Novel Cleanup

[denormative]

http://www.baka-tsuki.org/project/index ... e_4_Life_1

There's still some references to "Kuou Gakuen", should they all be changed to "Kuou Academy"? Or vice versa?

Also: "Buchou lets out a voice that worked on DOS. H-Her eyes are looking dowwwwwn! Scary!" and "Kiba and Xenovia as well speak in voices that worked on DOS." what's this "DOS"? I'm guessing it's a spellchecker gone haywire.

Edit: Also I've noticed "Kouhai" (and possibly "sempai") seems randomly cased, is it supposed to be title case or lower case (except at obvious situations like start of sentences)? I'm guessing latter.

Edit2: Also there are "Phenex"s around still, were they going to be changed to "Phoenix" since that's the term that the anime/official translation was using? I'm pretty sure I've seen at least one that was Phoenix already.

[Code-Zero]

Oh thanks for creating this thread.
Yeah, if you see the word "Phenex", please change it to "Phoenix".
I will upload the image where it spells the name "Phoenix" in Ravel:s name afterwards. Some people prefers to keep the word "Phenex", but I want to use the spelling that the author chose(unless its a incorrect spelling) for the translation.
And yes, if you see "Kuou Gakuen" please change it to "Kuou academy".

Also about the capitalisation for "Senpai" and such, I only use a capital letter for them when it is used directly.

eg. "How are you doing, Senpai?"
eg2. "Senpai, where have you been??"

Instead for using their actual name, some characters uses the term "senpai" and such to address other characters, so I tend to capitalise them since names would have a capital letter.

[Wolfpup]

i will also go through the chapters and try to make the needed corrections when i find them.

[denormative]

Yeah, if you see the word "Phenex", please change it to "Phoenix".

Just went through and replaced them all... I think. I had to reword a couple of things since while "Phenex something" made sense, "Phoenix something" read wrongly (as in thinking of the 'phoenix creature' rather then the 'House of').

Also should we normalise these somewhat?

"Phoenix household"
"Phoenix house "
"Phenex family"
"Phoenix group"

Traditionally, the phrasing is, "House of X", such as the current Queen of the United Kingdom's "House of Windsor" or the War of the Roses battles between the supporters of the House of Plantagenet vs the houses of Lancaster and York.

I also dislike the phrase "Phoenix battle" which is used frequently; but at least it describes a notable event (the same thing as "Phoenix Tears" describes a notable thing) so it should be ok... I think.

Speaking of which, the quoting needs normalising too... Phoenix Tears is sometimes enclosed in [], other times "", other times nothing, then there's the uncapitalised versions... Never-ending this is.

And yes, if you see "Kuou Gakuen" please change it to "Kuou academy".

Done. Amusingly there was only one reference, the one I spotted.

Also about the capitalisation for "Senpai" and such, I only use a capital letter for them when it is used directly.

eg. "How are you doing, Senpai?"
eg2. "Senpai, where have you been??"

Instead for using their actual name, some characters uses the term "senpai" and such to address other characters, so I tend to capitalise them since names would have a capital letter.

I suspected as such. I'm pretty sure I've noticed there was some that were incorrectly capitalised for the situation. I'll double check later after I've finished the spellcheck for the volume.

[Code-Zero]

Just did some edits. I never knew there was THAT many words changed to American English.......

i will also go through the chapters and try to make the needed corrections when i find them.

Thanks Wolfpup.

Yeah, if you see the word "Phenex", please change it to "Phoenix".

Just went through and replaced them all... I think. I had to reword a couple of things since while "Phenex something" made sense, "Phoenix something" read wrongly (as in thinking of the 'phoenix creature' rather then the 'House of').

Also should we normalise these somewhat?

"Phoenix household"
"Phoenix house "
"Phenex family"
"Phoenix group"

Traditionally, the phrasing is, "House of X", such as the current Queen of the United Kingdom's "House of Windsor" or the War of the Roses battles between the supporters of the House of Plantagenet vs the houses of Lancaster and York.

I also dislike the phrase "Phoenix battle" which is used frequently; but at least it describes a notable event (the same thing as "Phoenix Tears" describes a notable thing) so it should be ok... I think.

Speaking of which, the quoting needs normalising too... Phoenix Tears is sometimes enclosed in [], other times "", other times nothing, then there's the uncapitalised versions... Never-ending this is.

I suspected as such. I'm pretty sure I've noticed there was some that were incorrectly capitalised for the situation. I'll double check later after I've finished the spellcheck for the volume.

For the normalisation of the words listed, I just directly transalted how it was written in the Japanese text. Sometimes they used the "Phoenix family" simply to refer to Ravel's dad, mum, and her brothers, while "House of Phoneix" to refer to the actual clan/Household. I will just do a recheck again to see how we should normalise them.

Also thanks for the edits done. Yeah about the [] and such, the author uses 「」for certain keywords, but sometimes doesnt, so I dont use them when it appears like that. But lets use these [] sign for keywords related to the Sacred Gears, and the Evil-Pieces.

[Code-Zero]

Anway, this is the reason why I decided to change it to Phoenix.

Proof.png

[omb]

So while reading vol 6 yesterday I started making little edits in my head and thought "well i might as well do the job properly right?" So I've decided to go over the volume correcting the usual grammar and punctuation. However i decided to give the sentence structure a more English feel while staying as true to the source material as possible. The first edit can be found here:


(the url tags don't seem to work). Anyway, since this is only my second time doing such a thing i'd like some advice/criticism.

[Rohan123]

I see that you have made some major edits, and added some things in some places. Did you contact the translator/supervisor before making the changes? For example,

Before I realised it, I was in an elegant Japanese room. A tatami<ref>Japanese carpet</ref> with not even a single scratch. There are expensive looking jars, and there is a small Japanese garden at the gardens where it makes a peaceful good sound which gives the sound, "Kong".

TO

I suddenly found myself in an elegant Japanese room. The floor was covered in exquisitely woven straw mats. The room was decorated with expensive looking vases. Outside lay a traditional Japanese garden, *kong* the bamboo shoot let out a peaceful sound while returning to its original position, waiting to be filled once more.

The 'bamboo shoot' part is original here.


Also, when using ' * ' in the wiki, you should use <nowiki> tags otherwise it would be formatted as a bullet.

[Nurin]

Also, when using ' * ' in the wiki, you should use <nowiki> tags otherwise it would be formatted as a bullet.

Isn't that only in the start of the sentence? If not I am always using it wrong...

[omb]

That sentence needed some serious revising so i just guessed at what was making the kong sound, going through the original script it seems i was right, also i'll use the nowiki tags in future, thanks. Contacting the translator sounds like a good idea, though I have no idea who the supervisor is so i'll be sending an email to Code Zero to get his thoughts on it.

[Rohan123]

Also, when using ' * ' in the wiki, you should use <nowiki> tags otherwise it would be formatted as a bullet.

Isn't that only in the start of the sentence? If not I am always using it wrong...

Yes, only at the start of the sentence...since bulleted lists can only begin at the start of a sentence.
I told him that as he didn't use the tags and it got formatted as bullet at 2 places in the text.

That sentence needed some serious revising so i just guessed at what was making the kong sound, going through the original script it seems i was right, also i'll use the nowiki tags in future, thanks. Contacting the translator sounds like a good idea, though I have no idea who the supervisor is so i'll be sending an email to Code Zero to get his thoughts on it.

Code-Zero is both the supervisor and translator of the project, as stated on the wiki project page.

[nr42]

There are some issues with verb tenses throughout the novel, namely jumping from past to present tense and vice versa. Perhaps this is the author's mistake/intention, since I don't speak Japanese there's no way for me to know.
E.g. in volume 1 Life.0:
"...I arrive to the date spot with the attitude of a super virgin guy.
I arrive at the meeting spot three hours before Yuuma-chan did. I counted up to a hundred girls who wore glasses walking pass in front of me!
During that time, I received a suspicious leaflet from a weird person handing out leaflets.
It was an occult-looking thing with a weird magic-circle and a sentence - “Your dream will be granted!” - written.
......I want to throw it away, but I decide to put it in my pocket since I can’t throw it away now.
When Yuuma-chan arrived, I said this.
“Don’t worry, I also just got here.”
Bullseye! I was able to say it. I always wanted to say that!
Then we walked while holding hands. I was really touched. To have a date while holding hands with my beautiful girlfriend!..."

There is nothing wrong with using the past tense in the middle of this excerpt since he's talking about something that has happened. On the other hand the first few sentences suggest that he's narrating while it's happening, yet the latter sentences suggest he's narrating after the fact. Perhaps this is intentional, I'm just asking.

[KenHunter]

Shouldn't we use "self-proclaimed" instead of "self proclaiming" in Vol 16 as Childhood friend is a person not a thing?

[Gigaknight]

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.

[Wolfpup]

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.

You have to clarify which version of the English language the you refer to since the DxD series uses the British English Version so that means there are going to be grammatical as well spelling differences. Now we the editors know which set of rules to use for this series, as we have to strictly ad hear to those rules for spelling and grammar. Now for the example that you posted those are both narratives from Ise's point of view and while your correction is right for American English( this would greatly 'Westernise' the text) in British English the grammar for them is correct and also keep more of the way the original author wrote them, which is what Code Zero is trying to do. We the editors have even had to back out some peoples edits because they were nit following the guidelines for this series that is listed in the formatting and standards section of the projects main page. Those can be found here http://www.baka-tsuki.org/project/index ... _Standards , please note the the third line in that section.