Personal Translator at your service.

[noman]

Re: Professional Translator for Hire.

While indeed market prices per words are around 6-12 cents per word, for this offer I am considering something around 2 cents per word.

Translation work is often just as difficult, if not more than, writing original content, especially if you want quality translation rather than word-for-word translation. (Anyone who is fluent in two or more languages with different grammatical system should know what a pain in the ass it can be.)

The price OP offered becomes much more affordable if 4 or 5 ppl chipping in together. However, that is more difficult than it sounds because most of us here (including me) usually don't even pay for the game in the first place, so...

What I had in mind was more moderately sized. An average RPGmaker game, translatable in a few days, a doujin, a particular scene, an interface. It can also be something totally unrelated to games etc. The basic idea is "help people understand stuff, get pocket money on the side".

That is totally fine. I don't think any of us is expecting to see you translate an Alicesoft game (which would be totally awesome if you are willing to btw ). Besides, big and popular eroge games often have fansub groups working on them.

For very small requests, I believe that providing you with a screenshot of part of the translation once it is complete should be proof enough for a paypal payment, following which I would immediately email the finished product.
For bigger commissions, I was thinking of splitting the delivery and payments into steps. Say, split the translation every 500 words or so along with the payment. This isn't ideal, but it at least reduce the risk of loss for both sides.
Either way, I will only ask for money once the translation is ready to be delivered.

I think that is acceptable, but I am not sure how you would split a large RPGmaker game.

As for the delivery format, it will depend on the request. If it's a game where the text can be easily extracted/replaced, I don't mind putting it in for you. If it cannot, It'll be in a word/excel format with cues to allow you to easily link text in game with the translation.

I don't know if you have tried using RPGmakerXP before, but entering text in it is an absolute pain in the ass and consumes a lot of time. I have not used the newer RPGmaker versions, so I cannot comment on them.

Lastly, on actual quality.
I learned Japanese in university, it was my major. I am currently living and working in Japan.
Rather than examples of previous works, I'm more interested in picking a small rpg game and translating it for free. I have one in mind, but you can always try to suggest something.
I also already received a request, and if that person is okay with it, I might share the finished work as an example.

That would be great. Having you do extra work as an example would not be ideal because I have no idea if any of us would actually end up commissioning you

Holy crap everyone seems a little put off by this.

Notes:

Dude-person doesn't want his/her name associated with creepy Japanese porn game translations probably so won't be providing prior work. Legit reasoning.

Also, in the USA at least, this is entirely legal.

Also, in the USA at least, the price is good. For comparison, writing is usually per word and usually $.05-$.15 for cheaper crap stuff. I know for a fact The Guardian pays writers at least $.20 a word.

Not put off, but since there is money involved we need to be more careful. The whole legal debate is a good academic exercise, however we seem to be forgetting that we are all PIRATES here, but that is none of my business.

 

[itzaguy]

Re: Professional Translator for Hire.

Well since you said you were taking requests, Haru Uru Baishun is partially translated, and on this forum. If you could finish the story translation and post it as an example of your work and technical knowledge I feel this would help garner support for people wanting to put money into you.

 

[Moonchaos]

Re: Professional Translator for Hire.

Ok i read most part of the thread so far....

I will try to explain it with an example here:

Infos so far:
- small ammount of charge for small/mid Projects
- Payment partital
- Translation from JP > Eng

Example:

Game: Kunoichi Ninpocho Series
Gametyp: RPG Maker
Moonrunes: as Pictures and Text

It will probably easy to translate the Text but what will you do with images/pictures? Most of the Menues in Games work like this.
Also we need to consider the law and copyright cause you may alter the original project which could lead to problems.

Working with the Developer is a great idea, but also only works for Games which are in development and not for already released works...at least most of them.

Do you have any restrictions yourself? like you dont translate like: Loli typ Games or other genre?

 

[ShadowWolfSBI]

Re: Professional Translator for Hire.

Thread moved to Under Construction, since it may fit better here.

Also, Talychon. You want to be careful with how you word this offer, as your initial post was bordering on spam.

 

[Talychon]

Re: Personal Translator at your service.

Thank you everyone for your feedback.

Also, Talychon. You want to be careful with how you word this offer, as your initial post was bordering on spam.

I have reworded the original post to make it more accurate to my actual intent, please feel free to tell me if additional changes should be made.

Considering that some people, who also have experience in the field, do translations for non-profit, does not improve the conditions for profit-oriented translations either.

Yes, I also translate some projects for free. Here's one things I noticed though.
Translators usually translate stuff they like, and even then, there is a shortage or qualified/decent translator in the field. I've seen a lot of people desperate to find someone to translate a manga or game they'd like, but without success.
That's where services like mine come in. It's not free, but you don't have to spend a huge amount of time begging around for a translator to pick up your project.

@noman

Indeed, when I first started translating JP into EN... Man it wasn't pretty. But it's a matter of experience, you experiment a bit at first, and after a while the translation comes somewhat naturally.

Also for Alicesoft games, those are awesome, and yes I'd be thrilled to translate one of those, but the sheer amount of work would make it hard to do by myself in a timely manner, not to mention legal issues when an actual company is involved.

By parts, I meant you would get part of the script in .word format, and when the final payment is done, you get the whole patch.

@Moonchaos

No, I don't have any restriction. You would be hard pressed to find anything that would make me flinch.

Also, I have already received some requests, so I am freezing the commission while I handle those.
Feel free however to list something you'd like to commission. Just know that I won't be able to get to work on it right away!

 

[urielmanx7]

Re: Personal Translator at your service.

All I always wanted to know is what the hell does "Yare yare daze" means XD

 

[chaos1123]

Re: Personal Translator at your service.

All I always wanted to know is what the hell does "Yare yare daze" means XD

Basically "Give me a break." or "What a pain." in our american speak. It's a colloquialism.

 

[urielmanx7]

Re: Personal Translator at your service.

Basically "Give me a break." or "What a pain." in our american speak. It's a colloquialism.

That's what yare yare means, but what about "daze"?

 

[chaos1123]

Re: Personal Translator at your service.

No, the whole thing together is the colloquialism, yare yare is onomatopoeia I do believe, someone trained in Japanese please correct me if I'm talking out of my ass here, but I'm pretty sure that's what I gleaned from my Japanese teacher.

 

[Bark]

Re: Personal Translator at your service.

That's what yare yare means, but what about "daze"?

やれやれ (yareyare) is not an onomatopoeia (as it doesn't really represent a sound anything or anyone would make), but it is an interjection that is derived from 破れる (yabureru) with the verb ending る (ru) omitted for grammar reasons and the ぶ (bu) for phonetic reasons. The basic meaning is "to wear out", as in "the vase (is worn out and) has an crack" or metaphorically as "I am frustrated (because I'm worn out)". The interjection やれやれ (yareyare) further generalized the idea as "Oh my, what is that supposed to mean?" or "That aggrevates me." - or to put it at an informal register: "Oh my.", "That's slightly surprising.", "Give me a break." and such.

だ (da) is the colloquial form of です (desu) which means "to be" (and as Japanese verbs are not conjugated, you should take it as "it is" here), but it can't really be translated in the given phrase anyway, since it's not possible in English to connect interjections with the copula "to be".

～ぜ (~ze) is appended to put emphasis on the expression, in somewhat of a boyish or even childish way; take Ash from Pokémon or Marisa from Touhou Project for example. That said, I've never heard it in real life.

On a last note: That's really just some light linguistic sophistication for the most part. Actually, I just wanted to show that you often can't translate languages word for word. And in many cases, especially for non-related languages like Japanese and English, it is a horrible idea, as there is a serious lack of formal correspondence.

 

[Potato]

Re: Personal Translator at your service.

Well you know its easy to make up thing in japanese when we don't know anything...
so if you say you speak french too....

commence par traduire ce que je viens juste dire après je serai plus réceptif a croire que tu connais le japonais

 

[Talychon]

Re: Personal Translator at your service.

commence par traduire ce que je viens juste dire après je serai plus réceptif a croire que tu connais le japonais

> Commence par traduire ce que je viens juste de dire et après je serai plus enclin à croire que tu connais le Japonais.

Here, fixed the sentence first.

As for the translation: Start by translating what I just said and then I'll be more inclined to believe that you speak Japanese.

 

[chaos1123]

Re: Personal Translator at your service.

Thanks for that Bark. My teacher of all things japanese is this little old woman who lives next door and I'm pretty sure she thinks/knows I'm a huge pervert because I unintentionally seem to keep asking her about very lewd things I come across. Vetting questions in google translate to help cut down on embarrassment apparently does not work as well as I hoped it would. Also trying to get her to explain japanese things so my english brain can work it out is much harder than I originally anticipated.

 

[heeroofyou]

Re: Personal Translator at your service.

you should build blog or something, if u post some price, i believe is more usefull than this thread... someone maybe interested, price can set base one game, or per group by donation... tha's my opinion

 

[dragoon93041]

Re: Personal Translator at your service.

Hmmm... I might be willing to emply your services. Can you take a look at something and give me an estimate?

More specifically,

You must be registered to see the links

 

[Talychon]

Re: Personal Translator at your service.

Hmmm... I might be willing to emply your services. Can you take a look at something and give me an estimate?

A VN from Lilith soft hm.
I must warn you, VN are far more wordy than RPGs.
Depending on the amount of text, a full translation can be anywhere between a few hundreds to one thousand or so dollars.
If you are have that kind of money, I'll give it a look and produce a more accurate estimate.

 

[krisslanza]

Re: Personal Translator at your service.

While I certainly can't afford it on my own, I'm curious...

What would it take to say, translate Succubus Quest? As a kind of 'classic' BF RPG, the game's main enjoyment is from the text and dialogue, due to a lack of imagery.

I can only imagine the game is loaded with an ungodly amount of dialogue as a result though.

 

[dragoon93041]

Re: Personal Translator at your service.

...I see.

*looks in piggy bank*

Yeah, that's not happening unless some more people are willing to pay up. I'd be willing to pay a hundred dollars myself so if anyone is up for this...