A New Translator With Alot of Questions

[RustedRabbit]

Hello so this will be my first post here but hopefully the first of many. I’ve been lurking the r/lightnovels/ subreddit for a while and I follow quite a few translations there. I’m currently based in Taiwan and have been spending most of my time improving my Chinese. Recently out of curiosity I tried reading ahead of some of the novels I was following by using a combination of what I know and a few different pieces of software to facilitate the process. Lo and behold I found that I could read entire chapters in a relatively timely manner with, approximately, 95% competence in what I was reading. After I saw Ren’s success with his donation system, I immediately began to consider spending a good deal of my time translating in order to help support myself. I hope I don’t sound like a greedy pig when I say this because I know that the majority of translators, out of the goodness of their heart, do it for free. But I’m willing to spend 6-8+ hours every day of the week doing this and I love the idea of doing something I really enjoy and being able to cover some of my living costs. So with that said, I’m another new translator looking to translate something but also with a few additional questions.

1. I know that there are of course legal issues in translating publish books such as Jinyong and Gulong books but how do web novels work? Is it standard practice for the translators here to first ask the author permission to translate? Is this the case for both unpublished internet novels as well as published ones?

2. Because of the structure and style of the literature, I prefer to translate/read web novels. I have found 17k.com and hjwzw.com and I’ve been slowly browsing those works while reviewing recommendations and previous requests from this forum and reddit. However although I can (slowly) read Chinese I’m not particularly good at using the computer interface to type it. Nor am I well versed in using Chinese internet keywords. Are there any other chinese web novel resources I should be looking at? Are there any other raw sources?

3. The Author, IEatTomatoes has an excellent style for web novels, but I don’t know much about him. I know the majority of his popular works already have active translators and I do not plan to poach any projects from other translators regardless of how often they translate a chapter. However I’m not entirely sure where to find his raws. I glanced at a couple of the translation threads of his work here and couldn’t find a link. Where does he host his work? Does he any other work worth translating that is not currently active? Are there similar styles or authors I should take a look at? Also I believe the exact style I’m talking about is a long story line w/ short chapters (3000-5000 characters) and a strong sense of power hierarchy and character power progression with many cliff hangers or at least chapters that end with a strong sense of anticipation.

4. Does anyone here use a Chinese-English Bitext program? Something where I could reference the context of past translations of certain Chinese “words” with their English counterparts? Anybody use a terminology manager of some sort?

5. Finally the most obvious question is: suggestions/votes for translations? I hate to pollute the forum with more posts like this but it can be difficult to tell what is currently active or what has a lot of interest in the forum sometimes.

I’m currently reading 网游之天下无双 and 凡人修仙傳. The second one is from the recently posted recommended reading thread and the other is another VRMMO novel. They are written in very different styles. I’d like to read 10-20 chapters ahead of whatever I would be translating to ensure I choose appropriate translations for certain terms or descriptions. Again I plan on putting a lot of time into this, putting out 2-3 chapters a day depending on chapter length and writing style. I’m sorry to disappoint the community, but I’m not looking to work with another translator on a collaborative project. I know that there are many projects that readers would like me to accelerate, but this is not my personal goal. Thank you everyone who read my annoyingly long post.

[episod3ux]

Answer for 3. http://shushu.com.cn/author/49.html A list IET works.
Would be cool if someone would pick this instead.

武炼巅峰(MT is Wu Lian Peak) by 莫默. Link here and it updates on average twice a day.


Usual Xian Xia stuff with added relationship problems. MC is a failure until he finds a black book which mysteriously heals him from a disability that kept him from practicing. He is also a bit of a playboy eventually, but it never detracts from his goal of pursuing the martial arts to their peak. He may annoy you with being a little too "genius" and lucky though.

But after all,is up to you.

[tahir]

Answer for 3. http://shushu.com.cn/author/49.html A list IET works.
Would be cool if someone would pick this instead.




But after all,is up to you.

I 2nd this..i really liked IET work that is translated so far, and hopefully so many other leachers wish for more IET's novels

[Karthik Manoharan]

Hello so this will be my first post here but hopefully the first of many. I’ve been lurking the r/lightnovels/ subreddit for a while and I follow quite a few translations there. I’m currently based in Taiwan and have been spending most of my time improving my Chinese. Recently out of curiosity I tried reading ahead of some of the novels I was following by using a combination of what I know and a few different pieces of software to facilitate the process. Lo and behold I found that I could read entire chapters in a relatively timely manner with, approximately, 95% competence in what I was reading. After I saw Ren’s success with his donation system, I immediately began to consider spending a good deal of my time translating in order to help support myself. I hope I don’t sound like a greedy pig when I say this because I know that the majority of translators, out of the goodness of their heart, do it for free. But I’m willing to spend 6-8+ hours every day of the week doing this and I love the idea of doing something I really enjoy and being able to cover some of my living costs. So with that said, I’m another new translator looking to translate something but also with a few additional questions.

1. I know that there are of course legal issues in translating publish books such as Jinyong and Gulong books but how do web novels work? Is it standard practice for the translators here to first ask the author permission to translate? Is this the case for both unpublished internet novels as well as published ones?

2. Because of the structure and style of the literature, I prefer to translate/read web novels. I have found 17k.com and hjwzw.com and I’ve been slowly browsing those works while reviewing recommendations and previous requests from this forum and reddit. However although I can (slowly) read Chinese I’m not particularly good at using the computer interface to type it. Nor am I well versed in using Chinese internet keywords. Are there any other chinese web novel resources I should be looking at? Are there any other raw sources?

3. The Author, IEatTomatoes has an excellent style for web novels, but I don’t know much about him. I know the majority of his popular works already have active translators and I do not plan to poach any projects from other translators regardless of how often they translate a chapter. However I’m not entirely sure where to find his raws. I glanced at a couple of the translation threads of his work here and couldn’t find a link. Where does he host his work? Does he any other work worth translating that is not currently active? Are there similar styles or authors I should take a look at? Also I believe the exact style I’m talking about is a long story line w/ short chapters (3000-5000 characters) and a strong sense of power hierarchy and character power progression with many cliff hangers or at least chapters that end with a strong sense of anticipation.

4. Does anyone here use a Chinese-English Bitext program? Something where I could reference the context of past translations of certain Chinese “words” with their English counterparts? Anybody use a terminology manager of some sort?

5. Finally the most obvious question is: suggestions/votes for translations? I hate to pollute the forum with more posts like this but it can be difficult to tell what is currently active or what has a lot of interest in the forum sometimes.

I’m currently reading 网游之天下无双 and 凡人修仙傳. The second one is from the recently posted recommended reading thread and the other is another VRMMO novel. They are written in very different styles. I’d like to read 10-20 chapters ahead of whatever I would be translating to ensure I choose appropriate translations for certain terms or descriptions. Again I plan on putting a lot of time into this, putting out 2-3 chapters a day depending on chapter length and writing style. I’m sorry to disappoint the community, but I’m not looking to work with another translator on a collaborative project. I know that there are many projects that readers would like me to accelerate, but this is not my personal goal. Thank you everyone who read my annoyingly long post.

Hi hw about translating BATTLE THROUGH HEAVENS.It is being done by GOODGUYPERSON in gravitytranslations.com.He has asked help in translating.Maybe u can work together with him

[Karthik Manoharan]

Hi hw about translating BATTLE THROUGH HEAVENS.It is being done by GOODGUYPERSON in gravitytranslations.com.He has asked help in translating.Maybe u can work together with him

[whiteskwirl]

Of course no one asks permission first. Fan translating is supposed to be fans translating in order to share something with other who would have no other way to experience it otherwise; but it is technically illegal as you are violating the original creator's copyright. Whether it's on the web or not doesn't matter. I personally feel accepting money for fan translating is a violation of the spirit of fan translation. It's also a risky move if the copyright holders find out about it. I don't know how likely that is to happen, but the consequences would be more serious if one had been making money from it, I would guess.

And contacting the author can turn out to be an easy and rewarding process. I did that with a local wuxia author here, and the experience has changed my thinking somewhat so that I doubt I will do any translating in the future that isn't officially sanctioned. Maybe it's because I met with an author, humanizes the endeavor; it's easy to think of these stories we translate of not belonging to anyone, but someone did spend a lot of time and effort writing them; that should be taken into account.

Anyway, just my two cents. I don't read the kind of novels you mentioned so I can't give any recommendations there. I personally have never used the kind of software you talk about, but a lot of professional translators do. There is some free software for that out there, though I can't remember the names. Just google 'translation software'.

About "unpublished" internet novels: there's no such things. If it's on the internet it, and is available for people to read, then it is legally considered published.

[Makiavel]

There are a few people that ask for permissions (see people that worked on a novel called Royal Road) but the majority doesn't. It's obviously disallowed to translate work that was paid for (yes, web novel authors can be paid and quite a few of them are.)

Anyway, personally I have an issue with donations, it's not so much that I disagree with paying to have quicker chapters but it is when people start translating for the sake of earning money.

RWX didn't start out of the blue planning to constantly get enough money to have 3 chapters to translate everyday, he did it out of passion, because he wanted to share a work. He still releases regular chapters which don't affect the donation queue.

For me, once the translating becomes less of a hobby and more of a work in general, something really feels wrong. Not only do we play with legal matters where in the beginning we're in the red for translating something without permission but on top of it we accept money and we do it for the sake of money. You're 'stealing the content of someone' for your own benefit, you were not hired to translate this work, you have no clue if an official translation is planned.

Don't get me wrong, it's cool that you want to translate novels for the sake of people but your main motive shouldn't be to sustain yourself, especially knowing you're never sure how many people will donate to you, whether it'll keep going or not, the fact that it's illegal. There is no job insurance or anything close to that at all. It is and should always primarily be a hobby.

You should translate things because you want to contribute and you genuinely enjoy it, you shouldn't translate because you want to make a living of it, you're certainly not the first to come with this idea after RWX's success but I certainly hope this trend will stop. In a way, what RWX did was bad, surely we got more translations but it set a bad precedent that will call in for people that want to make money over providing content to the community for the sake of providing content.

Not to mention, when someone donates you the money, you received it, who's to say you won't back out on your promise? I'm not specifically talking about you but the world isn't all pretty, there will always be people out there that will search to abuse of kind souls.

[Ren Wo Xing]

Hi Rustredrabbit, let me give a few answers to some of your questions:

1) I can't speak for anyone else, but as the saying goes, it is easier to ask forgiveness than permission. In my case, I've actually reached out to IET on his public Weibo account via private message/email and informed him that I was translating Coiling Dragon, and provided links. No response, even though he updates it daily; I doubt he cares.

2-3) There are multiple websites with IET's books on them, almost all of them pirated. If you are interested in getting it 'from the source', IET's books are officially hosted on qidian; for example, see http://me.qidian.com/authorIndex.aspx?id=33228. Be warned; most of his content is 'paywalled', and you will have to pay to access it (which I have).

4) Sorry, all manual.

5) I'll leave this to the community.

In closing, I do want to say this; I have never solicited donations, and in fact turned them down for over half a year, starting when I first began translating Coiling Dragon back in May 2014. After doing 50-60 chapters, averaging around 2-3 a week, the 'demand' that I translate faster via donations got the point where I finally said, 'okay', which then snowballed. I make no judgements on any translator for his/her reason for translations, but I will say that the community might be hesitant to support someone who states he is only translating to make money. My personal advice - first start off by worrying about the quality and regularity of your translations and building up a 'reputation', rather than on 'money'.

[whiteskwirl]

Well, your signature says:

Accepting Paypal donations here. Read Coiling Dragon at Wuxia World! When donations reach a certain level, I will produce 'bonus' chapters in 24 hrs & credit donors!

I would say that enticing people to donate to a certain amount in order to receive something (faster/more updates) is a form of solicitation.

Your website (a website set up to take in donations and promote the project) even has a pricing system set up:

I have committed to translating at least 1-2 chapters each week, each of which is taking around 3-4 hours of my time, which I am happy to do. Since I am often asked by people if they can donate or ‘bribe’ me to go faster, I came up with the idea of sponsored releases. I currently translate at the rate of about 1000 Chinese characters/hr. Basically, this is my promise: For every ~$80 for a 3500-4000 Chinese character chapter, within reason, I will produce a ‘sponsored chapter’ with a 24 hour guarantee, within reason (only up to 2-3 chapters/work day, or 3-4 chapters/weekend day or holiday.). If the chapters are shorter (some of the early chapters were around 1700-2000 characters), then I will ‘prorate’ accordingly, of course.

With every donation gift, of course, no matter how big or small, I will be sure to ‘credit’ the donors/sponsors of the chapters in the posts announcing new chapters (please advise me if you would prefer to be anonymous). And, without question, I appreciate every single reader, every single donation, and especially every single comment and every single thanks. You are the oil which drives this engine!

You are literally saying that donations fuel translations, and have the rates already determined. You're certainly encouraging people to send you money. I mean, whatever, I'm not going to try to stop you or anything. You do what you want. Wish you would do it somewhere else, though. It's not good for the community. The idea that fans practically forced you to take donations is ludicrous. You could have simply told them there was no need for that, but since demand was so high you would produce more/faster. You could just choose to do that based on the demand/response. You make it seem like you had no choice but to take money for this, which is ridiculous. At least be honest about it.

This is just not what fan translation should be about. It's already a dodgy practice, but at least there is some good being done, exposing new people to something they would never be able to experience otherwise. But once someone starts profiting off it, it begins to turn ugly and sleazy. It's not a good trend as has been mentioned above.

[RustedRabbit]

Alright, first let me say thank you for all your responses. I knew that there was going to be serious abrasion when I introduced this topic, but I wanted to make it clear that I was planning to do this with some money in mind. I know many think that this is NOT how translations should be done both legally and as well as the culture of fan translations. You have raised some very good points about the ethical and cultural ramifications of doing this. I don't think that work/profit needs to be such a disgusting and repulsive idea. I like the idea of profiting off of something I enjoy to do, I don't think by doing it for money need necessarily corrupt the spirit of my endeavor. I know the community will hesitate to accept and support someone like me, but I wanted to be upfront about what I was doing and first talk about it with some of my opposition.

I see alot of comments about the ethical ramifications of profiting off of translating someone else's work. Would I alleviate people's concerns if I received the author's permission to translate? I have taken Ren's answer into consideration as well about forgiveness and permission. I admit that this does sound alot easier and honestly I might wait until I have something to offer to the author before contacting him.

I see comments about the honest spirit of translating for the sake of the work itself. Again I want to believe that profiting by doing something I enjoy isn't going to corrupt the culture of fan translations. Yes it is a trust system, but I don't think trust based payment will immediately devolve into deceit, especially with such a close community. I understand that this type of translation might not be welcome at the spcnet forum community, if this is the case I'll avoid posting here but I hope we can approach this with an open mind.

A few people mentioned focusing on producing quality translations. I want to say that I have the utmost respect for people who do all this work for free in their spare time. I don't want to sound as if I'm going to be pumping as many lousy raw MTL translations as possible for profit. Please don't associate my profit with the idea that I'm going to scam as many people as possible. I'd like to be beholden to my readers and the author him/herself to keep high levels of quality. Is it not possible for me to be a good translator and engage in a respectable exchange of services?

In short it seems to me that most of the major concern is on behalf of the author. If I DO get the permission of the author then would I be able to change your minds about translating for profit?

Again thank you whiteskwirl, Ren and makiavel for voicing your concerns.

[Ren Wo Xing]

Well, your signature says:



I would say that enticing people to donate to a certain amount in order to receive something (faster/more updates) is a form of solicitation.

Your website (a website set up to take in donations and promote the project) even has a pricing system set up:



You are literally saying that donations fuel translations, and have the rates already determined. You're certainly encouraging people to send you money. I mean, whatever, I'm not going to try to stop you or anything. You do what you want. Wish you would do it somewhere else, though. It's not good for the community. The idea that fans practically forced you to take donations is ludicrous. You could have simply told them there was no need for that, but since demand was so high you would produce more/faster. You could just choose to do that based on the demand/response. You make it seem like you had no choice but to take money for this, which is ridiculous. At least be honest about it.

This is just not what fan translation should be about. It's already a dodgy practice, but at least there is some good being done, exposing new people to something they would never be able to experience otherwise. But once someone starts profiting off it, it begins to turn ugly and sleazy. It's not a good trend as has been mentioned above.

Eh, I'm not going to get into a big fight about this, but it is a fact that I refused donations to 'translate faster' for months. These were not 'hey, take this' donation offers; they were specific, 'how much can I donate to get you to translate faster' offers. Once I have decided to accept 'incentive' donations (I know, I know, you would say I shouldn't have at all ), then I think it is important it be done in a transparent manner, with clearly delineated rules stating exactly what I will commit to. You view that page as encouragement; I view it as transparency. People wanted to donate with an expectation that I translate faster; I view it as an absolute imperative for me to explain exactly how much faster I would translate and for what. That avoids a lot of misunderstandings. Perhaps you feel that simply having a 'donate' button with no explanation is better, but I strongly disagree.

Regarding what "fuel translations", thank you for quoting the entirety of that passage; as you can note, I literally say that "every single reader, every single donation, and especially every single comment and every single thanks" fuel translations. Please note which two of those four gets the word "especially" .

Thanks for reminding me about my signature though; it was put in back when the site was first started, but given the site already has that information now, there's no need for it, so I'll remove that.

Anyhow, since you are working on an official translation which I'm sure you hope to get published and sell well, I understand why your opinions on fan translations have become a bit more rigid . I have no hard feelings at all.

[James Shi]

Anyhow, since you are working on an official translation which I'm sure you hope to get published and sell well, I understand why your opinions on fan translations have become a bit more rigid . I have no hard feelings at all.

Just went to check the dude's profile. So he's an official translator that get's paid to translate stuff? Well shit, he's making way more than me during my 4+ hour sitting per translation.

But what he needs to understand is that there are enough novels for all of us translators to translate. Would I do it officially if I get paid? Hell yeah! But since I'm not getting paid and spending at least 4 hours to do a translation is a tedious work, what's wrong with asking for donations? Hell, donations would even make me do my translations faster.

With your whole shit about copyright and stuff.... THIS IS CHINA! (pretend to say this like THIS IS SPARTA!)
Copyright? One of their most popular software is the video streaming program called PPS... not one bit of copyright there.

As for myself, I started reading ST and then reached the end and felt like maybe I could help translating. Then I read that Ren was taking donations to fuel his translations and I'm like bruuuuhhhh, I could do that. So I went ahead and started a new project to translate in hopes of traffic hits and donations. Regarding ST, I'll be a collaboration side project.

ps. Without donations, the release would be one per week or even one per month. Do these story hungry fans want that? No! Hell, even the top online novelist do these for money and must produce a chapter a day. Some quit because they can't take it. If it wasn't for the money, I wonder how many could take it. If you're against my translation for potential profit, then maybe you should translate my stuff for me for free and I can just read them and enjoy it.

[Ren Wo Xing]

whiteskwirl is currently working on an official translation, but he's also done many fan translations in the past as well, and poured countless hours into them. My noting that he is working on an official translation is in no way, shape, or form meant to be disparaging in any way, nor do I wish anyone else to disparage him. whiteskwirl's been on both sides of this fence, so perhaps he has a more complete view than some of us.

Anyhow, let's not derail the thread too much , and let's all be respectful to each other.

[tape]

Just went to check the dude's profile. So he's an official translator that get's paid to translate stuff? Well shit, he's making way more than me during my 4+ hour sitting per translation.

But what he needs to understand is that there are enough novels for all of us translators to translate. Would I do it officially if I get paid? Hell yeah! But since I'm not getting paid and spending at least 4 hours to do a translation is a tedious work, what's wrong with asking for donations? Hell, donations would even make me do my translations faster.

With your whole shit about copyright and stuff.... THIS IS CHINA! (pretend to say this like THIS IS SPARTA!)
Copyright? One of their most popular software is the video streaming program called PPS... not one bit of copyright there.

As for myself, I started reading ST and then reached the end and felt like maybe I could help translating. Then I read that Ren was taking donations to fuel his translations and I'm like bruuuuhhhh, I could do that. So I went ahead and started a new project to translate in hopes of traffic hits and donations. Regarding ST, I'll be a collaboration side project.

ps. Without donations, the release would be one per week or even one per month. Do these story hungry fans want that? No! Hell, even the top online novelist do these for money and must produce a chapter a day. Some quit because they can't take it. If it wasn't for the money, I wonder how many could take it. If you're against my translation for potential profit, then maybe you should translate my stuff for me for free and I can just read them and enjoy it.

The culture/history of these translations has always been something with no money involved, and I can understand why a translator who has done this for years has a distaste when money is blatantly being involved. It's kind of like the mom and pop store being against corporations; there really isn't a moral issue for either side but the original store definitely has some sort of merit and support.

Economics-wise there really is no argument against the idea that if people are willing to pay, then it's a service that is worth the time and effort. I think the problem lies where "free" translators will eventually disappear if enough paid translators appear, and it's just a distaste to all those translators who have spent years of their time translating for free out of passion. All the original JY/GL translations were done over the course of years with a chapter or two every few weeks or months. It's just a change of times where people are interested in translations globally, and I can definitely see the POV of both translators "back then" and web writers/translators now who see an opportunity to make some extra cash.

[Makiavel]

The culture/history of these translations has always been something with no money involved, and I can understand why a translator who has done this for years has a distaste when money is blatantly being involved. It's kind of like the mom and pop store being against corporations; there really isn't a moral issue for either side but the original store definitely has some sort of merit and support.

Economics-wise there really is no argument against the idea that if people are willing to pay, then it's a service that is worth the time and effort. I think the problem lies where "free" translators will eventually disappear if enough paid translators appear, and it's just a distaste to all those translators who have spent years of their time translating for free out of passion. All the original JY/GL translations were done over the course of years with a chapter or two every few weeks or months. It's just a change of times where people are interested in translations globally, and I can definitely see the POV of both translators "back then" and web writers/translators now who see an opportunity to make some extra cash.

Exactly this. I couldn't have said it better, thank you.

[fire88]

Hi! If you want a reccomendation, Law of the Devil looks interesting and needs some love . Current translator will gladly pass it to somebody else (he is busy with another project)
RAW: http://www.bestory.com/book/book98546.html
Current progress: https://bluesilvertranslations.wordp...f-the-devil-2/
Story:

Without a single good point, believed to be waste and a retard, when selling his soul to the devil, what does he gain in return? Fame? Strength? Wealth? Power? Overturning all the laws of this world, letting us watch the rise of a devil…… “I know, one day this world will bow at my feet!!” —— Duwei

[Bludflag]

Why not Infinity Game?You can find the currently translated at http://cavescans.com/novel/infinity-game-novel/ but the problem is they host it at their site.I do not know if they would allow for it to be posted here.The translator went MIA,so they are searching for a new one.They also need a translator for Bloodline which is new(no chapters out).Best to talk to them and not me,so have fun in the future translating and remember,like I said to Puttty,choose what you like,not what you think brings the most profit

EDIT:There would be no opposition from my side if you chose LoD like previously asked by somebody(editing so can`t see the name of him/her) either

[ROI]

No personal stance on whether it's right or wrong. However I do think that if you accept money there should be a commitment to seeing the whole project through, even if the donations dry up during the middle. Also you need to have a minimum release schedule even if you aren't getting paid. It's quite possible that you may not get a wide enough pool of contributors who can afford to see the whole novel through. If that happens stopping the translation in the middle would not be fair to those who already contributed.

[billybuton]

No personal stance on whether it's right or wrong. However I do think that if you accept money there should be a commitment to seeing the whole project through, even if the donations dry up during the middle. Also you need to have a minimum release schedule even if you aren't getting paid. It's quite possible that you may not get a wide enough pool of contributors who can afford to see the whole novel through. If that happens stopping the translation in the middle would not be fair to those who already contributed.

Well said....

[dexter64]

Since a few years back, China has opened a floodgate of web novels. I don't know exactly how it works, but authors are getting paid base on the word count and the popularity of the work.

If I'm not mistaken, IET was ranked 5th in 2012 list of internet writer top earner, in 2013 he jumped to 3rd, but I don't know why he was not in the 2014 list. Now the list tracked total earning, including games and movies royalties. For his 1st ever internet game base on Stellar Transformation, IET go 1M RMB. CD, and SS also have been adaptec to internet games and the payment were way more higher than 1M RMB each. HuangMangJi (his current novel) also has been adapted to mobile game and planned to be adapted into animated series. There should be a movie based on ST also.

With those kind of money, IET may not be interested enough to reply to Ren's request. Anyway, it's not all happy for IET, he forced himself to write 12 chapters per week, and doing that for years has its toll, he's been complaining lately that he's burnt out and that the quality of his writing has declined and he wrote less and less (word count wise), so now he slowdown and wrote a chapter per day to recuperate.