• Welcome to Touhou Wiki!
  • Registering is temporarily disabled. Check in our Discord server to request an account and for assistance of any kind.

User talk:Doncot

From Touhou Wiki
Jump to navigation Jump to search

Welcome

Welcome to Touhou Wiki! Please enjoy your stay, and we wish you many successful edits.

Check out the most Recent changes to the Wiki, for a good idea on current editing work.
Questions? You can ask at the central discussion page or on the talk page associated with each article, or post a message on my talk page. You can also chat with us directly on IRC in #touhouwiki, at irc.ppirc.net
Need help? The Community Portal has an outline of the site, and pages to help you learn how to edit.
Please sign in every time you edit, so that we can recognize you!
Confused about Wiki editing? We have some general guidelines we like to follow.
Don't forget if you've just created your account, you have to wait 24 hours and make 1 edit before creating articles. See here for more info.

We're glad to have a new member of the community!

KyoriAsh 06:40, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

Response to edit comment on Symposium_of_Post-mysticism/Bunbunmaru_Newspaper_6 page

Regarding the [Symposium of Post-mysticism/Bunbunmaru Newspaper 6 Edit], I think pray for respects is actually better, as it emphasizes the whole "we need faith" concept. Pay respects now that I think of it seems more like visiting someone's grave. --Onteria 17:09, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply. I was a bit worried that I might be overlooking something since I never heard of that idiom. But I was even surprised by myself to make a phrase like "praying of respect" being a pun of the idiom.

Regarding Patchouli

It's probably better I I'll explain the logic of my edits here. As you are probably aware, katakana is sometimes based off of the spelling rather than the pronunciation (I think. The dictionary I used does not provide etymologies). I'll summarize my pronunciation point in a chart. Actually, until now, I didn't realize "knowledge" had three possible katakana.

Name Common Noun English
Spelling Pronunc. Spelling Pronunc. Spelling Pronunc.
パチュリー pa chu rii "pah-choo-lee" パチョリ pa cho ri "pah-choh-lee" patchouli "pach-oo-lee"
ノーレッジ no- re-ji, "no-ledge" ナレッジ, ノリッジ, ノレッジ nare-ji "naw-lij", nori-ji "no-leej", nore-ji "noh-lij" knowledge "nol-ij"

If we are mentioning English pronunciation, it may be worth mentioning that Patchouli sounds closer to English (perhaps not really, dunno). I don't know what to make of "knowledge" other than ZUN electing to choose a form that does not match the English pronunciation, which is weird considering his choice for "Patchouli". As for "Pache", only canon uses should be listed. Any other use does not belong in that section. - Kiefmaster99 (talk) 06:31, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

>which is weird considering his choice for "Patchouli"
Hmm? Looks like I'm not following this. For you information the foreign load words used today in Japan are spelled in katakana by a certain tacit rule which we think will sound best to a native Japanese ear. So it's really hard to describe why which words would be spelled to which words to a non-native (like English's spelling rules are so difficult to understand even from an Indo-European language speaker view who doesn't speak English). For "knowledge", ナレッジ (narejji) would be the most closest to the English (this will give back the most number when googled), but to in my opinion ナレッジ doesn't sound like a person's name, it sounds like too foreign and has a smell of a modern-ness which will be not suitable for her. Incidentally, in her Nicopedia page it says >knowledgeの発音はナレッジに近いのだがツッコんだら負け。("the pronunciation of 'knowledge' is closer to ナレッジ 'narejji' but it's a lose in the game if you make a fuss"). For "Patchouli" like I had mentioned in the deleted edit, パチョリ sounds weird and funny for a Japanese ear, so I think the reason why he chose is obvious.
And come to think of it while writing this sentence, I think it would be best to write something like "ZUN chose a non English type spelling and the reason is unknown", and don't write incorrect on the page, since all of them are technically correct (the reason which made me to start the edit).--Doncot (talk) 07:53, 3 June 2012 (UTC)
Okay then. As a non-speaker I can't comment on names sounding natural, so I can't counter that claim. But if you think this is likely the case, then sure. In any case, if the reason is unknown, then only the fact that he chose a non-English spelling could be mentioned.- Kiefmaster99 (talk) 15:57, 3 June 2012 (UTC)
Fair enough. And looks like you and Prime have already made the change, which looks fine for me. By the way, the reason I included パチリー ("Patcheli") is because there have been tons of guys mistaken her name in that manner in the Jpn-community, and always causing a fuss about a primary~ secondary~ kind of thing. So thought it might be a trivia (to tell the truth it's just because I found it in the Nicopedia page of her, hehe)--Doncot (talk) 21:26, 3 June 2012 (UTC)
Ah, was that why? I have never ever seen that mistake ever made (probably because Pacheli is nonsensical in English), but would still not include it for the aforementioned reason (we merely inform; we don't go denouncing UNL even though it's incorrect). - Kiefmaster99 (talk) 06:02, 4 June 2012 (UTC)
>probably because Pacheli is nonsensical in English
That would be the answer.
Well, please just forget it. It was making a joke from our local community, wasn't it meant to be here in the first place.--Doncot (talk) 12:13, 4 June 2012 (UTC)
Wait, why are you calling the パチュリー spelling "non-English"? That's precisely how it's pronounced in English (at least regarding the チョ/チュ part, I won't comment on which vowels should be prolonged and which shouldn't, as it's outside the scope of my competence). What it's not is how the Japanese word for the plant known in English as patchouli is spelled, but that's a different thing entirely, don't mix up the two. YouDoNotHavePermissionToEditOurSecretEliteWikiWithoutAnAccountHurr (talk) 19:10, 5 June 2012 (UTC)
(Wow, what a name)
Ah yes, you're right. Not being careful.--Doncot (talk) 06:53, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

豚乙女 『丁か半か色即是空』

Hey, thanks for the added reference / title swap. I wasn't sure how to phrase that but it's good that someone else already went through the trouble of figuring out crazy Buddhist phrases... Shearscape (talk) 14:40, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

No prob.--Doncot (talk) 18:03, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

Just saw that edit of yours. First of all, this has already been discussed in Talk:Yuurei and people insisted 幽霊 and 霊 are separate terms. Second of all, if you want to equate them, you have my support - but only under the name "spirit", because that's what 幽霊 (as described by ZUN) are and that's what 霊 translates to. "Phantom" is just a placeholder chosen because more fitting terms were already in use. YouDoNotHavePermissionToEditOurSecretEliteWikiWithoutAnAccountHurr (talk) 07:40, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

Um, sorry looks like there's a misunderstanding here (mostly because of the brief comment I made there). For 霊 used solely, I always translate it to "spirit" and have no concerns about it. My concern was about the compound words; specifically 念縛霊 and 地縛霊 that I had problems translating at the Murasa's article. As you can see both of these words use 霊, but they are types of yuurei (幽霊) in sense of both normal Japanese and Touhou terms (in my opinion at least). So I thought it would be better if I'll translate them to whatsoever-phantom (moreover 地縛霊 is a word that has a specific concept, and I found after googling that there are terms such as "restligeists" and "residual haunting" that correspond to it in English, and I wanted some English-native speakers to confirm whether they're relevant or not). --Doncot (talk) 11:41, 12 July 2012 (UTC)
"Thought-bound" is an odd term - you'd generally use "restless spirit/ghost" to describe an entity like that, or maybe "lingering ghost". As for "restligeist", I've never even seen that word before; maybe it's common in German but not in English. Calling her a "ship haunt" might also work. --Prime32 (talk) 13:24, 12 July 2012 (UTC)
Hmm, "lingering spirit/ghost/phantom" could go for 念縛霊, I think (not very accurate but still matches the context there). And about 地縛霊, do you have a concept in English as a ghost specifically bound to a certain location and cannot leave there?--Doncot (talk) 13:54, 12 July 2012 (UTC)
I'm not sure if there's a term for being attached to a place specifically; more that an "earthbound spirit" has attachments which are usually a place. You could call a being like that a "haunt", as long as you add something to it (eg. "ship haunt") - "haunt" on its own sounds vague enough to be something you'd call a being that haunts things but you haven't discerned the species of. --Prime32 (talk) 14:18, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

Half-breeds

Re: the recent "half-phantom" edits. The Japanese text may say "half-human half-phantom", but that level of clinical accuracy sounds weird in English - if one half isn't specified, the other is assumed to be human. Eg. in The Lord of the Rings, Elrond was called "Half-elven" even by other elves, who would have seen the elven half as the more normal one. Similar for orcs. Likewise, "half-phantom" could mean "a being who is halfway a phantom" or "half of a phantom", but could not be confused with "phantom half" ("a half which is a phantom"). --Prime32 (talk) 22:13, 14 July 2012 (UTC)

Well in any case, ZUN specifically uses the term "half-human half-phantom" (半人半霊) to refer to her uniquely designed species, so we can't just simply drop them like that in translations, since the whole phrase is a proper noun (this phrase is NOT a description, but a technical term used in the Touhou world). Even if it sounds weird in English, it really isn't the point, because it sounds odd in Japanese too (as a general term). As such, we call Elrond as a half-elf (半エルフ) as well, and in terms of Touhou we call Rinnosuke as "half-youkai" (半妖) or "human-youkai" (人妖) and never "?half-youkai half-human" (?半人半妖). And also we (including ZUN) call the half phantom part "half-phantom" (半霊) in the Japanese community, so it would be a bad idea to translate/refer "half-human half-phantom" as "half-phantom". And "phantom half" (could be translated to 霊半分) is more of a description than a term so it also will be not making much sense to be the translation of 半霊.--Doncot (talk) 23:07, 14 July 2012 (UTC)

Sanae's SA extra stage line

While I like your effort, I don't think the new translation works as well as the prior one. >You ought to dump common sense here in Gensyokyo right!? The use of 'dump', combined with 'here', sounds like she is releasing common sense in Gensokyo, rather than the intended meaning of "get rid of". The prior translation "can't let yourself be trapped" does a pretty good job in English IMO, regardless of how literal it sounds, and is memetic enough to spread to multiple pages of Google. Combine with the SJIS for added effect. - Kiefmaster99 (talk) 03:06, 28 July 2012 (UTC)

Not that I'm fully convinced, but I've reverted back that line anyway as a response to your claim.--Doncot (talk) 03:23, 28 July 2012 (UTC)

Re: Re: Subterranean Hatred translated translation pages?

Yes, I understand I came out as cross and spoiled, like I already mentioned, but ignorance can be quite frustrating to those who value knowledge. I did not know the system worked like that...I assumed that adept translators on this site finds an untranslated page, and translates it.^^;. Once again, I apologize for the way I presented the issue, and hope that someone else will get the interest eventually... ...or just my knowledge expanding. I could make sense of a few lines, so we have that. At the very least fragments of it is translated.^^; Risanderu Yumikozuki (talk) 12:17, 22 October 2012 (EDT)

Responce to the posts on 4chan

>https://boards.4chan.org/jp/res/10398329
>i wonder what he will think of all this
To be honest, I am relieved to see this. I hadn't received any criticism about my edits after Nue's article in SoPM (except the poyo lyrics, which I thought was solved). So I was unsure whether my edits were considered as "problematic but tolerable" or simply "totally unacceptable but not manifested". I was hoping to be helpful here to provide more accurate translation, since I thought "being awkward but correct" was better than "sounds natural but incorrect", which I thought was logical because while there's a few dozen of translators who're native speakers of English (who'd be able to reword it more naturally, but impossible to figure out the mistranslation), apparently I was the only Japanese taking part in the translation in the wiki. For instance, I still see some problems in the reverted lines in this page, like "さっきのメイドは人間だったのか" to "Was that maid really human?" (it lacks the question mark so it can't be an interrogative) and "なかなか出来るわね" to "So you're strong, then" (acceptable but very liberal. Being "strong" has nothing to do with her being weak to sunlight and not being able to go outside. But it answers to the line before that, so it could work, more or less I guess). But in any case, if my edits were being a nuisance creating "disaster", I'll be ceasing to take part in all translation activity. Feel free to revert any of my edits as well (not that you will need my permission in the first place though lol).
Yours sincerely.
P.S. I swear to God that I haven't used machine translation in any of my edits (at least not in ja-to-en and en-to-ja). But that just proves my English was horrible in the first place huh?--Doncot (talk) 22:25, 24 January 2013 (EST)

Hah, I'm sorry was I so astoundingly aggressive in my posts. I appreciate the fact that you're being very open about things.
The issue is that as I've said, translations should read like EN-5, not JA-5 EN-1 or EN-2. Generally speaking, translation isn't supposed to be a line-by-line conversion of text from one language to another. It's supposed to convey the meaning of the original work in the new language. Of course, it's usually better to go with "more similar" than "less similar" but, but not at the cost of comprehensibility.
A lot of translators have put a lot of work into the translations, and even if their Japanese may not be as good as yours, their English and translation experience is higher. Frequently this work consists of taking an awkward construction, or adding words that weren't in the original to emphasize a point that wouldn't be clear to English speakers. For example, "I'm a perfectly normal shrine maiden." The word "perfectly" was deliberately added because the line in English didn't carry the same emphasis. Removing it in the name of "literalism" is not an improvement (and you didn't do that, Tosiaki did, but the point stands). It may be instantly clear what "Well, then they're only worth that much" means to a Japanese speaker due to what "that much" means in Japanese, but to an English speaker this would be confusing. That sort of thing.
I have retained your contributions in some places, since there are places where you have been more faithful to the original text. For example, the "しかも理由が分からない" had the wrong subject.
>I'll be ceasing to take part in all translation activity.
That might be overkill. There are places where I can see (or at least to me it looks like) your knowledge of Japanese language or culture has been informative. However, your English is... it's not terrible, but it's certainly not at the level where it's not going to sound awkward and stilted.
For material that haven't been translated at all, I would encourage you to continue. A semi-literal translation is better than no translation. It's when you correct natural-sounding, faithful English into things like "for those kinds, you can have for dinner," in the name of literalism that people are going to get frustrated.
>なかなか出来るわね
I'm considering moving that back to the way it was, but it might end up confusing.
>Then they're not worth much.
Maybe that could be, "I guess that's how much they're worth, then."
>"Was that maid really human?" (it lacks the question mark so it can't be an interrogative)
The question mark is there to convey doubt. It's not really an interrogation as such. Remilia could just ignore the question and it wouldn't be out of the ordinary to anyone.
With respect to to character articles and pretty much all the articles that aren't the text of canon material, feel free to edit as much as you like. However, if you're going to modify an old translation, I would suggest that you post on the talk page about it (and then paste the "potential change, discuss in talk page" box to the top of the page, since nobody reads the talk page.)
Few people would complain about the quality of your translation if it were the first available translation. It isn't particularly bad. However, you're not writing a new translation, you're making considerable changes to a translation that a lot of people had already considered in what was already more or less a "final form." It's not better just because it's older, but reversing a long-standing decision to value natural English and comprehensibility over perfect fidelity without consulting people first is going to irritate people, especially if the replacement contains some obvious flaws.
And even if your English was better than it was, a real problem is that you simply don't have a good command of what contributes to tone, style, or nuance in the English language, the things that really separate a native speaker from one who's just fluent, so you may not understand why people made the editorial decisions that they did and identify them as mistakes rather than deliberate choices.
Largely copied from 4chan response. AbyssNova (talk) 23:12, 24 January 2013 (EST)
Thanks for responding and , yes I totally agree you of the idea of "translation is about removing awkwardness"
The problem that I had was "how much literal would it be to be unacceptable, and how much would be not?"
I was completely lost in astray by this, because there wasn't much feedback to judge whether the translation was acceptable or not.
This may be just a total excuse, but lots of books I've read about translations advises that after you've done translating, you should get ANOTHER native speaker who HAVEN'T seen the original text to review the work, simply because knowing the original text will cause the translator to misjudge the awkwardness EVEN in his mother tongue (frankly speaking, there were quite of translation that were just written poorly and awkward even from my view, setting aside translation errors)
So what I did was to write the translation leaning towards the "accurate side", risking some awkwardness to be included, and hoping for somebody who has a decent English writing skill to reword the questionable lines afterward (well it's not that I can provide a complete liberal version of it, but you know what I mean). And I wasn't quite aware that the EoSD lines are settled, sorry 'bout that.
Looking at the criticism I had received, I'll be refraining from that manner and will remember your advice as well.
>"Was that maid really human?" (it lacks the question mark so it can't be an interrogative)
The question mark is there to convey doubt. It's not really an interrogation as such.
I don't think it's even conveying doubt though. "Was that maid really human?" would be translated in Japanese as "さっきのメイドは本当に人間だった?"; using the "のか" particles suggests Reimu is speaking just to herself and not to Remilia (which is why I find "Was that maid really human?" is unnatural, because I wouldn't use that when somebody is talking to yourself. Hence, "So she was a maid." sounds perfectly normal to me).

--Doncot (talk) 00:12, 25 January 2013 (EST)