Good Novel for Beginner to Translate?

[Shadell]

So I took about two years of Japanese classes in College and just recently moved to Japan to teach English. While my Japanese isn't yet good enough to translate a novel without assistance, I'm hoping that by making it a (very) long term project, generously looking things up, etc as I study through more mundane means, it will help me improve my language skills.

That said, I'd like to start with an easy book or series.

ダンジョンに出会いを求めるのは間違っているだろうか (Dungeon ni Deai wo Motomeru no wa Machigatte Iru Darou ka) (I think the English would be something along the lines of "My Interest in a Dungeon Encounter is Probably Wrong?") recently had a chapter of the manga show up translated which seemed like it might be decent and probably won't be too full of nuanced thought or complex ideas. It looks promising I guess for something that might be easy to translate while not being so over the top on the haremy side of things that I need brain bleach at the end.


Could anyone maybe look up book preview on amazon.co.jp and see if the level of writing looks too sophisticated for any of these?

Alternatively, if anyone knows of a series that might work well for my needs and that no one is currently translating I would definitely be interested in checking it out. Something actiony or sci-fi ish that isn't too over the top fanservicey would probably be best.

[hayashi_s]

Hi there, welcome to BT.

Maybe I suggest you take a look at http://www.baka-tsuki.org/project/index ... ry:Teasers? There are a few projects in there that need a loving translator to water and nuture them to full project status.

With regards to your criteria, most LNs have fan-servicey illustrations or situations. It's part of what makes them sell. Also action series tend to wind up having some harem elements in them.

That aside, you might want to check out these:

Tokyo Ravens (not so sci-fi, more on the fantasy side)
Strike the Blood (has vampires, might be a bit haremish)
Rakuin no Monshou

[Shadell]

Ah, to clarify, it's not the existence of fanservice that would annoy me, but when fanservice dominates the majority of the plot. Sword Art Online and Accel World both have fanservice and haremy elements, but nothing on the scale of, say, High School DxD.

Also thanks for the suggestions. I've read a bit of the manga for both Tokyo Ravens and Strike the Blood which might be good since I'd have an idea for how things are meant to be going and a visual reference to compare the translation with. Rakuin looks interesting too, though the plot seems like it might be a bit more sophisticated. (It's not that I'm really stuck on action/non-brainy stuff but that more intelligent writing would probably require a more competent translator.)

Do you know anything about the reading level of any of these books?

[hayashi_s]

ravens is fairly simple, not sure on the other two.

[MineRiko]

You could come to Hidan no Aria, it's the easiest because there's only one POV throughout the story. So you won't be confused over which person's perspective you are writing from. Don't make a fatal mistake like I did:

Spoiler! :

Using a machine translator even if you know the language very well.

[stellarroze]

Shadell, here's a useful thread: viewtopic.php?f=55&t=4229 .

You could come to Hidan no Aria, it's the easiest because there's only one POV throughout the story. So you won't be confused over which person's perspective you are writing from. Don't make a fatal mistake like I did:

Using a machine translator even if you know the language very well.

Don't worry MineRiko, I doubt the thought of doing that ever crossed his mind.

[KuroiHikari]

I'm not sure how to rate StB but it isn't really difficult.

[larethian]

You should just work on what you like.

[Catahn]

I would echo larenthian. Find a story that you like that is currently stalled and go from there if you can. I'm in a similar boat as you. Though I do find myself procrastinating all too often on the actual translation work.

I picked Tasogare-Iro no Utatsukai for that very reason. I enjoyed the story and wanted to continue reading more. Oh and if you are anything like me you might find it easier to go in two phases. I find that transcribing the book into a japanese word processor (JWPce for example) and then use that to help with dictionary lookups. JWPce isn't perfect but it does cover 90% of the words and kanji that I need. Then I use jisho.org for the rest.

I don't transcribe it word for word though. I start with an OCR'd copy which is half useful and half terrible then I read through the story to the best of my ability. Replacing the words which are out of place.

Good luck!