Hey everybody ~ Let's get along well ^_^

[Joefish]

Hey guys.
I found this site a few days ago and finally got around to write this introduction.
My name is Joe and I like manga and anime (how could it be different).
Mangas I'm currently reading are:

• Naruto
• Bleach
• One Piece
• Blame (just started again)
• Mahou Sensei Negima

Next manga I will start reading (finally) is Fairy Tale but I just haven't found the time so far.
Animes are Naruto, (Bleach) and One Piece but also stuff that just recently came out.
Some of my favorites are (besides the afore-mentioned):

• Ghost in a Shell
• Elfenlied
• Hellsing OVA
• Rurouni Kenshin / Tsuiokuhen
• ...

I'm also studying Japanese and interested in all kinds of stuff like photoshopping, programming,...
The translator section is what does really interest me (that's how I actually found mh) because I was looking for a site where manga translations can be discussed.
My Japanese is not good enough to do translations myself, though. But I think I can learn a lot by following the discussions and gain enough experience to do my own 'translations' in a few months.
I looking forward to many interesting discussions and hope that my English will enhance fast for the good of all

If you have any questions please go ahead and ask (if it's not too personal )

 

[Charlie]

Welcome to mh Joe~~~

I agree those are some awesome manga and anime to read and watch.

What is your favorite all time manga and anime character?

If you had to choose between manga and anime, which would you pick?

 

[Joefish]

That's a hard one..
I think you cannot decide between manga and anime.
Even though anime is a animated version of manga they distinguish in many ways.
Not only because they can differ in story but also the way the story is told.
Sometimes pictures can express feelings way better than animes, at least in my opinion.
On the other hand e.g. fighting scences can be pretty confusing in mangas.
So there is no real 'I think ~ is better' but if I had to choose I'd probably go for manga.

Favorite all time manga and anime character...
As you maybe noticed I don't like to commit myself to one thing.
I really don't know.. sorry.

 

[Charlie]

That's a hard one..
I think you cannot decide between manga and anime.
Even though anime is a animated version of manga they distinguish in many ways.
Not only because they can differ in story but also the way the story is told.
Sometimes pictures can express feelings way better than animes, at least in my opinion.
On the other hand e.g. fighting scences can be pretty confusing in mangas.
So there is no real 'I think ~ is better' but if I had to choose I'd probably go for manga.

Favorite all time manga and anime character...
As you maybe noticed I don't like to commit myself to one thing.
I really don't know.. sorry.

Well, its not that uncommon not have a favorite either. Although I prefer to see the mangas that I like to read in anime format, for some of the reason you mentioned already. Have you started to read any manhwas yet?

Manhwas are Korean comic / manga.

There are also web manhwas that are similar to the American comics aka web-toons, being fully colored.

If you haven't read any yet, I recommend you start with Noblesse (webtoon), Tower of God (webtoon),

Zippy Ziggy, Id the greatest fusion fantasy and Yureka.

 

[phio_chan]

Heya, heya, welcome to MH! Nice to meet you. Have fun around here.

Oow, Japanese. How long have you been studying Japanese? What made you interested in working to translate manga?

 

[Joefish]

Well, its not that uncommon not have a favorite either. Although I prefer to see the mangas that I like to read in anime format, for some of the reason you mentioned already. Have you started to read any manhwas yet?

Manhwas are Korean comic / manga.

There are also web manhwas that are similar to the American comics aka web-toons, being fully colored.

If you haven't read any yet, I recommend you start with Noblesse (webtoon), Tower of God (webtoon),

Zippy Ziggy, Id the greatest fusion fantasy and Yureka.

I haven't read any manwhas yet. But I just read a few chapters of Noblesse and I like it so far.
It's definitely different from Japanese manga but I like how the pictures are arranged + it's colored ^^
Thanks for recommending.

@phio_chan
Nice to meet you too
I started studying Japanese back in 08-09 I think..
But I had to stop several times because of school and lack of motivation :P
Recently, I graduated school and have no apprenticeship or college place.
Thus, I've plenty of free time to do whatever I want.
That's why I thought it might be a good idea start studying Japanese again.
It's really frustrating to study everything again though.
I forgot soo many kanji, colloquial expressions and grammar that I have to look up every second word...
But it's rewarding when you finally understand a sentence/expression you were pouring over for hours.

Also I like manga/anime, the sound of the Japanese language and the look of kanji/kana.
Another reason for studying Japanese and doing manga translations is that some translations (especially speed trans) are too inaccurate
and if you don't even get the meaning of a sentence anymore it can be really annoying.
In order to avoid this inconvenience being able to read raws would become quite handy I thought. (and cool but that's obvious, isn't it :P)

 

[phio_chan]

@phio_chan
Nice to meet you too
I started studying Japanese back in 08-09 I think..
But I had to stop several times because of school and lack of motivation :P
Recently, I graduated school and have no apprenticeship or college place.
Thus, I've plenty of free time to do whatever I want.
That's why I thought it might be a good idea start studying Japanese again.
It's really frustrating to study everything again though.
I forgot soo many kanji, colloquial expressions and grammar that I have to look up every second word...
But it's rewarding when you finally understand a sentence/expression you were pouring over for hours.

Also I like manga/anime, the sound of the Japanese language and the look of kanji/kana.
Another reason for studying Japanese and doing manga translations is that some translations (especially speed trans) are too inaccurate
and if you don't even get the meaning of a sentence anymore it can be really annoying.
In order to avoid this inconvenience being able to read raws would become quite handy I thought. (and cool but that's obvious, isn't it :P)

Ooh, I see. I agree with what you said. Studying languages is a pain, especially languages which have their own characters; namely Chinese, Japanese, and probably Korean. I gave up studying Chinese, haha~ So all the best for you. I think there are lots of tutorial to study Japanese on the internet, and when you're confused you can consult it here.

Thinking of joining manga scan group once you're confident of your skills? Or will you be a freelance translator at places like here on MH?

 

[Joefish]

Well, I don't think I'll ever be confident enough in my language skills to join a Edited Manga group. I always need to discuss with people about even the simplest translations.
I'm afraid of making mistakes or give wrong advice. That's why I need people who can correct me and help me to improve.
I will give my best so I can finally translate manga or whatever it will be. We'll see.. :P

 

[murasakii23]

Well, I don't think I'll ever be confident enough in my language skills to join a Edited Manga group. I always need to discuss with people about even the simplest translations.
I'm afraid of making mistakes or give wrong advice. That's why I need people who can correct me and help me to improve.
I will give my best so I can finally translate manga or whatever it will be. We'll see.. :P

Hello~

Join! that's what tl checkers are for

So how many kanji can you read joefish?

 

[Joefish]

Yeah.. Probably just going for it would be the best.
Let's see how much I can improve till end of july/august.
I can read about 300-400 kanji I think. So, still a long way to go ^^

 

[igotthegoods]

Hi and welcome, Joefish!

That's awesome that you're thinking about becoming a translator. You should check out the Translator's Academy for some useful resources and tips, if you haven't already. ^^

Ooo~ I see you're reading Blame! Great manga, imo. What are your thoughts about it so far? Have you ever read anything else by Nihei?

 

[phio_chan]

Well, I don't think I'll ever be confident enough in my language skills to join a Edited Manga group. I always need to discuss with people about even the simplest translations.
I'm afraid of making mistakes or give wrong advice. That's why I need people who can correct me and help me to improve.
I will give my best so I can finally translate manga or whatever it will be. We'll see.. :P

Hmm, really?
In my case, since I'm a total no-no at translating, I worked as proofreader. Obviously it required good English. When the first time I started, I was kinda confused but on hyper mode at the same time for "working" for the first time. I thought I really had to do this well, so I went as far as asking my English teacher for some sentences I wasn't sure about. (Now that I think about it again, it was kinda embarrassing. >__<) Ever since then, my English grew even more. I met new situations of sentences, learned how to 'solve' it, met new people, talked to them, made friends, learn more English, and so on.
My point is that, experience is the best teacher in the world. Learning by doing. (Now I sound like a mother, rofl~) Soo... well, just give it a try. Try to be more confident of yourself, do it slowly, and don't stop asking. You'll see that you can actually do it.

I have a question, though. ...How did you manage to remember that many kanji? =____=

 

[Joefish]

That's actually the first I did ^^ Straight went for the Translator Academy.
So far I haven't had a problem that I couldn't solve by studying with the resources already available to me.
But the Quiz is really hard this time... Waiting eagerly for the solution ^^

Blame is really something special.
There are barely any conversations but impressive pictures which tell you the story.
I know exactly how it was when I read (rather watched) the 1st chapter.
It was like you don't really know what's going on but it's awesome
I don't know any other manga that tells its story that way.
That's why Blame is kinda special (at least for me).

Hmm, really?
In my case, since I'm a total no-no at translating, I worked as proofreader. Obviously it required good English. When the first time I started, I was kinda confused but on hyper mode at the same time for "working" for the first time. I thought I really had to do this well, so I went as far as asking my English teacher for some sentences I wasn't sure about. (Now that I think about it again, it was kinda embarrassing. >__<) Ever since then, my English grew even more. I met new situations of sentences, learned how to 'solve' it, met new people, talked to them, made friends, learn more English, and so on.
My point is that, experience is the best teacher in the world. Learning by doing. (Now I sound like a mother, rofl~) Soo... well, just give it a try. Try to be more confident of yourself, do it slowly, and don't stop asking. You'll see that you can actually do it.

I have a question, though. ...How did you manage to remember that many kanji? =____=

Yeah, you're right. Experience is indeed the best teacher you can get.(embarrassing moments included :P)
When I first came here I downloaded the proofreader test but stopped halfway.
After the test got more and more difficult I was concerned about my capabilites of actually proofread other peoples' work and be presumptuous enough to criticize.
Now I think I should have done it just to check how good I am and what I'm capable of.
Translating is different though. You can improvise if you don't know what to express a certain situation.
And sometimes that's exactly what you need to do. Be more spontaneous and try things out.
However, you cannot bend english grammar because of your spontaneity or write something only because it sounds good as a proofreader.
That's what I think.. Maybe drop all this language stuff would be the best but as you said.
You'll never know till you tried it yourself. And I think my English isn't that bad at all.. (yea brave me )

And regarding your kanji memorize question.. It's actually not that different from learning a language with latin writing system.
At least that's how I do it. Afaik a lot of people grab their Kanji Dictionary and study all the reading for one Kanji.
I don't think that's a fun way to learn them + you forget them really fast if you don't review them over and over.
For example: 行 can be read as "AN, GYOU, KOU, i(keru), i(ku), okona(u), yu(ku)"。
It would be a huge pain in the ass if you now just try to memorize the next one.
Because after 10 more you might remember 1-2 readings.
That's why I memorize kanji by using them. That means memorzie whole words and not only the reading.
Using them in a sentence and so on. Think you know what I mean ^^
On the other side it can happen that you miss a reading of a kanji but its definitely better imo.
And it's always a surprise when you see readings you don't know for a kanji you thought you know so well

 

[phio_chan]

Yeah, you're right. Experience is indeed the best teacher you can get.(embarrassing moments included :P)
When I first came here I downloaded the proofreader test but stopped halfway.
After the test got more and more difficult I was concerned about my capabilites of actually proofread other peoples' work and be presumptuous enough to criticize.
Now I think I should have done it just to check how good I am and what I'm capable of.
Translating is different though. You can improvise if you don't know what to express a certain situation.
And sometimes that's exactly what you need to do. Be more spontaneous and try things out.
However, you cannot bend english grammar because of your spontaneity or write something only because it sounds good as a proofreader.
That's what I think.. Maybe drop all this language stuff would be the best but as you said.
You'll never know till you tried it yourself. And I think my English isn't that bad at all.. (yea brave me )

Hahaha~ I have to admit that MH's Proofreader Test is pretty hard. But because of it I found out that proofreading isn't as easy as I thought, and that I still have some things to learn. The same goes with translating, I think. The more you try, the more you find things you don't know, the more you learn, the more you know. XD Noo, don't quit it, haha~ And see, your English isn't bad! You can talk to us, and we can understand you. Language is all about understanding, I suppose.

And regarding your kanji memorize question.. It's actually not that different from learning a language with latin writing system.
At least that's how I do it. Afaik a lot of people grab their Kanji Dictionary and study all the reading for one Kanji.
I don't think that's a fun way to learn them + you forget them really fast if you don't review them over and over.
For example: 行 can be read as "AN, GYOU, KOU, i(keru), i(ku), okona(u), yu(ku)"。
It would be a huge pain in the ass if you now just try to memorize the next one.
Because after 10 more you might remember 1-2 readings.
That's why I memorize kanji by using them. That means memorzie whole words and not only the reading.
Using them in a sentence and so on. Think you know what I mean ^^
On the other side it can happen that you miss a reading of a kanji but its definitely better imo.
And it's always a surprise when you see readings you don't know for a kanji you thought you know so well

I see. I think basically you mean try using it on sentences, true? So learning by doing again. XD I think that's what I lack when I studied Chinese and Japanese. I didn't get many chance to actually use it in sentences and use it to talk to someone; I was always guided, and test was already prepared. I had been shown what would be asked, so I didn't really try to know more. My bad as well. ^^"

 

[Joefish]

[...]
I see. I think basically you mean try using it on sentences, true? So learning by doing again. XD I think that's what I lack when I studied Chinese and Japanese. I didn't get many chance to actually use it in sentences and use it to talk to someone; I was always guided, and test was already prepared. I had been shown what would be asked, so I didn't really try to know more. My bad as well. ^^"

There is no way that you can learn a language without using it everyday. Everyday you're lazy you forget what you learned before.
I also have no chances to do some real practice with native speakers (you can use skype but it's not as effective as possible).
But I try to think in Japanese with my limited vocabulary, write notes in Japanese and try to read as much as I can.
Of course I get tired of it from time to time... But I always imagine how awesome it would be if I already could read/write/understand Japanese.
And that's what motivates me every time.