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Can someone with no japanese knowledge translate something using technology?


meh65

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So I was trying to translate some pages of manga via OCR and machine translation. And it got some of it spot on while other times it was just gibberish because of how the language works.

Like one word was coming up as "pine" but after deleting and spacing (playing with the parsing) it showed to be a name of a person.

So what I am asking, is there a resource that can help with parsing not just translating? I tried rikaichan but that seems like a fine tooth comb approach with needed knowledge since all it does is bring up a mini dictionary expecting you to know the context rather than guide you into what the context is.
 

Bryanis

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On line translating tool used with online dictionary like jparser & co.
Using both kind of tool allow for translation even if you don't speak japanese.
However, that kind of tool have real trouble handling name. And as it's tool, there will be a few time when you'll need to rack your brain using all the tool to translate... and a very few occasion you won't have any real translation.

Note that it really work for "textbook" japanese, if you got slang, or area like accent styled word, most translating tool are likely to fail you.
 

lazycat

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Frankly, no.

If you want to actually translate it proper, having basic knowledge of hiaragana/katakana and Japanese sentence is a must, otherwise you're just basically blindly trying to interpret a machine.

If you at least know the sentence structure, even if you don't know what each bits mean, you can at least tell which part is acting on which and use tools to translate individual pieces.

Also, it would help if you can at least pieces together things from context, I have seen some MTL translation that contradict itself within a single paragraph....
(it went with one guy complaining "yeah, our life suck, but it's better than guys in Y group" then the next (wrong) sentence was praising that Y group....in raw the guy mentioned ANOTHER group first, before going into why Y group sucks)
 

djweish

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Whilst it won't be perfect, you can usually hobble together something good enough for yourself using text hookers, translators, OCR and so on. Naturally that probably wouldn't be good enough for a commercial release.
 

Obscure

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Well you can use the machine translation and then translate the machine translation into real English with English writing ability. If you do it properly you can get a product that is better then the original.

Or worse.

Either way.
 

habisain

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I think the real issue for the OP here is the OCR part. I'm normally of the camp that says people can translate via technology, but a lot of my normal arguments hinge on being able to use the text. OCR just isn't good enough right now, especially if any of these manga's are hand-written.

If you transcribe the text, then machine translation is probably a good enough starting point to create a proper translation, provided you're alert to potential errors and translate these ones properly (i.e. using grammar references + lookup tools). But OCR'ing a large volume of text...? Probably not. The best tool here is Google Translate via phone (using camera to capture text), but that's nowhere near 100%. At best it's 70%, on a good day.
 

BigJohnny

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The general answer for any kind of translation is "no". The tech isn't there yet. Tech can't handle context which is what translations are about.
 

lazycat

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use the machine translation and then translate the machine translation

No, just no.

I've seen enough to know it NEVER goes well.

Tech can't handle context which is what translations are about.
This so much really.

To pull an example from a novel I read recently:
でもその人物は、暗殺者メイドを数名侍らしているだけでなく、学生の取り巻きを引き連れて……引き連れて? 私には屈強な男子生徒が上半身裸の四つん這いで首輪に付いた鎖を引っ張られて喜んでいるようにも見えますね。

In particular, this bit:
学生の取り巻きを引き連れて……引き連れて?

The repeated verb (taking along) is actually meant to clue you in for the REAL meaning.
In this case, the second one isn't actually a single verb, but rather the 2 parts of the verb (引き, pulling and 連れて, taking along)
Because if you read further in the paragraph, it gives the context of a half-naked macho guy being dragged along a chain like a pet dog.

And I'm 99% sure a MTL would miss that joke.

I've had this really idiotic MTL that literally put a sentence-ending 'da' (a crude version of 'desu') as PART OF SOMEONE'S NAME.
 

djweish

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Testing out OCR, if I use it on the sentence in lazycat's post it gives me:
Outcome of the OCR: "でもその大物は、暗殺者メイドを数名侍らしているだけでなく、学生の取り巻きを引き連れて...,..引き連れて?私には屈強な男子生徒カ吐半身裸の四つん這いて首輪に付いた鎖を引っ張られて喜んでいるようにも見えますね。"
Machine translation of that outcome: "But the big game not only celebrates several assassinators, but also accompanied students' entourage... Accompanying? It seems to me that he is pleased that he is pulling a chain attached to a collar, crawling all the naked quads of a mighty male student."

I generally used VNR's inbuilt OCR, which can capture any part of the screen easily enough. Sometimes you have to fiddle around with it (colours and so on) to get it to recognise text.
 

derakino999

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That's because you all want to translate a bunch ass text at once, and at that, even english to, say, spanish translation is crap
As the other guy said, knowing structure you could translate word by word and then make the deductions yourself
I guess for that you do need basic language knowledge, though


Romaji works for starters.
As a personal story that doesnt really matter to anyone, i started that way, then i dive in deeper progressively and still continue learning japanese, and i learned english that way

So, the answer is not a yes...but neither a discouraging no...kind of
Japanese is hard af as the other guy said though even if you "understand" it lol
 

lazycat

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Testing out OCR, if I use it on the sentence in lazycat's post it gives me:
Outcome of the OCR: "でもその大物は、暗殺者メイドを数名侍らしているだけでなく、学生の取り巻きを引き連れて...,..引き連れて?私には屈強な男子生徒カ吐半身裸の四つん這いて首輪に付いた鎖を引っ張られて喜んでいるようにも見えますね。"
Machine translation of that outcome: "But the big game not only celebrates several assassinators, but also accompanied students' entourage... Accompanying? It seems to me that he is pleased that he is pulling a chain attached to a collar, crawling all the naked quads of a mighty male student."

I generally used VNR's inbuilt OCR, which can capture any part of the screen easily enough. Sometimes you have to fiddle around with it (colours and so on) to get it to recognise text.
So, here's roughly how it actually is, just so you can understand how badly MTL suck.
でもその人物は、暗殺者メイドを数名侍らしているだけでなく、学生の取り巻きを引き連れて……引き連れて? 私には屈強な男子生徒が上半身裸の四つん這いで首輪に付いた鎖を引っ張られて喜んでいるようにも見えますね。

But that person, not only does she have several assassin maids serving her, she's also taking along her student followers....dragging along? I could see a (upper)half-naked muscular male student crawling on all four being pulled by the chain attached to his collar who seemed to be enjoying it.

I think it's a pretty big distinction that it's ASSASSIN MAIDS for a start.

One alternate take on the pun I had was 'her student followers dragging along behind....dragged along?'
 
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djweish

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I have no clue where Google got "assassinators" from. That's not even a word. :D
 
OP
meh65

meh65

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I think the real issue for the OP here is the OCR part. I'm normally of the camp that says people can translate via technology, but a lot of my normal arguments hinge on being able to use the text. OCR just isn't good enough right now, especially if any of these manga's are hand-written.

If you transcribe the text, then machine translation is probably a good enough starting point to create a proper translation, provided you're alert to potential errors and translate these ones properly (i.e. using grammar references + lookup tools). But OCR'ing a large volume of text...? Probably not. The best tool here is Google Translate via phone (using camera to capture text), but that's nowhere near 100%. At best it's 70%, on a good day.
I'm actually impressed with OCR, it recognized the characters 100% most of the time, except when it was stylized.



No, just no.

I've seen enough to know it NEVER goes well.



This so much really.

To pull an example from a novel I read recently:
でもその人物は、暗殺者メイドを数名侍らしているだけでなく、学生の取り巻きを引き連れて……引き連れて? 私には屈強な男子生徒が上半身裸の四つん這いで首輪に付いた鎖を引っ張られて喜んでいるようにも見えますね。

In particular, this bit:
学生の取り巻きを引き連れて……引き連れて?

The repeated verb (taking along) is actually meant to clue you in for the REAL meaning.
In this case, the second one isn't actually a single verb, but rather the 2 parts of the verb (引き, pulling and 連れて, taking along)
Because if you read further in the paragraph, it gives the context of a half-naked macho guy being dragged along a chain like a pet dog.

And I'm 99% sure a MTL would miss that joke.

I've had this really idiotic MTL that literally put a sentence-ending 'da' (a crude version of 'desu') as PART OF SOMEONE'S NAME.
Ya, even official translations have hard times getting the context or jokes/slang down. In any language, I have seen some silly ass english to japanese myself.
But since I will mostly be translating porn with filler cliche ridden writing, based off of mid tier to low tier artwork I think I will try out the guesslation.

On line translating tool used with online dictionary like jparser & co.
Using both kind of tool allow for translation even if you don't speak japanese.
However, that kind of tool have real trouble handling name. And as it's tool, there will be a few time when you'll need to rack your brain using all the tool to translate... and a very few occasion you won't have any real translation.

Note that it really work for "textbook" japanese, if you got slang, or area like accent styled word, most translating tool are likely to fail you.
Ya, this is my main issue, the parsing. I feel like sometimes the machine translation gets the translation PERFECTLY, but other times it won't know when to parse or fuck the syntax up.

Anyone know the best program that is the best with this?
 

habisain

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Ya, this is my main issue, the parsing. I feel like sometimes the machine translation gets the translation PERFECTLY, but other times it won't know when to parse or fuck the syntax up.

Anyone know the best program that is the best with this?
How certain are you that the OCR got exactly the right characters? Because I have investigated OCR and I've found that most of them tend to get the characters subtly wrong (especially with similar looking symbols and/or ignoring/adding diacritic marks), and that is what screws up the syntax. Well, either that, or an onomatopoeia or other SFX. If you were to just delete onomatopoeia's etc, and inform the translator of any names (e.g. by adding them in Atlas) then you should be pretty good with this.
 
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