#shinza

fan art @numblocprince

beautiful and elegant cube^^

shinza says hello

Hey, everyone!  I’m back, getting started now with translating the second book of the Young Pommern side story manga.  Enjoy!

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Translator Notes:

I do my best to hew as close as possible to the original Japanese when translating, but every now and then you run into something that I assume worked in Japanese but just doesn't work in English... like, at all.  Sometimes that's due to grammatical differences between languages, and sometimes that's due to difference in how word choice comes across in one language versus the other, but either way, in those cases, I tend to just throw out the Japanese lines that don't work and come up with brand new lines that in my view still get across the spirit of the original Japanese lines while sounding like much more natural English that fits the characters in question.

In this chapter, there were two cases where I had to do that, which cover both of those circumstances.  The first was Segwell's line, "What devilry is this!?"  The original Japanese was konna koto ga--!!, which literally translates as, "This sort of thing...!!"  Obviously, that would be absurd to include as-is, so I instead substituted a completely invented alternate line that was intended to convey his shock and horror at the scene before him while still sounding like a thing he might say.

Japanese has a grammatical feature where you can often just completely leave off an entire part of a sentence if the emotional expression is conveyed adequately without it, and it always is a bit tricky to know what to do with those lines when translating to English.  The most extreme example of this is the word chotto, which literally means "a little bit", but can be used as a way to politely decline something.  For example, if you asked a polite Japanese woman whether she wanted to do something tomorrow and she did not, she might simply reply, Ashita wa chotto... ("Tomorrow's a little...") and it's up to you to fill in the blanks that she's trying to let you down easy.

The second case was this exchange:

Zanzekuel: "The hell!?  I thought you took care of that one!"

Annette: "Yeah, you an' me both, idiot!"

The exact Japanese was this:

Zanzekuel: Nanda arya!?  Omae chanto taoshite oke yo!! ("What!?  Damn!!  Defeat them properly before moving on!!")

Annette: Dekiru nara yatteru wa yo!! ("If I were able to, I would be doing so!!")

In this case, the direct translation isn't missing any part of speech like it was in the case with Segwell's line, but the direct translation in English just sounds super stilted and out of character for those two.  Since the main idea is to convey Zanzekuel's annoyance that Annette hadn't fully defeated a monster and Annette's annoyance that he thinks that's her fault, I figured I'd just replace these two lines with lines of my own creation that sounded in my view much better in English while still conveying the general idea underpinning the Japanese lines.

“--Old friend. You’ve come again, I see.”

It was hardly difficult to sense his presence upon her mountain, for all that went occurred on Mt. Taixuan did not take place without her knowing. The Azure Empyrea’s long, sweeping sleeves fan out as she turns on her heel to face him, tilting her head very slightly and causing her bangs to frame perfectly frame her face. There’s a pavillion behind her, overlooking the scenery of Liyue, and in the distance--One would be able to see the harbor.