The fosskers Thread

[fosskers]

Name: fosskers
Age: 21
Location: Winnipeg, Canada
Occupation: University student
Series Translations: Bleach, Variante, Naruto
One shots: We Can Fly!
Group: Maximum7

About Me: I started translating to supplement my language studies and I think it's a wonderful way to do so.
I am currently the Bleach translator for Maximum7 and have been since March 2008.

Availability: I am currently not available for other projects.

Questions? Comments? Ask away.

My Translations:

Bleach
Chapters 302 - 400

Bleach Flashbacks
-15. Death in the Field of Ice
Chapters -108 to -97

Variante
#0011 [CHIMAIRA]
#0012 [The Brink of Despair]

 

[Kastro187420]

Hi, I actually have a question regarding translating.

I've recently begun translating various things to help me better learn Japanese (I'm actually very new to it). I'm not trying to learn it fluently or anything, but just something so that I can translate various comics and what not when I'm bored. However, I run into a small snag that takes up alot of my time:

I come across various strings that, when translated into Romaji, depending on how they're broken up, can mean various different things. How do I tell where to make the break on certain strings? Sorry if I don't explain this well.

I've tried using various websites to learn the language and structure, but many of them lack decent explanations and examples, and so I'm left confused. Do you have any tips, or know of a good website that might explain this for me?

 

[richvh]

First of all, there is no such thing as "translating into romaji", because romaji isn't a language, it's a writing system. You "transliterate into romaji."

Increasing your vocabulary will help you make sense of these types of cases. In the meantime, you'll just have to look up all the possibilities, and figure out which one(s) make sense in the context of the entire sentence and the situation. What helped me very early on was to type the text into Wakan's editor, and see what conversions were being offered. (Of course, I was reading mukashi banashi (folk tales), not manga, at the time.)

Of online Japanese-English dictionaries, the best for beginning learners is WWWJDIC.

Tae Kim's Grammar Guide is the best English language resource on Japanese grammar on the web.

As far as learning forums, The Japanese Page and Tae Kim's Forum are, in my opinion, the best.

 

[Kastro187420]

First of all, there is no such thing as "translating into romaji", because romaji isn't a language, it's a writing system. You "transliterate into romaji."

Increasing your vocabulary will help you make sense of these types of cases. In the meantime, you'll just have to look up all the possibilities, and figure out which one(s) make sense in the context of the entire sentence and the situation. What helped me very early on was to type the text into Wakan's editor, and see what conversions were being offered. (Of course, I was reading mukashi banashi (folk tales), not manga, at the time.)

Of online Japanese-English dictionaries, the best for beginning learners is WWWJDIC.

Tae Kim's Grammar Guide is the best English language resource on Japanese grammar on the web.

As far as learning forums, The Japanese Page and Tae Kim's Forum are, in my opinion, the best.

Thanks for the link and information, that really helps, especially that program. Sorry for the mix up on the Terminology, like I said, I'm new to this whole thing, but really wanna learn.

 

[fosskers]

If I'm understanding what you're asking correctly, then I'll say that Kanji really is the key to knowing where breaks are in a sentence. Since Japanese has no gaps between words like English does, Kanji is really important there. A mistake a lot of beginner learners of Japanese tend to make is that they refrain from writing sentences with Kanji because it's "too hard" or "it's easier just to use hiragana.
Bullshit. It is EXTREMELY difficult to read sentences that contain no kanji, even for native speakers. It would be the same as if English was written with no spaces. Itskindofabitchtoreadlikethisisntit?
The whole point of why I'm going on about all of this is because I was curious about that "translating into romaji" stage you where saying there.
Doing something like this:
Japanese -> Romaji -> English
IS BAD. Associating japanese meanings with English symbols is BAD for your brain. It's better to purely read the Japanese, gain meaning from the symbols, and go from there.

All that said, if you're not toooo serious about learning, there are definitely still some things you NEED to know.

-Hiragana
-Katakana
-Particles and how they work
-Verb conjugations

While there are lots of way to conjugate, it's important that you know them or are at least aware that they exist. Listening to a lot of anime is also key, as well as getting yourself some good dictionaries. The internet is all fine and great, but when it comes to translation, often online translators will completely translate things incorrectly, especially if colloquialisms are present.

 

[Kastro187420]

I was reading up on a site, and reading through the particles and all that, and I've found its actually much easier now for me to distinguish word breaks in a string. In fact, theres one thing inparticular I was having trouble translating, and when I started reading up on these articles, I finally got the entire page translated in a context that made sense with what was going on.

I've learned to recognize certain Hiragana and katakana more quickly already, but I'm still having trouble with Verb Conjugations, but I think with some more practice, I can get this down to where I can get by.

Anyway, what I meant when I was trying to convert it to Romaji and then to English, was just with the Hira/kata symbols. The Kanji itself, I read as is and learn the meaning like you suggested.

 

[kyubisharingan]

what university do you go to that is teaching you japanese? do you ever plan on going to japan?

 

[fosskers]

I go to the University of Manitoba and I'm planning on a trip for next year, for the whole year.