Novel Cleanup

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denormative
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Re: Novel Cleanup

Post by denormative »

Gigaknight wrote:"In one of those room, I—Hyoudou Issei, was taken into!"
(This would be better written thus: "I, Hyoudou Issei, was taken to one of those rooms!")
This is a decent change. It does feel like it changes the focus of the sentence from 'one of the rooms' to "Hyoudou Issei', but I don't know of that was deliberate in the first place.
Gigaknight wrote:"I don’t know why, but for some reason, Xenovia has her eyes sparkling."
("I don't know why, but Xenovia's eyes are sparkling.")
This is a bad change. "Xenovia has her eyes sparkling" is not-English (or even British/Australian) so changing that is good, but you've lost information dropping the uncertainty when dropping "for some reason".

You're welcome to register and do some TLC work; Code-Zero our main translator is quite busy, and I'm guessing no-one has really done any serious TLC of the earlier volumes. :(
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chancs
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Re: Novel Cleanup

Post by chancs »

denormative wrote:
Gigaknight wrote:"I don’t know why, but for some reason, Xenovia has her eyes sparkling."
("I don't know why, but Xenovia's eyes are sparkling.")
This is a bad change. "Xenovia has her eyes sparkling" is not-English (or even British/Australian) so changing that is good, but you've lost information dropping the uncertainty when dropping "for some reason".
"I don't know why, but for some reason, Xenovia's eyes are sparkling." Just a thought.
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Code-Zero
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Re: Novel Cleanup

Post by Code-Zero »

Gigaknight wrote:Good thing I found this topic, as I wanted to bring attention to the quality of these releases. It seems some are already aware of what I'm about to say.

No offense is meant to anyone, as this is an honest critique--though it is not detailed, as a list of corrections would include many examples spanning multiple volumes: simply put, the general grammatical quality of the High School DxD releases have been declining since around Volume 6. The light novels can be understood without difficulty, but they are filled with grammatical errors and deviations from the rules and conventions of the English language. These errors and deviations are manifold in number and type, so they can't all be classified according to the relevant conventions. Frankly, the light novels' grammar is generally reminiscent of one who's learned English as a second language, but hasn't quite learned proper syntax (and, in some cases, semantics and spelling).

Exemplative of this is a sentence at the beginning of Life 0 of Volume 17, part of Issei's narrative:

"In one of those room, I—Hyoudou Issei, was taken into!"
(This would be better written thus: "I, Hyoudou Issei, was taken to one of those rooms!")

Another example comes later on:

"I don’t know why, but for some reason, Xenovia has her eyes sparkling."
("I don't know why, but Xenovia's eyes are sparkling.")

I also read other light novels provided by Baka-Tsuki: Haganai, Date A Live, and To Aru Majutsu no Index are some of them. All of them, compared to DxD's current state, have better grammar and are--speaking as a native user of the English language--much easier and more pleasant to read. I recommended DxD to one of my best friends, recently, but I had no choice but to warn him of the grammar--that anyone who regularly reads and understands the English language will find the grammatical deviations of the later releases jarring; the story will be understandable, but unpleasant to read.

In addition, I came to the this forum to ascertain the activity of the editors. Seeing as many people on the roster as there are, I found it hard to believe that every last one of them would let so many errors pass--and for so many volumes. It's true that Code-Zero's role is to bring these works to our language, but I imagine that the editors' role is to proofread the translations and have them meet an acceptable standard (as is done with the aforementioned other light novels, clearly).

Once again, I did not and do not intend to insult any staff members, here. I just wanted to bring these concerns to someone's attention--especially since I've been telling people about Baka-Tsuki and your DxD releases. An example of this is the time of the DxD + Senran Kagura crossover. I'm a member of both fandoms, so I tried to recommend each series to members of the other--especially since some fans on both sides didn't have the best opinions of the series they weren't familiar with.
Well, I really don't care whether or not you should recommend this translation to your friend or not.
Like Wolfpup said, I'm trying to keep the translation close to the original as possible. If you don't like it, then that's the end of the story.
I won't force anyone to read it.
And for the two corrections you did, I have to reject both of them.
There's are reason why the translation is done in present-tense instead of past tense. The original text wanted to have event B occur right after event A. And they are usually represented by "—" to signify a sudden event or a revelation of a certain event the author is trying to make.
And ignoring a phrase or words in the original text is out of the question.
denormative wrote: This is a bad change. "Xenovia has her eyes sparkling" is not-English (or even British/Australian) so changing that is good, but you've lost information dropping the uncertainty when dropping "for some reason".
(
In Japanese text, when characters are said to have "sparkling eyes" it means that they are expecting/anticipating for something. It can also be used to show a character idolising or looking upto someone(though this is not it in this scene). So I guess we can remove the word "sparkling eyes" and replace it along the lines of "Xenovia has a meaningful eyes where it looks like she is expecting something".
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denormative
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Re: Novel Cleanup

Post by denormative »

Code-Zero wrote:
denormative wrote:This is a bad change. "Xenovia has her eyes sparkling" is not-English (or even British/Australian) so changing that is good, but you've lost information dropping the uncertainty when dropping "for some reason".
(
In Japanese text, when characters are said to have "sparkling eyes" it means that they are expecting/anticipating for something. It can also be used to show a character idolising or looking upto someone(though this is not it in this scene). So I guess we can remove the word "sparkling eyes" and replace it along the lines of "Xenovia has a meaningful eyes where it looks like she is expecting something".
I was focusing on the wonkyness on the "has her" bit. Like Gigaknight/chancs put it, "Xenovia's eyes are sparkling" is The Way We English. :) "Xenovia has sparkles in her eyes" would be the other way around, or "Xenovia's eyes <sparkled/glittered> with anticipation!" if you thought it wasn't properly clubbing the reader over the head with the point already. :P (I like clubbing readers over the head; I think. At least with emoji. >.>; )
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