Legend of the Longsword Master - Huang Yi

[littleli]

Thanks grundle, good point to stop..

[SkyWalker]

Thanks for the update Grundle.

[smurf120]

Grundle - this is the first wuxia story I have read without any knowledge of the characters or background. And the translation rocks! Funny thing is the only visual reference I have are scenes, strangely enough, from the movie Avatar - Last Airbender (don't ask me why).

[akolaw]

Dear Grundle,

I would like to suggest to change the name emperor to something else.
1, HY name him Da Yuen Sau Grand supreme head for a reason he had not disclose yet but some chapter in book 2 would come out as emperor is the name of another boss.

[aliderhamy]

Can you pm me the ending ?

I just wana a summary of key events and how the book ends :P

[Grundle]

Dear Grundle,

I would like to suggest to change the name emperor to something else.
1, HY name him Da Yuen Sau Grand supreme head for a reason he had not disclose yet but some chapter in book 2 would come out as emperor is the name of another boss.

You are correct, he is always referred to as 大元首 [da yuan shou] in the text which translated is literally "Big Head/Chief of State". The last two characters go together to form "Head/Chief of State" which denotes a position of ruling and power, nothing else. The addition of "Big" on the front of those two characters tells us that he is at the top, nobody is above him. With that in mind, I chose to translate him as "Emperor" because his troops are usually referred to as "imperial", and his realm is referred to as an "empire". The appropriate title, therefore, is emperor.

There are several reasons why I don't think this is going to be a problem. It is common to have multiple Kings, multiple countries, and empires. I am not sure you have noticed by now, but Huang Yi also has the habit of summarizing certain details several times for the reader's benefit. He will generally present a new character or location, talk about it, and then later he will repeat the same description with a little more "history" thrown in to give more detail and make the idea even richer in the reader's mind. So currently we have a fairly colorful picture of this emperor, who walks around in full body armor and is a total monster! What will the next emperor be like? I don't know, but he will be different from the Emperor of the Black Helmet warriors.

I will of course defer to other Translators that may know something I don't. I don't speak Chinese so I always welcome corrections, but from what you said, you would like me to change it based on what you know will be happening further on in this novel. That is not a practicable method as far as translation is concerned, and I would hope a more compelling reason, such as a better translation that I am unaware of, would be the changing factor. Currently emperor sounds so much more elegant than "Big head of state".

Can you pm me the ending ?

I just wana a summary of key events and how the book ends :P

Sorry, even I don't know that yet. I am reading as I translate, otherwise i would lose interest. Be3sides isn't more fun to follow the journey instead of skipping to the end? You lose so much when you cheat like that :P If I am going to guess I can say it ends something like this "They lived happily ever after".

[akolaw]

HY pioneer in many different tropic and initiate 3 trend in Chinese novels, one of them is call Yee wake meaning different territory, and this is the story that start the trend

HY led us into a story in a strange background somewhere familiar and somewhat different from anywhere we know. that is why this story give us a aviator or air bender feeling. As HY is a top notch writer he made everything eventually logical and self expandory that we finally say ah that is what had happen without feeling cheated by a cheap writer.

In creating a different world, HY create new terms that we don't use but led us to think of similar terms we normally use like round ball to refer to planet, black water to refer to petroleum, mu lui edge to refer to his sword, and more will come by as the story go.

Da Yuen Sau fearfull frighter as he might be, is only the regent of the other emperior that is why he would prefer to be call da yuen sau instead, like may be governor of India may allow others to call him maharaj but not emperor of India because deep in his mind he know his is not the Emperor. Remember both he and mu lui come from the ruin, there is a big story not told yet.

HY tell a story with out nei gong but with witch and many more.

[akolaw]

Top leader in Asia may not call himself Emperor, like president Lee of South Korea, his official title is Da Tung Ling, or great commander, and his conterpart Kim of North Korea is normally refer as Dear Leader. The leader of Japan through out most of her history is the Great General or dai shogun. I think da yuan sau or supreme head are both fine for him.

This is of course your decision because it is your hard work that this story is translated to english reading readers.But as an old reader of HY's novel, I just render my thought.

[CFT]

So the "Emperor" in this story is more like Darth Vader than "The Emperor".

[Grundle]

Akolaw,

Okay thank you for this input. This gives me much to think about. I think that maybe I will change "emperor", back to the pin-yin as Da Yuan Shou. Interestingly I think my first translation of his title was "governor", but that seemed too "small-scale". I am hoping that this change won't confuse my readers.

[CFT]

This highlights the pitfalls of "on the fly" translation. You're doing a fine job Grundle. Supreme Leader or Supreme Commander wouldn't be too bad IMO.

[Grundle]

Akolaw,

Do you think the character for "big" refers to his stature? He stands over seven feet tall, or do you get the sense that it is referring to his position in hierarchy?

If it were for stature it could be rendered as -- Colossal Lord/Leader/Commander
For status it could be rendered as -- Noble Lord/Leader/Commander

or in the end does it sound better to have it in the pin-yin? I would really like it to take the exotic feel that you describe.

[akolaw]

I think Da refer to his status same as dai sougon of Japan and da tung ling of Korea.

the Emperor is a secret that most people don't know. Lan de is not a nobody, he come from high circle very close to royal court, he is the fiance of the princess and son of great sword master, the top frighter of da yean sou, he know nothing of the emperor up to now.

[Grundle]

Okay, so here are the choices I have distilled it down to

1. Da Yuan Shou
2. Sovereign Lord
3. Supreme Commander

Maybe you can bound some of your previous comments with spoiler tags so we don't upset our readers

[akolaw]

I think any one of the three is fine, this should be the choice of the translator.

[Grundle]

Okay - I would like to hear what other readers think as well. I will probably go with the consensus of what everyone thinks "sounds" the best.

[CFT]

I don't think you have used pinyin for titles so far so I wouldn't go for (1). (2) sounds good - the sovereign part retains that "imperialness".

[aliderhamy]

I really enjoy reading whats going to happen in the novel befor reading it

so far i know i can look forward to an empror... can you please post up a summary :P

(i tried this on foxs... but the clever fool post up a summery for hsds instead of dear and the coldren... )

it was funny cause it speerd me on to rewatching the hole trillogy from begining to end on youtube... took me like days

[foxs]

I was finally able to catch up ... but to my dismay Grundle has decided to stop. I hope some kind soul out there will continue this story.

Ali ... LOL, I don't want to spoil anything, but you will see in the end that what I told you was not a total nonsense.

[Grundle]

I was finally able to catch up ... but to my dismay Grundle has decided to stop. I hope some kind soul out there will continue this story.

Ali ... LOL, I don't want to spoil anything, but you will see in the end that what I told you was not a total nonsense.

Oh no, don't worry foxs, I haven't stopped. I am playing ping pong with both translations. My current method will be one chapter of LSM, and then one chapter of TD2D. I think that is a fair way to give both novels exposure.