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I did a fair amount of scanlation back in the day (very obscure manga). One of the things I liked about scanlation was being able write hacked up English on th

I did a fair amount of scanlation back in the day (very obscure manga). One of the things I liked about scanlation was being able write hacked up English on the assumption that the reader knew enough about Japanese culture/language to make the leap from awkward English to Japanese concept. But, if I was writing for a larger audience I think it would be incredibly difficult to write idiomatic English and still capture the Japanese sense of the sentence. I'm in awe when I see people who are successful. I'm convinced you have to be an incredibly good writer of English to be able to pull it off (which I am not ;-) ). I admit do having a wave of nostalgia now :-) Few things brought me as much pleasure as scanlation...

JohnBooty 7y ago
One of the things I liked about scanlation was being able write hacked up English on the assumption that the reader knew enough about Japanese culture/language to make the leap from awkward English to Japanese concept. First of all, thank you to you and the other scanslators of the world. You made a lot of things possible for your readers! Translating manga must be so tough. At least in anime, if you're watching English subtitles, you can hear the characters speaking in Japanese which helps to retain some of the original meaning. I don't speak Japanese, but I can recognize at least certain things like honorifics that convey a lot of meaning... that adds a lot of meaning to the subtitles I'm reading. But with manga, there's no such luxury... you did a really challenging job.