3 ms·

This could be good for games, but I think any manga/prose that's simplistic enough to be boiled down to purely functional phrases like "wear the amulet to fight

This could be good for games, but I think any manga/prose that's simplistic enough to be boiled down to purely functional phrases like "wear the amulet to fight the dragon" would probably not be worth a read...

numpad0 6y ago
“Shorter/simpler/obvious the sentence is the easier it must be” isn’t actually the case with translations. UI strings being short usually means hidden heavy context lies in visual elements, so it’ll just strengthen hilarity in mistakes like “Name: SQL Server, Province/Prefecture: Running” (because you know, equivalents to provinces in a region are called “State” in American English...). “Province” is more or less harmless, but “(has/is/is in/to/like to)Start(ed/ing) type of errors due to missing context can make UI unusable. Oh and it’s un-spottable by non-speakers because they make sense when translated back to original languages.
Aerroon 6y ago
People read entire machine translated novels. It's not too uncommon with Chinese xianxia/xuanhuan novels. We're talking thousands of pages. It's not as incomprehensible as you might think. I didn't find it enjoyable though. I can certainly see a place for automatically translated manga. It's not a sellable product though.
- JohnBooty 6y ago
  I didn't find it enjoyable though Sure, yeah - I think we're on the same page. My post was a reference to enjoyability more than functionality. I have definitely read novels that were long, yet rote and simplistic even in their native language. =) But they were not works worth reading in any language IMO. They could probably be satisfactorily machine translated (with some human editing) but the result would not be enjoyable except for ultra diehards of the genre who are simply happy to be reading a work from that particular genre, quality of prose be damned. Those enjoyable xianxia/xuanhuan you mention were either rote and boring in the first place, or they were wonderfully written and had the life crushed out of them by a machine translation that dispensed with all nuance.

numpad0 6y ago

“Shorter/simpler/obvious the sentence is the easier it must be” isn’t actually the case with translations. UI strings being short usually means hidden heavy context lies in visual elements, so it’ll just strengthen hilarity in mistakes like “Name: SQL Server, Province/Prefecture: Running” (because you know, equivalents to provinces in a region are called “State” in American English...). “Province” is more or less harmless, but “(has/is/is in/to/like to)Start(ed/ing) type of errors due to missing context can make UI unusable. Oh and it’s un-spottable by non-speakers because they make sense when translated back to original languages.

Aerroon 6y ago

People read entire machine translated novels. It's not too uncommon with Chinese xianxia/xuanhuan novels. We're talking thousands of pages. It's not as incomprehensible as you might think. I didn't find it enjoyable though. I can certainly see a place for automatically translated manga. It's not a sellable product though.

JohnBooty 6y ago
I didn't find it enjoyable though Sure, yeah - I think we're on the same page. My post was a reference to enjoyability more than functionality. I have definitely read novels that were long, yet rote and simplistic even in their native language. =) But they were not works worth reading in any language IMO. They could probably be satisfactorily machine translated (with some human editing) but the result would not be enjoyable except for ultra diehards of the genre who are simply happy to be reading a work from that particular genre, quality of prose be damned. Those enjoyable xianxia/xuanhuan you mention were either rote and boring in the first place, or they were wonderfully written and had the life crushed out of them by a machine translation that dispensed with all nuance.