It’s impossible…

Every time I look at Yomigaeri no Maou and how much more I need to translate, I get more and more depressed.

I was starting to entertain the idea of recruiting a competent MTL-er to “translate” all the filler stuff about them eating breakfast and stuff, but then I remember that some of that stuff had interesting details about the world as well.

Nooot really sure what to do. It’s not like some chapters are pure filler or anything. It’s all spaced out pretty well, so I wouldn’t be able to have somebody guesslate a section without there being something important in it.

Anyone have any bright ideas?

My other idea is just to read through the chapters myself, and for the less important chapters I’d leave dot-point summaries of the important points, translating only the dialogue and skipping all of the descriptive prose.

My third idea is just to ask a less skilled translator to help me, so that if there’s ever a line I’m not happy with, I could glare at them and make them obey my wishes.

All three of these ideas sound ridiculous, and pretty badly flawed. What do. Does anybody have a time turner? Portable hyperbolic time chamber? Anything like that?

EDIT: I suppose my final option is just to get extremely liberal with any of the longer or more annoying to translate chapters. I’d retain the information, though the feel would be a bit different. That would make things a bit easier though, and it wouldn’t affect any of the dialogue or characterisation.

Pretty sure it would read more smoothly in English as well, but the downside is that it would be, iunno. Lazier.

58 thoughts on “It’s impossible…”

  1. Did you say the hardest part was the novels perspective being difficult to word fluently?

    Outsource that. To who, or how, that’s beyond me. And if the outcome is terrible, pretend it never happened.

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    1. um, let’s say that there are 4 parts to a sentence. like, a 4-section nunchuck/staff.

      in japanese nunchucks, you can attack descriptive parts to all four sticks. and because the way japanese nunchucks are made, it works perfectly and smoothly.

      when you translate by detaching these description modules from the japanese nunchucks and trying to attach them onto your english nun-chucks, it becomes too unwielding to use in combat.

      so there’s a bunch of thinking and rewording involved, to get all the description in without being impossible to use in combat. sometimes it requires breaking the 4 section nunchucks into two normal nunchucks (2 section). sometimes it’s more complicated than that.

      Liked by 1 person

      1. Was talking about doing collabs lol

        Anyway just drop it if you feel like doing this series is a chore. Forcing yourself wouldn’t do any good at all and may affect other projects you’re working on. Last thing I wanna see is you going on hiatus mode from being too burned out lol.

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  2. Drop the whole thing~ Let some eager beaver MTL-er do it.

    Seriously! This is the type of project/goods/efforts that say “you just need a little more and you can get it done” but a monster to do so. Dont. Just walk away. Tiptoe or run, your decision.

    The most ideal choice is to get an MTLer to fill in your blanks while you do the most choice parts and oversee. But frankly, the whole scene is free efforts, and you dont exhibite the characteristics of can work with MTLers. And people wont tolerate a boss, or being a second fiddle.

    Just walk away, chap!

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      1. Actually yes. ESPECIALLY after some tones of anons sucking his balls for a few weeks. Know one from his start to work until he leave the scene. Withhold the name since I still have hope that free slave will come back to work (only reason I wont insult translators).

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  3. just ask not too bright translator to do it whit you then you also supervise them and tsukkomi then when you think their translation is not too goog

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  4. I have the opinion that translating is more about getting the right meaning across than perfect 110% accuracy. I’d rather see ”fish broth (with X spices/ingredients)” than some wierdly named japanese dish that is basically a fish broth.

    It flows better and doesn’t make me check wikipedia every paragraph to see what the hell they’re talking about.

    Of course, getting a translator to slave away for you the way you want him/her to is always a welcome solution XP

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  5. I know how you feel. I was looking at elf tensei and the author keep releasing new chapters every three days or so and they aren’t small chapters either. The only upside is that he keeps it entirely in first person and it is fairly simple to do. I am in the middle of translating different series and I realize how much more difficult it could have been. At least with burriko the point of view is in the title of the chapter.

    Liked by 1 person

  6. I feel like the third option is probably best. Making some aspiring translator your apprentice(slave) for Maou chapters seems like a good idea.

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  7. Get a new slave translator. Try to find a beta-type person or even below (omega, gamma, etc), so there will be a small chance they’ll retaliate against you.

    If you can’t afford to find them IRL, just drop Maou from your main project and do it in your spare time.

    that way you will be able to pick Kenja wuehehehe– –I didn’t say anything; it must be your imagination.

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  8. If people check my about page on my blog. They can see how I go about machine translating. I use a special program designed by verse-kun who was a novel translator. It increases efficiency and depending on how it is used, it can increase accuracy. Combining that with some other dictionaries would be best. That application could revolutionize the web novel translation effort even if you choose to disable machine and just read it raw.

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  9. Cna I vote for the 4 option?Just leave ti to other translator and focus on other web novels. It is a good WLN but not even in my top 30 JPLN

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  10. Just dropped it. The thing about the work you do is that you’re either passionate about it or you’re getting paid for it. Or else you’ll burn out.

    If you’re hesitant about Maou, might as well save that enthusiasm for something else instead of chipping at your willpower.

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      1. I actually like that idea.. i think i had read the work of translator use that idea.. but i dont remember, oh wait.. i kinda remember something abt slime..!?

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      2. Eh, those anons just need an excuse to badmouth somebody. ANYBODY. You just wait until those buggers start flooding your blogs and mouthing off.
        Normally, I say just insult them right back. The problem is, you being a TL, I fear that kind of fun will inhibit your drive to TL. Because anons are annoying and dealing with them is always a turn-off.
        You know how Vietnamese on Viet net? Yeah, it’s not specific to just Viet alone. Every nationality.

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  11. As much as I love the series..
    I think you should drop it

    If it’s causing u that much stress and even panic… It is definitely NOT healthy for ur mind to continue on… Its just going to torture you…

    If you have actual clinical depression or if ur borderline… Please Onii-chan… Leave it for ur own sake

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      1. I like the idea off finding someone else ?to take ITT then just, editing and proof reading it. Someone else can improve their map/engrish and save you some trouble, but then you would have less control over the project. As a reader, I would rather have a slightly lower quality, then to see it dropped. This could also be taken over at some point by said mtl’er after finding another editor.

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  12. I WILL JOIN YOU MY LORD!!

    Nihon-Go what is that?

    English Troll lvl 1

    Spirit to translate OVER 9000!!!

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  13. no pain no gain, if its for learning japanese you wont get on a higher level if you shy away from the difficult stuff, but on the other hand it should be allright if you make your translations more liberal as long as it still reflects the characters personality and story plot 1:1

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  14. I like the final option in the edit. It’s easier on you, the translator. And if it makes the translation smoother, it seems like a good deal for us too.

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  15. I don’t care for maou, well I do, but Id prefer if you find another novel you really like and is easier to translate, to translate… but well I would only ask two things, that you have fun doing it, and to keep em coming, this from a super leecher.

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  16. I want to help. I’m sort of a machine translator since I rely extremely heavily on glossing software like JGlossator and self-help websites like Yahoo Answer and Japanese Stack Exchange, but I take the character by character approach and experience from a single year of college Japanese to make my translations.

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  17. You are sheep rabbit fast but even sheeprabbits lose steam to keep going on. .. we must have a virgin sacrifice as tribute and tribute I mean another translator that has a lot of time on their hands.

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  18. — leave dot-point summaries of the important points, translating only the dialogue and skipping all of the descriptive prose.—–

    Hi, i would be fine with this 2nd option given difficulty, time and other constraints.

    And, thank you and your team in advance.

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  19. For parts that you don’t find interesting, it’s likely we may not find them interesting either. It won’t be perfect, but leaving things out is not bad.

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