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I am, now, BTW, over halfway through (technically 2/3) with this volume now. But, this now makes me think of how much more there is to go… six volumes, no, seven. Well, minus two chapters, but I know I really need to revise those.
1. Relative paucity of punctuation.
2. Damn slang.
3. Unclear demarcations of where a word begins and ends.
4. Archaic speech patterns.
I am sure I shall think of more.
This one was very troublesome. Damn exposition! But, it is KEY to understanding Gyro’s character. Basically it is his entire backstory. Anyways. Let us continue our journey. This chapter doesn’t contain much slang, so I was happy. XD However, it contained some sentences whose subjects I didn’t understand, and some ones of such complexity I rather despair at succeeding in translating them in a recognizable way. -_-
This is the first chapter in volume four. The chapter numbering in SBR is all screwed up for various reasons, but in the book it’s #18. However the numbering starts all over again once it switched to UJ. Anyway.
Words that I have trouble with in LoGH: to be added to in the future.
Reading an SFF novel just totally exposes my lack of vocabulary and kanji. I can understand around 80% of the words just by at a glance, and extrapolate probably another 10% by guesswork. The problem is that the 10% left over is rather annoying. orz. When you read in your native language, you have the ability to not only understand all of the words (unless the author is some dude like Huysmans who likes to write using tons of obscure words), but you understand their valence and register, feel the echoes to other times you’ve encountered them. In other words, the flavor of the piece emerges from the diction, and the accumulated context of your readings. However, in a foreign language, you don’t have that. In French, because so much of the vocab is borrowed from Latin or was later transferred to English, you can draw on your native abilities as an English speaker. I also read a lot of stuff in French for school, which helped give me context. With Japanese, what I have to draw on is textbooks, a lot of probably atrociously written stuff on the internets, and some history books. But with words, I’m sort of reminded of the althiometer in the His Dark Materials series. Depending on the number of times the needle pointed to a symbol (and possibly a mixture of the symbols in conjunction), Lyra could extract a great range of meanings. (For example, bee just not being a bee, but also meaning busy, and incorporating many more meanings.) So a word can take on more than its surface meaning. Also, I lack knowledge of the literary grammar. -_-
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Short translation of opening of Jojo part 3 novel. Read the rest of this entry »
Anyone want to help beta?
This is meant to be read with the chapter in hand. ^_^
この小説は、二部分があって、砂漠発地獄行と熱き砂の墓標である。あとがきもある。
今あとがきを翻訳しよう。[my comment in brackets]
Being an “author,” I cannot read my own works. [loose translation]
Therefore, when my works have been turned into media other than manga, I can look forward to them—isn’t this a thrilling event!? Jojo’s Bizarre Adventures has been turned into a CD book, an OAV, and now with J-Books, into text; when Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure is touched by the hand of “another person,” there are now new discoveries invisible up to now. [Oh man, so awkward]
Because I was reading new ideas and stories from another storyteller, I objectively understood how my own work was read by “another person,” and I was able to perceive the unknown “charm” of my own work, which up till now I had not noticed. Traveling “abroad,” then realizing the good points of Japan anew, and seeing the “charm” of “oneself” when it’s pointed out by another person: these fresh experiences are the same, I believe.
So, there is no experience more thrilling for an author than anticipating, and discovering one’s own work with the eyes of a “reader.”
Also, this time, as I have participated in the form of the illustrations in this novel, drawing pictures from the ideas of “another,” because this is a different task from drawing from my own ideas, it was another thrilling, fresh, job.
Finally, the current serialization is part 4, with Higashikata Jousuke as protagonist, so to once again meet the old friends high-school aged Jotaro, Joseph, Polnareff, Kakyouin, Abdul, and Iggy, was, as a writer, a tearful thing. [It's kind of... italicized, but it seems weird if I do that.]
LJ has three killer aps:
1. Icons. Okay, I’ll admit I’m not an icon user. I have four icons on LJ, and I only use one at a time. I basically don’t care much about icons. But, people on LJ are crazy about them. Pay lots of cash for extra ones, etc. While icons make LJ quite a bit of cash, they also are not free because they supposedly impose a lot of strain on the server. WordPress does allow you to have an avatar, but only one, while LJ allows free users six, and paid users many more.
2. The Friends list. Okay, the friends list is basically a feed aggregator, but with authorization permissions. In other words, you can access controlled material. There are many feed aggegator programs, but there are no feed aggegator websites that allow you to do auth permissions. (In other words, web-based third party).
3. Friends-lock. In other words, authorized viewing. WordPress has this in plug-in form, but you need to have it on your own server. On the wordpress.com service, you can allow your blog to be seen only by 35 people for free (in other words, have 35 authorized viewers), or you can password protect individual posts. So wordpress.com is even less social-networking oriented than LJ.
Also, these are not specific to LJ, but are advantages it has over wordpress.com
4. Threaded comments. WordPress doesn’t seem to have this feature, which makes it harder to have discussions.
5. Price. WordPress’s features seem to be more expensive than LJ’s, and do not come bundled.
