Forum - View topicINTEREST: Manga Plus Editor Says the Service Is Growing Fast, But Translation Costs Are High
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Replica_Rabbit
 Posts: 354 Location: Portland |
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I hope that means they paying the translators well, anyway glad it works.
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Estoma
 Posts: 12 |
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Glad to hear of its success. The variety of manga available atm is really good, but I'd like to see it get even bigger.
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Llyud
Posts: 167 |
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Translation: "We will replace all translators as soon as Google Translate doesn't give shitty translations". 
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7777ale7777
 Posts: 105 |
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Before contemplating switching to machine translation maybe they should first get better translators, or hire more so the ones they have have at least someone to compare notes with, which always results in better translations. I'm saying this because I usually read the chapters in both english and spanish and I always find inconsistencies (I don't know japanese so I never know which one is more faithful).
Oh, and the reason I read the chapters in two different languages is because of another major problem with the site. I would prefer to read it in english but they never combine the double spread pages in that version, they only do that for the spanish one. I could just select to read everything in the horizontal display, but then everything looks too tiny for my current monitor. Also, the english version never translates those introductory and closing lines that appear in the first and last pages of every series, nor the ones in the color covers (they don't add anything to the story but the spanish translators seem to think that it's part of the job they were paid to do). And don't get me started on the amount of times the pages appeared in a different order... |
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Beatdigga
 Posts: 4631 Location: New York |
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I’m admittedly wondering how feasible it would be to train translators in exchange for a reduced rate. “Learn a new language! Great experience!”
I am spitballing here, and I fully believe professional translators deserve to be compensated for their efforts, but I’m wondering how well that would be received. |
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Vanadise
 Posts: 534 |
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On one hand, it's true that the quality of machine translations are constantly improving. On the other hand, every time they improve, we realize that the gulf between what MTL is capable of and what it takes to make a good translation is even larger than we thought it was. Translators do not just take words and replace them with equivalents; they research cultural concepts and idioms, analyze themes behind the writing, and then write scripts that convey the same emotions and experiences to foreign audiences. The very best MTL services nowadays are capable of making adequate translations of technical documents, or (sometimes) getting the bare facts across in creative works. They're still never pleasant to read, always lose a ton of nuance, and are simply incapable of doing the kind of research and wordplay that professional translators are capable of. I feel fairly confident in saying that we will never have MTLs capable of producing scripts on the level of, for example, Vagrant Story or Utawarerumono: Mask of Deception. |
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Amaranth Sparrow
Posts: 99 |
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Machine learning is make pretty impressive strides. DeepL Translate is shockingly good. Last edited by Amaranth Sparrow on Fri Sep 17, 2021 5:47 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Suxinn
 Posts: 251 |
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As someone who has seen people use DeepL to translate a language I'm familiar with (Chinese), I can say that DeepL is good at sounding good, but is it good at being accurate? Nope. In terms of accuracy, I'd say it ranks about the same as other translation services, sometimes even lower. (Baidu Fanyi is still, imo, the best Chinese-English MTL.) But DeepL is good at coming out with fluid, idiomatic sounding English sentences, which is why it's praised so often. Unfortunately, if you're someone who requires a machine translator like DeepL in the first place, you obviously won't be able to see the inaccuracies in what it's churning out.
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Amaranth Sparrow
Posts: 99 |
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I can't comment on Chinese but its Japanese is quite good, especially compared to where machine translation was even five years ago. I know some game development studios that are using it as a first pass in localization and then having their translators and editors check and correct it from there to reduce workload. Obviously machine translation will probably never be able to completely overcome certain language barriers like intuition, abstract context, etc., so localization experts will still be needed. But machine translations are only going to get better as the AIs get more training. |
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fencer_x
Posts: 281 |
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Yeah sorry, I’m never reading a machine translation for something I care about. A 140-character tweet I just need the gist of? Sure. A chapter of a manga I love and want to have the best translation possible so that others will be enticed to read as well? Never.
Good translators don’t just know the language. They don’t even just know the culture. They’re good writers, they have a gift with creating dialogue and narration. They make something you WANT to read more of. Machines aren’t gonna get there until genuine AI indistinguishable from humans becomes a thing. Also, given equal linguistic skill, a fan will always produce a better translation than a rando hired by a translation department. |
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Longsock
 Posts: 14 |
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Half the time that just means Among Us references or politics, though. Which I don't think anyone enjoys seeing pop up. re: DeepL I find most of the problem is how people use it and other machine translators. They try to put in slang, synonyms, or use a bunch of contractions or weird grammar hangups so they get something weird in return. Just be aware of what you're doing. i.e. don't use "100 bucks" for money since it might think you mean 100 deer. Sometimes it catches those, but sometimes it doesn't. Just learn how to use these things better and they can be serviceable. |
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lossthief
ANN Reviewer
 Posts: 1440 |
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Funny, that little pointless flare-up you're presumably referencing is just the kind of solid translation they were talking about. Since, y'know, the character in question used slang in Japanese that very closely matches the meaning of "sus" (which, I'm sure you'd know if you actually care about this, didn't originate from Among Us and has been in modern parlance for years). That's the kind of consideration that machine translation just isn't capable of! |
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Dian Z
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If I remember correctly, I've only encountered this once. And it's pretty recent I guess, so the whole time before that it was doing well in this regard. I wonder if it only affects some uploaded language version. Anyway, I would read machine translation when it gets to the quality that I wouldn't notice the difference between mtl and translators, which is currently a science fiction. I wouldn't mind if they make missing chapters or a whole volume available for a reasonable price in mangaplus app, which hopefully will help the translation costs. |
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BonusStage
 Posts: 307 |
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The probability of this not being a reference to Among Us is pretty low given they use multiple terms relating to the game. There's a point where plausible deniability is revoked. It is entirely possible for professional translators to make mistakes, let alone deliberately make changes.. And customers are fully free to criticize them for doing so. |
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AmpersandsUnited
Posts: 633 |
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I wouldn't say that's a flaw of machine translation since it's not the intent of what it's trying to do. It's to tell you what something means in another language, not re-write something in it's entirety with a completely different meaning. The word you're looking for is localization. I'm not sure how common stuff like that is in American translations of manga, though. Usually it's only video games that try to do the whole "Japanese > Shakesperean English" thing. |
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