mediocre japanese translation services for fun (mostly) and profit (no profit)

(This doesn't really fit with misc disc, but then the next closest thing would be Author's Lounge and it really doesn't fit there, so \O_o/)

Hi! I'm Midnight, and I enjoy learning Japanese. I've never taken a class, but I've been learning for the past two years now, and I think I'm on the high side of beginner. A group composed of surskitty, newt, Keta and I known as codr (cave of deathrays, yes) has translated a couple random manga things recently. I find it highly enjoyable, and while the quality certainly isn't that of the best fansubbers, it's... more decent than the worst of them? (And better than the worst licensed as well [coughcoughdamnyouviz].)

So! If you have any manga pages or just random bits of Japanese around and you want to know what they say, let me know! Link to pictures or paste in text, and I'll see what I can do. (And if it's context-appropriate and codr takes an interest in it, we could even try typesetting it! o/)

ETA: Could do free name translation in various ways, too (katakana, pronuncation kanji, meaning kanji). Short, simple phrases in Eng-JP; it's rather more difficult than JP-Eng.

I've got plenty of stuff from LSD Dream Emulator I'd be interested in you translating. :p

PK BLUE has a friend who knows a teensy bit of Japanese and they deciphered something about pants, and a cat becoming a doberman from one of the text dreams. So I'm really curious about what the others say. xP

I'll be back with screencaps

edit: Here they are.

Hello I am Keta. :D I'm hardly on the forums; it's best to pressure either of newt, surskitty, or Midnight to pressure me on the irc channel.

So, in terms of qualification, I've taken the JLPT3 and my score was around 87%. Aside from that, I watch a lot of anime and follow some scattered aniblogs, so I'm familiar with a decent amount of modern slang.

I can read better than I can hear. I've translated a few episodes of anime, some manga before, but keep in mind this tend to be things NOT involving physics or ridiculous shonen rants (i.e., Toaru Kagaku no Railgun and Naruto are no-gos). Even so, the speed at which I translate anime is slow (think 30min to translate 10min); you'd be better off finding a real subbing group for that sort of job.

I theoretically help translate. In practice, I rewrite dialogue to be less clunky. :D

I theoretically help translate. In practice, I rewrite dialogue to be less clunky. :D

So with this I was like "hrgh" and Keta was like "can I help" "nooooo I want to do it myself >(

"... >|

"... :|

"... :( OKAY FINE" "[rattles off the translation]" ":( you are too cool"

SO HERE THEY ARE, much faster and more accurate than if I had done it myself. we are truly an epic team effort.

Holding my hand.
Then the car, as if drilling into the old tree's center, running towards one house. The late great-grandmother came out. "You came back for me, didn't you?" she said, while passing away. She held my hand.

Click to expand...

The first sentence really doesn't make too much sense. it's like... tree, hole, center, what. And yes, the dead great-grandmother is talking.

Ninth floor
The ninth floor of the apartment. In the past, an old lady used to live near the Japanese-style room. She was half-insane. She's saying all kinds of bad things. Even if I asked her something, it was like she couldn't hear anything.

Click to expand...

The tense change is [sic]. These are creepy and little sense-making. yup.

Next! :Db

Thanks~

So that's both of the text dreams? That they're both about an old lady is interesting. They were back-to-back, one after another. Day 14 and 15. I wonder if all the text dreams are about her...

edit: I went through a few videos and found the best shots of pretty much any text


I'm gonna try to get better shots of walls and stuff like that from now on in my videos. I saw a couple of places in the Violence District I wish I'd gotten a better look at...

Alraunne: this is what I got from it. In order, from left to right:

Even if I take a lot, even if I take a lot, even take a lot
The clothes are nice the clothes are nice the clothes or nice
Sosobe, Sosobe, Sosobe (I have no idea)
A little bit of black tea? A little bit of black tea?
(then it repeats itself)

I am facing half of a shining _____, then, as if touching it, it was like he brushed upon the ghost that is me, he didn't want to borrow a girl like her[possible a girl like that girlfriend], a man who is my upperclassman.

Text on ground: GROUND. The orange text on the wall is difficult to read, but it looks like a series of repetitive text- incuding hashittei_ (meaning run? to run? Run!?) and muka- (from mukaeru, to face something).

I believe the drum says 顔面, which means face (of a person).

NWT said:

I theoretically help somehow :D

Click to expand...

With Keta around, this is my position too. you way too awesome, keta :D

ETA: "Sosobe, Sosobe, Sosobe (I have no idea)"

That's 'sosobie', which could be 'so-- sobie' (at least, there's some weird mark between the two), from 'sobieru', to rise/soar? So, "Rising, rising, rising"/"Soaring, soaring, soaring"... There's a reason I halfway-specified manga - it at least tries to make logical sense. Mostly. ... sometimes. (if you don't count recent khr.)

xP Haha, thanks guys. I know none of it makes a lot of sense so don't feel like that's your fault or anything. I'm just really interested in the kind of stuff this game says because a Japanese person playing it would get just that much more context from it than I would because they can readily read the text.

The third picture with running and facing things makes a little bit of sense- that was taken in a place known as the Violence District, where if you look hard enough, there are a lot of bodies and people who add to the bodycount. Scary place, really. Probably my least/most favorite place to be.
Also, how the ground says ground? Where there's a corner in the alleys is a big symbol that apparently means "CORNER" with an arrow pointing to the corner. You can kind of see them in the second picture, they're the bright blue symbols.

EDIT/BUMPERS
If business is slow we caught a couple more text dreams in some recent episodes.

sup o/ about done transcribing the former text dream as I type this; attempting translating in a sec

*waves* heya, um... So I have this FMA doujin! And I've been really curious as to what in the blue blazes is going on in it. Seems like I found someone I can ask! Most of the thing is uh. Kinda dirty and doesn't have any text so I won't post it, but I think these three pages have Important Background Information, since they have the most text and stuff.

one two three

If anyone decides to do it, take as long as you want ^ ^;

...*really hopes it says nothing porny*

FMC: SO HEY it's a good thing you weren't holding your breath for us :Db I did the first page the day you asked and then... forgot |D most awesome translator. We couldn't make sense of the last panel on the second page (and it only makes sense if you start at the bottom-right ones instead of the top-middle one like I kept trying to...) until I looked at the third page and realized "... wait, is that ed as a girl? ... ... why does he have boobs?"

ANYWAY then it fell together! and! here! it! is! ... if you still even care. |Db.

Ohho! Thank you muchly~ The wait was fine, it wasn't 'omg vital!' or anything, tehehe.

(yes, uh. I read odd stuff.)