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Jun. 27th, 2013 06:55 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dmxratedJust eight pages short of having translated chapter 2 of Mother: The Original Story. As of yesterday afternoon, though, I've pretty much given up for the time being. No matter how many times I've read through volumes 2 and 3 of Japanese in Mangaland since Christmas of 2008, I'm unable to retain most of what's in there. On top of that, there are even things that don't even appear in the grammatical index, such as "toshite", despite coming up all the time in whatever I read.
At that point, I was starting to wonder if I even was cut out to translate such a difficult language into English. Spoke about the whole situation with Mom, and she did tell me that, to begin with, it's a lot harder at my age to learn a language than it is when one is a child. However, she also said that there are all kinds of books out there, and to assume that it only takes one book or series of books to learn everything you need to know is simply a fallacy. It's like the difference between 6th grade history and a TV documentary. That's exactly why I ditched Contemporary Japanese during the summer of '08 in favor of Japanese in Mangaland, and it seemed to make things a whole lot easier, if at least by showing transitions between literal and more refined translations in all its manga examples.
Speaking of which, that's part of the problem here. Looking up kanji is easy enough once you know how to. So far, the aforementioned manga examples are the closest things to any kind of context that I've ever been able to learn from, but even those are just a myriad of isolated situations. Kanji in Context, despite the title, has no such thing. MTOS, likewise, consists entirely of text, and it doesn't help that dialogue isn't even accompanied by "said such-and-such", instead of you having to infer who's saying what based on preceding lines and personal pronouns used.
-----
Right now, we are planning to go to New Jersey on Sunday, and I'm gonna be staying there for two weeks to watch over Grandpa Bob, since Uncle Robby and Cousin Adam are going on vacation the following Wednesday. Originally, I was gonna have myself a breather once I complete chapter 2 of MTOS, not playing anything, and then use the time I'm down there to work on chapter 3. But, since I'm giving that whole thing a rest now, I'm gonna have to find other things to do. Planning on finally continuing with May's first chapter of Parasitic Trio once I come home, but in the meantime, I do hope that Chelle will be free enough at this point to discuss Starbound (particularly the second-to-final chapters that I already sent her). Even if she isn't, though, I do have some idea of how at least one chapter before those will play out.
-----
In any case, why is MTOS even an issue to begin with, in relation to Starbound? Short answer: Because I read on a forum that, while it is darker and edgier than the source game, it still has the same zany feel to it that said game has. Specifics aside, since Chelle is not into video games in general, I thought this would be more appropriate to share with her, to see how the humorous and not-so-humorous stuff balances out, also for myself.
True, there is Earthbound 199X, a fan-written novelization of Earthbound, which is well-written enough in and of itself. Thing is, the fic seems at least somewhat down to Earth in comparison, even with the humorous bits that actually were canon. For one thing, there's a scene where a New Age Retro Hippie, harassing the Punk-Sure bike shop owner, brandishes a toothbrush him and shouts "Brush your teeth!" In the game, toothbrushes are used in battle to actually brush your teeth, and then breathe your minty-fresh breath onto one enemy to solidify them for one turn. Finding a more realistic use for things like those is exactly something that Jake advised me not to do, if I plan on making similar use of items (and food) to in the games, since that would be taking things a bit too seriously.
On the other hand, there are things like this interesting little bit:
About a mile and a half south of Onett Ness grew hungry. His already sizable appetite had grown considerably with the advent of his psychic powers, especially since the realization of Rockin'. Three miles south of Onett, just before he reached a rather densely forested area, he came upon a patch of mushrooms.
"Lunch!" he exclaimed, he wasn't picky by any means.
"Lunch?" the mushroom responded, "Are you planning to eat me? That's very reckless of you, eating a random mushroom out in the wilderness like this, I could be poisonous, I probably am, I'm evil after all, you'd know that if you had some kind of wilderness book for survival and stuff, you know, the kind that boy scouts carry? Lots of boy scouts come through here you know, and I attack all of them because, as I said, I'm evil, and so are most of my relatives, especially my uncle Marvin he's terrible! Like this one time…"
Ness blinked incredulously. Gang members and crooked cops made sense. Giant ants and psychic slugs were a bit farfetched, but at least within the realm of feasibility. Self proclaimed evil fungi that rambled on about nothing in particular was not only ridiculous, but unbearably annoying. So, making his best 'excuse me, I have to go' Ness turned to leave.
(Should note that Ramblin' Evil Mushrooms do not actually talk in the game, being minor enemies and all.)
I asked Jake to give that fic a read and see if it stays true enough to the original game, and for that matter, might also suggest that Chelle give it a read as well. Even if it actually does stay true, and buying that expensive book was redundant to begin with (at least for the sake of an unrelated fanfic), said book might still have been worth my money, if mainly to practice translating real, uncontrived writing at any point in my life.
At that point, I was starting to wonder if I even was cut out to translate such a difficult language into English. Spoke about the whole situation with Mom, and she did tell me that, to begin with, it's a lot harder at my age to learn a language than it is when one is a child. However, she also said that there are all kinds of books out there, and to assume that it only takes one book or series of books to learn everything you need to know is simply a fallacy. It's like the difference between 6th grade history and a TV documentary. That's exactly why I ditched Contemporary Japanese during the summer of '08 in favor of Japanese in Mangaland, and it seemed to make things a whole lot easier, if at least by showing transitions between literal and more refined translations in all its manga examples.
Speaking of which, that's part of the problem here. Looking up kanji is easy enough once you know how to. So far, the aforementioned manga examples are the closest things to any kind of context that I've ever been able to learn from, but even those are just a myriad of isolated situations. Kanji in Context, despite the title, has no such thing. MTOS, likewise, consists entirely of text, and it doesn't help that dialogue isn't even accompanied by "said such-and-such", instead of you having to infer who's saying what based on preceding lines and personal pronouns used.
-----
Right now, we are planning to go to New Jersey on Sunday, and I'm gonna be staying there for two weeks to watch over Grandpa Bob, since Uncle Robby and Cousin Adam are going on vacation the following Wednesday. Originally, I was gonna have myself a breather once I complete chapter 2 of MTOS, not playing anything, and then use the time I'm down there to work on chapter 3. But, since I'm giving that whole thing a rest now, I'm gonna have to find other things to do. Planning on finally continuing with May's first chapter of Parasitic Trio once I come home, but in the meantime, I do hope that Chelle will be free enough at this point to discuss Starbound (particularly the second-to-final chapters that I already sent her). Even if she isn't, though, I do have some idea of how at least one chapter before those will play out.
-----
In any case, why is MTOS even an issue to begin with, in relation to Starbound? Short answer: Because I read on a forum that, while it is darker and edgier than the source game, it still has the same zany feel to it that said game has. Specifics aside, since Chelle is not into video games in general, I thought this would be more appropriate to share with her, to see how the humorous and not-so-humorous stuff balances out, also for myself.
True, there is Earthbound 199X, a fan-written novelization of Earthbound, which is well-written enough in and of itself. Thing is, the fic seems at least somewhat down to Earth in comparison, even with the humorous bits that actually were canon. For one thing, there's a scene where a New Age Retro Hippie, harassing the Punk-Sure bike shop owner, brandishes a toothbrush him and shouts "Brush your teeth!" In the game, toothbrushes are used in battle to actually brush your teeth, and then breathe your minty-fresh breath onto one enemy to solidify them for one turn. Finding a more realistic use for things like those is exactly something that Jake advised me not to do, if I plan on making similar use of items (and food) to in the games, since that would be taking things a bit too seriously.
On the other hand, there are things like this interesting little bit:
About a mile and a half south of Onett Ness grew hungry. His already sizable appetite had grown considerably with the advent of his psychic powers, especially since the realization of Rockin'. Three miles south of Onett, just before he reached a rather densely forested area, he came upon a patch of mushrooms.
"Lunch!" he exclaimed, he wasn't picky by any means.
"Lunch?" the mushroom responded, "Are you planning to eat me? That's very reckless of you, eating a random mushroom out in the wilderness like this, I could be poisonous, I probably am, I'm evil after all, you'd know that if you had some kind of wilderness book for survival and stuff, you know, the kind that boy scouts carry? Lots of boy scouts come through here you know, and I attack all of them because, as I said, I'm evil, and so are most of my relatives, especially my uncle Marvin he's terrible! Like this one time…"
Ness blinked incredulously. Gang members and crooked cops made sense. Giant ants and psychic slugs were a bit farfetched, but at least within the realm of feasibility. Self proclaimed evil fungi that rambled on about nothing in particular was not only ridiculous, but unbearably annoying. So, making his best 'excuse me, I have to go' Ness turned to leave.
(Should note that Ramblin' Evil Mushrooms do not actually talk in the game, being minor enemies and all.)
I asked Jake to give that fic a read and see if it stays true enough to the original game, and for that matter, might also suggest that Chelle give it a read as well. Even if it actually does stay true, and buying that expensive book was redundant to begin with (at least for the sake of an unrelated fanfic), said book might still have been worth my money, if mainly to practice translating real, uncontrived writing at any point in my life.