the comic is dead, long live the comic!

Hey!

The comic book translation job is over, and wow am I glad. I never thought I'd see the day when I cursed any job related to comics, but wow, this was a hum-zinger! Warning to people starting out in the translation biz or even old hands getting their first "manga" job: It takes a lot longer to read a simple shonen manga (comics for boys) and translate one page than you would think! This blog is my take on how long it takes to translate comics, and what you should watch out for when considering what price you are willing to take on a comic translation project.

It took me about one and a half days to read the thing, which was a scant 363 pages long. Usually I like to take my time and really let comic book imagery sink in while I read, so I was surprised that it took so long with all the engines running. I imagine it would take a lot longer to read if I stopped to admire the pictures along the way...

As for the translation, I supposed I averaged about 20 pages per day. That was after reading it once through. And to think, I started the project thinking I could do the thing in a week! A month and a half would be closer to the truth. In the end, it wound up eating up my weekends and most of my weekday hours. It was worth it in some ways, because the story was interesting. But if you are still wondering how much you should be charging for translation, beware. Most people old enough to have developed the skills required to translate a manga professionally will probably need somewhere between USD 1,500 to USD 2,500 a month to live, so if it takes you a month or more to read and translate one, make sure that is your budget for the project.

Of course everyone has a different pace. If you have worked through any business or legal documents, you can compare your general speed to mine: I average between 3000 and 4000 Japanese characters per work day (depending on content and how focused I am that day). If you are averaging anywhere similar to me, expect to spend at least one very full month on a 365 page shonen comic. And I imagine comics for adults take even longer...Ok, well, I am back in the flow this week with some contract jobs, so I will get back to you with some interesting legal terms later.

Oh, by the way, my first baby is due any day now!! If I take a horribly long and extended break from blogging, you can guess that I have probably become a sleepless but incredibly loving pop!

memes

The comic book translation project is on hold for a week while I work on an essay about using memes to describe art history. Memes. I have always meant to read up on memes, because it seems to be a very interesting concept, whether memes can actually be said to "exist" or not. Basically, they are units of information which replicate and propagate within a culture, as genes replicate and propagate within the environment. Just as genes "use" humans (and other living creatures) as vessels to carry them on their reproducing path, memes "use" people as vessels in the same way. I do not fully understand the concept yet, but I am having fun learning about it.

Incidentally, meme is written in katakana like so: ミーム. And the Japanese for gene is: 遺伝子 (idenshi). Natural selection, a word you should always seek to know in any foreign language you become proficient in, is 自然淘汰 (shizen touta).

This essay is about 16,000 characters long, so I should be working on it for a few days yet... I will post updates when I run across interesting concepts and language related tid bits.

some gang slang...

With little short stops here and there to translate air conditioning installation advertisements or academic papers about the use of memes to analyze art history, I am making pretty solid progress on this comic book translation.

The Japanese ghetto slang is getting pretty thick, I must say. Consulting English versions of gang related Japanese comic stories, I am seeing a slight usage of hip hop slang in the English, and a lot of "dude" and "crap" type slang too.

上等くれる (joutou kureru) is one interesting phrase I have run into. It seems to mean "trying to fight an adversary who is much tougher or older than you." And by "older" I mean "higher status." Check Google Japan (google.co.jp) and you will find numerous references to上等くれてるんじゃねぇ (pronounced "joutou kureterunjane," and which I believe is intended to mean "don't pick a fight with me because I am going to kick your butt" or "you're out of your league," etc.). It's interesting to see how many Japanese "hoodlums" and "ruffians" there are out there posting stuff on the net. Or at least people who like to talk tough...

Another interesting phrase I came across was ケツをもたされた (ketsu o motosareta). Yes, that "ketsu" is the same "ketsu" that means "ass." Whoo! Getting into some "bad words" here.... Anyhow, apparently this is similar to 責任をとらされた (sekinin o torasareta), and means that Person A was made to fix a problem for Person B, though Person A was not responsible for the problem occurring. I saw it used to describe someone beating up a couple of punks because they were picking on a weakling.

Ok, well, the Ono Lisa is floating through the cool after rain air, the window is open to let in the sound of neighborhood dogs barking, and Sapporo is finally starting to edge into some really pleasant weather. On and on I go.

Happy translating!

manga, manga, manga ... sound effects!!

(Once again, the pic to the left has nothing to do with the article...)

Alrighty, then, let's get down to business. Everybody out there in translation land knows that the dream job is something like movie scripts, novels, or comics! Well, not really. I like contracts best, cuz they pay nice and are, frankly, pretty easy to understand on the whole. But enough with the money... the real meat that spurs most junior Japanese language students on is the idea that one day, they might be entrusted with the chance to actually translate a Japanese comic for a living! Hey, well, after six years of professional translation in the freelance world (and a short, what, six month stint at a translation company years ago?), I finally got that chance! The pay is lower than minimum wage in even the poorest countries, but I'm having a blast!

So, today I compiled a list of the sound effects that I had some problems with translating. And for the benefit of cyber translation land, I now present that list here. It represents about fifty pages of comic book ism.

But beware! This is not some end all dictionary or glossary! Not only are most of these terms highly subjective to begin with, but they are also highly situation dependant --- that is to say, the explanations and translations do not cover every possible meaning of each sound, but only the meaning as it appears in the context of the story I am translating. Some, like "pori pori," pretty much always mean the same thing (scratch scratch). Others, like はっ have a variety of meanings, tho I only list the one relevant to my translation. In other words, you should think of the English listings as POSSIBLE translations, and not RESTRICTIVE DEFINITIONS.

The first line of each listing is the sound effect written in katakana. Then follows an explanation in English and a tentative translation. Sometimes only an explanation or only a tentative translation is given.... Hope this is not too difficult of a format to understand!

Ok, ladies and gentlemen, start your engines...

(in the mean time I am going to go work on a sample translation for some client interested in giving me work doing academic texts related to art... and try to get done before the sun goes down tonight!!)

----------
ポリポリ
sound of scratching an itch
scratch scratch

----------
ベキッ
pow!

----------
フフン
sound of laughing proudly/having confidence
yep!

----------
プッ
sound of starting to laugh, kind of sound that looks down on people
heh!

----------
ピョン
sound of someone jumping
hop

----------
ヒュ
sound of something flying through the air
whoosh!

----------
ピッ
Sound of someone moving fast to get to something
swish!

----------
ピッ
Sound of someone holding up a knife
　

----------
ビクッ ビクッ
sound of a wound
drip, drip

----------
ピク
body moving just a little bit in pain after getting beat up or injured
shudder or twitch

----------
ピク
Sound of gripping hand tight in preparation for a fight
grip!

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はっ
Sound of noticing something
huh? または　ah?!

----------
ニャ ニャ
sound of smiling, smirking, or an evil grin
smirk

----------
ドン
sound of a body falling/hitting on something
thump! or slam!

----------
ドガバ
hitting/kicking in a fight
pow!

----------
だっ
Sound of walking away fast
　

----------
ズル
sound of dragging something
scrape... scrape... Or slide...

----------
ズッ
Getting angry
grumble

----------
ジリ
sound of stepping forward
shuffle

----------
シュッ
sound of someone's leg moving/flying (when kicking/fighting)
swish!

----------
ジャリ
　
shuffle

----------
ザッ
sound of getting ready to fight, the foot staying firm in the position to fight
stomp

----------
クル
turning around to look at something
　

----------
グッ
sound of someone tightening a knot or rope
　

----------
グッ
sound of trying to grab someone's clothes (grabbing someone by the lapel, etc.)
grab!

----------
グチョ
Sound of pencil going under the skin, bloody sound...
　

----------
グシュ
Sound of pencil going under the skin, bloody sound...
　

----------
クイ　クイッ
sound of someone tightening a rope to a bar
　

----------
ギッ
angry staring
　

----------
ギシッ
old, heavy door opening
creak

----------
ガラ
sliding door opening
clack

----------
ガバッ
sound of a guy popping up in front of somebody
pop!

----------
カッ
The sound of the guy stopping in his tracks.
Chkk

----------
ガシ
Sound of someone grabbing someone's clothes with desperation
grab

----------
ガガン
Sound of falling on the floor
Thump!

----------
ガア
Sound of an automatic door opening
swish!

----------
うーん
sound of thinking
hmm...

Kindergartens and pre-schools

Hey, ok, this graphic to the left has absolutely nothing to do with the topic, but here it is nonetheless. It is a little ink drawing I did a while back... I believe I used felt tip pens and brush pens...

So, I just finished translating that academic paper about parks. What a wonderful picture it paints, albeit in stilted and sometimes difficult to understand wording. A whole city section of parks linked to pre-schools, other parks, factories, etc. I would love to visit that area and take a few days to walk around the park "matrix." In fact, it sounds like a dream come true to me.

Ah, the pre-schools. Anyone out there run up against this problem in translating Japanese to English? The Japanese word 幼稚園 (youchien) is, I feel, closest to the English word "pre-school." However, I admit, I am an American, and that could be why I feel that the most common translation I see for 幼稚園 is not to my taste... Somewhere along the line, someone decided that the appropriate equivalent is "kindergarten." Ok, now, when I was a kid, kindergartens were part of the elementary school building, and part of the elementary education system. Both 幼稚園 and pre-schools are not. You have to pay for 幼稚園 and pre-schools, but kindergarten is free (well, paid by taxes, actually). Ok, so, because the translation I worked on over the weekend had English language graphs to go along with it, and because I was limited to using the English in those graphs, I was forced to use "kindergarten." Well, sometimes that happens. Looking it up in Wikipedia, I see the claim that kindergartens are separate from elementary schools in most countries. Ok, I guess I have to stop assuming that the whole world calls everything the same names that I do!! Typical American? You bet!

On park terminology: I ran into several different kinds of parks... 街区公園, 近隣公園, and 地区公園. I translated them temporarily as block parks, neighborhood parks, and community parks, and am now awaiting confirmation by the mediating translation company.

So far I do not seem to have any readers for this blog, but if anyone interested in translation comes along, please tell me what sort of thing you would be interested in reading about!!

Ok, well, it is Monday early evening here in beautiful spring time Sapporo, home of the melting snow hills and pleasant days, and I have been working thru the weekend again... so, I am going to go downstairs and score some serious loafing time before I wake up for my Tuesday work load.

See you in translation land!

Fire it up!

Ok, my first blog!

Today I am working on a scholarly paper about the benefits of city parks. Interesting stuff. The weather in Sapporo is finally starting to lean towards spring... it is a wonderful Sunday afternoon. Alas, here I am, typing away inside. At least I can hear the birds chirping and smell the spring air.

Did you know that "urban heat islands" are areas in cities where the temperature is higher than the rest of the city? True, true. And the Japanese for this, is simply ヒートアイランド. Another interesting concept I learned today is the グリーンマトリックスシステム, which translates as Green Matrix System. It is a system of walkways connecting parks, schools, pre-schools, and other areas throughout a city. Pretty cool idea. The goal is to make it easier to go to parks.

Thought for the day: A lot of times I see the word 一方 (ippou) translated as "on the other hand." How about "conversely"?

Also, 把握する (haaku suru) is often translated as "to grasp." Recently I prefer to use "to assess".... (or at least keep it on hand as a good alternative)