sfxRain

  • Oct 17, 2019
  • Joined Mar 14, 2018
  • Miya
    Another explanation as a final courtesy:

    The discussion is about choosing one English phrasing that more readers will understand (open discussion), instead of another that fewer readers will understand (currently used), both having effectively similar meanings and tone that preserve the original source material (subject to the interpretation of the translator).

    I have absolutely no idea why you are arguing that we need to preserve the original source material, when I haven't suggested otherwise. This has nothing to do with cultural appropriation.

    And for reference, I am ethnically Chinese. I speak GA/SA English natively, business-level Japanese, and Mandarin as a heritage language. I have experience working with translators and doing localization with my background in linguistics. I don't know why you're so adamant about shutting down criticism, but what you consider nitpicking is literally the task of translation. At this point, it's clear that I'm wasting my time as the translator has already acknowledged the point.

    Miya somebody who can't come up with a respond, and opt to lump

    sfxRain do yourself a favor and make sure you aren't making a fool out of yourself.

    By the way, your quote is from Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence People, not Benjamin Franklin.

    • Miya that implied that I'd have to be from the region to understand it.

      Regional slang refers to slang that originates or is used primarily in a specific region.

      If 'haiz' is used commonly in the majority of English dialects, then it's not regional.
      If it's only used in a handful of regions, it's regional.

      This is a definition, not an opinion.

      I'm not going to respond directly to the rest of your comments because what you are arguing against is completely unrelated to the thread, and the quote you are addressing is making a completely different point i.e. you don't understand what the discussion is about.

      I'm open to constructive disagreements and prefer to remain civil, but if you'd like to leave belittling passive-aggressive remarks instead, do yourself a favor and make sure you aren't making a fool out of yourself.

      • Barewolf
        Thanks for taking a look and responding.

        Agreed. The mentioned portion isn't relevant to the main point, just an aside for the person I was replying to about the flexibility of translation.

        I don't know what 'haiz' sounds like, so I don't know the emotions associated with it as an onomatopoeia. I did more digging and it looks like the expression is also used in the Philippines, so I guess the confusion would mainly be with culturally western English speakers. Pretty interesting.

        Anyway, appreciate your input here and thanks again for your hard work.

        • To clarify, as a linguist with relevant experience, I just like to see improvements in translation quality. If there's specific feedback I think I can give, then I would hope that the translator would take it in a constructive and productive way.

          N0xiety
          The point of the criticism isn't about which word is more accurate. It's about comprehensibility for most English speakers. If the only concern were accuracy, then we'd just use the original raw for complete accuracy.

          In any case, translators aren't restricted to mapping items 1 to 1. In fact, in most cases it ends up producing translation English, where each word of an expression is translated in sequence instead of just rephrasing the whole thing (e.g. "he gave him a face-slapping." vs "he humiliated him.")

          Something to think about (three sentences with varying nuance in Singlish according to a Quora post):

          “This meal is disgusting leh!”
          “This meal is disgusting lor”
          “This meal is disgusting haiz…”

          Would you say that there is no way to rephrase these sentences so they are comprehensible to people who don't understand these terms?

          Daoist_Jie
          Thanks for your perspective. I also enjoy learning about other cultures through language, but is it fair for a product to expect every reader to exit the text to look up terms?

          When a special term has significance, it isn't unusual for an explanation to be given alongside the untranslated term. That situation is a bit different from this one, as 'hais' isn't an especially significant term relevant to the novel.

          This case was just unusually inconvenient as the context (frequently isolated as a single word response) lacks information and external lookup is difficult because most results have a different spelling.

          Miya
          Whether you understand it or not is unrelated to whether something is primarily used regionally. I'm completely open if you have sources that demonstrate 'hais' being used with regular frequency in most other English dialects.

          I am well aware that translators aren't perfect. That's the whole point of feedback.

          • I'm enjoying the novel and appreciate the translation, but I'll get straight to the point:

            Please try to avoid strong regional slang in the translation e.g. 'hais.'

            I had no idea what this was supposed to mean in the given contexts and completely ignored it until its frequent appearance started to bother me. The only plausible explanation I can find is from urban dictionary under 'haiz', describing it as singlish slang for sighing.

            Assuming this is correct:
            For a translation directed at English speakers in general, I would appreciate if you would try to avoid stronger regional terms that only exist in your variety of English. I understand that this may be difficult, but understanding where your variety of English differs from others is an important part of translation and localization.

            Thanks,

            Novel Ask