patrik:

gyrus:I was thinking of translating Death Note, would anyone be interested?

I am interested. But I think I must first improve my Esperanto before doing such.

I too would be interested in this project.

LyzTyphone:Applying the ideas above, the result so far:
Tiaj agoj ja estas tre neakcepteblaj, malfi.
How does that look? Please make comment~

Bonega!

Only, I'm not sure where malfi came from... unshame? I probably missed that somewhere but nonetheless looks good

A death note project would also be cool, and it'd be great if you can understand some Japanese - I can but unfortunately not enough to translate from, I have to rely on good English translations for that sadly.

So, by the looks of things we have an 090 Eko to Issho translation (me, still only 1 page lol), looking like we're having a Shakugan no Shana translation by the conversations we're having, and a Death note translation... mostly all in the conceptualisation stage of course, but still... awesome!

I'm not sure that malfi is a good translation of de arimasu. Malfi does not come across as official and polite. To me it seems playful and tongue-in-cheek.

When translating japanese into english i prefer to read the original, and then rewrite something completely different that gives the same spirit. I do not think it is possible to translate well without radically transforming the whole sentence.

@korlumo
You are dead right. If by translation from Japanese to say English something is already missing, then we risk a double loss of information. But I am not sure how many here read original Japanese...

@mnlg
Now I see how the Italian translators used the Russian borrow words. I am sure they help to get the meaning across! And personally I will consider it a possible solution for us, too. Again, the question always relevant is "when". If a concept is too unique to express by any possible Esperanto word, then we shall consider leaving it in. (Also, as principle Evolution by Translation holds, we may also want to envortarigi it, so that in the future we can express it with authentic Esperanto word.)
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@ceigered
@jchthys
Looks like not many are for the use of "malfi" in this sentence. Maybe it will come in handy in another situation.

And suddenly this question came to me... Is Wilhelmina talking about actions in the past or something that hasn't happened? If the latter I will rather prefer:
Tiaj agoj ja estus tre neakcepteblaj, Flamnebulo.
(This time I adopted erinja's advice by addressing the listener by his/her "rank".)

How does it looks this time?

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On the genre of our translation
As it seems, our effort of translating Japanese manga is unprecedented, so what we are trying to do here is to lay foundation for future followers. So let's start from the basics, the honorifics, the subtle tones, and "obscure" cultural background underlying the conversation.

So I personally don't feel it a must to rush into Epics SF Genre with a mountain of words you will hardly use outside that manga anyway. How do you guys feel?

I disappear for nearly a year and come back to find my old topic alive and well! Glad to see it's led to some productive discussion and I hope that discussion becomes translations before another year passes.

Hopefully I'll be able to get back into the Esperanto swing of things in the next year or three, depending on how busy my life stays. Graduation, inter-country apartment and job hunting, and marriage tend to cumulatively take up all spare time. At the very least, though, I should get a nice easy-to-carry Esperanto study book for the little moments meanwhile. Or an esperanto manga!

@Tidalias
You should thank ceigered who dug this thread up!

Indeed I do thank him. Not so much an act of necromancy as it was rescuing a thread that was mistakenly buried alive, it seems. I'm pleased to see the lengthy debates it's generated. Let's just hope a healthy amount of standards can be arrived at, for people to get started in their translation undertakings, at which point I hope this thread will grow in leaps and bounds.

LyzTyphone:@ceigered
@jchthys
Looks like not many are for the use of "malfi" in this sentence. Maybe it will come in handy in another situation.

And suddenly this question came to me... Is Wilhelmina talking about actions in the past or something that hasn't happened? If the latter I will rather prefer:
Tiaj agoj ja estus tre neakcepteblaj, Flamnebulo.
(This time I adopted erinja's advice by addressing the listener by his/her "rank".)

How does it looks this time?

I'd go with "estas" and not "estus" - not that I can really remember the example sentence anymore, but I think Wilhelmina would be very definite in her speech and try to cut things down to true and false - no 'if's

LyzTyphone:
So I personally don't feel it a must to rush into Epics SF Genre with a mountain of words you will hardly use outside that manga anyway. How do you guys feel?

If I understood correctly, I take it you are saying that you don't think that a reader should have to learn a whole new mountain of words that aren't useful outside that manga genre anyway?
If so I partially agree - I was reading Samurai Deeper Kyo the other day and I came accross this giant word that looked like something like "Jyuutenshouryokaishimashitakonnichiwazetsubousensei" and I freaked (the actual word was much smaller, only the words for "10 (Jyuu)", and possibly generals (shogun), so it was really only 3 syllables long but without the use of kanji the word looked very odd). Those kind of words go a bit beyond transliteration and honorifics or simple things with visual aids (yay for nekomimi) and often describe abstract concepts, so I wouldn't mind translating them completely (e.g. I'd prefer "10 Shoguns etc" (or whatever the word was) as opposed to "jyuushogun...... (followed by another 20 syllables)).

Some things like Onime no kyo (Demon eyes kyo), Nekomimi (cat ears LOL) are a bit less harmful to understanding, although I must admit "Demon eyes kyo" sounds cooler that the Japanese one, at least for me. I guess then it's more up to aesthetic appeal. (I'd rather hear 'nekomimi moudo~!' at the start of the Moonphase anime than 'Cat-ears mode~!' - although they are both as irritating )

@ Tidalias:
Ha cheers it was no big deal, "old threads digger-upperer" is my middle name after all (however we just shorten it to 'James' in daily speech for certain reasons) .

But in all seriousness, good to see you back All the best with the job-hunting and graduation and marriage, and if you've already been there and got through it, congratulations!

@ceigered

ceigered:I think Wilhelmina would be very definite in her speech and try to cut things down to true and false - no 'if's

Good point! I will duly take that. So back to
Tiaj agoj ja estas tre neakcepteblaj, Flamnebulo.
Neto?

Tons of new words
Yeah, maybe that too, though what I really meant was, that we, as the first undertakers of manga-Esperantization, may choose to avoid those Epic SF/Fantasy so that we don't need to "waste" time worrying about so many words that exist only in that very manga.

Words like "nekomimi" of course don't belong to that category. XD

In order to really feel your pain, I actually started working a few pages of GA Geijutsuka Art Design Class, basically a cute comedy 4-comas around a group of Art School girls.
The plot is simple and conversations rich; the only words not easily transferable to other mangas are probably those about fine art. Which are why I chose this one in the first place (another reason involves personal interest >///< )

And during the process I think I have found the need of much to be discussed.
1. A vocabulary to discribe manga. kind of like this.
2. A vocabulary to discribe manga/anime culture. kind of like this.
3. Family titles (Onisan, Onesan, etc which don't have ready equivalent in Eo)
4. English phrases. ("Don't mind", "Thank you" etc)
5. Onomatopoeia, or Sonimito.
6. Accents (like Osaka-accent, Okinawan, etc)
7. Unique Japanese concepts, and how to avoid Japanismo.
8. How to avoid Copyright controversy.

I will address them later and hope everybody isn't too tired of debating.