Ookami to Koushinryou / Wolf and Spice

[Mew]

I can't get it installed

Did you follow the simple image instructions ?

[onizuka-gto]

I can't get it installed

well, when all else fails....

R.T.F.M


Read The F*@%ling Manual.

or in this case, the .nfo text file included.

[sterling01]

I've installed it on my laptop but I can't install the thing on home computer as after the install is almost done it rolls back and says the instalation was interrupted

[onizuka-gto]

I've installed it on my laptop but I can't install the thing on home computer as after the install is almost done it rolls back and says the instalation was interrupted

really?

i've had no problem on my Vista laptop.

only had to install the istallationscript150.msi thing, then voila, it works.

if your running XP, you gotta install like two extra program included on the disc including the installation script, or that's what the .nfo file says.

anyway it didn't work first time for me either, until i realised there was an "add-on asian patch" so double clicked that, and it converted my raws to word just fine.



mind you i found it annoying that it can recognise the <, >, and the stop circle symbol that japanese like to use.

must be a way to make the rediris to recognise them ,or at leased let me set it manual so it knows what to do next time....

[AlephNull]

Hello

I started translating Volume 1 on my own a few days ago. It just occured to me to see if Baka-Tsuki had a project, and I'd like to be able to contribute here. I've only studied Japanese on my own so far, so I can't contribute at a high level or speed (it can take me ~3 hours for a page), and I'll need a lot of help from reviewers. In particular, I'd like to be able to really discuss and break down individual sentences with other people. I mean, possibly every other sentence, not just the occasional one.

Here's a sample of what I've done so far, and the sort of questions I'd like to be able to ask people here. { } denote furigana, (?) denotes a sentence that I'm unsure of (actually, I'm unsure of just about EVERY sentence, just that I'm more unsure about the marked ones), [[ ]] denotes my own thoughts and questions.

Spoiler! :

　この村では、見事に実った麦穂が風に揺られることお狼が走るという。
　風に揺られる様子が、麦畑｛むぎほ｝の中お狼｛オオカミ｝が走ているように見えるからだ。
　また、風が強すぎて麦穂が倒れることお狼踏まれたといい、不作の時わおお神に食われたという。

In this village, they say that when the beautifully ripened ears of wheat are swaying in the wind, the wolves are running.
From their appearance, swaying in the wind, you can make out what seems like wolves running in the wheat fields.
Also, they say that when the wind is too strong and the wheat stalks fall over, the wolves have trampled them. When the harvest is poor, it is said that the wolves have eaten it.

[[ Literally, I think it should be "In this village, the beautifully ripened ears of wheat swaying in the wind _are_ said to be the wolves running.", not merely that there is some correlation between the wheat swaying and the wolves running. But this sounds odd. Same deal with the first half of the third sentence. Best I could come up with was to insert "when", but the text here makes no reference to time, unlike the second half of the third sentence (時). ]]


　上手｛うま｝い表現だが、迷惑なものもあるのが玉に瑕｛きず｝だな、と思った。
　しかし、今となってはちょっとした洒落｛しゃれ｝た言い方になっているだけで、昔のように親しみと恐れおこめてその言葉お使う者わほんとんどいない。

All appears well on the exterior, but trouble lurks like a flaw in a gem. (?)
Even though it's become rather fashionable to say such things nowadays, fewer and fewer people say them with the affection and fear of old. (?)

[[ Should I put in an 'I think' for the first line, corresponding to the と思った? I'm not sure whether Horo here is merely stating an adage she believes in, or whether she thinks that there's actually trouble lurking in this village, maybe the text is deliberately vague ? Also, how about "However, even though it's becoming rather _popular_ to say such things nowadays,", or even "However, even though saying such things is increasingly common nowadays,"? I'm not sure of the meaning of 洒落た. Does the term also carry with it a sense of jest and lightheartedness? ]]


　ゆらゆらと揺られる麦穂の間から見える秋の空は何百年も変わらないのに、その下の様子はじつに様変わりおしていた。

Looking up from amidst the gently swaying ears of wheat, while the autumn sky hasn't changed in hundreds of years, the world below in fact has.

[[ A leap from その下の様子 to "the world below", but couldn't come up with anything better. ]]


　来る年も来る年も、麦お育ててきたこの村の者達も、せいぜい長生きして七十年なのだ。
　むしろ何百年も変わらないほうが悪いのかもしれない。
　ただ、だからもう昔の約束お律儀｛りちぎ｝に守る必要はないのかもしれないと思った。
　何よりも、自分はもうここではひつようとされていないともった。
　東にそびえる山のせいで、村の空お流れる雲わたいてい北へと向かっていく。
　その雲の流れる先、北の胡郷のことお思い出してため息おつく。
　視線お空から麦穂戻せば、鼻先で揺れる自慢｛じまん｝の尻尾｛しっぽ｝が目に入った。
　することもないので尻尾の毛づくろいに取り掛かる。

The people of this village, who tend to the wheat year after year, live for at most seventy years.
Perhaps hundreds of years of stasis is a bad thing. (?) [[ What does むしろ mean here? ]]
Or just, they think maybe it's no longer necessary to conscientiously abide by the agreement of old. (?) [[ does this sound natural? Should I condense it, e.g. replace 'conscientiously abide by' with 'respect'? There are furigana beside 律儀; could they mean some kind of emphasis? Do authors use furigana for emphasis? Is such emphasis similar to italics in English prose? ]]
Either way, I don't think I'm needed here anymore.(?) [[ What exactly does 何よりも mean? ]]
Because of the mountains rising up in the east, the clouds in the village sky generally drift towards the north.
Where they are headed lies the northern country, and the memories of it evoke a sigh. [[ Is this too strong? Alternatively: ", and a sigh escapes as I remember it." ]]
Were I to return my gaze from the sky to the wheat, I would see my proud tail wagging before my nose. (?)
[[ Should this be "Returning my gaze from the sky to the wheat, I see my proud tail wagging before my nose." instead? Does a ーば suffix always mean a conditional statement? ]]
With nothing else to do, I set about grooming it.


　秋の空は高く、とても澄んでいた。
　今年もまた収穫の時期がくる。
　麦畑お、たくさんの狼｛オオカミ｝が走っていた。

The high autumn sky, so clear.
Harvest time has come again this year.
Many wolves are running through the wheat fields.

[[ Too rhymy? Or does rhymy work here? ]]

I can post the rest of what I've done somewhere more... convenient for reading if there's interest in it.

[onizuka-gto]

Hello

I started translating Volume 1 on my own a few days ago. It just occured to me to see if Baka-Tsuki had a project, and I'd like to be able to contribute here. I've only studied Japanese on my own so far, so I can't contribute at a high level or speed (it can take me ~3 hours for a page), and I'll need a lot of help from reviewers. In particular, I'd like to be able to really discuss and break down individual sentences with other people. I mean, possibly every other sentence, not just the occasional one.

Here's a sample of what I've done so far, and the sort of questions I'd like to be able to ask people here. { } denote furigana, (?) denotes a sentence that I'm unsure of (actually, I'm unsure of just about EVERY sentence, just that I'm more unsure about the marked ones), [[ ]] denotes my own thoughts and questions.

Spoiler! :

　この村では、見事に実った麦穂が風に揺られることお狼が走るという。
　風に揺られる様子が、麦畑｛むぎほ｝の中お狼｛オオカミ｝が走ているように見えるからだ。
　また、風が強すぎて麦穂が倒れることお狼踏まれたといい、不作の時わおお神に食われたという。

In this village, they say that when the beautifully ripened ears of wheat are swaying in the wind, the wolves are running.
From their appearance, swaying in the wind, you can make out what seems like wolves running in the wheat fields.
Also, they say that when the wind is too strong and the wheat stalks fall over, the wolves have trampled them. When the harvest is poor, it is said that the wolves have eaten it.

[[ Literally, I think it should be "In this village, the beautifully ripened ears of wheat swaying in the wind _are_ said to be the wolves running.", not merely that there is some correlation between the wheat swaying and the wolves running. But this sounds odd. Same deal with the first half of the third sentence. Best I could come up with was to insert "when", but the text here makes no reference to time, unlike the second half of the third sentence (時). ]]


　上手｛うま｝い表現だが、迷惑なものもあるのが玉に瑕｛きず｝だな、と思った。
　しかし、今となってはちょっとした洒落｛しゃれ｝た言い方になっているだけで、昔のように親しみと恐れおこめてその言葉お使う者わほんとんどいない。

All appears well on the exterior, but trouble lurks like a flaw in a gem. (?)
Even though it's become rather fashionable to say such things nowadays, fewer and fewer people say them with the affection and fear of old. (?)

[[ Should I put in an 'I think' for the first line, corresponding to the と思った? I'm not sure whether Horo here is merely stating an adage she believes in, or whether she thinks that there's actually trouble lurking in this village, maybe the text is deliberately vague ? Also, how about "However, even though it's becoming rather _popular_ to say such things nowadays,", or even "However, even though saying such things is increasingly common nowadays,"? I'm not sure of the meaning of 洒落た. Does the term also carry with it a sense of jest and lightheartedness? ]]


　ゆらゆらと揺られる麦穂の間から見える秋の空は何百年も変わらないのに、その下の様子はじつに様変わりおしていた。

Looking up from amidst the gently swaying ears of wheat, while the autumn sky hasn't changed in hundreds of years, the world below in fact has.

[[ A leap from その下の様子 to "the world below", but couldn't come up with anything better. ]]


　来る年も来る年も、麦お育ててきたこの村の者達も、せいぜい長生きして七十年なのだ。
　むしろ何百年も変わらないほうが悪いのかもしれない。
　ただ、だからもう昔の約束お律儀｛りちぎ｝に守る必要はないのかもしれないと思った。
　何よりも、自分はもうここではひつようとされていないともった。
　東にそびえる山のせいで、村の空お流れる雲わたいてい北へと向かっていく。
　その雲の流れる先、北の胡郷のことお思い出してため息おつく。
　視線お空から麦穂戻せば、鼻先で揺れる自慢｛じまん｝の尻尾｛しっぽ｝が目に入った。
　することもないので尻尾の毛づくろいに取り掛かる。

The people of this village, who tend to the wheat year after year, live for at most seventy years.
Perhaps hundreds of years of stasis is a bad thing. (?) [[ What does むしろ mean here? ]]
Or just, they think maybe it's no longer necessary to conscientiously abide by the agreement of old. (?) [[ does this sound natural? Should I condense it, e.g. replace 'conscientiously abide by' with 'respect'? There are furigana beside 律儀; could they mean some kind of emphasis? Do authors use furigana for emphasis? Is such emphasis similar to italics in English prose? ]]
Either way, I don't think I'm needed here anymore.(?) [[ What exactly does 何よりも mean? ]]
Because of the mountains rising up in the east, the clouds in the village sky generally drift towards the north.
Where they are headed lies the northern country, and the memories of it evoke a sigh. [[ Is this too strong? Alternatively: ", and a sigh escapes as I remember it." ]]
Were I to return my gaze from the sky to the wheat, I would see my proud tail wagging before my nose. (?)
[[ Should this be "Returning my gaze from the sky to the wheat, I see my proud tail wagging before my nose." instead? Does a ーば suffix always mean a conditional statement? ]]
With nothing else to do, I set about grooming it.


　秋の空は高く、とても澄んでいた。
　今年もまた収穫の時期がくる。
　麦畑お、たくさんの狼｛オオカミ｝が走っていた。

The high autumn sky, so clear.
Harvest time has come again this year.
Many wolves are running through the wheat fields.

[[ Too rhymy? Or does rhymy work here? ]]

I can post the rest of what I've done somewhere more... convenient for reading if there's interest in it.

Hello AlephNull,

First off, welcome to Baka-Tsuki and thank you for your interest in this series.

Just a question, since you mention you are self taught.

Are you using machine translation programs for this or individually translation each character with a (electronic) dictionary?

Because while what you have done so far is great, we can't really proceed without a translator who can read Japanese, or at leased know how to type it out so it can be read up on a dictionary.

while we got a Japanese reading OCR program, we can not be certain it has been transcribe properly since obviously we do not know how to read it.

[AlephNull]

I use dictionaries for the meanings kanji and conjunctions that I don't know (JWPCE, and sometimes WWWJDIC and Japanese dictionaries). I use WWWJDIC and google.jp to look up how certain terms are used. (though with limited success so far...) Haven't managed to find a good OCR program myself, been typing it in manually so far.

I should make it clear though: anything I translate really should be vetted first. I'm doing this both for learning Japanese and my interest in the series. If you guys are okay with vetting through my translations, and answering the questions I may have (they'll be about the type and frequency of the questions in the spoilers above. I mean, I don't expect everything to be answered, but I'd really like some place where I can voice them and do sentence by sentence analyses), then I'd love to join you all. If you guys are looking for more capable translators instead, that's fine as well, I'd still love to see this series get translated by anyone, and if you want, I can give you all what I've done so far as a base.

EDIT: Erk, can't edit earlier posts... In the last line of the first paragraph of the spoiler text, おお神 should be 狼 instead.

[FlareKnight]

It's times like these that I wish my language ability wasn't limited to English. Guess all I can do is give moral support and a big thank you to those able and willing to translate.

[Mew]

It's times like these that I wish my language ability wasn't limited to English. Guess all I can do is give moral support and a big thank you to those able and willing to translate.

I know what you mean i know 4 languages but all of they useless except english ... AlephNull thank you for trying to translate this Any translation is welcome ! Hope to see more ... and to see a Wolf and Spice novel translation section

oh and btw the OP and ED came out today

[ainsoph9]

If it helps and you have some money to spare, I suggest going here to pick up these textbooks:

http://www.mhhe.com/yookos3

These are the texts that I have been using to learn Japanese at my school. They are very well done.

[onizuka-gto]

I use dictionaries for the meanings kanji and conjunctions that I don't know (JWPCE, and sometimes WWWJDIC and Japanese dictionaries). I use WWWJDIC and google.jp to look up how certain terms are used. (though with limited success so far...) Haven't managed to find a good OCR program myself, been typing it in manually so far.

I should make it clear though: anything I translate really should be vetted first. I'm doing this both for learning Japanese and my interest in the series. If you guys are okay with vetting through my translations, and answering the questions I may have (they'll be about the type and frequency of the questions in the spoilers above. I mean, I don't expect everything to be answered, but I'd really like some place where I can voice them and do sentence by sentence analyses), then I'd love to join you all. If you guys are looking for more capable translators instead, that's fine as well, I'd still love to see this series get translated by anyone, and if you want, I can give you all what I've done so far as a base.

EDIT: Erk, can't edit earlier posts... In the last line of the first paragraph of the spoiler text, おお神 should be 狼 instead.

mmm.....its amazing how there can be so much interest for such things, but so little from the people who can help.....

I would love to read this novel and judging by the polls, a lot of people also want to read it, but without a Japanese able reader, it's hard to preserve the reputation of Baka-Tsuki translations, but........

well...........


so we try it? Alphanull if you are serious.....

it won't be easy.

And i think for this project it will have to go by different guidelines, the Japanese text will have to be put up as well.

Not only because it will be difficult to spot a mistake by the Optical Character Recognition program, but also to at leased give a valid reason why the translation for this project going to be.....not so accurate?

haha.

Lets just make this a project for something we can all learn from....perhaps?

It'll be like a group of disabled people without the aid of prosthetics, helping each other run a relay race....

I don't think this will get very far, but in the end i think as long as everyone learn and have fun, then i guess....that is all that matters, not like we are doing this for money, fame or our own ego. (Like those capitalistic elite dogs....*evil Mutter against the enemies of the wiki-communist state* )



But maybe I'm jumping ahead of myself.

We'll see what Alphanull will reply.

[AlephNull]

I'm game for it. I already knew it wouldn't be easy, after it took me 3 hours for the Prologue. (should've mentioned earlier that the entire prologue is what's in the spoilers.) Things seem to be getting easier though. And the prologue pretty much won me over.

I'm thinking we don't have to display this as something for the casual reader. Ideally, I'd like the page initially to not be in English prose format, but something like that in the spoilers, complete with the original Japanese text (what's Baka-Tsuki's stand on reproducing the original text like this online?) and my own comments and questions, perhaps with better formatting. Have the whole thing more like a Talk Page, rather than a Main Article, where each sentence and question can be individually discussed. So I'm thinking that if say this is going to be hosted on a wiki page like the other projects, have the Main Page start off with no translation, but a message that says that the translation is by someone learning the language, and invites review inside the Talk Page from more experienced translators. As the translation gets peer reviewed, we can move stable portions to the Main Page, i.e. just the English prose, without the Japanese and comments. Basically the point is to not really open it up to the general public yet, but still attract enough attention from people who know Japanese. What do you think?

It'll be like a group of disabled people without the aid of prosthetics, helping each other run a relay race....

Erk... I wouldn't go that far. I think ultimately this needs to attract the attention of more skilled translators, otherwise I wouldn't want people read something that may or may not reflect the original work. I've tried editing translations before (inside the Touhou wiki). Editing a rough translation is much easier than translating from scratch, so it may be that people aren't interested in translating this from scratch, but are willing to review mine.


Btw, who are the Japanese experts around here? I figure the translators listed in the project registration pages all are. What about the editors? (e.g. does editor mean "English editor" or "Japanese editor", or different things for different people?) Plus any other experts with forum accounts/talk pages? If this project gets started, I'd like to drop them a invitation to review/join it.

And, erm, its Alephnull, not Alpha

[AlephNull]

OT, but since this came up:

ainsoph9, that link seems to be broken. I don't know about the particular books you have in mind, but my own experience with published books hasn't been good. I feel most Japanese texts focus too much on phrases, and not enough on the proper grammar rules. Learning a language via strict grammar rules is not always a good idea (I certainly didn't do this for English), but Japanese is a very logical language, and has a (relatively) small set of rules that allows for a lot of flexibility in sentence construction. To anyone learning Japanese grammar, I highly recommend Tae Kim's Japanese Guide, which is free. I alternated between periods of adsorption (read: watching anime ) and reading the guide to properly understand the connectives and sentence structures I picked up by ear. You can still learn things "phrase-by-phrase" on top of all this, whether through books or through the online stuff (In particular, I'm going through the Pera Pera Penguin articles now), but IMO for Japanese it's very worthwhile getting the logical foundations down.

[ainsoph9]

Sorry about the link. Add an "o" to the end of the link before the "3" to make it "yookoso3." It was a typo on my part. That guide seemed to be quite good, surprisingly. I must say though that the order that it teaches some of the topics is a little odd. It jumps to some of the more advanced forms of Japanese that I did not learn until my third year of classes immediately. The textbooks I recommended are actually the most widely used Japanese college textbooks in the United States to my knowledge. They include some other things that that guide lacks, but there is much overlap between the two.

[TheGiftedMonkey]

Thanks to the both of you. I've been looking for some decent JP learning guides.