Talk:Ore no Imōto ga Konna ni Kawaii Wake ga Nai:Volume 11 Chapter 4

Editing Questions

Starting on Ch. 04 now. Several questions, though:

(1) Any idea what the "commas (、)" next to some lines where furigana would normally be are? Is it for emphasis? Should it be included somehow into the TL?

(2) Was the JP text or the CN text used for c04/v11 in general? Some lines seem to be "close", but somehow don't feel quite right in the TL'd EN. I'm trying to preserve the meaning during editing, but it can be confusing sometimes when the original and the TL don't quite seem to gel. Mind, I'm not a native JP speaker, and my JP is limited, so that could just be me more often than not.

(3) I haven't really been paying attention to comparisons between the JP and EN until now, but is the choice of "um" for 「うん」 rather than "yes"/"yeah"/etc. in some locations based on the assumption that the reader will recognize it as a JP expression of affirmation, or something else? Eg., v11c04 lines 7-8:「おいおいマジか？」/「うん」. And again on p259 of the JP LN where Kirino asks Manami if Manami is making fun of her/treating her like an idiot. There are probably more—I was just flipping through trying to delineate the JP/TL correspondence for personal reference.

Aside: I'll probably have a bit of a rough start with the edits. I am especially wary of making edits prematurely, or accidentally and substantially changing the meaning of the TL from the original, or otherwise changing the characters' established tones/mannerisms. If I go too far or mess something up feel free to let me know (obviously).

-shift (talk) 13:17, 6 June 2013 (CDT)

From my (admittedly minimal) knowledge, the "commas" (though I feel it's more accurate to call them diacritics) are meant for emphasis in a similar manner to italics/bolding. They should be workable into the text on a per-case basis; they don't seem the kind that's significant enough to be included in a TL note (usually).

(2) and (3) only Chaos can definitively answer, but if no one minds a sporadic contributor's opinion, うん really should be translated to some form of affirmative "Yes", "Yeah", or whatnot - they're not SFX, and it has a readily available English translation, which to me seems to be the only reasons one should keep the Japanese pronunciation. Again though, this is probably up to the main translator's discretion.

Chaos (talk) Sorry since I didn't clarify myself. Getting the Japanese version is taken too long, so I had stick with Chinese version since Volume 10. If both of you have any question, feel free to leave a message here or email me directly.

Anyway, if you spot discrepancies, don't be afraid of at the very least pointing each of them out in the talk page, or correcting them w/ justification in the summary box if you're sure you're right. Wikipedia even has a guideline on "Be Bold"; Baka-Tsuki is admittedly a different community with a different aim, but no point not using the advantages MediaWiki has to offer, in my opinion. -Akira (talk) 15:58, 6 June 2013 (CDT)

Heh, I don't mean to imply I'm particularly knowledgeable. Generally I qualify all of my statements in some way or other, but doing so makes my speech far more verbose than it already is. With regard to "comma" vs. "diacritic", that makes sense. I was using "comma" simply because that's what they looked like to me from a typographic(?al) perspective. When it comes to JP and diacritics I really only think of the dakuten and handakuten.

With regard to うん, that's what I would have assumed, but I haven't come across enough written JP to feel confident making an assertion that a more Western "mm..." or "uh..." for reflection or hesitation wouldn't also have a similar or identical representation in Japanese. Hundreds and hundreds of hours I've spent passively/semi-passively listening to the stuff, but hardly any time have I spent reading it. Even then, that's nothing compared to being immersed in the language or otherwise actively engaging with it.

As for WP's "Be bold", my more cautious side is more inclined to consider the policy as being at odds with BT's format guideline for editors. But, since Chaos is the listed supervisor for OreImo, I figured I'd get their input as to how ironclad those rules are for this particular project.

That said, thanks for your input! At the very least I can incorporate some of it into my personal "working copy", such as it is.

-shift (talk) 16:33, 6 June 2013 (CDT)