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[WIP - Full] Virgin's Protection Magic Translation (v 0.82 released 23/07/2017)


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habisain said:
OK, so I've reached a milestone which to be honest, I didn't want to reach. It's now 1 year since the previous release, which kinda sucks. Never mind, update time:

1) Screenshots: Were going to be in this update, but I've spotted a few issues I need to take care of. Because I want the next batch of screenshots to be indicative of the final version, I'm omitting them.
2) JapeTrans: I'm currently getting JapeTrans - the new tooling for the patch - into a state where it can reliably run on other peoples computes. This includes (amongst other things) getting it so that it can actually patch a full game. My current dev tools are held together with prayers and shell scripts, which isn't ideal.
3) Editing: Actually going pretty well, all things considered.

I am planning to set aside a good chunk of time next week to work on this, so hopefully I'll have something to show for that. Previous attempts to set aside time have not gone well, but this tie I'm feeling more confident. And now, a quick query of people awaiting the translation:

イく (Iku) in H-SFX is normally translated as "I'm cumming". Needless to say, it's a pretty blunt translation, and while accurate, isn't something that's naturally said in English. A more natural expression, insofar as calling sex-moans "natural speech" would be "Yes", "Oh God", "Fuck", or something similar. I'm currently thinking of swapping to using a more naturalised translation, especially given that VPM does take this particular thing up to eleven with lines like "イくっ！　イくイくイくイく、イくっ、イッちゃうよぉ～～～～～～！". Perhaps surprisingly, I'm leaning towards using more swears here - Brigit already has a bit of a potty mouth in some of the sex scenes (this is unambiguous - she uses ふっく, which is the transliteration of Fuck), and this would be a good way of adding in a bit more character.

So, any thoughts on this? If it's a salve to those who like Japanese-style SFX, I'm considering making a second version of the patch that uses the more literal SFX versions as well.
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Honestly? I dont mind if the SFX were left as is, it shouldnt be something that keeps anyone awake at night and specially if you are used to japanese games and dojins.
If you wanna do it, knock yourself out but I believe its something that wont change the enjoyment of the game.
 
Confucius say:

Everyone say they not care about H-SFX, then when it's done wrong they complain.
 
Sue Nami said:
Confucius say:

Everyone say they not care about H-SFX, then when it's done wrong they complain.
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That, or is this a chicken-and-egg situation? I totally get why people say that it doesn't bother them because they'll be skimming sex scene dialogue anyway, but is the reason that they'll be skimming sex scene dialogue because in other translations it's awkwardly written - possibly because it was too literal?

I mean, I'm not advocating for one moment that the sex scene dialogue in VPM is a universally good example; RoL scenes in particular tend to have structural problems inherent from their nature, and the same problems are replicated in a number of other scenes. However, off the top of my head there's at least one sex scene that contains some plot info, and also quite a few that have some jokey bits in which are probably worth reading - some scenes probably will get a grin, at least. I wouldn't want people to be skimming them with the expectation that they're poorly written due to me following the fairly atrocious prior handling of SFX translations.
 
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Well, personally I'm fine for both option. Some thing aren't really realistic, but that's what you see in all fan made translation (and even official translation) so you get used to it (or if you don't you skip the H text ?).

But honestly, I think thing are easier here : this is YOUR translation, fan made without any need to stick to game owner demand. So translate as you want it be.
That or aim for what the community want, but whatever you chose you'll make happy AND unhappy guys.

So, in my opinion, between the 2 choice here, go for the one you prefer.
 
habisain said:
That, or is this a chicken-and-egg situation? I totally get why people say that it doesn't bother them because they'll be skimming sex scene dialogue anyway, but is the reason that they'll be skimming sex scene dialogue because in other translations it's awkwardly written - possibly because it was too literal?

I mean, I'm not advocating for one moment that the sex scene dialogue in VPM is a universally good example; RoL scenes in particular tend to have structural problems inherent from their nature, and the same problems are replicated in a number of other scenes. However, off the top of my head there's at least one sex scene that contains some plot info, and also quite a few that have some jokey bits in which are probably worth reading - some scenes probably will get a grin, at least. I wouldn't want people to be skimming them with the expectation that they're poorly written due to me following the fairly atrocious prior handling of SFX translations.
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We're talking about sound effects. SOUND effects. The entire point is that they are supposed to be sounds. If they aren't sounds then there's no chicken and egg effect, they just aren't sounds, like they're supposed to be. There's no other conclusion to be drawn here and DEFINITELY no chickens or eggs.
 
Just wanted to chime in and say that I don't think that there's much of a chicken-egg thing going on here. Some people just don't like reading H-scene text, at least judging by what I gathered by spending way too many hours discussing HRPGs with people on the internet.

I'm personally someone for whom a game lives or dies based on the H-scene dialogue and I wouldn't want to miss a single word of a single sentence in a game I really like, but some people I've talked to just hold ctrl or jerk it on a random point at scenes just looking at the CG.

On the question of whether to use the 'traditional' "I'm cumming" or more natively english sounding sfx I'd say it depends strongly on the character. I personally haven't touched the game in a long time and I also stopped before any actual sex happnened in order not to spoil the fun until the full translation so I don't really know much about MC's ero personality but if she uses "fuck" anyway then I don't really see a reason not to use it here too, but I would definitely prefer it if the translation would mostly be indicative of what she actually says, or to express it another way if you would just translate "IKUUU" as "FUUUCK" then I think it would first of all sound strange to me as someone who speaks english as their second language, having "grown up" with the traditional "I'm cumming" for Japanese media and second it would lose an element of meaning (and eroticism) since a character might just say fuck without cumming.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that if you're doing a non-literal translation please do one that carries over the meaning of the spoken words even if they are not the exact same.
 
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Regarding the chicken/egg comment: As I said before, I'm totally fine with people who don't read H-scene dialogue. That's their choice, after all. My hypothesis is whether or not those people who say they don't read H-scene dialogue because it's badly written would read H-scene dialogue if it was written with a better translation.

But the main reason I'm talking about what I'm doing now is to try and avert the rather heated debate that occurred with one of the previous major translation editing decisions.

Nyanyanyan said:
On the question of whether to use the 'traditional' "I'm cumming" or more natively english sounding sfx I'd say it depends strongly on the character. I personally haven't touched the game in a long time and I also stopped before any actual sex happnened in order not to spoil the fun until the full translation so I don't really know much about MC's ero personality but if she uses "fuck" anyway then I don't really see a reason not to use it here too, but I would definitely prefer it if the translation would mostly be indicative of what she actually says, or to express it another way if you would just translate "IKUUU" as "FUUUCK" then I think it would first of all sound strange to me as someone who speaks english as their second language, having "grown up" with the traditional "I'm cumming" for Japanese media and second it would lose an element of meaning (and eroticism) since a character might just say fuck without cumming.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that if you're doing a non-literal translation please do one that carries over the meaning of the spoken words even if they are not the exact same.
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Well, this is kind of the crux of the matter, because for different people this means different things, because there's different levels of meaning. I can tell you right now that I'm not generally following what I think you're advocating, because there are some places where in order to preserve the top level of meaning I have to change the words. For example, confusion between 聖なる祠/性なる祠 which are homonyms in Japanese but have very different meanings. Or the fact that I had to rewrite the entirety of one characters speech because Searothonc's use of an English loan-word was particularly problematic. Or indeed wholesale conversion of Jemoticons to Emoji so that people not versed in Japanse BBS's can understand them. (Translation notes will be provided with the patch)

Right here the particular problem is that "イく" does not have a literal equivalent in English as English is used, and so the way to preserve meaning is to go for sex moans. There's similar issues in pretty much any language pair.

But this is why I specifically asked if there'd be interest in the alternate version which uses the more literal translations for the SFX. It seems that there is, so I'll make sure that version gets released as well.
 
As someone who is learning the Japanese language in my free time, I'm amazed by the work translators do. I've been translating a game for a while now and I'm still getting my sentence structure wrong. I recently went through the effort to learn the meanings of 2200 Kanji and I'm now learning vocab. I just started book 2 of JFZ and I'm thinking about going to Genki instead since it includes Kanji in the writing practice.


One thing I learned fast doing translation work is that a lot of it is up to interpretation. People think it's like going from Spanish to English where a translator only has to use word substitution. Instead I have to read the sentence and then think about how to say it in English. One time I missed a subject change and a him became a her for two paragraphs. I was thinking, this guy has sensitive pectorals. I realized my mistake when I compiled and ran my translation. After this, I wrote a program that lets me quickly build and run my translation so I can check my work with little hassle.

I think it's better to just have a decent translation. Sound effects are nice, but do what you want. I like your Lilium Union translation (reinterpretation), right up to the stop point. VPM translation was nice enough to crash into a translation wall at a chapter break point with clear indications that it was the break point. With LU it just stopped mid mission. I was like, um... what do I do now? Then I basically walked right to the palace with incriminating evidence (I think) and got thrown in jail, which may have been avoidable. I have no idea. That was before I did my Kanji study. With my Kanji study I probably wouldn't have done so bad. With out your translation, I wouldn’t have been able to start the game.

Keep up the good work. I hope the circle that created VPM creates more games since I consider it one of the better ones in my collection. The circle for LU does fantastic work as well.

Finally, I think we can all agree on one thing. Japan needs to get rid of their censorship laws.
 
I'm going to have to agree with Kayot. I've only ever had experience with High school Spanish, but even there you need to translate idea to idea, not word to word. Yes its much easier for western languages as many are related so simple word substitution and grammer is often enough. I've been reading some proffesionally translated light novels lately and even there you see things that are cultural dependant. How big is a 7 tatami mat room as an example.

tc
 
Well if you want to look at Iku from a different angle, consider the mathematics.

ik-uu is two short syllables.
Im cum-ming is one short, two long - which is why it would look weird, unnatural and a bit obnoxious, especially when repeated.
AH, Ooo, oh - all short mono syllable grunts
Ff-uk, sh-it - two short syllables words, which actually blend better than iku does

Personally I hate ikuikuikuiku, it sounds a bit shit and unnatural - like the jap equivalent of "oh god, oh yes yes yes yes, oohhhhhh, FUCK! fuck fuck. oh yes, fuck me harder fuck me harder, ohooohoohoo".
Ladies, you're overacting worse than Shatner, please stop - you're killing my boner.

So yeah, to make a translation that better fits the math (and therefore tempo) consider something like "ah ah, ahhh. ff ah fuck! oo ah shsh shit ah fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck".
I think that sounds more naturally like a woman losing her senses and becoming a quivering mass of jelly?
 
Another possible translation could be "I'm gonna, I'm gonnaa -- oh I'm gonna - I'm gonnaaa cummm!!!!"? I mean, again, that would only really be relevant towards the end of the scene, and ikuu is sometimes used throughout, but at least it's closer in length? :shrug:
 
MrMe said:
So yeah, to make a translation that better fits the math (and therefore tempo) consider something like "ah ah, ahhh. ff ah fuck! oo ah shsh shit ah fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck".
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The whole fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck stuff turns me off in 3D porn and I'm pretty sure it wouldn't be my favorite here (although not as bad).

Renestrae said:
Another possible translation could be "I'm gonna, I'm gonnaa -- oh I'm gonna - I'm gonnaaa cummm!!!!"? I mean, again, that would only really be relevant towards the end of the scene, and ikuu is sometimes used throughout, but at least it's closer in length? :shrug:
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This one sounds closest to what I would consider the optimal translation since it preserves meaning but also makes it sound natural (at least to me) in English.
 
Nyanyanyan said:
The whole fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck stuff turns me off in 3D porn and I'm pretty sure it wouldn't be my favorite here (although not as bad).
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Yeah I can't stand american porn dialog for some reason, it always turns me off.
 
Porn dialogue in general is impossible to take seriously, no matter who is writing it.

I just skim over it.
 
Pretty much any usage of fuck during sex is a huge turn-off for me and would make me just skip the text. I can't even watch any American porn because all the women sound like truck drivers swearing on a gas station.
 
kyrpa said:
Pretty much any usage of fuck during sex is a huge turn-off for me and would make me just skip the text. I can't even watch any American porn because all the women sound like truck drivers swearing on a gas station.
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Too bad that ふっく (transliterated English "Fuck") is in the Japanese dialogue then. Like it or not, Brigit does swears during at least some of the sex scenes.

As I said, I'll be providing two versions of the patch, with one using more transliteration which will at least minimise the swears to when they actually occur in the Japanese text. I understand that for some people (who appear to mostly be of the ESL persuasion), swears during sex might not be appealing, and so there'll be an option to not have them. (Actually, depending on the difficulty, I might implement this as an in-game option. That'd be neat, although I'm not gonna spend a great deal of time figuring it out if it looks like it's hard to do.)

Currently getting some work done on this, so expect a progress update soonish.

@Kayot I'm hoping to have some news to report on Lilium Union soon, although it's going to be a while before that project gets finished. It seems I badly misjudged my free time when I announced I'd be returning to it.
 
habisain said:
I'm hoping to have some news to report on Lilium Union soon, although it's going to be a while before that project gets finished. It seems I badly misjudged my free time when I announced I'd be returning to it.
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Jeez, that's a shame it's the one translation that i'm the most excited about, especially since it was basically the rebirth of that translation. Thanks for your work anyways.
 
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