Volleyball scene

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Nutcase
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Volleyball scene

Post by Nutcase »

Smidge sent me the original Japanese text for "Wandering Shadow" (Thanks a lot, Smidge), so I started playing around with Babelfish while thumbing through te Wikipedia article on Japanese grammar, and one thing led to another. I found myself retranslating a couple of short paragraphs from the beginning of WS. This is the current version:
Spoiler! :
I uttered this half-hearted response while continuing to watch the ball fly around the court. The opponent began her serve, and the ball traveled in an arc, before being projected upwards by the other side's setter.

From behind the 3-metre line, a girl clad in gym clothes ran forward, then lept high into the air. At the apex of her jump, the hitter raised her right arm, and viciously spiked the ball downwards. The angle was perfect, as the ball flew steeply down and landed in the corner of the opponents' court. A member from the volleyball club, who was acting as a stand-in referee, blew his whistle. A perfect back attack indeed.
Here's the raw, phrase-by-phrase Babelfish version:

Spoiler! :
As for we while striking the phase hammer which does not have the air, the whereabouts of the white volleyball where it whirls the sky of coat are chased. As for the ball which becomes the mountain from the position of the partner and flies with serve, it is received in the falling point of parabola, stepping on the procedure, toss next, almost it rises vertically.

Way that ball is chased, acquiring approach run from foreward the far of the attack line, the woman of the physical education arrival which jumps being, it shakes the right hand in, the beautiful raw stirring impression lowering. As for the unfortunate ball which is hammered everything of position energy and kinetic energy, becoming the homicide spike, it repels two blocks of the opponent team, throwing, it was sucked into the angle of coat. Perfect back attack, the volleyball staff who serves chief umpire part blows the whistle.
After decoding "phase hammer" as the school bell, I came to the following relatively literal translation:
Spoiler! :
As for us with empty time waiting for the bell to ring, we watch the white volleyball as it flies around the court. The ball arcs up from the opposing server to be received as it arcs down. Following the usual procedure, the ball is hit to a setter, who puts it up almost vertically.

As the ball rises, a physical education student runs forward from the attack line and jumps, swinging her right hand in a beautifully timed downward blow, full of raw power. The unfortunate ball is hammered, gaining maximum kinetic energy at its highest point. This killer spike passes two blockers to hit into a back corner of the court. A perfect back court attack. A volleyball team member serving as umpire blows the whistle.
I don't want to be tedious, but since this is the first time I've referred directly to the Japanese, I thought I should check in before I begin changing things on this basis. I don't expect a revision of the first phrase or of the volleyball play to be controversial, as these are matters of content rather than style. The tense issue is a topic of ongoing discussion elsewhere.

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Post by Smidge204 »

Okay, seriously? Do not - under ANY circumstances - use Babelfish/Google as anything even approaching an authoritive source. That should go without saying, but it bears repeating. Machine translations of asian languages are wildly inaccurate at best. Any output that resembles human translated text beyond key vocabulary is best attributed to dumb luck.

The only thing I ever use it for is to get the "feel" for what is being said, so I can match the location of translated text in the original. Beyond that I use a dictionary and some imagination. (Multiradical Kanji lookup is pure gold, but less important if you have text you can copy and paste)

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Post by HolyCow »

You could have just passed the paragraph to another translator (like Kinny or BaKaFiSh) to translate -.-

I agree with Smidge, there is almost no way you can get an accurate translation using Google/Babelfish. Add to the fact that phrase-by-phrase DOES NOT NECESSARILY WORK in some cases, I think it's still better to manually translate the text.
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Post by Nutcase »

Gee, you guys are so excitable.

I do understand your concerns in general terms. It's completely clear that machine translation on the phrase level alone can't get me very far. The machine translation of the first phrase is completely opaque. However, with recourse to finer parsing , dictionaries, the current translation and context, I think it's possible to puzzle out some things.

It's no great hardship to research "phase hammer" further. The odds are good it willl turn out as I suggest. "Phase hammer" makes sense as school bell.

A bump-set-spike past blockers makes sense as volleyball - way more likely than a backcourt set off a serve and zero defense. It happens, but its rare. Not totally implausible off an easy lob serve to midcourt, but still, its hard to get the timing right without a lot of practice. That's a lot of the point of the bump-set, it allows for the spiker to time their jump. Also of course, the two blockers are in there, in the machine translation, right exactly where you would expect them in an actual volleyball play.

To further clarify, I wasn't planning on subbing my "translation" wholesale. I was planning on using it as a basis for bringing the current version closer to the original, which might involve subbing certain phrases. I hadn't gone that far, wanting to take this step first.

I'm okay with doing this however you want to do do this. If y'all want to vet my interpretations case by case, that's really fine with me. Whatever. Trust me, there won't be any huge flood of revisions of this sort, the process is kinda slow.

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Post by Smidge204 »

Allow me to give you an example of why machine translation can not be relied upon at all.
俺は気のない相づちを打ちつつ、コートの上空を舞う白いバレーボールの行方を追う。

Google: "You chase the whereabouts of the white volleyball where we while striking the phase hammer which does not have the air, whirls the sky of coat."
Boiling down, "Phase Hammer" comes from 相づち

相 by itself can be either "あい" (together; mutually; fellow) or "そう" (aspect; phase; countenance)

"づち" (zuchi) by itself, only seems to translate into "hammer" when I use Google. No dictionary I can find can collaborate this. Taken as a whole, however, "相づち" could be a noun meaning "sounds given during a conversation to indicate comprehension." (Like "yeah, uh huh, sure, okay")

Which, oddly enough, fits very well with the original human interpretation.

In short, "Phase Hammer" does not require any investigation because the phrase simply doesn't exist. If it really said "school bell" it would probably be written as "予鈴" (yorei; a bell signalling that work, class, etc. will begin shortly)
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Post by HolyCow »

Here is the text in chinese:
Spoiler! :
我一边爱理不理的随声附和着,一边看着在球场上面移动着的排球。对方发球,球以抛物线的形态从对方的阵地飞过来,在抛物线的落点处球被接住了,然后二传手把球托起来,球垂直上升。
就像追着这个球一样,在攻击锋线的远处一个穿着运动服的女生助跑着,然后跳起来,随着这完美的跳动,女生举起右手向下劈下去。排球被狠狠地扣下,角度刁钻,而且充满力量。这一扣杀飞向对方区域,落在球场上的一角。完美的back attack。担任主裁判的排球部队员吹响了哨子。
This is the Babelfish Chinese Version:
Spoiler! :
I look cold and indifferentbe standoffish at the same time am echoing what others say, at the same time looks is moving the volleyball above the field. Opposite party serves, the ball flies by the parabola shape from opposite party position, is met in the parabola point of descent ball, then the passer picks up the ball, ball vertical rise. Pursues this ball on the picture to be same, is putting on the gym suit female student approach in attack frontal line distant place, then jumps, along with this perfect beating, the female student lifts the right hand to divide to under. The volleyball maliciously is deducted, the angle is cunning, moreover fills the strength. This smashing flies to opposite party region, falls in the field a jiao. Perfect back attack. Held the post of the host referee the volleyball department team member to blow has made a sound the whistle.
Now this is the Babelfish Japanese Version:
Spoiler! :
As for we while striking the phase hammer which does not have the air, the whereabouts of the white volleyball where it whirls the sky of coat are chased. As for the ball which becomes the mountain from the position of the partner and flies with serve, it is received in the falling point of parabola, stepping on the procedure, toss next, almost it rises vertically.

Way that ball is chased, acquiring approach run from foreward the far of the attack line, the woman of the physical education arrival which jumps being, it shakes the right hand in, the beautiful raw stirring impression lowering. As for the unfortunate ball which is hammered everything of position energy and kinetic energy, becoming the homicide spike, it repels two blocks of the opponent team, throwing, it was sucked into the angle of coat. Perfect back attack, the volleyball staff who serves chief umpire part blows the whistle.
Notice how different the translations are, even though they are based on the EXACT SAME PIECE OF TEXT, albeit in different languages?

Here is my version:
Spoiler! :
I uttered this half-hearted response while continuing to watch the ball fly around the court. The opponent began her serve, and the ball traveled in an arc, before being projected upwards by the other side's setter.

From behind the 3-metre line, a girl clad in gym clothes ran forward, then lept high into the air. At the apex of her jump, the hitter raised her right arm, and viciously spiked the ball downwards. The angle was perfect, as the ball flew steeply down and landed in the corner of the opponents' court. A member from the volleyball club, who was acting as a stand-in referee, blew his whistle. A perfect back attack indeed.
Frankly, machine translation sucks. If it managed to cough up something that was actually readable, there wouldn't be any need for us translators now, eh?
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Nutcase
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Post by Nutcase »

Smidge is certainly right about "striking the phase hammer." Plugging the underlying Japanese into Google consistently produces hits on phrases related to conversation. Point taken.

The volleyball scene is a somewhat different matter. The two blockers(二枚ブロック) are certainly there in the Japanese, though they seem to be absent in the Chinese. They belong there in volleyball.

The question of bump (or pass)-set-spike vs. (set directly off of serve)-spike is different still. Here I'm going mainly off of physics, geometry, and typical volleyball play. And the intent I impute to the author.

It is indisputable that the ball has to be close to and above the level of the net to be spiked. For the ball to rise "vertically" to this position, it has to be set from close to the net. It's certainly possible for a weak server to lob the ball to an opposing setter, but much more typically the serve is received in the backcourt and passed to the setter. It's also possible for a spiker to preempt the set, striking a ball that would have crossed the net without intervention. It gets tedious to try to describe all this in exhaustive detail. The bottom line is that bump-set-spike is the default pattern. A "vertical" set further constrains toward the default.

A further consideration, for me at least, is the point of this scene in the story. What would be the point of describing a broken play, where Haruhi heroically intercepts a bad pass, turning it into a kill; or a missmatch emphasizing the incompetence of the opponent, where Haruhi crushes a set made off a serve so weak that it can be set directly? How does this advance the character development?

The point here has to be how the team is really necessary to set Haruhi up to be a star. It cannot be about how useless and pathetic everybody else is. Therefore the opposing team is not a bunch of incompetents who can't serve and can't put up blockers. The bump-and-set are there to make the point that you can't make killing spike after killing spike without the support of a team that will feed you the raw meat. Haruhi is not flying solo, she is the star of a team. That's the point.

This ties directly back to the baseball game, where Haruhi couldn't win no matter how great she was personally without "divine intervention," because she didn't have an adequate team around her.

I could nevertheless be persuaded that the pass preceding the set just can't to be read into the words - especially the Chinese. After all the two blockers fell off, why not the bump? However, all things considered, I hope you can see where I'm coming from.

It's hard to be clear on something like this without putting up the appearance of excessive heat and energy. Which cuts both ways of course. I do take your point and Smidge's about the limits of machine translation and the shallowness of my understanding of the cryptic squiggles.

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Post by Smidge204 »

Nutcase wrote:A further consideration, for me at least, is the point of this scene in the story. What would be the point of describing a broken play, where Haruhi heroically intercepts a bad pass, turning it into a kill; or a missmatch emphasizing the incompetence of the opponent, where Haruhi crushes a set made off a serve so weak that it can be set directly? How does this advance the character development?

The point here has to be how the team is really necessary to set Haruhi up to be a star. It cannot be about how useless and pathetic everybody else is.
Hold on. You have to slow down. You're losing it. You have to take a breath. Listen to yourself. You're connecting a computer bug I had with a computer bug you might have had and some religious hogwash. You want to find the number 216 in the world, you will be able to find it everywhere. 216 steps from a mere street corner to your front door. 216 seconds you spend riding on the elevator. When your mind becomes obsessed with anything, you will filter everything else out and find that thing everywhere.
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Post by HolyCow »

A further consideration, for me at least, is the point of this scene in the story. What would be the point of describing a broken play, where Haruhi heroically intercepts a bad pass, turning it into a kill; or a missmatch emphasizing the incompetence of the opponent, where Haruhi crushes a set made off a serve so weak that it can be set directly? How does this advance the character development?
You are definitely reading too much into things. If you ask me, the whole point of this scene is to show just how much Haruhi has changed, slowly opening herself up to her classmates.

Koizumi says that everything has made a full circle and has now returned to where it all started. He whips out Othello, which was the first board game they ever played, the Brigade have already gone on their second trip, and now he SOS Brigade is about to receive their 2nd client. Kyon, however, states that many things have changed. Haruhi has changed. Nagato has changed. Asahina-san has changed. Even Koizumi has changed.

No offense, but I think you're blowing things waaaaaaay out of proportion. I doubt Tanigawa Nagaru chooses every single word carefully as he writes. In one of his notes, you can see that he makes up the titles of the books after he completes them. There is no need to analyze every word he chooses, as I'm pretty darned sure that 99% of the time, there isn't any hidden meaning behind it.

P/S: Good luck trying to run Wandering Shadow through Babelfish. My Chinese copy of Shadow has 73 pages and 48863 characters.
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Post by Nutcase »

Just to be clear here, I don't currently have any intent to do any significant amount of translation. I want to get a more direct understanding of certain language structure issues, such as relate to the prevalence of run-on sentences, and "proceeding to" phrasiology, as well as the prevalence of present and past tense structure. What's an "agglutinative" language, various stuff like that. It's not totally out of the question, but still highly unlikely, that I would begin learning to read Japanese, but this project would be long since past by the time I got up to speed. I stumbled into this particular scene while just randomly poking around looking at past and present tense usage on a very crude level.

You are no doubt right that the author doesn't consider every word. However, I do think he considers every scene. In other words, he has a picture in his mind that he describes. I assume he's describing something he is familiar with. I expect he grew up playing at least a little volleyball.

I don't have an opinion on whether the author explicitly conceptualizes stuff like what I explicitly described about the implications of the team feeding sets to their star spiker. It's possible to be drawn to images by an intuitive process, just as it's possible to appreciate the "rightness" of the artistic result by an intuitive process. Depending on one's temperament, that may be the place to stop.

Part of the beauty of something like SHnY is that you can take it lightly. Koizumi just spouts incomprehensible gibberish that you can skate over, if that's how you want to take it. Another part of the beauty is that you can take it seriously too. I think it likely that the author has read Plato, who touches on some related themes, and I think it likely that he knows quite well that bump-set-spike is the default pattern for return of serve in volleyball. And that you don't get to spike if you don't get a decent set.

But like you say, what the words actually are, that's a different issue. Sometimes steps get skipped in description precisely because they are common knowledge. Shrug.


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Post by Dr Shrink »

You are crazy. :?
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Post by Patient »

I'm reminded of something I saw once back when I was living in LA, a flock of crows and a white cockatoo rising together in a bubble of hot air.

I actually enjoy debate almost as much as I enjoy discussion, but that's not my purpose here. Let's leave it at that.
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Post by quigonkenny »

How about we just get one of the Japanese translators to take a look at it? I think it's been established that "phase hammer" equals "half-hearted response," but if the correctly read Japanese (ie: non-Google butchered) includes the bump and the blockers, then they get added in, we chalk it up to a Chinese translation error, and we all go on with our lives.

Everybody's getting a little too bent out of shape on this, but in Nutcase's defense, the translated description of the scene did seem a little off when I originally read it. I just figured either Tanigawa didn't know much about volleyball, or he was intentionally genericizing the scene to imply that Kyon didn't. I got much the same impression in the football scene in Charmed at First Sight LOVER, but that scene makes much more sense, since Kyon would be more interested in a sport involving girls. ^_^
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Post by Haiyami »

That's true. And looking up on babblefish/google or going by a dictionary can only do so much. Some kanji for instance are tacked onto names or objects that signify male or female prefernce such as the name (ryouko) 良子. The 子at the end is a feminine kanji suffix and in the name (tarou) 太郎 the 郎is a masculine kanji suffix. It is little details such as these that can't be directly translated from a dictionary. I don't mean to be prejudice or anything but I feel that without formal training in japanese or chinese, just using a translator or a dictionary isn't going to cut it when translating.
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Post by Kanzar »

I think what really amuses me is that in Chinese, 子 means 'son' and has male um... what's the English word? Context? Well, it's more masculine than feminine. In Japanese, however...
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