Simple choice for me. Readability of the English. Many a manga have been a painful experience because the proofreaders/QC's/translators have failed the simple art of being able to put multiple, comprehensible sentences together or the manga is littered with grammatical errors that, if the person/group cared at all about quality in the slightest, would have taken the extra time to clean up. A smooth reading experience is key for me.

Accurate translation of the original language is also important, but since I would not very likely have the raw to compare against the translation, I can't really go with that. That said, if I can tell that something sounds off based on the translation and the context of the situation in the manga, that raises a red flag for me.

This poll is a tough one. I would choose "regularity", "Accuracy" and everything to do with image quality aka the usual process before typesetting.

The "regularity is because some groups dip by releasing the first chapter on many projects and takes really long time gap between chapters for a series, some even a year which ridiculous because clearly they don't have man power to do so. As for accuracy I read fair share of manga that if not for me guessing based on the picture I have no idea what the translation means.

A decent image quality is a standard quality a group should strive. I've seen groups released scanlation so half assed that they just slap the text with white square on the image, they don't even bother straighten the image (I'm not even joking, the restrain from doing group shaming is the only reason I don't name names). It frustrating if they pickup project from artist I like.

Honestly the rest like fonts and readability also important I feel but the above are my main one

Well, I was able to vote since years back but for this particular poll, I received below error:
"You are using a browser that php4 doesn't recognize. Please use another one."

Using Chrome and all.

My vote would be for "Accurate translation of the original language"

This is a tough choice... because while I do like the image quality to be good, I think even the nicest looking scanlation can get dragged down by a shitty translation.

Why would I want to read something if it doesn't make sense? If I'm just there for the artwork, I think I'd rather just look at the raws then read a poor translation.

However, I will say that accuracy of the translation and readability of the English kind of go hand-in-hand. An accurate translation can still be a bad translation for a for of entertainment like manga or anime. Localization can definitely be taken too far sometimes, but there should be a good balance struck between localizing the lines and keeping things accurate.

If you ask me, the best translations are ones that retain the original meaning, while not sounding like they were translated from another language at all. It's a difficult balance to strike, but I implore all translators to please make an effort to do so, for the sake of us, the readers.

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::End of Transmission::

This isn't at all the way typical readers of scanlation prefer it. Previous polls have shown that most want as much of the original language as possible.

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I think the gap between readability and original translation can be partly explained by the type or genre of manga, and general depth of story.
some stories carry along well with colloquialisms and getting the 'gist' of it
while other stories are deliberately vague or thought provoking and most readers would like to take a stab at discovering the meaning from the original source material

While it's difficult to choose between readability and accuracy, I went with readability in the end. You can't always tell if a translation is accurate, but reading gibberish becomes quickly annoying.

That's one of the downsides of printed media and text-only. Unlike with film and games (And/or if you have studied a second language at all), you cannot easily tell if you're being fooled unless the translator(s) are being very blatant or stupid about it:
Also, I find the statement that "100% translations are impossible" to be a blatant lie for two reasons. First is putting forward the question of why aren't equipment and tech companies getting constantly sued for "inaccurately translated manuals" since they have to develop a dozen different versions of the original manual right off the bat for their average international customer-base to understand. And, as for the second reason, I highly doubt you cannot find the "right" way to express a sentence or a word when translating due to there being about 250-750 thousand words in the English language.

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I assume majority of readers can't really tell what the original is saying, since it's not like readers are reading the scanlations alongside the raws and understanding the raws. So I was a little surprised that that answer is the most picked. At least that was my understanding of that answer choice. I'm sure readers HOPE that translations are accurately done. I'm sure official publishers who translate manga do their best when going for accuracy, so I'd rely more on official releases rather than scanlation groups. For the sake of the poll, for me it's a tie between readability and regularity of releases.

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1. You are confusing literary and technical translation. In literary translation, you have to translate far more than the meaning. There are many cases where 100% accurate translation would destroy the fluency of the target language, forcing you to compromise. In technical translation, you may choose the accuracy, but in literary translation, you would reduce the accuracy to below 100%, perhaps by losing a nuance, or by introducing a different nuance not found in the original.
2. I can find quite a number of words in other languages I know that have no equivalent in English, and would require bending over backwards to express, thus destroying any kind of literary effect you might be going for, regardless of the fact that English claims to have 3 quadrillion words.

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Such as?

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A quick Google would show you the plethora of words in other languages that do not have English equivalents. ._.

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That isn't an argument and it isn't answering the question. You make the claim that you know of words in other languages that have no equivalent English word or term, so why are you not providing them? On top of that, your counterpoint is "Fact check boyo" when that isn't my job. It's your job, for making a claim and being asked to prove it, to be able to back it up using sources giving credibility towards the point you are making. However, what you are doing isn't such. Therefore all it's doing is giving your point no legs to stand on and just blowing smoke in people's faces.

So, again, I ask:


Last edited by Transdude1996 at 8:44 pm, May 10 2018

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As a english-spanish translator, I find it difficult to translate dialectal or accent driven words or just modern memes: "Kwel" vs. "cool", Racist terminology (Pardon the language) - "Becky", and etc. It's not that there is not slang in Spanish; it's that the history is different that formed these words.

So like with the example, "Becky" which in English carries more weight than just the meaning "white girl". How should I translate that? chica blanca or guera. Knowledge of the recieving audience could be the deciding factor, or just leave it in the original and post a link to more information. Even the reverse, I would not translate guera into "Becky", because I don't normally assume that my audience is primarily African Americans.

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Internet Lurker At Heart

Looking the term up (Because I have never heard of the use of the term "Becky" before), when it's not the girl's name, it's in reference to your typical white hipster trash slut, or delivering a blowjob. And, from a quick search, it looks like neither term is really the best one to use because the former refers to regular slutty white women, while the latter is used in reference to light skinned Mexican women. But, if you were really forced to chose one, "chica blanca" would be the better one to use.

Edit:

Last edited by Transdude1996 at 4:53 pm, May 10 2018

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