[Discussion] Fan Translating Manga/Manhwa & Otome Audio CDs — Share Your Experience, Workflow & Challenges!

[Tirin]

Hi everyone! (⁠◍⁠•⁠ᴗ⁠•⁠◍⁠)⁠/
Whether it's working on a scanlation team for a manga/manhwa chapter, creating a subtitle script for an R18 Otome Drama CD, or just translating a short webcomic for fun, fan translation is a huge part of what keeps our community alive!

Translating audio dramas in particular presents a whole different ballgame compared to manga—dealing with overlapping whispers, binaural sound effects, lack of official Japanese text scripts, and timing subtitles.

For anyone here who has ever translated, edited, typeset, or scripted Japanese content into another language. I'd love to hear about your experience!

 

[Daisy Magnus229]

I wasn't in the translation team, but more in the cleaning and redrawing team. We've already disbanded after that website burned down like the Library of Alexandria and everyone got busy in real life too lol

We used to gather around to translate sometimes. It was my first time seeing everyone fight tooth and nail just to pick the most accurate translation lol though that was really rare. Since it was mostly a fan translation, we didn't get paid, it was purely based on passion.

Honestly, seeing the happy comments from readers who finally got to enjoy the series was the best reward we could have asked for.

 

[zerone01]

I used to translate fan fiction or favorite song lyrics into my native language just for myself. I wanted something easier to re-read, but mainly, I wanted to truly appreciate my favorite lines by translating them into the most natural phrasing possible. Even if I got the original meaning, I kept falling into literal translation, which made it really tough to find smooth, natural phrasing.

 

[caducus]

I did a little bit of editing for a scanlation team 20+ years ago. Some days it feels like sound effects are a lost art.

I've honestly been debating with myself recently about tackling an CD or a game... technology has come a LONG was since I last did it, and I think it would be a fun challenge. Only problem is, I honestly have no idea where to even start, with either, so with a handful of 1-person projects to maybe tackle, I'm only in the "snooping for information" stage of "how tf do I even start."

 

[Tirin]

I wasn't in the translation team, but more in the cleaning and redrawing team. We've already disbanded after that website burned down like the Library of Alexandria and everyone got busy in real life too lol

We used to gather around to translate sometimes. It was my first time seeing everyone fight tooth and nail just to pick the most accurate translation lol though that was really rare. Since it was mostly a fan translation, we didn't get paid, it was purely based on passion.

Honestly, seeing the happy comments from readers who finally got to enjoy the series was the best reward we could have asked for.

Yeah, I feel you. I joined in translation team too, but I translated manhwa from English to another language. I did all the job myself because I wanted to learned how to use Adobe-Photoshop. But after a short time my translation team also disbanded

You are absolutely right; even though the work doesn't bring any financial gain, reading encouraging comments from readers truly brings a great deal of joy and motivation to everyone involved in this work.

 

[Daisy Magnus229]

Yeah, I feel you. I joined in translation team too, but I translated manhwa from English to another language. I did all the job myself because I wanted to learned how to use Adobe-Photoshop. But after a short time my translation team also disbanded

You are absolutely right; even though the work doesn't bring any financial gain, reading encouraging comments from readers truly brings a great deal of joy and motivation to everyone involved in this work.

I probably love cleaning or redrawing manhwa because I have a lot of CSP assets that the artists themselves sometimes use. I only did it once tho because Korean translators are quite rare in my group, we have more Japanese translators.

I think everyone prefers old-style manga, but for me, cleaning screentones is a headache!

 

[Tirin]

I probably love cleaning or redrawing manhwa because I have a lot of CSP assets that the artists themselves sometimes use. I only did it once tho because Korean translators are quite rare in my group, we have more Japanese translators.

I think everyone prefers old-style manga, but for me, cleaning screentones is a headache!

I haven't tried it before but I can tell Cleaning screentones in traditional manga really is a total nightmare!

 

[Tirin]

I used to translate fan fiction or favorite song lyrics into my native language just for myself. I wanted something easier to re-read, but mainly, I wanted to truly appreciate my favorite lines by translating them into the most natural phrasing possible. Even if I got the original meaning, I kept falling into literal translation, which made it really tough to find smooth, natural phrasing.

I haven't tried to translate song lyrics myself before but I watch a lot japanese songs with the subtitles in my native language. And I see how hard it is to translate a lyric without changing its meaning too much and keeping the translated smooth in our native languages.