@Viopera
Hello?
I
said that knowing the context is important in making translations; no computer translation program is going to be able to do that, obviously!
As I don't know Japanese, I have to use those tools available to me. Determining which of various possible translations is most relevant without having the proper background to recognize idiomatic phrases is difficult, to say the least. And, if the meaning in context differs because it's slang, or "impolite language", odds are good it's not going to show up in standard dictionaries or phrase books.
I do, however, know mainstream American English very well, and can say if something just doesn't make any sense as presented in American English. That said, even with American English there are problems with phrases common in one part of the country or within a social group that aren't understood outside of that group by native speakers. It gets even worse once you start looking at the variants of English that have developed elsewhere in the world. Ah, I should note that I
do recognize that American English is an offshoot of British English, and not the mother tongue; my native language diverged from British English, not the other way around.
I wasn't intending any criticism of the translation, except that the word hadn't been translated at all! It had merely been converted into the Latin alphabet. No translation, no translator's note, nothing to aid a non-Japanese fluent individual in understanding what was going on. That is, after all, the entire reason for scanlating in the first place, isn't it?
Thus, I did my best to find out what the word meant, and finding that nothing made any sense to me, posted my process so that it would be clear that I had at least made some attempt on my part to determine what was intended with no useful results, in the hopes that someone would enlighten me as to what an appropriate English word or phrase would be for the Japanese in context.
Slamming me for admitting that I don't understand what is going on with a non-translated word, how nice of you. How friendly, welcoming, and encouraging.
How does one develop the skills to do these things if one never admits to not understanding and asking for help? I am not that arrogant!
And... isn't the reason why scanlating teams want assistance from native speakers in the language(s) they are translating is that while they have the knowledge of their own native tongue, they aren't going to understand the language(s) they are translating as well as a native speaker? That you need people capable of understanding what is meant in the original language in conversation with those who can assist in presenting the concepts in a manner that best conveys it in the target language? One individual having that level of understanding of both cultures is rare, so normally it works best to have a team involved.
*****
OK. It is
not my intent to start a flame war or anything. I
do recognize that one paragraph above is uncomplementary; it's hard not to be, when responding to an antagonistic post. That said...
Ideally, we should be working together to improve our understanding of the stories here. That's what I was hoping for help with, understanding what was going on with this word.
It wasn't a word that I recognized as having been imported unchanged into the English lexicon of Anime/Manga loan words.
Since the word
hadn't been translated, my presumption was that it was idiomatic or contextual, and that the translator wasn't able to determine an equivalent English terminology and thus settled for converting it into the Latin character set. My attempts at finding a translation via software confirmed that it wasn't amenable to a strict translation.
Thus, asking for help.
So...
Do you have any suggestions for how "kurikuri" should properly be rendered in English, given the context within the story?