Erm, honestly? The first one is okay, but I think there are quite a few mistakes in the second one. :O And I don't mean that it's different from my translation, but that the meaning itself is wrong.
Like, er... for example, the last part. 私は意を決して彼女に伝えた。意を決して is one whole thing together, so it's not 決して on its own. 私は意を決して、彼女に伝えた。<- might make more sense if I break it up that way? It means gather your courage, be determined, etc. That's just one of the mistakes I remembered. There are quite a few more on the second, third, and fourth chapter of Part 2.
And, well, maybe I'm just anal, but if you do enough research you can actually find the English equivalent for most of the terminology. Like, 第2SS装甲師団 is actually "2nd SS Panzer Division Das Reich". It's a group that really existed, so you needn't translate that into your own words.
So yeah, personally, I feel that if you want to continue translating these Reports, you should do more research. ^^; Because to me it's pointless otherwise. If you are doing it just to help yourself understand the report, then why post it up? As a translator, I understand that we want people to read our work, but in that case, don't we have the responsibility to get it as close to the original as we can?
In short, if it's just for your own practice and to help you understand it better, then go ahead and do it. But if you mean for it to be read in public, then be prepared to take the responsibility. :D That's my advice and what I strongly feel a contributor (in particular translators) should have.
If you are doing it just to help yourself understand the report, then why post it up? As a translator, I understand that we want people to read our work, but in that case, don't we have the responsibility to get it as close to the original as we can?
Yeah, but I've also been told by many people (especially people who dont know ANY Japanese, or very little) that theyre happy to read translations even just to get the general idea, as long as theyre 'in the ballpark'. Not to mention, I havent been studying Japanese as long as you have and I WAS trying to get it as accurate as I could. It's not like I purposely try to make it say something different =) I thought someone might be interested so I posted it.
Additionally, I knew that the names of the army units and whatnot were the real names, but I thought that's just how they translated. I didnt think to look it up in the first place because I thought that the literal translation was how it was to be translated, you know what I mean? Heh, I'm probably not stating it very well, it's kinda hard to explain. But it's like how do you know to look something up when it doesnt seem inaccurate in the first place?
Anyways, I hope to be getting myself to Japan within the next year (fingers crossed) so I hope that'll help with my knowledge of certain phrases and figures of speech. Not to mention vocab, gah. I took the JLPT 2kyuu last weekend and it was like, so much of it was "if only I had known what this one kanji meant I couldve answered the question!"
Whoops, I don't mean to say that you aren't trying to! Sorry, if I sound like I was. Hmmm, what I meant was posting your absolute best work after you've exercised all available options of making it better. Does that make sense? XD I'm not talking about whose Japanese is better or who has studied it more, coz that's really irrelevant. One can study for ten years and still lose to someone who started five years ago. Proficiency in language is not defined by the length of time you study it, deshou? x3
Yeah, I know, everybody feels differently about it. Like I said if you feel comfortable about that, then go ahead. (Oh wait, I didn't exactly word it that way. XD) I know a lot of people will be grateful for anything that they can get, especially for those who don't speak the language, but I always feel like we owe it to him to produce the best we can, you know? ^^ Getting people to check it, asking people if you are not sure, etc. But wells, part of it is my characteristic, I guess, so just do what you think is best. :D I'm not trying to judge you, simply stating my own opinion when it comes to translating, so I hope I don't come across that way.
Hmmm, that does make sense. But some things are translations and some things are history non? Like... why is 米国 America? Shouldn't it be North Country? You know, things like that? I can't really explain it, but yeah, that's what I feel.
BAITO yo! BAITO! :D :D I highly recommend baito~~ When you come here that is. XD
Hope you dun mind me butting in but the name "mei gwok" is from the Chinese meaning "fine" (as in "everything good")"country" because the ex-pat word on the street (from early Chinese migrants) was that there was food everywhere and a nice climate and beautiful vegetation etc etc. Anyway, that's why it's not called "north" country!
Erm, yeah, I know, but that's not the point. XD What I meant to say is that some things aren't meant to be translated directly. (And why the hell did I write North Country? XD It should be Rice Country if translated literally) 米国=America, and so it's weird to translate it into "Rice Country" isn't it, though that is what the two words combined mean. That's what I was trying to say. :D
Incidentally, isn't it written 美 (mei guo) in Chinese? It's a little different from Japanese, and also how the name was derived. There are various explanations, but one of the more famous one is that they tried to write the word in kanji and 米 is used for the ME in aMErica. Not sure if there was any Chinese influence in this, because Japan had pretty much cut all contact with foreign countries by then, so I don't think that the use of the word 米 is related to Chinese or what is used in Chinese. (It could be influenced by the Chinese translators when they came tho... hmm.) Not an expert on this, simply my deduction!
Mmm - really, I think if you try to apply Western-style logic to the connexion between written Chinese (or kanji) characters and meaning, you will find a very fast road to madness!
The best guess most times is that it is the SOUND (not the character) which has travelled between China/Chinese people and another country; this is largely because the Chinese people who travelled the most were sailors, fishermen and traders (i.e. not educated or literate) and they would, in many cases, be using a dialect form (i.e no written version).
America was spoken of as "mei" which sounds the same as the word for rice (well, only one of the words with a rice meaning!); I doubt very much that there was ever an intention to think of the country as "rice" country - it probably just happened that the rice character was better known (it's easier to write!).
Cantonese-speaking people put the "mouth" sign (a square more or less) in front of a character which is just meant to sound the same (i.e. it's a warning that the meaning is different to the written character used, so don't be fooled!) but this helpful marker wasn't used in the past so there is still plenty of confusion! Me, I don't look for explanations any more but try to learn the current meaning, current pronunciation and current usage. Obviously, with the Japanese kanji, you have the help of the phonetic system written over the top. With the Chinese, it is even more of a mystery!
As I'll be visiting Japan next year for the first time and don't have your dedication and talent with the Japanese language, I'll have to pin my hopes on understanding the meaning of the kanji where it is similar to Chinese - the sounds will mean nothing to me! This is probably the reverse of most people who would find the kanji the hardest to understand. Unusual!
You might find it interesting to know (if you don't know already) that some of the funny words which Chinese people think are English (like "congee" and "tael") and that English people think are Chinese (congee and tael are not English words!) actually migrated via Dutch traders who used Malay words when they visited British-run ports like Hong Kong and Bombay. This isn't important but I thought you might be interested as you are clearly a keen language student with a knowledge of Dutch history too.
From what I have studied myself, I believe that the language tended to migrate always through sound, so that written versions are always the less reliable: e.g the Chinese words adopted into English (such as "typhoon") bear little resemblance to the Chinese (probably "daai fung") because they were stolen by English ears (which can't hear the clipped final consonants on Cantonese syllables) and then spoken by clumsy English tongues!
Probably the Chinese element isn't so interesting for you but I can't help at all on the Japanese aspects, I'm afraid.
Whoa~ Long!! XD *nods nods* Coz most of them are just "sounds" and there's no (logical) meaning to the words. :D Not just for words that have some English influence or related to English. Like 料理 for example. What the hell does that got to do with cooking!? Well, there used to be, but words have evolved since and most of them have lost their original meanings/sounds and so they do not make much sense anymore. ^^;
Exactly! :D 米 just happened to be the kanji assigned to the word me~ It's actually not that hard to figure your way through kanji by listening to it. Most Chinese-speakers know by instinct how certain kanji is pronounced and all. Once you figure out the trick, you'll be able to read/understand/speak the language pretty quickly. Except there are a lot of words that sound similar but written differently in Japanese, so listening might be tricky at times. Like, 高校、航行、孝行、港口、公行 are all "koukou"! So you have to figure it out by the context and by its accent/intonation. :D
Oh yeah, isn't that funny? It's surprising to find out the origin of some words! Humans aren't the only ones traveling apparently. XD
Yeah, sorry - it was a bit long! I've fiddled with quite a lot of languages (dead and alive! Er - that's the languages, not me) so it's also interesting to see what someone's native linguistic experience gives them in terms of insights and stumbling blocks. (I've never tried Dutch but have learned German but can see that there's likely to be a "deutsch" connexion somewhere in the history).
I'm grateful for your reassurance about Japanese being possible -one of my problems with speaking is that I try to give "tones" (variable pitch) to kanji where I know the Cantonese pronunciation. I expect the Japanese are used to Chinese-speakers abusing their language like this!
Because my Chinese reading translates to Cantonese but the Japanese pronunciaton is more allied to pinyin (mandarin), I may have more of a problem e.g. with the "kou kou" examples, I can hear instantly "goh" (high) and "hau" (mouth) although I know, if I think about it, that the pinyin is "gao" and "kou" (more similar sounds). Because Cantonese has more tones than mandarin, the differences in pronunciation are more distinct. At least European languages are simpler in this respect!
I'm all the more impressed with the time you give to the Gackt translations when you must have a lot of study translations to do for your course anyway. Gackt is lucky to have such committed and clever fans!
Haha, no that's okay. It was interesting reading all that! You don't meet another language freak lover very often after all! xD
Ahaha, I love languages too, more for the sake of learning than actually doing research them. I've dabbled in a few, too few though in my opinion. XD But they are mostly Asian languages. What about you? :D I've never tried German, only French from the European languages. Thinking of giving Italian and Spain a try next year tho~ As far as dead goes, did Latin and Ancient Greek. :D *shudders* XD
Ooh, I know... three people from Hong Kong. ^^ And yeah, I must agree they do have a strong accent, maybe because they try to add "tones" to it? I'll try to listen to their Japanese more carefully next time. xD That's interesting about Cantonese tho~~~ :D I don't speak it myself, but my mom LOVES Cantonese drama, so I used to watch it with her when I was young. I can pick up some words and if you speak slow enough, I might even be able to guess what you are talking about. XD The only word I can think of that has the same pronunciation as Cantonese is kantan (easy). ^^
Aww, thanks. x3 But it's just my interest, coz I love translating. Plus it's good practice~!
If you still remember your latin and greek, you'll find lots of cognates in Italian and Spanish so I think you will make very quick progress with either.
Spanish is about the quickest language to learn (there are significant variants in pronunciation between the European/Castilian Spanish and South American Spanish - in many ways the South American pronunciation is easier but is considered less elegant) but, personally, I find Italian more rewarding. That may be because I studied classical music which uses Italian as its lingua franca; it's certainly the most musical rhythmically of the European languages. Spanish is of more practical use because of the huge number of Hispanic speakers in the Americas. It depends on your motivation for learning: for speed and use go for Spanish, for literary/artistic satisfaction head for Italian, and, if you can, try both!
I'm with your mum on Cantonese drama (well, action in my case - it's the martial arts and car bug!) and I also adore the classic era (1980s/1990s) Canto-pop (Jacky Cheung Hok Yau, Beyond, Eason Chan etc). I'm sure you would be OK to understand Cantonese if you had the opportunity to listen more. I find that the older generations have much clearer diction (particularly a wider variation of tones - i.e. the high tones are higher and the low tones are lower) than the lazy youngsters who flatten all the syllables into a Western style drawl! I never thought about the Cantonese accent in Japanese speaking but learning Japanese is certainly very popular in HK - and, yes, I bet they do put the tones in!
Oh yes, yes - translating Gackt stuff is very very good practice for you! (no self interest on my part there!) And you are very good at it. "Lei ho ye!" I look forward to more when you have time and to reading more of your translation thoughts (I enjoy the comments you include with the translation so please don't be shy with them!)
Sorry for not replying earlier! I'm away in Hokkaido right now and had no internet access for the past few days. ^^;
Ooooh, I see. That's interesting. Haha, yeah, I think I'm gonna try for both actually. ^^ Thanks for all that info tho~ Wow, you really do know a lot about languages huh? Where are you from actually? I'm guessing Chinese race but born and raised elsewhere? It will be great if I can learn Cantonese too, but there's really no one to speak it with. XD At least with Hokkien, my family uses it back home so I can listen to it sometimes and have more contact with the language.
HAHAHAHA XDDD Nah, I'm nowhere good~ I still have a loooong way to go. *sighs* Hehe, I love writing my own comments too, coz it keeps the interaction between me and the other fans, you know? So it's not like an impersonal thing, where I just dish out translations and people read it. And I enjoy reading other people's thoughts too, so yeap, goes both ways~
Like, er... for example, the last part. 私は意を決して彼女に伝えた。意を決して is one whole thing together, so it's not 決して on its own. 私は意を決して、彼女に伝えた。<- might make more sense if I break it up that way? It means gather your courage, be determined, etc. That's just one of the mistakes I remembered. There are quite a few more on the second, third, and fourth chapter of Part 2.
And, well, maybe I'm just anal, but if you do enough research you can actually find the English equivalent for most of the terminology. Like, 第2SS装甲師団 is actually "2nd SS Panzer Division Das Reich". It's a group that really existed, so you needn't translate that into your own words.
So yeah, personally, I feel that if you want to continue translating these Reports, you should do more research. ^^; Because to me it's pointless otherwise. If you are doing it just to help yourself understand the report, then why post it up? As a translator, I understand that we want people to read our work, but in that case, don't we have the responsibility to get it as close to the original as we can?
In short, if it's just for your own practice and to help you understand it better, then go ahead and do it. But if you mean for it to be read in public, then be prepared to take the responsibility. :D That's my advice and what I strongly feel a contributor (in particular translators) should have.
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Yeah, but I've also been told by many people (especially people who dont know ANY Japanese, or very little) that theyre happy to read translations even just to get the general idea, as long as theyre 'in the ballpark'. Not to mention, I havent been studying Japanese as long as you have and I WAS trying to get it as accurate as I could. It's not like I purposely try to make it say something different =) I thought someone might be interested so I posted it.
Additionally, I knew that the names of the army units and whatnot were the real names, but I thought that's just how they translated. I didnt think to look it up in the first place because I thought that the literal translation was how it was to be translated, you know what I mean? Heh, I'm probably not stating it very well, it's kinda hard to explain. But it's like how do you know to look something up when it doesnt seem inaccurate in the first place?
Anyways, I hope to be getting myself to Japan within the next year (fingers crossed) so I hope that'll help with my knowledge of certain phrases and figures of speech. Not to mention vocab, gah. I took the JLPT 2kyuu last weekend and it was like, so much of it was "if only I had known what this one kanji meant I couldve answered the question!"
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Yeah, I know, everybody feels differently about it. Like I said if you feel comfortable about that, then go ahead. (Oh wait, I didn't exactly word it that way. XD) I know a lot of people will be grateful for anything that they can get, especially for those who don't speak the language, but I always feel like we owe it to him to produce the best we can, you know? ^^ Getting people to check it, asking people if you are not sure, etc. But wells, part of it is my characteristic, I guess, so just do what you think is best. :D I'm not trying to judge you, simply stating my own opinion when it comes to translating, so I hope I don't come across that way.
Hmmm, that does make sense. But some things are translations and some things are history non? Like... why is 米国 America? Shouldn't it be North Country? You know, things like that? I can't really explain it, but yeah, that's what I feel.
BAITO yo! BAITO! :D :D I highly recommend baito~~ When you come here that is. XD
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Incidentally, isn't it written 美 (mei guo) in Chinese? It's a little different from Japanese, and also how the name was derived. There are various explanations, but one of the more famous one is that they tried to write the word in kanji and 米 is used for the ME in aMErica. Not sure if there was any Chinese influence in this, because Japan had pretty much cut all contact with foreign countries by then, so I don't think that the use of the word 米 is related to Chinese or what is used in Chinese. (It could be influenced by the Chinese translators when they came tho... hmm.) Not an expert on this, simply my deduction!
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The best guess most times is that it is the SOUND (not the character) which has travelled between China/Chinese people and another country; this is largely because the Chinese people who travelled the most were sailors, fishermen and traders (i.e. not educated or literate) and they would, in many cases, be using a dialect form (i.e no written version).
America was spoken of as "mei" which sounds the same as the word for rice (well, only one of the words with a rice meaning!); I doubt very much that there was ever an intention to think of the country as "rice" country - it probably just happened that the rice character was better known (it's easier to write!).
Cantonese-speaking people put the "mouth" sign (a square more or less) in front of a character which is just meant to sound the same (i.e. it's a warning that the meaning is different to the written character used, so don't be fooled!) but this helpful marker wasn't used in the past so there is still plenty of confusion! Me, I don't look for explanations any more but try to learn the current meaning, current pronunciation and current usage. Obviously, with the Japanese kanji, you have the help of the phonetic system written over the top. With the Chinese, it is even more of a mystery!
As I'll be visiting Japan next year for the first time and don't have your dedication and talent with the Japanese language, I'll have to pin my hopes on understanding the meaning of the kanji where it is similar to Chinese - the sounds will mean nothing to me! This is probably the reverse of most people who would find the kanji the hardest to understand. Unusual!
You might find it interesting to know (if you don't know already) that some of the funny words which Chinese people think are English (like "congee" and "tael") and that English people think are Chinese (congee and tael are not English words!) actually migrated via Dutch traders who used Malay words when they visited British-run ports like Hong Kong and Bombay. This isn't important but I thought you might be interested as you are clearly a keen language student with a knowledge of Dutch history too.
From what I have studied myself, I believe that the language tended to migrate always through sound, so that written versions are always the less reliable: e.g the Chinese words adopted into English (such as "typhoon") bear little resemblance to the Chinese (probably "daai fung") because they were stolen by English ears (which can't hear the clipped final consonants on Cantonese syllables) and then spoken by clumsy English tongues!
Probably the Chinese element isn't so interesting for you but I can't help at all on the Japanese aspects, I'm afraid.
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Exactly! :D 米 just happened to be the kanji assigned to the word me~ It's actually not that hard to figure your way through kanji by listening to it. Most Chinese-speakers know by instinct how certain kanji is pronounced and all. Once you figure out the trick, you'll be able to read/understand/speak the language pretty quickly. Except there are a lot of words that sound similar but written differently in Japanese, so listening might be tricky at times. Like, 高校、航行、孝行、港口、公行 are all "koukou"! So you have to figure it out by the context and by its accent/intonation. :D
Oh yeah, isn't that funny? It's surprising to find out the origin of some words! Humans aren't the only ones traveling apparently. XD
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I'm grateful for your reassurance about Japanese being possible -one of my problems with speaking is that I try to give "tones" (variable pitch) to kanji where I know the Cantonese pronunciation. I expect the Japanese are used to Chinese-speakers abusing their language like this!
Because my Chinese reading translates to Cantonese but the Japanese pronunciaton is more allied to pinyin (mandarin), I may have more of a problem e.g. with the "kou kou" examples, I can hear instantly "goh" (high) and "hau" (mouth) although I know, if I think about it, that the pinyin is "gao" and "kou" (more similar sounds). Because Cantonese has more tones than mandarin, the differences in pronunciation are more distinct. At least European languages are simpler in this respect!
I'm all the more impressed with the time you give to the Gackt translations when you must have a lot of study translations to do for your course anyway. Gackt is lucky to have such committed and clever fans!
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Ahaha, I love languages too, more for the sake of learning than actually doing research them. I've dabbled in a few, too few though in my opinion. XD But they are mostly Asian languages. What about you? :D I've never tried German, only French from the European languages. Thinking of giving Italian and Spain a try next year tho~ As far as dead goes, did Latin and Ancient Greek. :D *shudders* XD
Ooh, I know... three people from Hong Kong. ^^ And yeah, I must agree they do have a strong accent, maybe because they try to add "tones" to it? I'll try to listen to their Japanese more carefully next time. xD That's interesting about Cantonese tho~~~ :D I don't speak it myself, but my mom LOVES Cantonese drama, so I used to watch it with her when I was young. I can pick up some words and if you speak slow enough, I might even be able to guess what you are talking about. XD The only word I can think of that has the same pronunciation as Cantonese is kantan (easy). ^^
Aww, thanks. x3 But it's just my interest, coz I love translating. Plus it's good practice~!
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Spanish is about the quickest language to learn (there are significant variants in pronunciation between the European/Castilian Spanish and South American Spanish - in many ways the South American pronunciation is easier but is considered less elegant) but, personally, I find Italian more rewarding. That may be because I studied classical music which uses Italian as its lingua franca; it's certainly the most musical rhythmically of the European languages. Spanish is of more practical use because of the huge number of Hispanic speakers in the Americas. It depends on your motivation for learning: for speed and use go for Spanish, for literary/artistic satisfaction head for Italian, and, if you can, try both!
I'm with your mum on Cantonese drama (well, action in my case - it's the martial arts and car bug!) and I also adore the classic era (1980s/1990s) Canto-pop (Jacky Cheung Hok Yau, Beyond, Eason Chan etc). I'm sure you would be OK to understand Cantonese if you had the opportunity to listen more. I find that the older generations have much clearer diction (particularly a wider variation of tones - i.e. the high tones are higher and the low tones are lower) than the lazy youngsters who flatten all the syllables into a Western style drawl! I never thought about the Cantonese accent in Japanese speaking but learning Japanese is certainly very popular in HK - and, yes, I bet they do put the tones in!
Oh yes, yes - translating Gackt stuff is very very good practice for you! (no self interest on my part there!) And you are very good at it. "Lei ho ye!" I look forward to more when you have time and to reading more of your translation thoughts (I enjoy the comments you include with the translation so please don't be shy with them!)
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Ooooh, I see. That's interesting. Haha, yeah, I think I'm gonna try for both actually. ^^ Thanks for all that info tho~ Wow, you really do know a lot about languages huh? Where are you from actually? I'm guessing Chinese race but born and raised elsewhere? It will be great if I can learn Cantonese too, but there's really no one to speak it with. XD At least with Hokkien, my family uses it back home so I can listen to it sometimes and have more contact with the language.
HAHAHAHA XDDD Nah, I'm nowhere good~ I still have a loooong way to go. *sighs* Hehe, I love writing my own comments too, coz it keeps the interaction between me and the other fans, you know? So it's not like an impersonal thing, where I just dish out translations and people read it. And I enjoy reading other people's thoughts too, so yeap, goes both ways~
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