Re: Need advices on overcoming several shortcomings
Hello there! I'm a fellow Chinese to English translator, but I'm the opposite of you. I definitely cannot translate English to Chinese... Anyway, hope this'll be useful to you
Shortcoming 1
#1 - Sentence restructuring/ English phrasing
The best way of learning to translate into English is to read lots of English books. Or even better, look for a book that does a story in English and Chinese. I remember reading 孙悟空 when I was little, and it had both English and Chinese.
For now I'll cover a few basic structural issues. It'd be best if you give more examples of what problem areas there are for you, preferably through PM, since I don't check forums very often.
Questions
'你们在哪里看到那本书呢?'
> Subject-adverb-verb-object
'Where did you guys see that book?'
> Adverb-subject-verb-object
Adverbs would be things like 哪里, 什么, 什么时候, 谁 and so on. In English, we almost always put the adverb in the beginning of a question. The exception would be when you're surprised and quoting someone...
我和黄飞鸿打了个招呼。
你做了什么?! or 你什么?!
I said hello to Wang Fei Hong.
You did
what?
Time, manner, place VS place, manner, time
TMP would be Chinese, while PMT would be English. Manner would be how you perform an action
我们昨天坐了巴士去超级市场。
> Time-manner-place
We went to the supermarket by bus yesterday.
> Place-manner-time.
Normally, however, I would translate that as 'We took the bus to the supermarket yesterday', simply because it flows more natural.
Shortcoming 2
#2 - Chinese Idioms
This is something that would stump even the best of translators. While you can look up expressions and such, nothing beats reading lots of English books. Not to say there aren't ways around it, but you might not always be lucky XD
I'd recommend using
http://www.nciku.com/ rather than dictionary.com. I don't really like dictionary.com, since it doesn't provide enough examples which demonstrate how something should be translated from/to English.
Alternatively, you could try to look up the equivalent idiom (if it exists... often it doesn't) in English on some idiom sites, e.g.
http://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/. This is usually much harder, since it's quite hard to pinpoint a specific idiom from just its meaning. But it might be helpful to browse through a few idioms every so often to pick up new expressions.
If all else fails, try to discuss this with your editor.
Shortcoming 3
#3 - Names
The only way to be self-sufficient is to obtain the Japanese raws and read the names directly off that. >.> Is there no one who can read Japanese in your group? To be fair, if all you need are Japanese names, then you just need a lot of patience and a kana chart to find out how they're pronounced in Japanese.
Failing that, you could divide the surname and first names, and Google/Japanese wiki them. This is a tactic that works fairly well for Japanese names, since Chinese Manga Editors just take the kanji from the Japanese.
Shortcoming 4
#4 - Honorifics
>.> It's hard to be precise without referring to the Japanese text... but here's a list of guidelines:
同学: -kun or -san
学长: -sempai
先生: -sensei (if it's a teacher, artist or doctor), -san (if it's a guy), -sama (formal)
小姐: -san, -sama, -ojousama (e.g. a butler talking to his mistress)
少爷: -bocchan (butler talking to his young master), -sama
叔叔: -jiisan, -ojiisan (slightly more formal), -ossan (very informal).
哥哥: -niisan, -oniisan, -nii (very informal)
姐姐: -neesan, -oneesan, -nee
小x: -chan (girl) or -kun (guy). e.g. 樱花 -> 小樱, Sakura -> Sakura-chan
If there aren't any honorifics, it's best not to add any of your own, unless you so happen to know that a character always refers to others as -san or something...
Shortcoming 5
#5 - sfx
This is a really good SFX guide:
http://kyoh.monkey-pirate.com/sfx/SFX.pdf
The only problem is it's arranged according to the Japanese alphabet, which makes looking for things rather difficult at times.
Other links:
http://jpsfx.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page
http://www.lolikon.org/misc/soundfx.html