled “On the Social Web, Everyone has a Voice, Everyone is Judged”

And your answer maybe different to mine.

5 reasons we share

I have always been intrigued by the power of social media and why we share so much. It was one of the first things I noticed about people’s online social media behaviour nearly 10 years ago. But there is more than one reason we share content on the social web and attention seeking is only one.

In a post on Co-Schedule based on the research from the New York Times Customer Insight Group they reveal the top 5 reasons people share on social.

The first two on the list resonate with me.

To bring valuable and entertaining content to others

To define ourselves to others

At its simplest level this can be done two ways. By taking the big step of starting a blog and then publishing our opinions and thoughts online or just simply sharing other people’s posts and updates.

Curating content worth sharing is one way to scale your content.

Curating is time consuming

But manual curating is time consuming.

Another reality is that there is a lot of crap content on the web. So constant sifting and sorting is a time sink.

The flip side is that there are some sensational authors, bloggers and creators who publish content worth reading, viewing and sharing. The challenge is that we don’t have much time and spending all day just sharing is not efficient or productive time management.

So here is the thing….you can automate curation on Twitter.

How to automate Twitter content curation

For many years I was using Twitterfeed to automate other top bloggers and influencers new blog posts.

This app automatically shared on Twitter when it detected that their posts had been published. But this simple software tool was closed down last year.

I wrote blog posts on how to do it these included.

The Twitter Tool I Can’t Do Without

10 Smart Tips For Creating, Marketing and Sharing content on Twitter

And guess what?….people included my blog when they set it up. So after a while I noticed was getting 300 instant Twitter shares on auto pilot from my Twitter tribe after publishing a new post.

So I started looking for another tool to replace Twitterfeed. The tool I am now using is Dlvr.it.

So how do you set it up to share great content, attract attention from top bloggers and influencers, be effective and save valuable time?

Step 1. Identify your topic ecosystem

One of the biggest challenges as a blogger and content creator is coming up with new topics to write about. It’s also what you need to think about when looking for your sources of reading and inspiration.

So before setting up Dlvr.it you need to identify the topic subject categories that fit into your eco-system of interests.

For me these include:

Digital marketing of any flavour: Social media marketing, content marketing and email marketing

Blogging tips: This includes search engines and conversion strategies to grow traffic and revenue

Innovation: Some topics here include growth hacking that combines the art and science of marketing

Technology: Apps and and artificial intelligence and marketing automation tools

Entrepreneurship – The skills for building a business in a digital world

And a few others that include writing, personal development and publishing.

This can also be a good exercise while identifying your key phrases for search engines. It is really worth sitting down and getting clarity on this. It will drive your SEO strategy and content creation planning.

Step 2: Find trusted bloggers

There are many bloggers who publish regular quality content.

If they publish once a day that is maybe optimal but once a week is fine too.

My aim is to find a few that I know all add value to my followers on Twitter. Personal brands are my first choice. Corporate blogs can be good but I like that hands on approach and tactical insights that you get from the blogger that shares their insights in a practical manner.

I am sure that most of us have our favourites.

How many should you select? This is completely personal and I have about 15 to 25 bloggers that publish regularly who I share on Twitter.

Step 3: Identify their blog feed (RSS)

This is quite straight forward and just put in the blog URL and Dlvrt.com will pull up the right RSS feed that will trigger the automated sharing of the blog post when a new post is published.

So enter the URL for the blog. In this example I am using Jeff Goin’s Writing blog as an example here.

You may see the description as being a bit strange so you can edit it later. Click on the “Plus (+) button at the bottom right corner. You have now added your first blog.

Step 4. Connect it to Twitter

Now you can use other social networks but I use Twitter most of the time because it is not strangled by algorithms that can hide your sharing.

Click on the Twitter account to connect it and start posting straight away.

Step 5: Add a suffix to the tweet

Now this is simple but important and should not be overlooked. Add the @mention Twitter name of the blog you are sharing.

When they scan their notifications stream they will see that you are sharing their content.

So how does it look after we have arranged the RSS automation and set it up in the platform?

Here is a tweet on my Twitter account that detected that Mark Schaefer had published a new post and includes the all important suffix with via @markwscahefer.

Wrapping it up

Automated curation sharing on Twitter is not complicated and is something I have done for years.

Using tools to increase your productivity and scaling your efforts should be part of your ongoing strategy.

It is a simple tactic but over time it will achieve a few goals.

Add value to your Twitter tribe

Attract more Twitter followers

Save you time. My estimate is about 20-30 hours a month

Alert you to the latest and best content from bloggers that you trust

Invite attention from influencers in your industry niche

Attract more blog and website traffic

So for me it ticks a lot of boxes.

It doesn’t mean that you stop looking for new content to share manually but automated curation of great content from bloggers that you know and trust is effective.

So give Dlvr.it a try and look forward to hearing your thoughts.

The post How to Automate Twitter To Get Attention and Grow Your Followers appeared first on Jeffbullas’s Blog.

from How to Automate Twitter To Get Attention and Grow Your Followers