Why do you translate?

[Cosign]

An important question. Why do you sacrifice 1-2 years of your free time to bring projects to fruition? I would like to believe that most people do it because they love the visual novels so much, but I suspect that the real reasons are quite different.

In all honesty I do it for the copious amounts of money and fame. Bitches just throw themselves at me when I'm out on the town and I tell them I'm a Japanese porn game translator.

Originally Posted by Cosign

An important question. Why do you sacrifice 1-2 years of your free time to bring projects to fruition? I would like to believe that most people do it because they love the visual novels so much, but I suspect that the real reasons are quite different.

from insani:

As you may or may not be aware, we localize these games as a hobby, gaining enjoyment out of the technical and artistic challenge involved. If you or any other fanboy/girl gets any pleasure out of our translations, then that is a strictly secondary side-effect that is beyond our control.

The conclusion you can draw from this that this type of work is done so that translators can demonstrate their superior intellect to the world.

Also from insani:

...if you are a person who is playing our demos, you are doing so because you probably do not understand Japanese well enough to be playing it in the original language. If the above happens to be true of you, just where did you get the idea in your head that you had any ability to judge how close to the originals our JP->EN translations are?

Also note that anyone who reads a translated project is beneath the contempt of said translator.

I, on the other hands, do it so I can became Internet Tough Guy.

It compensates for my embarassingly small penis.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

from insani:



The conclusion you can draw from this that this type of work is done so that translators can demonstrate their superior intellect to the world.

Also from insani:



Also note that anyone who reads a translated project is beneath the contempt of said translator.

insani is in no way representative of the whole community.

The problem isn't whether they translate it or the quality, but how these translators treat people. If they're going to be jerks about it, then don't do it in the first place.

[Yume no Hana]

I do it because I love the Visual Novel and I want people around me to be able to enjoy it with me, too.
Fantrans's spirit is the same as fansub's spirit. Nothing more, nothing less.

[Asceai]

wrt 如月の宝玉:
Because it's incredibly short and everyone else was doing it

wrt other project:
Well, I was asked to and given some scripts to translate it in conjunction with another translator. The other translator quit but I figured I'd keep going just for the heck of it

[Cosign]

Basically same. In my case I love the visual novel industry and what it produces. But I hate the future that the studios envisage for their industry. Their future says that eroge will forever operate on Japanese shores. I want to change that.

Vic Ireland, president of Gaijinworks was quoted saying that the visual novel was the last frontier of untapped Japanese culture.

I want to see visual novels bloom in the West.

[Moogy]

Originally Posted by Yume no Hana

Fantrans's spirit is the same as fansub's spirit. Nothing more, nothing less.

you may wish to reevaluate what constitutes fansubbing, as it is most certainly not conducted out of some great love for the source material at this point

personally i pretend to translate eroge so people on jp get mad

[NTX]

I wanted to know what happened in the game so I started to work through every sentence, and figured it wouldn't be too much work to just write it down for others too. Took two damn years and two other translators to finish, but in this way, I did it for myself rather than our non-existant or mute fanbase.

[Agilis]

There's two things, when combined, convince me it's worth it to translate despite it taking years of effort.

One, the act of translating something I like is inherently interesting. The challenge of balancing everything and making trade-offs is fun, especially if you manage to come up with clever ways to handle a sticky line. After working with gigs of quantitative data every day, it's nice to switch gears and work with narratives and words.

Second, once in a while I come across something that just shouts "This needs to be shared with X". Where X is a few close friends. Does it have to be such an amazing work that has artistic merit and should be shared 'with the masses'? Nope. Just that my friends would appreciate the specific story. The rest of the world happening to get a copy is just a coincidence.

Tbh, that "some people on the internet would be thankful if someone translated X" just isn't enough to trade in a few hundred hours after a long work day for.

[Asceai]

Translation: Agi translates because he's an elitist and it makes him better than other people.

[zalas]

Just on the slight chance that you aren't trolling...

Originally Posted by Unregistered

The conclusion you can draw from this that this type of work is done so that translators can demonstrate their superior intellect to the world.

Or it could be a sign that spending months or years of your life working on a translation out of purely selfless intent is not realistic, and they admit to it, if even in a blunt manner. If you don't enjoy translating, then you aren't going to last long fueling yourself only with altruistic ideals.

Also note that anyone who reads a translated project is beneath the contempt of said translator.

Or that it does make sense that someone who needs a translation to read a work doesn't really have the expertise to judge that translation; they'd have to depend on someone. This, of course, doesn't mean that it's impossible or that insani makes no mistakes. It just means that the chances are high that they might be wrong.

A lot of times, what I see is a symptom of "knowing too much Japanese". Someone can pick up a little bit of Japanese and then find themselves miserable because they don't know enough to actually read the works they want to, but they know enough so that translations just seem wrong to them, or want their translations overly literal so that it can be an aid in their study. Knowing a little bit of Japanese (or any skill, for that matter) but not knowing enough to know where their limits are generally makes it very easy for them to make mistakes.

[Kaens]

I don't have hundreds hours after a work day like Agilis does, but my full-time job's forgiving enough so I can practice translating text-only scripts in the meanwhile. Also: Japanese is fun, English is fun, correlating them is fun and translating the humour that's abound in eroge is fun, dammit! Why not?