I did not know were to put this topic, it was either here or Chatter Box. So feel free to move it if I guessed wrong.

I have noticed for a long period of time that translators use Google translate as a means to...well translate a manga. The result? One hell of a bad translation that should not be published. I am not trying to be ungrateful for the effort these people put in translating, even if it is through Google translate and even if it is for free. What I am trying to say is that sometimes its better to leave a manga untranslated rather than ruining it with a bad translation.

Why? some people may think the translation is accurate, which usually results in them giving the manga a low rating because they either didn't understand or felt that the story was lacking (yes ofc not all manga are good, but some could be even better with a good translation)

So here's when you peeps come in.

Do you think it's okay to translate a Manga through Google translate because it's better to be with a translation, no matter how bad, rather than being without? Feel free to motivate your answer, I am interested in y'alls opinions.

I think it boils down to whether you view manga as "content"/"media" or as "ART."

Since I'm in the latter camp, I'm of the opinion that a significant degree of time and intellectual capital should be spent in all facets of localization. (Meaning, yes, an excellent translation... among other things.)

Wow! I could not have said this better myself.

I think you have a bit of a terminology issue. Whoever uses google translate should not be described as a translator.

On the topic itself, while I don't regularly read scanlations, I've never seen anyone use machine translation in them. How do you tell it's a machine translation? Maybe it was human translated by someone with extremely poor English skills. It sometimes happens when some international group decides to expand into English space, and while they may have a decent tler from Japanese or other source language to their native language, their native to English translator turns out to be quite incompetent. The translation is thus penalized twice: first by the fact that it's a double translation (or worse), and second by the final translator's lack of skill.

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Putting the whole thing through? Not good. I have heard of using it for words or sentences, which when used sparingly should turn out fine.


I think you're thinking of translators not fluent in English. At that point I think they just shouldn't touch it. I've had a couple chapters of manga ruined by idiots who don't know what they're doing.

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CmertB, these exist.

Check out the credits for series Danchi Majo and Nikyu Kyu, among other HoboP projects. "These were done with Google Translate." I don't want to single him out, but his the name I can remember off the top of my head because I've been trying to remedy the Danchi Majo situation. (I'm a huge HadeKan fan.) I've been directed to a fair number of others.

I chose to refer to them as translators because there is no better terminology for them. They translate a Manga from japanese to English via Google Translate. They're translators even if they use a "machine" as a tool. If you have a better terminology for them, feel free to enlighten me.



oneshowshoe gives a rather good example to support that Google translate, "translators" do exist.

Yes, of course "they exist", and yes, of course "translator" is just as good a way to refer to them/this topic.....after that, yeah, I'm much with cmertb on the question of "how do you tell it's a machine translation?".

Yes, sometimes it's said flat out by whoever that they just plugged the whole thing through a program/google translate.........but after that? Yeah, just how exactly (short of someone who actually is a proficient J to E translator literally going over whatever with a fine-toothed comb looking for bona fide mistranslations) do you know? Does it really matter, again, anything short of actual mistranslations?

Point blank, bad English language proofreading isn't the same thing as "bad translations". That's where the biggest issue comes in as far as I'm personally concerned, and I'd guess where most people are actually coming up with this "bad translation" knock. Again, even if it was machine translated, if it was properly done in English......well, the vast, vast, vaaaaast amount of fans reading whatever said work are never even gonna know.

Well, I seriously have no idea how anyone actually spends the time plugging an entire work into a translation service.....I mean, it's got to be a ridiculous amount of time compared to what a competent translator would need to spend on the same work.....but yeah, if they can get a decently accurate translation out of a machine, well, more power to them I guess........and yeah, please come and translate some of the stuff I want translated

How do I tell it's a machine translation? Sometimes it's difficult to tell the difference between a machine translation and a poor translation. They're often interchangeable in that they rely too much on dictionaries and grammar guides and too little on context. But there are places you can spot differences. What do I look at in general? Among other things...

1) "Dictionary definition" versus "context--appropriate" definition. Japanese in general and manga characters in particular use "大切" (taisetsu) quite a bit. Its dictionary definition is "important," but a given context might render another word a more appropriate translation. Maybe "dear"? "Precious"? Et. cetera. When we're using "好き" (suki), should this be "like"? Or "love"? Or "adore"? Or, heh, just "favorite"? Rigid adherence to dictionary definitions without regard to the context of the scene result in bad translations via machines and poor translators alike.

2) Sentence structure. English is SVO. Japan is (S)(O)(V), with sometimes only the verb actually showing up in any given sentence, sometimes the subject, and sometimes the object. And sometimes they're all there but in really long, confusing ways. (I remember one particular sentence from Yoru no Taiko that was about six lines long with two は subject markers in it where the actual subject of the sentence was in a preceding bubble. Oy.) How do you decode these and rearrange these in an order that makes sense? I don't have a good example offhand, but a lot of translators, human and machine alike, have difficulty re-jiggering the order of sentences into a sensible arrangement. And, no, this isn't just a matter of proofreading or copy. The translator has to pay attention to these sentences because an errant arrangement can result in either A) total lack of fluency or B) mistranslation. And A) is a translation problem as well.

3) For that matter, how are the translators "because"-ing things? Japanese speakers can use "から" in a post hoc sense that requires further reordering or reassembly of phrases or even sentences. Sometimes you'll have "sentence A, sentence B "'から'" where B justifies A and comes first intuitively in the way English speakers would write or think.

4) Repetition. It's important to note that the Japanese verbal lexicon can be simultaneously limited and expressive, and dialogue translated solely via dictionary definition or via default sentence structure can result in a document full of repetition that can feel wholly unnatural in English. Here, there's a bit of a part vs whole argument. Is our goal to translate one sentence accurately, to translate one bubble accurately, to translate one panel accurately, to translate one page accurately, or to translate a work of art accurately? If the goal is the latter option, then we need to take into account repetition and vary how we're expressing ourselves. [Parenthetically, it's important to note here that this isn't as much of an issue in novels, news reports, or any documents of actual importance, where you'll see much more elaborate, complex, and precise structures. But definitely an issue in manga and for that matter anime subtitling translations.]

5) Pronouns. And the funny part of point 4) is that a whole lot of this boils down to simple pronoun usage. English, French, and Spanish speakers often face the problem of using too many pronouns and thus track of antecedents. Meanwhile, the lack of a subject or the tendency to just reuse names (XX-san this, XX-san that) can easily result in a translation utterly devoid of them. Unless you're expressly using "kare" or "kanojo", Google translate or its comparables won't spit you out a pronoun. Heh. You'll see a lot of poor human translators simply overuse XX-san. For a more natural, fluent, less repetitious but still coherent and accurate translation, select insertion is indispensable.

Etc., etc., etc., etc. A lot of these problems are obvious to any experienced J->E translator. "Yori" issues. "Sasuga" issues. Easily translatable words that are left in place (for various reasons I find frankly idiotic) that need to be excised. ("Ojou", "hime," "onii-chan," and the rest of that junk.) Some of these issues are more endemic to human translations than they are to computer translations. Computers don't know how to handle "yori" or "sasuga" at ALL. That's where you'll get the really hilariously constructed screw-ups, the ones where you'll lean back from your computer screen going, "Wait, what?"

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Svines, you opined that proofreading is a big problem in scanlation translation. True. If by proofreading, we mean "typos," "punctuation," and so forth, lots of groups have problems with this. And rarely will you find people capable of catching misused participles, errant subjunctive tenses, or properly employed collective noun matching. All of these are issues. Sure.

And I'd point out that beyond mere proofreading, actual editing is almost nowhere to be found. (Beyond a merely grammatically correct sentence, is this sentence as powerful as it can be? Are the structure and words appropriate for this individual's age, education, context, etc.? This page of Until Death Do Us Part is almost hilariously bad for many reasons, not the least of which is the idea that gangsters meeting in a back alley would be as politely verbose as the translator would have them.

But none of these have anything to do with the myriad issues that step from poor critical thinking when it comes to a translator asking, "What is this actually saying? Is this the best word to use here? Is this the right word to use here?" All of that ultimately rests on the translator.

Bad translation is real. And machine translations aside, it's often shockingly bad.

Yes, yes, and much of what you're bringing up here is exactly what I was referring to......though in hindsight I could have been clearer on my true point. The vast majority of readers of fan-scanlated manga don't care in the slightest about these topics/issues many involved in the actual scanlating tend to/try to make into some sort of big deal, and that is just a fact.

Yes, all valid points you're bringing up.....but it has to be tempered in light of the facts of the matter. The vast majority of the fandom just want it in English. I, as an editor, can sit around all day criticizing other people's work with "oh my God, they didn't even rotate/crop/level the page (!!!)" all I want, but it won't change the fact that a huge amount of the people reading it don't care.

And yes, the same goes for whether or not it's a "machine" translation......again, if they can get a decently coherent/accurate translation out of it............well, I'm sure they'll make a lot of people happy, and help bring even more content to the fandom that otherwise might never have even been looked at.

Of course, none of this means I'm lowering my own standards......nor should anyone else who's interested in doing this as well as they think should be done.......but it does mean that I really don't begrudge others doing it how they want to, that's just how a fandom with no real rules works. Again, if they can get a decent translation out of a machine, if someone wants to try to help editing/cleaning/proofreading but is just starting and is doing the best they can......yeah, good deal, best of luck to them.

I agree with you. The vast majority of readers don't care. But regardless of whether you view manga as art OR content, the idea of "something is better than nothing" is problematic for a host of reasons.

1) Early Berserk fan translations and fan shaming of official translations led to dramatic upgrades in quality in the official translations of that series. Fan reaction has changed the approach to localization mostly for the better (though sometimes to detriment), to page orientation, to sound effects, to packaging. Without a consistent outcry for quality, the leopard won't change his spots. I'd LOVE to see fans shaming subpar translations that dramatically impinge their ability to read works of art as intended. But that lust for quality isn't there anymore. Thus, there's more latitude for garbage. Acceptance of garbage leads to tolerance of garbage, abundance of garbage, and no one holding anyone responsible for garbage. Point out shoddy workmanship, and you're derided. Sad.

2) Within the scanlation space, this is especially problematic because the existence scanlations CAN profoundly impact the localization of a manga series. If that series was poorly translated in the first place, it's thus then likely that the series never receives the attention it deserves. A great example of this is Wandering Son, which was completed in scanlation I believe even before Fantagraphics licensed it in English. But... they're not making money off it... and not continuing it. And a lot of their research points to the impact of the easy availability of the scanlated series. And the difference between Matt Thorn's translation for Fantagraphics and the scanlator translation... I mean... laughable. Wow.

I'm not a big believer in the concept of "authorized" translation. I believe that translation functions like a mathematical limit, that we only approach perfection in translating a work of art through viewing that work through multiple lenses. I own multiple copies of Anna Karenina (one my all-time favorite books) for good reason. But I also recognize the economic imperatives that drive publishing and the Highlander mentality that afflicts the scanlation space. I recognize that any given work may only ever be translated one way. Thus, if it turns out that the only translation of something that should be lovely and beautiful is... garbage... that's nothing short of absolute travesty in my book.

Because I wholeheartedly believe that manga is ART.

But...yeah, if all one cares about is content and the "skeleton" of the story, that's... an individual's prerogative. That leads to a different outlook. I just can't fathom why one wouldn't want the content they consume to be as high quality as possible. (I've done work for both The Bachelorette and Chopped. Their production values are insanely high. They employ VERY talented people in all facets of production. And the final products are sleek, addictive, and wonderful as a result. Why people don't demand this from everything else, i.e. scanlation is beyond me. It's just a mental disconnect. I don't get it.)

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And you're right. The average manga fan doesn't think about any of these issues. But they probably also don't think about a nearly worldwide crisis for biodiversity, the impact agriculture as intellectual property is having on the number of strains of foods we eat, how their data is being monetized across the worldwide web, or what "free trade" deals like TPP could actually mean for the prices of medical care in underdeveloped countries. But they SHOULD. But they don't. But they goddamn SHOULD. But meh. Get off my lawn with all them "vines."

Bad money drives out good.

Yup......and I can't fathom why people would read a poached release of Prison School or Akame ga Kill when they absolutely know that the title/s are being regularly scanlated by good groups and it'll most likely only be a matter of another day or two.........but yeah, that sort of thing happens all the time.

It's just a "lowest common denominator" type of world out there

So basically, based on text alone, it is usually inconclusive. I would really hesitate to use these points to differentiate between a terrible human tler and a machine tl. Now, if a group admits to using machine translation, that is a different story.

Actually, your point about untranslated suffixes and various Japanese appellations works in the opposite way. A machine translation would translate that... it is a fan translator who wouldn't. Which is why fan translations are superior.

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No. Agreed. A lot of my points ended in quotations like



Sometimes it's hard.

Poor human translations and machine translations are both anathema.

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Will admit that the rant about suffixes was more a general complaint about translations than any human/machine thing. Pet peeve. I just tossed that in.

Computers will do funky bad things with suffixes though. "Keitaro-nii!" might get turned into "Keitaro-brother!" Heh.