Proofreading 101: How to proofread; a guide for aspiring and current PRs

[friedtofu]

Proofreading 101​

Proofreading is demanding, yet rewarding. We strive to keep the original context of the source material intact while creating an enjoyable experience for readers.​

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Foreword:​

Hello all! I'd like to provide a basic guide on what exactly a proofreader does as well as some basic guidelines as to what to look for in translations to not only increase your proofreading skills but make you an even more efficient proofreader. Less time spent, with better quality scanlations. What do I know about proofreading? I was a member of Cyan Steam(Lies of Sheriff Evans, Rokudou no Onna-tachi, Saotome Senshu, Hitakakusu) for about a year, as well as helping out as a guest proofreader for other groups. Not that this matters for prospective or current proofreaders, but I also have a B.A in English with a focus in Journalism from the University of Houston; I only include these credentials because I want to hold a mini-seminar as far as proofreading in the scanlation group goes. By no means am I a representative for all PRs or hold myself to a higher degree, I only want to help out other members in the community. For anyone curious, I don't proofread anymore because real-life work and social obligations take an ever-increasing toll in my life. IMO don't proofread if you don't think you'll be able to spare an hour or two to assist with proofreading chapters throughout the week.

What is a proofreader and how do they assist the scanlation scene?​

Spoiler

As new groups form, the popularity of manga increases, and more quality releases start popping up out of Japan, Korea and even China; there will always be an equal increase in the demand for scanlators requiring assistance. The job for those of us who want to assist groups that scanlate but may be less artistically-inclined but savvy in the English language is proofreading! There are many that assume that proofreaders have it the easiest within a scanlation group, I haven't ever been a cleaner, type-setter or re-drawer so I wouldn't know! I do know that proofreading is much more work than many think though, you need a keen eye for attention and the work ethic to double, or sometimes triple-check your own work to provide quality scanlations with your team. I hold myself to high expectations when proofreading mostly because kids/teenagers/young adults and those who use English as a second language all read manga, it's our duty to give not only an accurate reading experience but to give a near ideal-reading experience to all readers. You may have foreign readers that use manga and other online sources as a way of improving their English, inaccurate translations only harm their education.

I'm interested, are there any prerequisites? A strong knowledge of the English language, both in vocabulary and grammar. You don't need to know the Merriam-Webster dictionary from front to back(google helps!) but just being fluent in English and knowing the meaning of simple phrases and idioms such as: 'having a "chip" one one's shoulder', something being a 'piece of cake', 'break a leg', 'Kill two birds with one stone', etc. can make some of the most difficult proofreading scenarios simple; which I'll expand on later. You don't need to be a grammar Nazi, if anything you want to look at the job of proofreading through the eyes of a reader. You should be asking yourself 'Is this interesting/fun to read?' 'Why does this sentence sound so strange?' 'How can I make this translate to English without changing the original context?'

How do I join a scanlation team, and how should I interact with said team?​

Spoiler

Every group is different. This goes for recruiting and interaction throughout the scanlation process. Many scanlators will have an end-page with a message that they're recruiting and they need help. If there's a particular group that you'd like to help proofread a series for, it doesn't hurt to go to their website or find them on mangadex and at least ask the lead of the scanlation group or whoever the contact link is assigned to. Give them any past experience you have proofreading, even if it's none at all and ask them to give you a chapter to proofread. Often times they'll send you a non-proofread version of a current series they're working on; if they like it, you're in and you have your first proofreading job published within the week! Once you're on a team, you need to create a basic understanding of who your translator is and what they're like. They're who you'll likely be speaking to more than anyone else. You should ask things like: 'How do you want to share rough translations/completed proofread work?' I love google drive, it's incredible easy to upload, share and edit all within the same website. You and your translator just need to come to an agreement on whatever you'll be using. Other questions I like to ask are 'What's your native language?' 'What does the upcoming release schedule look like and do you plan to add/drop any series?' as well as basic questions to break the ice to get an understanding of what kind of personality and work-ethic your translator has.

I've joined a team!/I'm already a proofreader. How can I improve my work?
This is going to be the most extensive section of the 101, and I will continue to add on to this in the future. There's so many misconceptions and overthinking some PRs have, which only lead to poor releases, confusion between you and the translator, and frustration. All which can be solved with simply talking to your translator or other team members. One thing I like doing is adding notes during my proofreading such as "I changed this line to fit the original context, but it makes it easier to read/more sense to English-readers because 'x'". Don't expect for your changes to always be accepted, but have an alternative ready so that the release doesn't leave in a sentence/bubble that just sounds...off. Without further ado, I'd like to point out some common mistakes, what I would do to fix said mistake and why(If I borrow a snippet from a manga that you're actively proof-reading, don't take this as an insult! There are so many variables as to why it was left in/forgotten about/etc. I am NOT calling you out!)


Example 1:

Spoiler

Issues/Fixes:
Sentence structure is one of the biggest things you'll be working on. If you don't already know, the Japanese sentence order is structured using SOV(Subject-Object-Verb) rather than English(Subject-Verb-Object). So for example 'Mark eats a sandwich.' turns into 'Mark a sandwich eats.'. If you're fluent in both languages, as some translators who self-proofread are, it makes sense when translating. It's very odd for those who only speak one of the languages.
Line 1: In this example, there's nothing inherently wrong with the first sentence("Time passed by, and while the world was returning to how it'd been before"). However, you'll see rough translations use "'Adverb,' then 'Subject' performed the 'verb'" or something similar. Contractions like it'd sound a little strange in a sentence like this as well IMO. Just to make it sound a little more "clean" if anything I would change this line to: "While the world was returning to normal/While the land gradually recuperated, time had progressed/elapsed". I put multiple examples in, as this would also pertain to the context of the story and what is going on at this particular moment.
Line 2: It was rumored that "There was a dragon of the mountain". Unlike our first line, there is a mistake here; that being "There was a dragon of the mountain" all being within quotations as well as capitalization for a proper noun. A simple change would be: 'It was rumored that there was a "Dragon of the Mountain"'. This fixes the quotations and gives the somewhat bland title of the beast it's proper capitalization as it's a title for a proper noun. This could also be changed to: 'There were frequent whispers of a dragon within the mountains'. See how simply we can change the sentence while retaining the context of the original sentence in it's entirety?

Example 2:

Spoiler

Oof, this single sentence hurts my brain. "It's a house where we will share with other people". We're going to break this sentence down. Grammatically incorrect and it seems like the proofreader either skipped over this sentence(looking through a few other lines) or the type-setter accidentally used the rough translation by accident. This is where a good understanding of English vocabulary comes into play as well. Some fixes we can make to this line include: "It's a shared house with other residents" / "We'll be cohabiting this house with other tenants." two examples that keep the original context all while keeping the sentence small enough to fit within the bubble. Speaking of, the bubble is something you need to remember unless the type-setter/editor feel comfortable re-sizing text. You don't want to simplify a long sentence as something that can be said in 4 words, and you don't want the opposite either. It can make it tricky in special scenarios, but most of the time it's pretty easy to tweak and figure out how to get the sentence/paragraph to work.

This is already a long post as is, I'll be adding more later. I did want to kick this thread off and see if there was any interest behind this and gauge interest before adding more. Thanks for reading!

 

[Teasday]

Well, I'm looking forward to this, for one.

One thing you might want to do is give a source for the images used. Technically, I could kind of contort my mind see Example 2 as meaning it's a house where they're performing sharing of some sort, even though I doubt that's the actual intended meaning and that you're probably correct. Regardless, sourcing your material would allow me to check for myself, and I would say it's just the right thing to do either way.

 

[friedtofu]

Hey Teasday, appreciate the reply and I will update the images with sources, I think the next examples I'll use will just be an entire page and breaking down everything in the page that should be fixed as a PR. That's my fault, I even mention in my post how important context is when proofreading multiple times; there will be a large edit within the next 24h.

 

[htt]

Tag.

On the topic of context, can you include the original text as well?
(and to pile on, I could also see ex. 2 being "It's a house where we will share [in the pleasures of the gourmet] with other people.", replacing [..] with whatever contextual activity).

 

[MavB_Ver]

Thank you for your effort writing all this.

I have a question regarding example 1. I view the two lines as parts of a whole sentence (note that there are ellipses at the end of line 1 and at the start of line 2, meaning there is a connection between the two lines). It is a common situation when sentences are broken into parts after all, so your fix may sound great as separated sentences, but when the two lines are combined it would sound off:

"While the world was returning to normal, time had progressed, and then there were frequent whispers of a dragon within the mountains."

So I think we should leave line 1 as it is and apply your fix just for line 2, so it will become like this:

"Time passed by, and while the world was returning to how it had been before, there was a rumor of a dragon within the mountains"

What is your thought on this?

 

[Teasday]

I would personally just avoid the awkward "there was" construct completely and instead go with something like "...rumors of a dragon on the mountain emerged / begun to emerge."

 

[MavB_Ver]

@Teasday that's right, it sounds a lot better.

 

[cmertb]

This is a perfect example of exactly what is wrong with PR in scanlation. Without knowing what the original actually said, you are turning awkward but probably accurate translations into still awkward, but inaccurate translations.

In the first example, it's clear that what is quoted is the contents of the rumor. Instead, you are "fixing" it by creating a new term ("Dragon of the Mountain") that the author never intended.

The second example is obviously a typo, all you need to do is remove the word "where". Instead you are creating bizarre and exotic constructions where it turns out that "cohabit" is a transitive verb (it isn't). And why would you replace the word "people" with "tenants" or "residents"? Our job is to translate the story, not to write it the way we see fit. If the original says "people" (as it probably does), for what reason would you change it to a different term?

However, I do agree that good PR is very difficult and time-consuming, and is the most underestimated job in scanlation.

 

[QSS]

You PRed for cyan steam? I'm so sorry

 

[cmertb]

@AbyssalMonkey
Translators deviate from the source when they need the translation to sound natural in the target language. I'm curious if anyone would seriously argue that "tenants" or "residents" sound more natural than "people" in everyday speech. Now put yourself in the translator's shoes. The original said "people" (let's say 人たち if it were Japanese, as opposed to 住民 or something similar). You translate it as "people", and it sounds perfectly natural to you. Then the proofer comes along and changes it to "tenants". You see this and there are several thoughts that go through your head: 1) WTF was wrong with "people"? 2) This doesn't really change the meaning, but in what way is "tenants" better than "people" in this context? 3) This change is useless, but is it worth my time to explain to the proofer that it's useless? 4) Why is the proofer wasting my time with useless changes, making me think about them, when I could be tling the next chapter? 5) Is the proofer getting paid for each change they make or something?

Useless changes are the bane of scanlation PR. Or that's what I wanted to say, but then I remembered the real bane are changes made with no understanding of the original, that actually introduce inaccuracies into translations. Or the fact that many proofers are on shaky terms even with English. In short, the banes are many, but good proofers are few and far between.

This leads to the conclusion that the most important skill for a proofreader is not in knowing when to change something, but in understanding when not to change anything at all. I wish all "Proofreading 101" guides would emphasize this over and over.

 

[Teasday]

_{@cmertb posted:}

Or the fact that many proofers are on shaky terms even with English.

I don't understand this argument. Just like you wouldn't want translator who don't know Japanese and redrawers who can't draw, why would you have a proofreader whose English shaky? Obviously a person who's bad at their job doesn't do a good job. The only time I can think of when it makes sense to have a bad proofreader is when the translator is even worse.

 

[cmertb]

@Teasday
It's hardly an argument. It's simply one item from my list of the ills of scanlation PR.

Naturally, the only reason such people end up as proofreaders is because neither they nor group admins know the limitations of their English. Note that I'm not talking about people who are outright incompetent. There are plenty of cases where extremely fluent native English speakers still fail at English. We don't even have to look far for examples: if you carefully read through OP's post, you will find some issues yourself (e.g. the misuse of "cohabit" that I already pointed out, or another issue with the incorrect usage of "context" in place of "meaning"). It isn't a big deal in a standalone text like this, we all make mistakes. But it becomes a huge issue (even if only to the translator) when a proofer changes something that was originally correct to something that is grammatically or semantically incorrect -- not because they don't know the source language, but because they don't know the target language (i.e. English) well enough.

But... it isn't something that a proofreading guide can fix. There are only two suggestions that can be made to address the problem: 1) Read more books (especially in the genre you want to proof); 2) Read less fan translation.

 

[Teasday]

_{@cmertb posted:}

But it becomes a huge issue (even if only to the translator) when a proofer changes something that was originally correct to something that is grammatically or semantically incorrect -- not because they don't know the source language, but because they don't know the target language (i.e. English) well enough.

I would agree that that would be a problem, but why is someone like that proofreading in the first place? What kind of a madhouse group is this

 

[pikokola]

but because they don't know the target language (i.e. English) well enough.

Having somebody who don't know the language to proofread?
now that's gold.
golder than having the translator proofread his own work.

 

[cmertb]

@AbyssalMonkey
I am saying it doesn't matter if the change is minor or major when it shouldn't be there at all. Changes aren't free, they make the translator work extra. Unless it's the type of translator who throws the text over the wall and doesn't care anymore -- but then, don't expect any accuracy from those translations either.

In scanlation, terminology in many respects is different from the rest of the world. "Proofreader" is in fact "editor", that is the work the team expects from them, not just catching grammar or spelling mistakes. What's more, many people have a difficult time differentiating between grammatical errors and simply awkward or unnatural wording. Thus, looking at it realistically, you can't draw a clear line separating editing from proofreading. As for TLC (if you mean "translation checker"), it is almost non-existent, and rightly so -- it's a crap job. It would be an extremely useful position to have in theory, but people burn out from it very quickly. I'd never press anyone to do it.

 

[cmertb]

@AbyssalMonkey
What you write is very much correct, but also very much beside the point. Organized scanlation as we know it today has been around for what, 20... 30 years? There are always people playing around with different forms of organization, different methods and procedures, even some new ways of making a few bucks out of it. And yet things remain roughly the same. It sort of indicates that the current organization is optimal or close to it.

That is the reality of the world in general, not just of scanlation. Things tend toward optimum, not toward perfection. You are trying to explain how to make a perfect scanlation, or at least the text-only aspect of it, but no one is interested in it -- the result simply would not justify the investment you would have to make. The standard has always been, and will always be, "good enough" rather than "good". You are certainly exaggerating the prevalence of MTL (or you're mixing up scanlation with novel translation), but the very fact that MTL scanlation exists shows you just how low of a standard that "good enough" is. And incidentally, it's not the scanlators but the readers who are responsible for the low standards. Even you admit to reading MTL novels. On average, scanlators consistently exceed the quality that their readers would accept, out of sheer pride. You think it's still shit? I hate to point out the obvious, but you get what you pay for.

Also, as a suggestion, if you want better quality scanlation, you should look at unpopular genres, not your usual isekai etc. Those releases are often someone's labor of love, worked on by a more mature crowd, with a very positive effect on the overall quality. If you only keep reading popular manga, you will inevitably think that average scanlation quality is lower than it really is.

It might seem that I'm contradicting myself. I started off bemoaning the low level of scanlation PR, and ended up explaining away the mediocre standards of scanlation in general. I suppose what I'm trying to prevent is poor practices being labeled as good practices, while also fully realizing that those poor practices are here to stay for the foreseeable future.