Post by Rickalick87 in TianHeHui comments

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The art is gorgeous, but the literal translation is painful to read.

Also the first act is a horrible drag, it's just one info dump after another about the most boring parts of the lore that could be explained later and more organically. It doesn't help, of course, that it's all delivered in what feels like a poor machine translation.

Add to that the fact this VN essentially has two opening acts, due to starting with a flashback sequence, and you get a very-very boring beginning for a story.

I hope it picks up later.

EDIT: It does get better, writing-wise, and the translation gets much-much better. Hopefully they can get around to reworking these earlier amateurish chapters sooner rather than later.

Taleunder44428 days ago (2 edits) (+1)

Apologies, this was in the early heydays of my translation. i gave it to editor to improve, but lack of experience did cause some issues, and he translated parts far too literal. I can't do too much to change that it's two opening act, but we will try and make the writing a little more bearable.

The story is slow burn, but will pick up. It is also because it is the writer's first time into FVN, so he wasn't able to balance pacing well. But he improves on writing, as am I in translation the more we expermient, learn and write on this. Trust me on that.

thanks for the feedback on it. We have putten love and passion into this project, and critcism like this allow us to recognize our flaws to improve on.

Rickalick8728 days ago (1 edit) (+1)

Oh hey, thanks for a reply!

It's nice to see that you care, I hope you can eventually figure something out here. This is the opening act after all, it's very important, because it creates the initial impression of your project. You never get to make the first impression twice.

Btw, I've been in your situation before, except we were trying to get our project translated into Chinese language - none of us knew Chinese, none of us knew anyone who could speak Chinese. The first translation was a robot translation that could be barely understood, then we hired someone who claimed to be a translation service, but made things only worse - pretty much everything was laughably wrong, and our Chinese fans kept making fun of all the mistakes.

In the end, a Chinese fan who could speak English(and therefore understood the original text properly) stepped forward and offered his help with the translations, and his work ended up fixing the issue completely, the Chinese fans were finally happy. Maybe ask your western fans, if someone who can understand your original writing could take a look at the text?

Taleunder44428 days ago (2 edits) (+1)

I will consider your advice. Understand, it's my first time in translation, especially for chapter one, and I was overconfident in my ability. The more i translate, the more I improve to I think what is a credited spot, and you should see that in future chapters. Your concern has been taken before by serious readers, and they've given similar feedback. Which is why I got another Chinese-English speaker for editing. Unfortunately, overtrust instead of foresight of what inexpeirence could lead to, lead the result of what could be minor changes for translation, into now days of re-editing again, with most being chapter 1.

I have my fair share of media reading, so I am confident that my translation for the final time will be great. However, I will consider to take in someone western so that they may make decent changes to some minor details, and make the story feel more interesting to read. The over exposition is something I cannot change, and the writer hasn't got the time for that, nor will it be easy, so the structure is stuck as it is. So we do what we can for translation, and as will the writer in future chapters, to keep the pacing a bit more fairer (still slow burn, he enjoys that quite a bit, as well as lore and knowledge dump at times). At least that's something I can do.

It will be a while though. i know you're not impressed on first impression, but trust me, the entire team, both English and Chinese did put in heart in trying to make the Chinese work shine in western world, and anything we can try and improve on is the best we can do.

p.s. prior to this, it was grammar mistakes, but quirky english translation that can be understand well, and enjoyable at times. I intend to bring a degree of that back in the final iteration, as something that's unqiue to this. We did not use machine, inexperience is what happened, and we seldom got things like this from fans until now.

Rickalick8728 days ago(+2)

Oh, I've actually gotten quite far already and I must admit, you were right, the translation became dramatically better, good job! I'm genuinely impressed at your growth, it couldn't have been easy!

I am so happy I can now judge the writing in good faith without feeling like I'm punching down. Though I'll wait till the story is over, of course.

Anyway, thank you for the chat and I wish you luck with your project, I can see now you're doing your best and don't need any more of my nagging.

Taleunder44428 days ago(+1)

A nagging tells us that we're not perfect, and much we can improve on. And no matter how you judge, good or bad, mediocre or hate, we will move on. Because we are confident, knowing we're doing the right thing by doing the hard thing, the believable thing, and the precise thing.

I enjoy your feedback, and I hope you enjoy not only this story, but future stories from here and other vns.

foxotcw25 days ago

I am enjoying this conversation, and it gives me confidence that this VN is definitely worth reading.

As long as the meaning is clear and the writing flows well, I usually prefer translations that keep some of the quirks and idiom of the original language. I’m glad that you aren’t planning to make your characters sound like Americans or Brits!

itch.io

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