Read-in-Progress Wednesday

[geraineon]

This is your weekly read-in-progress post for you to talk about what you're currently reading and reactions and feelings (if any)!

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Comments

[anehan]

Yes, I read the Rosmei translation. It seemed good to me. I don't read Chinese myself, nor have I read any fan translations, so I've no point of comparison, but purely as English-language prose, it seemed fine to me. Certainly better than, say, Seven Seas' early releases.

It definitely isn't disastrous, so there's no need to worry about that, at least not for this particular novel. I don't know if I'd call it really good, either, but I think that's more to do with the fact that, at least to my knowledge, danmei writers are typically amateurs. I'm not sure how many of the danmei translators are amateurs, too, but based on the way their names are written (i.e., pseudonyms rather than full names), I'd say the translators for this one probably are. They seem competent amateurs, though, so I've no complaints.

(Using amateur translators is my pet peeve. Danmei as a genre and we as readers deserve competent translations, and far too many English danmei translations are clumsily translated. *shakes fist*)

[duckprintspress]

that is all good to know, thank you!

I have decidedly mixed feelings about the amateur translators thing. I've seen how professional translators who don't know the source material butcher Chinese novels in the name of bad localization and simplifying things (like, I've read the official translation of Daomu Biji, and I gather that the official translation of Legend of the Condor Heroes is, amazingly, even worse). Fandom translators who transition have the benefit of knowing and loving the source material, and they bring that love and it also ensures that, usually, the translation choices mirror what fandom has already adopted (with notable exceptions, most of which I approve of, coughcoughihatedstygiantigersealimgladitsgonecoughcough.) But the flip side is they don't always have the language chops and sometimes miss things a professional would catch. I personally think the ideal would be a team working in combo, one who is tip-top on both languages, the other of whom knows the fandom.

anyway. thanks for sharing all this, it's reassuring. :D I'm feeling more relaxed about reading it myself, feeling odds are good it'll read well.

[anehan]

Very much agreed!

I remember the official Prince of Tennis translation, which was overly enthusiastic about localization. When you have a 13-year-old boy calling a 14-year-old boy "sir" unironically, you've gone wrong.

OTOH, the amateur translators frequently produce bad translations, and I don't mean just mistranslations (which I wouldn't even catch myself). It often seems like they get stuck in the Chinese sentence structure, going for too literal a translation, which results in English that is either awkward and clumsy or plain grammatically wrong. I'm not a translator myself, but I did take some courses in translation at uni, and I remember this same thing from my own attempts. It was really difficult to make the switch to the target language's sentence structure. A professional translator would know to pay attention to pitfalls like these.

I agree with you that a professional translator + a fandom consultant would be the best option.

ETA: The Rosmei translation of How to Survive as a Villain is largely free of the sort of clumsiness that I describe above, which is a credit to the translators, the proofreader and/or the editor.