The sentence structure of the translations is really strange, to the point where I can't really understand what is actually being said here. So I cannot really correct it. Wondering if this justifies a check translations or poor translation tag?

shrekku45 said:

The sentence structure of the translations is really strange, to the point where I can't really understand what is actually being said here. So I cannot really correct it. Wondering if this justifies a check translations or poor translation tag?

Fixed up the English based on what I believe was being said. Don't speak Japanese so I don't know how accurate to the original it is.

Lobuttomize said:

Fixed up the English based on what I believe was being said. Don't speak Japanese so I don't know how accurate to the original it is.

Why do people give me -1 for trying to fix the English? Should I have just deleted all the notes?

Lobuttomize said:

Why do people give me -1 for trying to fix the English? Should I have just deleted all the notes?

Fixing up grammar is fine.
Using machine translation is not.

kia'ra said:

Fixing up grammar is fine.
Using machine translation is not.

What does that have to do with anything? I didn't translate this

I might not be the best person to explain this (considering the recent... incident), but someone has to clarify things, and it's unlikely you'll get another translator to do so anytime soon. So...

Lobuttomize said:

Why do people give me -1 for trying to fix the English? Should I have just deleted all the notes?

Your earlier comment...

Lobuttomize said:

Fixed up the English based on what I believe was being said. Don't speak Japanese so I don't know how accurate to the original it is.

...might give people the impression that you're taking significant liberties with the text without understanding the source material. Overall what you did for this post was still kinda okay, which was why I upvoted that comment (earlier, before you mentioned the downvoting).

Though please, do be careful on future attempts. note #2907046 and note #2907108 diverged too much from the original meaning (and the note by the first translator) after you modified them. Basically, if you don't understand the source text, then try not to rewrite things too much, okay? Don't try to guess or infer their meaning, or to force it into coherent-sounding English; just work with what you have or mention it in the comments.

kia'ra said:

Fixing up grammar is fine.
Using machine translation is not.

Lobuttomize said:

What does that have to do with anything? I didn't translate this

We kinda... really, really frown upon MTLs on these parts. Not just Danbooru; most translation (sub)communities also have a similar opinion. If you did something similar on, say e-hentai or most of the other Boorus (or heaven forbid, a classical text or Bible translation community), you will probably get a similar (if not harsher) treatment.

So, once you become known for posting, well, multiple MTLs (this includes stuff like referring to two or more machine translators and then try to infer-write them into a 'coherent'-sounding text without understanding the source material, like what some people do for webnovels), everything you do from now on (that is translation related) is kinda tainted by that. It's... sort of like plagiarism in a sense? Not that I am accusing you of plagiarism, but the analogy (on how people view the work) is similar.

But I can confirm to others that your work on this post (that is, the specific parts you contributed) are not MTLs.

(Well, those two notes I mentioned earlier are kinda suspect, but I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt.)

--

Edit:

NNescio said:

I might not be the best person to explain this (considering the recent... incident), but someone has to clarify things, and it's unlikely you'll get another translator to do so anytime soon. So...

Your earlier comment...

...might give people the impression that you're taking significant liberties with the text without understanding the source material. Overall what you did for this post was still kinda okay, which was why I upvoted that comment (earlier, before you mentioned the downvoting).

Though please, do be careful on future attempts. note #2907046 and note #2907108 diverged too much from the original meaning (and the note by the first translator) after you modified them. Basically, if you don't understand the source text, then try not to rewrite things too much, okay? Don't try to guess or infer their meaning, or to force it into coherent-sounding English; just work with what you have or mention it in the comments.

We kinda... really, really frown upon MTLs on these parts. Not just Danbooru; most translation (sub)communities also have a similar opinion. If you did something similar on, say e-hentai or most of the other Boorus (or heaven forbid, a classical text or Bible translation community), you will probably get a similar (if not harsher) treatment.

So, once you become known for posting, well, multiple MTLs (this includes stuff like referring to two or more machine translators and then try to infer-write them into a 'coherent'-sounding text without understanding the source material, like what some people do for webnovels), everything you do from now on (that is translation related) is kinda tainted by that. It's... sort of like plagiarism in a sense? Not that I am accusing you of plagiarism, but the analogy (on how people view the work) is similar.

But I can confirm to others that your work on this post (that is, the specific parts you contributed) are not MTLs.

(Well, those two notes I mentioned earlier are kinda suspect, but I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt.)

--

Edit:

Some further clarifications

Looking through your comments on this page and topic #18973... you seem to have an idea that the quality of a translation is determined solely by how it sounds in the resulting English. And that actual knowledge of the source text isn't unnecessary. And you feel that it is unfair for your works to have been judged harshly 'despite' there are other works around that don't get judged so 'despite' them looking 'inferior' in your eyes.

This isn't... how it works. There have been significant problems with the "Imma gonna refer to multiple MTLs and force it into coherent-sounding English" approach. Problems here and elsewhere (yes, it has happened here before). Having zero knowledge of the source material means errors and missing nuances and misleading phrasing will inevitably slip in, and these errors will compound over time. And nobody can tell the difference because it sounds like idiomatic English, unless someone takes the effort to painstakingly compare the TL with the source text for every single note.

The most egregious cases are some of the fan MTL 'translations' for webnovels. People read the MTL'd translations for a while, they take those MTLs as canon gospel despite all the errors that keep building up, and then when the novel finally gets an official English release... that FIXES all the errors... the poor professional translator gets jumped on by all the rabid fans for 'censoring' the work. Because the fans couldn't tell the difference and assumed the MTLs were faultless! The idiomatic-sounding English is misleading.

And it even bleeds over here where translators working on doujin based on those copyrights have to spend extra time clarifying things in notes and comments just to clear up those misconceptions.

...Meanwhile, a lot of those notes you rail against saying you need to "fix" are done by ESL users. People who don't speak English as a first language. They make an honest, good effort to translate the text based on actual knowledge of their source material. Such efforts are lauded, and that's why we treat them with care. Genuine translators are a rare commodity.

(Also, awkwardly-phrased notes also have less potential for misleading people sometimes, because readers tend to regard these translations as 'incomplete' or 'unreliable'. So oftentimes there is no immediate need to fix or take those notes down.)

As for "why can't I put 'temporary' MTLs up, mention it's an MTL, and let actual translators fix things", well, it doesn't really work out to how you think it will in practice. See topic #15144. Translators also have limited time, and most translators will rather work on their own pet projects than oversee or edit another's. If a post looks translated, then translators tend to just overlook it without examining the note and text carefully because it looks translated from a first glance. And readers will also just assume the text is a reliable translation because it reads like idiomatic English on the first pass.

And it doesn't exactly save time for the translator either. If somehow puts an MTL up (confirming so), that means every single line is suspect and whoever doing the checking has to painstakingly check every line and compare it to the original. This might even take more time then doing it from scratch (depending on the work and on that translator's standards/practices).

Basically, if every single note you put in requires a check translation, then it's better not to translate at all (this also applies for people who aren't using MTLs, though some leeway may be given to new translators who feel that might need some oversight while they're learning). For similar reasons, we don't encourage people to use tagme in lieu of proper tagging. Likewise, check translation shouldn't be used in lieu of proper translations.

Overall, there is a significant conflict between your worldview and the translation community's here. So long as you hold strongly to that view, and wear it on your sleeve, it is going to be a continuous source of friction between you and the translation community here. And the rest of the website, by extension (there's where the downvotes come from). Some may even find it highly insulting when you proclaim your MTL efforts to be better than their manual translations.

I cannot forcibly change your view, but please understand that holding on to it is going to cause conflict between you and others here. The same also goes for other aspects of the website, like for tagging and pooling and flagging. There are a lot of unspoken rules of etiquette and so-called "best practices" that aren't written in stone, but sort of developed over time due to compromises and cooperative efforts between users. Going against those aren't breaking rules per se, but doing so repeatedly will lead to endless friction.

What the fuck are you talking about? "diverged too much from the original meaning (and the note by the first translator)" when the translation literally made no sense and the first comment literally stated so (and I agreed.) You and that other guy bringing up MTL has literally nothing to do with this. I have done 1 MTL on here ever so your claim of "multiple MTLs" is complete bogus. On top of that, having done that 1 thing ever doesn't "taint" anything I do at all and this is literally harassment.

So, 2 points.
1. ESL translations are NOT lauded because bad translations are WORSE than no translation and they are comparable to MTL translations because MTL gets the Japanese partly wrong and ESL gets the English partly wrong. They got the English wrong enough that I was apparently not even able to make complete sense of it seeing as you said 2 of the barely intelligible notes were off.
2. There's 2 options for things like this: I delete the notes because the translation makes no sense in English (again, ESL not lauded) or I attempt to make sense of it. If you're going to harass me for trying to make sense of ESL translations, then I will definitely be sure to just erase any and all ESL that I see if that's what the site really prefers.

Also, I got the basic meaning of all but 1 or 2 bubbles right working with the English I was given

Lobuttomize said:

What the fuck are you talking about? "diverged too much from the original meaning (and the note by the first translator)" when the translation literally made no sense and the first comment literally stated so (and I agreed.) You and that other guy bringing up MTL has literally nothing to do with this. I have done 1 MTL on here ever so your claim of "multiple MTLs" is complete bogus. On top of that, having done that 1 thing ever doesn't "taint" anything I do at all and this is literally harassment.

Multiple posts, ergo multiple MTLs.

Lobuttomize said:

So, 2 points.
1. ESL translations are NOT lauded because bad translations are WORSE than no translations and they are comparable to MTL translations because MTL gets the Japanese partly wrong and ESL gets the English partly wrong. They got the English wrong enough that I was apparently not even able to make complete sense of it seeing as you said 2 of the barely intelligible notes were off.

You not understanding the text does not justify REWRITING the entire thing to force it to make sense.

You can't just go, "they don't do a perfect job, therefore my non-perfect job IS OKAY too".

We have... zero tolerance for MTL mash-up jobs. We also have zero tolerance for made-up translations (which your rewriting attempts are verging towards). There. If you don't understand it, it's just going to cause you problems.

It will also cause us problems.

Lobuttomize said:

2. There's 2 options for things like this: I delete the notes because the translation makes no sense in English (again, ESL not lauded) or I attempt to make sense of it. If you're going to harass me for trying to make sense of ESL translations, then I will definitely be sure to just erase any and all ESL that I see if that's what the site really prefers.

There is zero harassment involved. You ask a question, you complain about why people seem to downvote you, you act confused and start throwing veiled threats to delete other people notes, I HAVE to respond. Part of it is damage control, but another part is I really don't want to see you dig yourself into a deeper hole.

In fact I was even defending your work on this post. I even went out of my way to fix all the translations for this post as an olive branch. But nope, you decide to snap at me again.

Every single time you get... told not to do a certain thing, you get dissatisfied. It's not just translations. It's things like tags and pools too. Then you try to poke through site rules to force them to apply to some other situation and force some other change because you aren't satisfied that rules seem to apply to you but not to others... from your perspective.

NNescio said:

Multiple posts, ergo multiple MTLs.

You not understanding the text does not justify REWRITING the entire thing to force it to make sense.

You can't just go, "they don't do a perfect job, therefore my non-perfect job IS OKAY too".

We have... zero tolerance for MTL mash-up jobs. There. If you don't understand it, it's just going to cause you problems.

There is zero harassment involved. You ask a question, you complain about why people seem to downvote you, you act confused and start throwing veiled threats to delete other people notes, I HAVE to respond. Part of it is damage control, but another part is I really don't want to see you did yourself into a deeper hole.

In fact I was even defending your work on this post. But nope, you decide to snap at me again.

Every single time you get... told not to do a certain thing, you get dissatisfied. It's not just translations. It's things like tags and pools too. Then you try to poke through site rules to force them to apply to some other situation and force some other change because you aren't satisfied that rules seem to apply to you but not to others... from your perspective.

One doujin in one instance isn't multiple times. I did NOT "rewrite" the entire thing, I attempted to clean it up based on the English already there. You even tried to imply that "And so on the manage work will be easy" being changed to "Overseeing [managing] the work should be easy." might be an MTL because it's a stretch somehow. And again, you're bringing up completely off-topic things to bad-mouth me claiming I try to apply the rules incorrectly to prove my points (which is essentially what you're doing here by bringing up completely irrelevant things to insult me in the comments.) I literally asked if I should just delete the ESL notes but you won't tell me to do that because you know that would end up being detrimental but you also don't want me largely fixing ESL notes completely based on their ESL English. You can't have it both ways.

Unintelligible English that may or may not understand the Japanese is completely useless on this English-speaking website.

Also, bringing up my opinion on how a tag or pool should be changed on the forum and then being disagreed with means completely fuck all. If people agree with me, then we change it, if they don't, it stays. THAT IS HOW THE SITE WORKS???? THAT'S WHY THERE'S VOTING FOR TAG CHANGES ON THE FORUM??????????

[deleted]

NNescio said:

Multiple posts, ergo multiple MTLs.

You not understanding the text does not justify REWRITING the entire thing to force it to make sense.

You can't just go, "they don't do a perfect job, therefore my non-perfect job IS OKAY too".

We have... zero tolerance for MTL mash-up jobs. We also have zero tolerance for made-up translations (which your rewriting attempts are verging towards). There. If you don't understand it, it's just going to cause you problems.

It will also cause us problems.

There is zero harassment involved. You ask a question, you complain about why people seem to downvote you, you act confused and start throwing veiled threats to delete other people notes, I HAVE to respond. Part of it is damage control, but another part is I really don't want to see you dig yourself into a deeper hole.

In fact I was even defending your work on this post. I even went out of my way to fix all the translations for this post as an olive branch. But nope, you decide to snap at me again.

Every single time you get... told not to do a certain thing, you get dissatisfied. It's not just translations. It's things like tags and pools too. Then you try to poke through site rules to force them to apply to some other situation and force some other change because you aren't satisfied that rules seem to apply to you but not to others... from your perspective.

PM me your next reply, doing this in a comment section is stupid

[deleted]

In this case, sending a PM would have been more appropriate since it touches on general issues and isn't limited to events related to this post.

Its fine to edit grammar, spelling, and other issues but usually I put down a check translation first and exercise caution since my attempt to fix it may deviate from the source material.

Saladofstones said:

In this case, sending a PM would have been more appropriate since it touches on general issues and isn't limited to events related to this post.

Its fine to edit grammar, spelling, and other issues but usually I put down a check translation first and exercise caution since my attempt to fix it may deviate from the source material.

I did exercise caution, you can compare the original notes to mine and see that I only used what was implied in the poor English (I do realize you're not saying otherwise, just stating that I did.) Check translation was already tagged due to the translation quality, as well.

Thank you, though

Edit: Didn't mean for the "thank you, though" to be dismissive but I see how it kinda sounds like that. Meant it as a thank you for the first line