Image Anonymous asked

"

Hi Foxghost, I don’t know if you’re open to discussing the translation for the official version of Shangxian, but I’ve seen some confusion with choices made like “Rex Spiritus” and other titles that some people say feels out of place. As someone who can’t read the original raws, I’m curious about your thought process.

"

My approach to localization is based on a few principles:

  • it is fantasy, and so far removed from culture (it is actually very far from the xianxia genre and resembles a jrpg in structure) that it should not need footnotes. Eventually there was an unavoidable one but even that can be skipped. But there should never be a point where you read a word (pinyin), not understand what it means, break immersion by reading the footnote, and come back.
  • a general reader new to the genre can pick it up and understand it without looking anything up. Even the glossary that explains extended concepts isn’t really necessary unless you want to dive into the concepts further. This is doable in fantasy since all of it is explained in narrative anyway.
  • All the titles that are made up are designed to stick in your brain.
  • They are also unified for plot/memory reasons. spoiler: if the tree is written latin, the god related to the tree? also Latin. (why no spoiler tag for chunks of text tumblr)
  • No pinyin unless it has made it as a dictionary word (aiyah, aiyoh,yin-yang, kowtow) or I cannot translate around it. Pinyin (toneless) is easily forgotten even to ppl who are native Chinese and takes a long time to stick.
  • tl-dr: you can put this through a screen reader and it will be perfectly accessible. That’s the general principle.

Now onto the current convention in Chinese to English fantasy translation:

  • Latin is great for things that humans didn’t name. (Like Rex Lapis being Zhongli’s title in Genshin Impact’s Liyue region)
  • it is no longer the norm to transliterate a lot of things. (it was more than 10 years ago but we’ve moved on.) Now the only things transliterated are actual names and actual places.
  • Which is why all the cities in this novel got a new name – the original were made up (they also sounded made up) and easily readable as having “meanings” and therefore so does the English counterpart.

More Links:

Keep reading

Image frankenmouse

It is so ridiculously easy to gain a reputation for being competent by just reading signs.

This is not metaphorical. I mean actual, literal pieces of paper/plastic/metal/whatever explicitly erected to inform the public.

“How did you know this was the right trail?” I read the sign.

“Wow, how did you know what that flower is?” There’s a SIGN.

“How did you know we needed to use the side door?” THERE IS A SIGN POSTED ON THE FRONT DOOR.

Just…why are we having such different experiences of the world? People can read. I KNOW they can read. There’s nothing wrong with their vision.

Just. READ. THE. GOD. DAMN. SIGN.


This also applies to:

  • Syllabi
  • Instructions

Image kgdragoon

This is super embarrassing, but this did happen to me yesterday. I tried to walk in a door with a sign that said "Use other door ->" (and which was locked) before I saw the sign. I am currently still dying of mortification.

Image frankenmouse

But you then read the sign and figured it out! Instead of assuming you were locked in/out and bothering someone about it.

I’m putting one star on your “Sign reading” chart!

⭐️

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Library recced me lesbian vampires (probably bc I read her other book)

So far so good and the audio performance for this is amazing

Image streetkit

it does suck that the government defunded PBS but it's also so fucking funny that now that they don't take uncle sam's slavery dollars they're running videos like "How america's foundation was built on genocide"

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no more being polite about it fuck the USA

Image eyrieofsynapses

PBS Origins my beloved! for the unfamiliar, channel link here. they've been pointing out how fucked up USA history is for a while, but not quite that overtly.

link to the specific video from the screenshot above here:

it's part of their series "A People's History of Native America," playlist link here.

and while I'm here I'll plug some other channels because PBS does solid work. also, iirc they are (...were? I'm not actually sure what applies to them now that they've been defunded) legally required to include captions and they actually do that, so you won't run into auto-generated nonsense.

I haven't checked out PBS Documentaries yet, but they have some stuff tackling similar topics. (I am adding things to my watchlist as we speak.) channel link here.

PBS Terra doesn't pull punches on climate change. channel link here.

PBS Eons has some super cool videos on the history of life on Earth, channel here, and Storied does awesome work on linguistics and mythology, channel here.

aaand while we're talking about defunded USA public media that doesn't pull punches when critiquing our history and government, I am once again going to plug a couple NPR podcasts. Throughline does deep-dives on history, culture, laws, and so on (link here); I'm especially partial to their We the People miniseries, which covers our rights from the Amendments. Code Switch covers culture, focusing on race and minority groups, and has been doing some especially good coverage on what the Trump administration's fuckery means on a practical level (link here). (these aren't the only NPR podcasts that talk about this stuff, but they're the big ones afaik.)


anyway. good public media my beloved

Image youngadultread

“Teachers are often unaware of the gender distribution of talk in their classrooms. They usually consider that they give equal amounts of attention to girls and boys, and it is only when they make a tape recording that they realize that boys are dominating the interactions. Dale Spender, an Australian feminist who has been a strong advocate of female rights in this area, noted that teachers who tried to restore the balance by deliberately ‘favouring’ the girls were astounded to find that despite their efforts they continued to devote more time to the boys in their classrooms. Another study reported that a male science teacher who managed to create an atmosphere in which girls and boys contributed more equally to discussion felt that he was devoting 90 per cent of his attention to the girls. And so did his male pupils. They complained vociferously that the girls were getting too much talking time. In other public contexts, too, such as seminars and debates, when women and men are deliberately given an equal amount of the highly valued talking time, there is often a perception that they are getting more than their fair share. Dale Spender explains this as follows: “The talkativeness of women has been gauged in comparison not with men but with silence. Women have not been judged on the grounds of whether they talk more than men, but of whether they talk more than silent women.” In other words, if women talk at all, this may be perceived as ‘too much’ by men who expect them to provide a silent, decorative background in many social contexts.”

PBS: Language as Prejudice - Myth #6: Women Talk Too Much (via misandry-mermaid)

Every EVERY women’s studies class I’ve been in has had this problem and failed to address it. 

(via iamayoungfeminist)

Bought an office 2024 license off groupon for CDN $22, and no problems at all except for the usual word weirdness

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are you….are you sure because that sounds like 200 pages maybe

Hey but at least there’s no copilot!

(btw, support for office 2021 is expiring in october 2026)