Hey everyone. I just started a community where you can request pro/amateur translators for translations. Anyone can make requests, and anyone can translate!
I was a very active member of /r/translators on Reddit until the platform banned me (not the sub, they were great).
I’m a Japanese-English translator by profession and would love to help you guys out with quick translations. There used to be a lot of requests on Reddit for tattoo ideas.
I haven’t added a rule for keeping requests reasonable (i.e. don’t expect us to translate a whole book), and not to charge money for translations but don’t know how to word it right. I guess I should also decide if NSFW requests would be ok or not. So if anyone could help me there as well, that would be super!
どうぞよろしくお願いいたします！
Just curious, what would you say the advantage(s) might be over using tools like DeepL to do instant web translations?
Not OP but machine translation not understanding context is a big one, especially if you want to produce something (i.e. a tattoo or a request). DeepL also doesn’t translate pictures so that too.
IIRC the paid version does, FWIW. Also, just for the record, Google Translate handles pictures, altho it’s thoroughly mediocre at this time. Good for getting the main meaning, but it frequently boofs up various words and some expressions.
Anyway yeah, thanks for explaining. I see what you mean about tattoos, specifically.
Great question!
A lot of times, what I saw in the Japanese requests on Reddit, were translations where human input was necessary, like tattoos. DeepL doesn’t know what is culturally appropriate, what is cool, what is cringe. Someone immersed in the language as well as culture needs to be there to help. Same with poetry, lyrics, names, lines, etc. Another thing Japanese translators got often were handwritten letters, carvings on swords, plates, etc. that cameras could not identify and ancient scripts (I admit, I’m not good at those).
It’s also a great opportunity to talk to a human being and learn more than just translations as translators often leave extra tidbits of information.
I think it’s also why I still get jobs for translations and interpretations in the age of gen AI. We add a bit of a human experience to the process.
Thanks! I was expecting the human experience to be part of the answer, but good to learn about the context issues, too!
So I’ve subscribed. And I can probably join in questions and discussions sometimes when French is the subject, as that’s a language I’m currently working on.
Incidentally, as a community runner here, I’ve found that probably the best way of growing the subscriber list is to post content frequently. Maybe it would only be lightly-adjacent to translation issues, but it’s good to get stuff out there, if only to keep the community and its topic fresh in peoples’ minds. Cheers.
That’s a super good point about keeping the community alive. I grew up in Canada so I speak a bit of French too, and I like to watch French content on YouTube and Instagram, but there’s just so much colloquialism that I just don’t get, so maybe I’ll start by posting questions I have about that. I can post what I think something means and an expert can jump in and help. Even if I don’t get the answer, it’s not a huge deal and at least it keeps the community alive.
Thanks for the input!