Fengson wrote:
You know Japanese, soudou?
No, unfortunately not. If I watch something in Japanese other than a few words here and there I don't understand what's being said. I've memorised Hiragana but not learnt what the Hiragana together mean as words! I just try my best using various tools to decipher things line by line when I want to have a better understanding. But even 1 minute of video can take hours depending on the dialogue for me.
But I make mistakes and I do worry about making big misinterpretations... I'm just happy people can enjoy regardless of flaws.
I figure the stuff I want to share are unlikely to be translated so crappy subs are better than none, I'll leave Kiki/the batsu/etc. to the pros!
I guess this is roughly my process:
For web articles:- Copy-paste 1 paragraph into Google Translate (not the whole thing).
- Break down the sentences in the paragraph (e.g. line break after apostrophes, full stops etc. so Google Translate treat them separately, I find it makes the translation less jumbled).
- Cross-reference words in http://ejje.weblio.jp/
- Fix the English grammar so it reads easier and less literal.
For video with on-screen subtitles:- First I type out the Hiragana on here http://www.lexilogos.com/keyboard/hiragana.htm
- If there's any Katakana I play spot the Katakana on here http://www.lexilogos.com/keyboard/katakana.htm
- If there's any Kanji I either:
- Use http://jisho.org/kanji/radicals/ to find it.
- Take a screenshot, make the Kanji black on white using an image editor then use http://capture2text.sourceforge.net/ to identify it. - I put it all together and paste it into Google Translate or cross-check with other translators like Bing etc.
- Look up certain words or phrases in http://ejje.weblio.jp/ or http://dictionary.goo.ne.jp and select the best meaning based on the context.
- Some phrases won't be in Ejje, sometimes it's slang or a modern invention. I stick them through Google and try to find some context. Such as people in Japan using it in different sentences that I then use the above methods to break down. Sometimes even Japanese people are asking eachother what it means on Yahoo Japan and offer a less-slangish explanation. Or if I'm lucky people are discussing the meaning of the phrase in English on language forums.
For video without on-screen subtitles:- Listen to the sentence over and over and type out what you can hear in Hiragana.
- Use the methods above for the result.
- Anything that isn't simple I google stuff like "<word> japanese meaning" or use Jisho's word search and hope for the best! http://jisho.org/words/
It's very much trial and error and a case of researching based on the context...
Kansai-ben is difficult because for whatever reason there's nothing like Ejje for it I think. There's some pages about it or discussions though so it's just a case of checking those or Googling "<word> kansai-ben". If all else fails.... just have to take your best guess based on context and paraphrase the gist if there's like 1 or 2 sentences out of everything that can't be easily interpreted. That's where most mistakes can come... but it's either that or no translation at all I guess.
I made a list of all the tools and research pages I use here:
http://yamasakigifs.tumblr.com/amateursubbingI think that pretty much anyone can do it, it just takes time... and praying noone chews you out for your terrible comprehension mistakes.
