/jp/ - Otaku Culture

[Anonymous No.]

English-only peasant reading a VN:
"Satou ate an apple."

Japanese learner faux-elitist reading a VN:
"Let's see...the readings for those kanji are 'Satou'...and the honorific is '-san'...I don't recognize these kanji, better run it through Atlas...'apple'...is that a 'wo' particle?...let me just tab into my text hooker window real quick...that's a godan verb...'to eat'...'Satou-kun apple ate'...Satou ate an apple! I'm a genius! I sure am glad I'm playing this game and getting the AUTHENTIC experience like a NATIVE speaker, unlike those English-only peasants!"

[Anonymous No.]

epic

[Anonymous No.]

AHN KIMOCHII~

[Anonymous No.]

someone is jealous as fuck

[Anonymous No.]

>the honorific is '-san'
>Satou-kun

TYPICAL ENGLISH ONLY PEASANT.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10787887
time to do your reps, fag

[Anonymous No.]

More like

English-only peasant reading a VN:
「佐藤さんは林檎を食べた。」

[Anonymous No.]

>>10787897
oh yeah sure, from her ero-manga
it has nothing to do with your hand furiously mashing your cunt.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10787918
translate it japanese learner faux-elitists

[Anonymous No.]

>>10787887
The second guy is having more fun.

[Anonymous No.]

>I sure am glad I'm playing this game and getting the AUTHENTIC experience like a NATIVE speaker, unlike those English-only peasants!

i want the japanese masters to give me an example of something that won't translate well into english because those 'super hard to translate' eroges are full of them right?

[Anonymous No.]

Top lel OP, don't be too mad because you couldn't learn japanese

[Anonymous No.]

>>10787936
Either side is acceptable.

The second might be reading something that isn't accessible to the first group, though. Although, if they haven't actually learned much Japanese, they're probably missing some portion of the meaning. However, if it's something that is not being translated, or if it's just a nukige, it might not matter much...

There's really no meaning to this debate.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10787950
puns

[Anonymous No.]

fat weeb status:

[x] the tolden compass

[Anonymous No.]

>>10787950
Things like sentence structure and style. These are always really hard to translate effectively because it requires both critical reading and writing skills on the part of the translator.
There's this idea that translation is just plugging English word A in for Japanese word B, but there's a lot more to it than that. You have to account for things like flow and tone and subtext all while trying to make it read naturally in the new language. No matter how good you are there's no way to do this perfectly, so you constantly have to weigh the benefits of faithfulness vs readability. Making sure you don't lose much of either is one of the most difficult things a writer can do.

Now obviously this isn't a big concern in 99% of eroge, but the belief that all Japanese text is capable of just magically turning into a perfect English replica is just plain ridiculous.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10787950
This is exactly the sort of thing you'd find in Muramasa (and would go straight over a non-Japanese speaker's head).

[japanese comedy connoisseur No.]

>>10787956

lel kanji can be read different ways : )) so funny

[Anonymous No.]

>>10787950
When translated some words lose their meaning, like in Tsukihime with the protagonist name. And the translation doesnt bother to explain you what that SHIKI and Shiki difference is supposed to mean.

Also, since japanese has lots of homophones there are so many puns impossible to translate properly

But the obvious advantaje of the ones who know japanese is that they dont have to wait to others to translate it. How many years did it took to Mirror Moon to translate FSN? Now im waiting for Mahoyo, and it seems is going to take at year at least.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10788027
lol english has homophones so wacky

Weren't English puns actually considered a "sophisticated" form of humour at one point?
Now they're children's jokes.

[Anonymous No.]

English-only peasant reading a VN:
"Satou-kun eat a ringo."
TL note: ringo means that red fruit

Japanese learner faux-elitist reading a VN:
"Satou ate an apple."

[Anonymous No.]

>>10788031

Bear in mind we're talking about the Japanese here. They literally unironically think slapstick passes as comedy in 2013

[Anonymous No.]

Are there really people who only speak one language in this day and age?

[Anonymous No.]

[Anonymous No.]

>>10788018
オヤジギャグ are truly the highest form of comedy.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10788039
English is the only language you need to know, nerd.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10788040
Foxes wouldn't even like grapes. They have a reduced taste sensitivity to sweetness. It's not like he actually wants the grapes or anything...

[Anonymous No.]

>>10788042
So it's true.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10788041
lol

[Anonymous No.]

>>10787887
>Japanese learner faux-elitist reading a VN:
Do people seriously read like that? What is this, the first month of learning Japanese or something?

I'm pretty sure /jp/ has plenty of N1s and N2s judging by the number of huge muramasa threads we used to have.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10788059
>I'm pretty sure /jp/ has plenty of N1s and N2s

Are you in some sort of bizarro-/jp/?

[Anonymous No.]

Non-ASCII text should be banned from /jp/.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10788061
Raw VN readers on /jp/ used to be a very small group early on, but now it's a lot bigger. And N1 isn't even really that amazing anyway. Even if you finish N1, you're only done with 2/3 of the kanji that appear in muramasa.

[Anonymous No.]

Doesn't the JLPT only cover joyou kanji?
With only joyou kanji you can read almost nothing

[Anonymous No.]

>>10788076
>With only joyou kanji you can read almost nothing
Please don't talk if you haven't even finished jouyou yourself. It's painfully obvious.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10788081
I'll never finish the jouyou, there are too many useless kanji I never saw.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10787887
"Oh man look at these plebs reading translations. Who do they think they are? Even thinking translations can reach the genius of the original prose written by someone who failed to be an actual novelist, hah. Now let me go masturbate to this obscure kanji that is no longer used"

[Anonymous No.]

>>10788090
-moogy on anything written by romeo tanaka

[Anonymous No.]

>>10788090
>>10788095
Oh you guys.

[Anonymous No.]

Hows the chinese translation of Muramasa?

[Anonymous No.]

>>10788104
It's basically a different game. You can't translate Muramasa.

[Anonymous No.]

Why are English only peasants so bitter and angry?
It's not like anyone is stopping them from learning Japanese. Hell, it's not even that hard. All it really takes is an investment of time.

But I guess that time is better spent convincing yourself that you're not missing out on anything and that all those people having fun in the VN general are only pretending so that they can trick you into learning a language.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10787936
>taking five minutes to cross-reference a line of Japanese through a dozen different websites to get "Satou ate an apple"
>fun

maybe if you're the same kind of sperg who enjoys sudoko puzzles.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10788106
That's just your opinion.

I want to know how readable it is. Is it some machine translated garbage?

[Anonymous No.]

>>10788106
laughing scholars.jpg

[Anonymous No.]

>>10788114
Why do you have a problem with people reading translations and enjoying them?

[Anonymous No.]

>>10788131
When did he say he did?

[Anonymous No.]

>>10788133
He implied that somehow knowing Japanese makes you superior to those who rely on translations.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10788114
They tell themselves that everything worth reading will be translated eventually and that they aren't missing out on anything.

[Anonymous No.]

Why is there always one guy in "japanese is useless" discussions spamming that /v/ meme with the fox and grapes?

I get the feeling that the people posting Japanese elitist stuff are just the same two or three people every time.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10788154
No shit Sherlock, these threads are always samefag creations, OP probably accounts for more than half of the posts in this thread including fox and grapes. "harhar I'm going to rile up some weebs"

[Anonymous No.]

Sometimes things can't be translated directly, but you can take a few liberties or even accept that some parts just aren't going to make sense:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ha9vGchWnFs

Of course you can take it too far and replace 2ch slang with 4chan memes, like a certain translation did. Frankly I don't see the point. If it's a pun or something, then by all means try to find an English version that fits. But translating direct references to pop culture or products is just dumb. Family Guy airs in dozens of countries unedited, even though the "jokes" are heavily centred on American pop culture.

Who was that /a/ fansubber who was notorious for doing things like replacing "Nico Nico Douga" with "YouTube"?

[Anonymous No.]

>>10788164
Oh man localizing things for a bigger audience?! How crude!

[Anonymous No.]

>>10788154
Most of the Japanese elitist guys are trolls who aren't even learning Japanese.

Us who can read Japanese, we take it easy in the VN generals. Read translations if you want, we don't care.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10788174

It's not crude, it's shit. It's the mark of an immature translator.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10788174
But there's no reason to. You don't get something, you don't get it. It's not the end of the world.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QjG9JcyLYbw

[Anonymous No.]

>>10788176
stop generalizing, translations ruin the original work

[Anonymous No.]

>>10788193
But you wouldn't know since you belong in the "can't read Japanese for shit, I'm just here for the shitposting festival" -camp.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10788178
Whatever weeb.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10788131
I have no problem with people who just want to read translations, provided that's what they honestly choose to do and are content with. Of course I'd prefer it if more people learned Japanese, if only because then there would be more discussion here, but there's absolutely nothing wrong with enjoying things at level you're comfortable with. And don't take that in a condescending way. We're not /v/ here; casual is not a dirty word.

What's sad is to see though is people who are really into VNs but are going to spend the rest of their lives withering in the translation scene because they never even try taking that extra step. I've got a problem with that because that's a fucking tragedy.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10788208

>What's sad is to see though is people who are really into VNs but are going to spend the rest of their lives withering in the translation scene because they never even try taking that extra step.

So you're angry at them for something outside their control?

[Anonymous No.]

>>10788217
Googling "Tae Kim" and "anki" is out of control?

What, did these people lose their fingers or something?

[Anonymous No.]

>>10788224

Are you allergic to thought?

There's no such thing as human agency. Nobody makes a decision - decisions are just culminations of your past experiences.

[Anonymous No.]

[Anonymous No.]

>>10788245

Cool facebook post, Grandma.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10788217
Angry isn't really the right word here. Disappointed, maybe?
I just think it's silly not to at least try, because the time and effort required are trivial compared to the returns.

[Anonymous No.]

>>10788106
>You can't translate Muramasa.
that's weird it's being translated right now

[Janitor No.]

Remember children, arguing is against the rules :-)

[Anonymous No.]

>Japanese
>not an archaic and deprecated language

[Anonymous No.]

>>10788278,2
It kind of is. It's the 21st century, switch the Latin characters already!

>>10788278,1
Arguing isn't, but making troll threads is :*(

[Anonymous No.]

>>10788278,3
If a not-quite-totally-shitty thread results from a shit OP, there's no need to torch it.

[das it mane spammer No.]

>genuinely expressing displeasure over another person's tastes
>trolling

fuck u
is every thread supposed to be a hugbox where we cry "no bully pls" to any differing opinion

[Anonymous No.]

>>10788278,5
Kill yourself.