#this reads rather aggressive but gfkhsgkjfahgksfjs

[leatherbookmarking]

wow it seems someone already outbitched* me in terms of being picky about the mdzs translation, and

* i am saying this with appreciation

oh dear. well that doesn’t look good... especially the part about 你叫谁 because i feel like thanks to cql’s change it’s Really a popular/meaningful scene, so the translator getting it wrong is like... not only a basic language mistake, but also hello? this is mdzs by mxtx, have you heard of it?

the reddit thread the reviewer linked also gives some examples that just make me wince with how stiff they sound. i saw lwj commenting “...” before and it rendered me speechless commenting “...” too, tbh.

the reddit thread also has people making excuses, saying that ‘translating is hard’ (yes. i guess we just gotta stop translating then?) and “they did their best” (i don’t want to even think about their not-best then) as well as my favourite “it was there in the novel, the translator can’t just change it”.

buddy? the translator is there to TRANSLATE.

to make the text understandable in target language, not to brainlessly shovel the text like snow from point A to point B. if you find a joke or a pun that works in chinese but doesn’t work in english, then what? do you die? do you leave it in chinese with a fucking footnote? no, you make something up! you move the joke to a place where it would work, or you try to construct a similar joke/pun in your target language!

the same goes for the general look and convenience of reading! are these people for real?! you can leave your lan wangji: “...” when you’re doing a quick translation online for your fellow fans to understand roughly what’s going on, but it’s a physically published book for Twenty Fucking US Dollars! “translator can’t just add things as they please”, holy fucking shit.

jesus.

lan wangji remained silent/said nothing, anyone? no? pity

anyway, uh. i thought i’ll manage if it’s just awkward phrasing, but it seems it’s awkward phrasing and basic mistakes that seriously make you wonder a/ if the translator knew what she was translating, or was that her first encounter with the text, and b/ if the translated text really saw any kind of editing.

that, and the character guides in the back just sort of... make me wonder about buying the next volumes lol;;; there’s no way the text will be checked again/fixed, unless a huge amount of fans rally for it, and it seems the majority of fans is just happy to have the novels, which. the bar is low

also, i was thinking about how to give a comprehensive/convenient pronunciation guide and not offend the diaspora, and... qr codes, maybe? the book i bought a while ago had qr codes on some pages, and if you scanned them, you’d get a link to a page with more information/photos on a particular topic. i think it would be a good solution

#shut up shrimp #I AM DISPLEASED. #screw scribbling on the margins in pencil; i feel like i would have to whip out a goddamn correction pen #and the translator had the gall to threaten people for printing and binding the exr translation for their own use... #'if you keep on doing this we might not get the official translation' yeah about that #this reads rather aggressive but gfkhsgkjfahgksfjs