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In Between Rereading Harry Potter Book 5, Again
It just occurred to me, from the manner in which I went over and over and over last night's LJ entry, exhausted though I was, that perhaps it isn't my professor's fault after all. I've always said, I can't write pointless things and fluff because she brutally drilled into me the maxim "it MUST say something or it's not worth writing". This is true in its way. But I'm also starting to think it has something to do with my personality to boot: I am such a painstakingly nervous and meticulous person that I can't help overthinking every single thing. I can't let anyone see my writing until a Certified Person I Respect has looked over it and assured me it's worthwhile; I can't make major decisions, fiction or life related, until I have agonized endlessly about possible alternatives and what seems the best; I can't even post an LJ entry without wondering if I've phrased it to be as inoffensive and neutral as possible. I swear I erased a line in the last LJ post because I didn't want people to think I sounded confrontational or anti-American or whatever and then start an argument.
So maybe it's not just Mrs. Whatever-her-name-was' fault.
Final Notes on Hiroshima: They do not understand the concept of "ATM" here . It's supposed to be more convenient than a bank -- not less convenient. And the shinkansen was pure wonderful. We need us some of those. Amtrak, take notes.
Regarding My Future:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
alicia250 tells me it's time to start registering for housing back at Albany, and I'm probably going to have to do something about that since circumstances have interfered with my original intentions. The idea of arguing with Albany about dorms while I'm overseas is not pleasant... Especially as I'm behind on paperwork for them already. Also, I'm terribly terribly uneasy with the whole summer internship thing. I'm absolutely certain I haven't gotten any of the ones I applied for, and the idea of facing my mother's almost certain disparaging about it is a truly miserable one, cripplingly miserable in a way I doubt anyone else can understand. The idea of further job searching when I return does not improve the crippling misery on my shoulders when I think of the future.
Regarding My Personal Affairs: I think I've finally run out of things to write about for Ayrios at the moment, and it's damn time; Jillia is still waiting for her piece with Benedict. ^^; On the other hand, I may or may not have contractually obligated myself to writing an Idomu/Nokoru ficthing forcaillen -- I'll have to give this some thought here~! I'm also desperately worried that I'm going to inconvenience the QPQ Dallas game because of my accursed time difference... *prays she can manage for the next few months* But I'm so excited about Bailey and all the other characters sound shiny. I foresee only fun things!
Regarding Planet Ladder:
Tokyopop is really fucking stupid. I just got the opportunity to look over the American release of Planet Ladder 6, and it's not that they got most of the ideas wrong -- on the contrary, the basic format seems largely the same, and simplified in places from my more accurate translation to something that sounds natural. However, consider the following:
Take (a foreigner) addresses Seeu (a prince) with this line: "You aren't alone. As long as you live on, Asu will remain."
In the Tokyopop version, he says: "You not alone, my son. Long as you alive, Asu survive." [SIC]. They actually REPEAT this verbless atrocity on the next page as well.
This volume also marked their acknowledgment that it's a bit difficult to follow a conversation in English when the majority of the page is speech bubbles; you can't know who's saying what. It's easy in the Japanese. There are different pronouns; some people add certain kinds of sentence endings; there are levels of politeness to be observed. But when you translate it to English, everything sounds the same. So the problem is -- how do you make distinctions between characters?
In this volume they decided to customize font. Kaguya has a lower-case kiddy sort of font; Kura's speech is permanently in bold; Bambi has a lower-case no-nonsense businesslike font; Seeu's is stylized, almost calligraphic. While this is annoying at times, I think it's a really good idea overall, pretty smooth too. But here's the catch:
I don't think the people who translate it are the people who put the font in.
So the people who are doing the "typesetting" don't know who's speaking what. They just get lines of text, separated where the different bubbles should be, and have to guess who says it. This sounds like something maybe Seeu says in response to Kura, so I'll assume it's him and put it in his font, even though in actuality it's Kura saying it and Seeu is silent. What was intended to be a reading aid actually just winds up increasing the inaccuracy, thanks to the miracles of, I dunno, bureaucracy?
Final note: They use "Gaviela" for Gavies-as-female -- only to call him "Gabriella" two pages later, because apparently their editors have a mental handicap that causes them to be unable to form short-term memories. They also, in the beginning of the volume, call him Gaviella.
Does nobody actually edit these damn things? Or even read them? Heck, you could have a ten-year-old read them in her spare time and point out some of the more embarrassing errors.
So maybe it's not just Mrs. Whatever-her-name-was' fault.
Final Notes on Hiroshima: They do not understand the concept of "ATM" here . It's supposed to be more convenient than a bank -- not less convenient. And the shinkansen was pure wonderful. We need us some of those. Amtrak, take notes.
Regarding My Future:
alicia250 tells me it's time to start registering for housing back at Albany, and I'm probably going to have to do something about that since circumstances have interfered with my original intentions. The idea of arguing with Albany about dorms while I'm overseas is not pleasant... Especially as I'm behind on paperwork for them already. Also, I'm terribly terribly uneasy with the whole summer internship thing. I'm absolutely certain I haven't gotten any of the ones I applied for, and the idea of facing my mother's almost certain disparaging about it is a truly miserable one, cripplingly miserable in a way I doubt anyone else can understand. The idea of further job searching when I return does not improve the crippling misery on my shoulders when I think of the future.Regarding My Personal Affairs: I think I've finally run out of things to write about for Ayrios at the moment, and it's damn time; Jillia is still waiting for her piece with Benedict. ^^; On the other hand, I may or may not have contractually obligated myself to writing an Idomu/Nokoru ficthing for
caillen -- I'll have to give this some thought here~! I'm also desperately worried that I'm going to inconvenience the QPQ Dallas game because of my accursed time difference... *prays she can manage for the next few months* But I'm so excited about Bailey and all the other characters sound shiny. I foresee only fun things!Regarding Planet Ladder:
Tokyopop is really fucking stupid. I just got the opportunity to look over the American release of Planet Ladder 6, and it's not that they got most of the ideas wrong -- on the contrary, the basic format seems largely the same, and simplified in places from my more accurate translation to something that sounds natural. However, consider the following:
Take (a foreigner) addresses Seeu (a prince) with this line: "You aren't alone. As long as you live on, Asu will remain."
In the Tokyopop version, he says: "You not alone, my son. Long as you alive, Asu survive." [SIC]. They actually REPEAT this verbless atrocity on the next page as well.
This volume also marked their acknowledgment that it's a bit difficult to follow a conversation in English when the majority of the page is speech bubbles; you can't know who's saying what. It's easy in the Japanese. There are different pronouns; some people add certain kinds of sentence endings; there are levels of politeness to be observed. But when you translate it to English, everything sounds the same. So the problem is -- how do you make distinctions between characters?
In this volume they decided to customize font. Kaguya has a lower-case kiddy sort of font; Kura's speech is permanently in bold; Bambi has a lower-case no-nonsense businesslike font; Seeu's is stylized, almost calligraphic. While this is annoying at times, I think it's a really good idea overall, pretty smooth too. But here's the catch:
I don't think the people who translate it are the people who put the font in.
So the people who are doing the "typesetting" don't know who's speaking what. They just get lines of text, separated where the different bubbles should be, and have to guess who says it. This sounds like something maybe Seeu says in response to Kura, so I'll assume it's him and put it in his font, even though in actuality it's Kura saying it and Seeu is silent. What was intended to be a reading aid actually just winds up increasing the inaccuracy, thanks to the miracles of, I dunno, bureaucracy?
Final note: They use "Gaviela" for Gavies-as-female -- only to call him "Gabriella" two pages later, because apparently their editors have a mental handicap that causes them to be unable to form short-term memories. They also, in the beginning of the volume, call him Gaviella.
Does nobody actually edit these damn things? Or even read them? Heck, you could have a ten-year-old read them in her spare time and point out some of the more embarrassing errors.
no subject
In... happier topics, we can work around your schedule for Dallas. ^^ Don't worry! ::hughug:: It'll be fun. ^^
And I really hope you can work out you living arrangements and internship.
It's so annoying when translations are weird. For one of my Sorcerer Hunters volumes, there are a few speech bubbles that just... er... don't have anything written in them. ^^;
If you ever want to talk, IM me whenever I'm online.