• Question: Hi there! By the way, I'm sorry you're turned off Nurarihyon no Mago cause of the fandom (us). Just thought I should say that, 'cause, like...I feel like I should. Anyway. What's it like being a translator? Is it like a job you do 'cause you have the skills and it's like 'why not?' How do you deal with the really hard things to translate? How long have you translated for? Are my questions annoying you? O.o - heiya-san
  • Answer:

    XD; Don’t be sorry. I tend to have a really low tolerance level when it comes to a lot of stuff, like bad grammar and fangirling, so sometimes I feel the need to vent. ANYWAY! I love getting questions, so I don’t mind at all.

    I love how translating helps me to learn new kanji and phrases, as well as both keeping my Japanese from getting rusty and steadily improving it (can I also admit that reading Jump threads on 2ch is really amusing?). All of that is one of the main reasons I translate now, but back when I started (about 8-9 years ago, in high school, hahaha), it was mostly because there was a series I really liked and the official translation (by Viz) had already stopped. I really wanted to know what happened next, and so I ended up trying my hand at translating. I was actually even part of a small scanlation group back then.

    I’ll just admit now that my translating skills were HORRIBLE when I started. XD Soooo horrible. I probably fudged my way through like, half the text because I couldn’t quite figure out what it meant. I also didn’t have access to the amazing resources available now (seriously, we were still shuffling around VHS tapes of anime back in high school, and my source of manga was limited to the likes of Viz’s old days of image-flipping/clothing censorship and Tokyopop).

    As for difficult passages… basically, if I look at some text and can’t figure it out off the bat, I’ll leave it marked in my translation file and come back to it later. It can actually even take me a few days of going back to the same line until I finally get it. Of course, for phrases that seem to make no sense whatsoever (usually fun Japanese metaphors with no English equivalent), I head over to google to look for synonyms or explanations from Japanese websites. 意味 (imi, or “meaning”) is my friend.

    …Also, I talk (type) a lot, apparently.