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Attempting to Translate


dragoon93041

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Hey, I'm attempting to translate one of my favorite games, Ma Furu, a Lilith game that's the spiritual successor to Cruel Magical Angel Shion. However, in many parts of the dialogue, they include sound effects, sometimes ones that don't make much sense in dialogue. Any opinions on how to deal with such things? So far I've been using asterisks but it feel a bit clunky.
 

Crispin

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Re: Attempting to Translate

Basically, try to speak the letters out loud while looking at the context. It's easy enough to convert katakana to romaji even if you can't read it. If the scene is a girl getting deepthroated and the SFX is something like "gokkun", then that's basically a choking/gulping sound.
 

habisain

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Re: Attempting to Translate

For actual sound effects, The can be a useful tool.
 

chrisroxxx

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Re: Attempting to Translate

Maybe, it would help you understand the sfx better if you would translate a game or parts of a game that has actual audio intertwined with the dialogue. That's at least how I figured most of the sfx effects.;)
 

nnescio

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Re: Attempting to Translate

While most SFX during H-scenes are probably just vocalizations during sex, be also aware that Japanese is a particularly onomatopoeia-rich language, with onomatopoeia potentially being able to sub in for nouns, adjectives, adverbs, and even verbs by just slapping the appropriate particle (or the -suru "to do" verb) at the end.

Translating this usually require picking the appropriate noun/adjective/adverb/verb equivalent. Directly translating the onometopoeia word-by-word would instead cause the passage to sound weird and/or childish, at least most of the time.

Example: モフモフする (or its conjugated forms) should not be translated as "to fluff fluff". Pick something like "to nuzzle" or "to glomp", and maybe tack on fluffy on whichever object/body part that is being nuzzled/glomped.

ドキドキ is another one. Its the onometopoeia for a beating or thumping heart, but it should be more appropriately translated as "nervous", "(my) heart is beating wildly", etc., depending on context (and whichever particle or verb follows ドキドキ).

ワクワク (*excited*) is one more. Sometimes people will actually say the word (by itself too, sometimes), in which case it's more appropriate to translate it something along the lines of "I'm SO exicited", "I'm looking forward to this" instead. Again, context is important.

If you're using MTL, well, you're probably SoL.
 
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