@liztai@chungliwen Enjoy! Official translations are bound by in-house style guides and publisher’s rules, so less room to work with.
And they need to get everything done before things go to print. Whereas I can always go in and keep iterating and making small corrections, except for the ebooks.
I also advocate publishing on the web instead of ebooks because I get to drop hover tips everywhere for footnotes for more context and translator notes.
I’m actually itching to start my version of the The Smiling, Proud Wanderer. Long discussion over the translation of the XAJH title. I’ll be sharing that in an article soon.
@liztai@chungliwen From my experience, it’s very common for Chinese people to ask for the characters of the names when introduced. And from there decipher the meaning of the names, or ask what it means if it’s an unusual name.
Even in situations where only surnames are exchanged, they would still ask for the character, though in this case the meaning isn’t important.
@liztai The official translations are from a British publisher, probably targets all English-speaking readers who are new to the genre. And from what I’ve observed, many readers have English as a second language.
It helps that the names aren’t too confusing and easier for them to remember/track.
@liztai I spoke to Gigi at length about this. I was against the name translations, but have come around to accepting such an approach is necessary for readers who are new to both the wuxia genre and Chinese settings.
It also puts the reader in the perspective of a native speaker. Native speakers know what his name means each time we hear the name.
Really hope these novels help get new readers interested in the genre and then move on to translations that retain more pinyin terms.
Brand strategy. Content generalist. Web design. Copywriting. Video production. Photographer. #Wuxia and #Gundam geek. Made in Malaysia. Found in Shenzhen, China. Registered pharmacist.