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Jul 2020

My first language is German, but I write my novel directly in English. I tried to stick mostly to just translating it into German, but I noticed that I tend to use more words (and a wider range of different words :sweat_smile:) in German. However, now that I see both versions of that text, I prefer the English one because it sounds a lot better!

German Version

Das alles begann in einer ruhigen Nachbarschaft. Früh am Morgen schliefen die meisten Leute noch, doch die Vögel waren bereits wach. Ein leichter Wind blies durch die Blätter der Bäume. Das einzig Störende an dieser friedlichen Szene waren die zehn bewaffneten Männer die rund um eines der kleinen Häuser standen. Es war völlig still während einer von ihnen sich zur Haustür schlich. Scarlet, die in diesem Haus ist, ist bereits wach aber bemerkt nicht was draußen for sich geht. Sie hört, dass die Tür aufgebrochen wird und Menschen ins Haus stürmen, aber sie weiß nicht, dass dieser Moment ihr Leben verändern wird. Sie sitzt nur in ihrem dunklen Raum, wo sie wieder einmal versucht, die Ketten loszuwerden, die sie über Nacht in ihrem Raum halten.

English Version

All of this starts in a calm neighbourhood. It is early in the morning; most people are still asleep but the birds are already awake. A soft wind blows through the trees. The only disturbing part about this peaceful scenery is the ten armed men positioned around one of the small houses. As one of them starts approaching the front door, there’s complete silence around them. Scarlet, inside of that house, is already awake but doesn’t notice what’s happening outside. She hears the door being broken down and people storming into the house, but she doesn’t know that this moment will change her life. She’s just sitting in her dark room, trying to get rid of the chains that keep her in that room overnight once again.

This is a part from my prologue of Dreams and Nightmares

Servus, hab gerade beide Versionen gelesen und muss sagen, dass die auf Englisch viel besser klingt. Ich denke das Englisch wirklich die beste Sprache für Storytelling ist. Es ist einfach viel einfacher auf Englisch zu schreiben. Ich werde dann vielleicht deine Serie lesen wenn ich dafür mehr Zeit finde. Viel Glück! :wink:

Omg, jemand der Deutsch spricht? :scream: Ein Wunder! :joy:
Heyy :wave: Ja, irgendwie passt Englisch viel besser dazu, aber keine Ahnung warum :smile:
Ich hab deine Mal zu meiner Liste hinzugefügt, werds mir anschauen sobald ich Zeit hab!

Naja, ich bin kein Deutscher aber ich liebe neue Sprache zu lernen und deswegen hab ich auch Deutsch gelernt. Ich finde Deutsch wirklich toll!

Es gibt keinn Grund warum Englisch objektiv besser ist, aber für mich persönlich ist es, weil es so viele verschieden Synonyme und Wörter gibt, dass es viel einfacher auf Englisch zu schreiben ist.

Dankeschön! Es freut mich sehr! Hoffentlich wird es dir gefallen. :smiley:

Wirklich? Das hätt ich jetzt nicht gedacht! Und du bist der erste der Deutsch gut findet :joy:

Ja, Englisch hat echt viele Synonyme. Und es klingt mehr...zusammenpassend :smile:

Wird es sicher! :wink:

I have entries for both the english and brazilain-portuguese versions, to show IRL (such as at cons). I make the script on english first, since it also helps me practice, then I localize it back to portuguese. The best page to show how I alter the script is Audrey's introduction:

English

Portuguese

The biggest change is Mortimer's nickname of "birdbrain", which is used often - while a themed nickname that's a little belittling in english, it's very insulting in portuguese, so I changed it to having characters call him "cattle egret", a word that, when translated, sounds like an insult even though it isn't, and harkens back to his heron theming and generally being a nuisance.
The sarcasm of "funny ideas" also doesn't translate well, so Audrey openly says "idiotic ideas" instead. I thought about translating the entire expression to a literal sentence, but it just made the text unecessarily big. Gotta worry about lettering too!

Page taken from Chapter 1 of my comic, though we've long left this scene -

(not sure why Hide Details doesn't hide both, might be a glitch)

I work on both English and Traditional Chinese versions together for my series 'MAOR'.

What you see here are from the extra chapter (non-main story). I've posted them both on ComicFury (my fail-safe site, not ready to be visited)


English ver. is for international & Traditional Chinese ver. is aimed towards Taiwanese readers. (liberal and have strong furry demographic)

  • Both versions mostly have same dialogues, but the delivery is a bit different. I feel that the Chinese version are a bit more quirky and fun. However I like English version more when I try to convey feelings and monologues (just personal preference).

  • Chinese language tends to use fewer words than English. So I tend to shorten the English words; & in contrast, to add more words on Chinese version to fit the word bubbles. Sometimes that crams some descriptive details to the Chinese version, just a tiny bit.

  • I keep a Chi-Eng glossary of every names, items & special terms so I don't forget them. All characters have to be named to be easily switch between English and Chinese without confusion: Maor-->毛兒 , Ms.Bell -->鈴姐, Tudo -->圖多

  • I'm can think bilingually. The dialogues in extra chapter are done in English first. Maybe next time I'll write in Chinese then to English, it might have a different feel.

If you're interested you can read my chapter(eng) here:

That's all :+1:

First off having a Konosuba Aqua inspired username and profile, your pretty cultured

I'm from the Igbo tribe in Nigeria so my comic's name The Rolling Stone2 in Igbo would be Okwute na Atughari Atughari, comparing it to the google translate version when i checked for comparison after asking my dad it was really hilarious XD, they should probably get a native speaker to put some of the words together how we would say it

@Darth_Biomech
Well that is what I think too about translating a comic in different writing systems/alphabet. In novel you don't have to format a speech bubble and you can go as you want for translation. Here, you also have to pay attention for the composition, font, kerning, and accuracy. I can't read Cyrillic that fluent, but the composition managed to not be jarringly different.

@Iris-Grimoire
That is interesting how a same insult can be more or less insulting in different languages. Also sometimes hide content has a mysterious way of working.

@allenT
Wow, you even translate the sound effects! Do you have ever any difficulty on translating/ formatting it too?

@R.n.P
Aqua best Goddess. Join the axis cult and get a free detergent (you can drink it!). Anyway, yes. I like to Google translate my own work and see how ridiculous it sounds. Probably you are the first Igbo speaker I have knowingly encountered here.

Translating takes some time but it wasn't hard for me, after all every layers/texts are done in a single Photoshop file, it's convenient.

I really want to post my novel in my native language, however I don't think there are people who speak my language on the site.

Who cares anyway? Even if nobody speaks it that is mean you are introducing your language to us, think of yourself as an ambassador.

What your native language is?

Well my native language is Italian and I usually write everything in it, then I translate it to English.

English

Italian

I would say that not much changed from the original to the translation, except for the swallowing sound effect. The rest is just a direct translation of the text. Sometimes the English version loses the actual thing I was originally going for in the Italian version, but it still somehow works.
Other times, the English version comes out far better than the original one and I'm happy about it.

Overall, I just try to stick with the original source material, but in some occasions a different sentence can convey my idea even better!

NGL that Italian part gives me JoJo part 5 vibe.

It can't be helped when things lost in translation, I also have difficulty translating things back to my language.

Welp, Jojo's the main source of inspiration for the whole series! Happy you noticed :grin:

My original comics are in Brazilian Portuguese: https://abismos.com/pt-br/

I make an effort to reduce the text as much as possible, so it's not too hard to translate. Fun fact, I decide not to translate the chapter titles, to keep some reference to the original language that doesn't get in the way of understanding the comics.

My comic is in English, but I'm translating it in Latvian right now.
When I translate to Latvian I have to change many things. Sayings like ''I'm just pulling your leg'' don't really make sense in Latvian.

Most of the text is different.


I changed ''Im just pulling your leg'' to ''Es tikai jokojos'' -''I'm just joking''

I've started makig series in English and never had a script or version in russian, idk most of ppl do know English and comics is a media which should not rely on text that much, I'm really trying that "show, don't tell" thing. I just needed to translate in on the fly to my Mom tho ( well the first few epsiodes)))