To all S48 blog translators - blog translation journal?

[ruru]

Hi I also translate blog on my blog.

I did no3b, akicha, yukarin and suuchan.


I hope I can help.

[suki-gin]

...Wasamin doesn't have a blog but I'll put you down for Shiichan then.

Thank you for your efforts, loveandcoffee, it is always appreciated!
Shiichan's blog will be fun to translate
If at any point Wasamin does get her blog, is it possible to place "dibs" on it?

[joooooooooe]

i also think it would help readers if they knew the skill level of the translator...

Yeah, I was thinking about that too. Any suggestion on how to sort it out? A disclaimer or something?

Maybe a quick blurb on the translator's profile when you click on their name, or something like that. "Studied for xxx years, JLPT xxx, etc."
Translation's not particularly easy, especially if you're trying to capture emotions, so it's not gonna be the be-all end-all, but at least it's something to go on.

- Sato Amina
- Oya Shizuka
- Wasamin (not sure if Wasamin has a blog?.... ^^; )

Amina is already taken and Wasamin doesn't have a blog but I'll put you down for Shiichan then.[/quote]
If suki-gin wants to take care of Amina's blog I'm all for it. I can work on someone else's blog. The reason why I started translating is because I relied on the community to provide me entertaining material to study from, and I thought I'd give back. I initially chose Satou Amina's because no one translated hers at the time.

I guess I'll just wait and pick from the ones when it's all said and done. =)

[Gobolino]

If there is any chance to "attach" a little icon to the name of the translator directly in the post, then we can use "level bars" and a...mmmm... division in 10 or so... because even if my translation will be the poorests ones, I CAN get them to work if I have the time and a little help from someone in the spanish AKBsanjou that promised me to teach me Japanese because she will start learning japanese in the academy this year and I hope she doesn't forget what she said... ¬¬ ... but I will have no chance of JPL or JPT or whatever.

← I mean, as the "Stars" in S48...

[AikyiTaizne]

Maybe a quick blurb on the translator's profile when you click on their name, or something like that. "Studied for xxx years, JLPT xxx, etc."
Translation's not particularly easy, especially if you're trying to capture emotions, so it's not gonna be the be-all end-all, but at least it's something to go on.

If you did that, you would also have to include English proficiency =/
Because even if you have a high Japanese comprehension level or whatever, it doesn't mean you can effectively translate it directly into English

Also I've never really "studied" Japanese, maybe 1 year and I've never done any JLPT either, so I don't know how I would be able to provide information for those sections ><

[suki-gin]

If suki-gin wants to take care of Amina's blog I'm all for it. I can work on someone else's blog. The reason why I started translating is because I relied on the community to provide me entertaining material to study from, and I thought I'd give back. I initially chose Satou Amina's because no one translated hers at the time.

I guess I'll just wait and pick from the ones when it's all said and done. =)

If you are still okay with doing Amina's blog and would like to continue doing so, I have no qualms whatsoever. I agree with being able to give back to the community, the bonus is being able to improve my Japanese while doing so. On page one Amina's blog wasn't bolded when I checked, so it was a mistake on my part to assume no one was translating it.
In short, if you would like to continue that is okay with me. If you feel that it is too much, I wouldn't mind helping out.
Hopefully that made sense?

As AikyiTaizne said, I too, am not sure of my JLPT related abilities.

[Llewella]

A team page where each translator can explain in a few lines his abilities and limitations wouldn't be enough ?

In my case, I am average in both Japanese (between N3 and N2) and English (no precise idea) ... So the final result can sometimes be below average, with imprecisions and maybe occasional misunderstanding.

[Gobolino]

Wouldn't it be better to put a number or a qualification to that and mark it right in the blog?, I mean... It would be simpler and easier than clicking all translator profiles before reading the translations.
And doing it on a dairy basis to see "if something has changed".

On the other hand, Would it be good to put a "Rate" system to each translation entry?, maybe in that form it will be very easy to catch at first glance what translations need to be improved and which ones are "as good as can be expected".

No?

[joooooooooe]

If you are still okay with doing Amina's blog and would like to continue doing so, I have no qualms whatsoever.

If you want to, go ahead. I was inspired because a fan from here wrote a message on a chalkboard saying "We love Amina" when AKB48 was leaving Singapore and she literally stopped and took a photo and blogged about it. The fan requested a translation from someone, and something like ファンのボードので感動します was translated as "I was moved by fans at the border" instead of "I was moved by the board made by a fan."

As I have no real tie to Satou Amina, if you really want to you can translate her blog and I can work on someone else's.

JLPT level was just a thought... I mean, you can only do so much to describe your level. Even if you pass JLPT N1 you might not be able to understand certain blogs because there is no slang in N1. I just thought that a subjective blurb written by the translator would at least help the reader get a feel of the translator's skill. You could write "recreational studier for 2 years, can understand manga with a dictionary," something like that. A team page would work the same as well.

Rating translations is a bit spotty, because from my experience with anime fansubs, people make subjective opinions based on how well the English sounds (and to some extent, how pretty the font looks!) instead of how accurate it is.

The focus is, of course, to help people get the same information out of the blog as the Japanese version, so I think we shouldn't go *too* overboard on translation qualifications. Just a simple heads up would be nice.

[IndigoSkies]

I don't think people would care enough to check people's experience level daily. It's not the kind of thing you change daily anyway XD And I don't think a rating system would work that well. I'd assume that a lot of the readers are reading translations because they don't know Japanese, or because it saves them the time it takes to read the Japanese entries. Either way, if you're not reading the original, I don't think you'd be able to tell if a translation is "bad" or not.
I think just having one page listing everyone's experience, or a page for each translator, is enough. Just to give you a general idea. Everyone has their own ways of learning/translating, so I don't think it's something you can easily put a number to. I've been studying Japanese for six years, but I've never even looked at the JLPT, so I have no idea what rank I'd be XD;

[aihime]

I see that Myao's blog is still open, so I'll volunteer to translateit .

I'm a native Japanese speaker (albeit not as profficient as I should be) although I'm a better English speaker. I'm doing translating work over the summer (from English to Japanese and vice-versa).

[Gobolino]

Rating translations is a bit spotty, because from my experience with anime fansubs, people make subjective opinions based on how well the English sounds (and to some extent, how pretty the font looks!) instead of how accurate it is.

The focus is, of course, to help people get the same information out of the blog as the Japanese version, so I think we shouldn't go *too* overboard on translation qualifications. Just a simple heads up would be nice.

*of course I was talking about Honolable Latings *

But even if "other stuff" gets in the middle, it will help to see which posts have "problems" in the "Amina" thing style you mentioned.

[AikyiTaizne]

We're not going to have someone reading through all the entries just to check for mistakes and rating each one, that's ridiculous.

Not to mention, the readers can't rate them because the readers aren't going to understand what the real blog said anyways.

[Gobolino]

Ok...

but I was taken it as a cooperation between us. Not that everyone will have to read both the blogs and the translations...

ahhh, anyway.

[joooooooooe]

Some people will feel offended, especially if they consider the corrector's Japanese or English to be worse than theirs, so I'd rather that not happen and avoid all the drama.

I guess I'll handle Shinoda Mariko. We're the closest in age anyway.

[Mr Waffle]

Well I had a look at wordpress, seems easy enough (I think all I have to do is set it up, users registered on it can alter it from there) so have you decided on a name? (I'm partial to "blog48" for its simplicity, but whatever)

Or if you want to still put it on LJ or team up with akbjournal or whatever. It's up to you guys but I'm happy to set up the wordpress thing and have it like the wiki, studio48 etc.

Now I want to rename the wiki to "wiki48" or something...

[gekophetweb]

^ either of the 3 sounds good to me but if I had to choose, I prefer it being here.
(it would be stage48-> all the information you need about xxx48 )

[strawberryjam]

Regarding joining with akbjournal:
I think it's a good thing to join together, regardless of whatever domain the site ends up on.
One problem technically though, is that I noticed the girls' publish date is pasted in the entries. Unless they're put there with a custom field, it's going to be trouble! For example, when there's a page sorted by girl published date, if the post doesn't have one, then it simply won't show at all. That means we'd have to add the date to some 4,000 entries...

Hosting:
Mr. Waffle, I'm wondering what was the problem with the hosting awhile back. Wordpress will take a decent amount of resources. And with the amount of translators going on, the database is going to get really big really fast. Not sure if it would be possible to host pictures on the server either since it would be a lot of pictures!

And does anyone know PHP? I don't know a lot. I worked with a partner on blog!project and he added many of the features. I will have to ask him if he's OK with me using some of the code here. Either way, in the future, I won't be able to commit a lot of time to this site so it would be nice to find another person.

[Mr Waffle]

Hosting:
Mr. Waffle, I'm wondering what was the problem with the hosting awhile back. Wordpress will take a decent amount of resources. And with the amount of translators going on, the database is going to get really big really fast. Not sure if it would be possible to host pictures on the server either since it would be a lot of pictures!

And does anyone know PHP? I don't know a lot. I worked with a partner on blog!project and he added many of the features. I will have to ask him if he's OK with me using some of the code here. Either way, in the future, I won't be able to commit a lot of time to this site so it would be nice to find another person.

Hmm, I see...

So, how about that livejournal, ey? (I use LJ so actually that's a fine option for me... )

[strawberryjam]

Uh oh, sorry! I only meant I would be able to help a lot now. But I run a lot of sites, so I can't stay for long term. Like I said, I could help set it up. But at the very least, someone else is going to need to be around just in case something breaks later and to monitor things in general.

I guess hosting is a problem. I wish I could offer to host the site, but with an addition of this, I'd probably need dedicated hosting which is a lot of money. If you don't want to join akbjournal, then I guess LJ is the option. Or you can get your own hosting too, of course.

[Mr Waffle]

Oh sorry, I wasn't talking specifically to you, but to the thread...

[loveandcoffee]

Looking at all the "translation quality rating" discussion, Indigo and Llewella's idea seems the best one for me:

I think just having one page listing everyone's experience, or a page for each translator, is enough. Just to give you a general idea.

Also because as some people pointed out, not everyone here is a mothertongue English speaker. So, in my case, even if I'm very fluent in Japanese, I often fail at putting it into correct English, so that'd put me lower than someone who knows Japanese a little less than me but is fluent in English, y'know? XD

(I'm partial to "blog48" for its simplicity, but whatever)

Actually, me too. Maybe I'll create a poll for the name.
Thanks for checking on wp! I'm a little more inclined to have it here actually. XD

Not sure if it would be possible to host pictures on the server either since it would be a lot of pictures!

But if each translator had his/her own photobucket/imageshack/whatever account that'd save a lot of resources. (More or less like the forum galleries)

In case installing wp and hosting the blog here is a problem, though, I can set up a LJ community in no time. Let me know.

I guess I'll handle Shinoda Mariko. We're the closest in age anyway.

Okay. So who's handling Amina in the end, you or suki-gin?

I see that Myao's blog is still open, so I'll volunteer to translateit .

Thanks a lot ! added!

Creating the poll now, make sure you all vote XD!

[gekophetweb]

if the blogsite needs some maintenance or php programming or database modifications I could help with that.

[suki-gin]

@joooooooooe & loveandcoffee
Okay, I'll be doing Amina's blog as well then~
---
Blog48 has a nice ring to it, thank you for allowing the voting option.

As for my current capabilities,
English is my Mother Tongue. Afrikaans my second
Japanese listening comprehension is my stronger point at this time.
Reading comprehension generally becomes easier if I read it aloud, but it is otherwise manageable.

[AikyiTaizne]

Looks to be an overwhelming victory for blog48 o-o

I'm fine with working on either livejournal or wordpress since I've done both before, so whichever one is better for you guys will be fine. Livejournal might be a good idea since lac knows how to work with it and we don't need someone extremely technical to help us through with too much.

Of course, we have DO have someone technical... then we have a decision to make x-x