I swear your curiosity won't kill the cat

Doropyan

If you mean translations of the in-game text on a blog somewhere, then I'm not aware of any I can vouch for. I will only vouch for translations I have read carefully from start to finish with the source text and without the source text, or if it comes from someone I trust with translation quality.

These people are either really good to begin with, or I am seeing or have seen them develop as a translator. Yes, we all have to start somewhere, I did too. So improvement is always a great indicator the translator is developing their own style and improving their knowledge in the field.

I don't want to be recommending anything I personally would not consume. Of course, just because I don't consume it, doesn't mean you can't enjoy it especially if it helps you get over the language barrier but it is better consumed when you're making an informed choice when choosing to experience the game through the fan translations.

I'm sure you can find some floating around on all the different social media platforms. But if you don't, this perch answer might help you self-troubleshoot why you're finding it hard to download the game.

!Warning! - Incoming rant and TED talk you didn't ask for

While we're here, I wanted to address something that's always bugged me but has gotten worse over the past year - people passing off post-edited machine translations (PEMT) for human translations and calling themselves a translator when they don't have the language skills.

I know for sure my expectations for translations are high by fandom standards, and no I don't expect every fan translator to work to the standard I enjoy reading. Unfortunately I've been seeing too much of that.

Don't get me wrong, I don't have anything against PEMT. It's not wrong, not bad or evil. It is the trend these days because there's the assumption doing it this way makes people work faster even in the professional field, let alone in the fandom, especially so with the generative AI now also being introduced.

I do PEMT professionally and read PEMT of webnovels when my brain is just too tired to read the source text and I just want to know the plot of a webnovels. But I expect them to be of low quality, have awkward grammar, or make little logical sense and I skim read for key words and key plot points. What's "bad" is, as always, the way people wield this powerful tool, parading as something they're not.

So one way (and the way I do it) to judge what kind of quality fan translation you're getting and whether what you're reading is PEMT or a human translation is quite simple. The speed of translation. But let's further break down what translation, especially of a fictional work, involves.

Reading comprehensionReading proficiency in source language (SL) - e.g. JPN, KRN, CNReading and writing proficiency in target language - (TL) - e.g. ENCreative writing skills for target languageReading and typing speed to a minor degree

Reading comprehension & Reading proficiency - how can you even translate the text if you don't even understand what the author is trying to convey in the source text? How can you proofread and quality check the translated text if you don't have the reading proficiency to pick these errors up in the target language?

Writing proficiency - how can you convey, in the target language, what the author was trying to if you don't have the writing skills to put it down into words? Understanding the idea or concept of what they mean is not the same as being able to put it into words.

Creative writing skills - how can you translate a novel if you don't even know how to write a novel, or at the very least how it is structured? How do you choose your words so it sounds like a novel and not a newspaper article without this?

Reading speed - a fast reading speed (or speedreading) is only helpful if you can read and comprehend on a deep level what the author is saying at a glance. Fairly impossible unless you've worked with the same author for years and know them well. Speedreading is a skill developed to pick up key information from a long text, usually used for informative texts because the rest is evidence or an establishing argument you can refer back to later. Otome games are there for companionship. The details are the what develop this and are essential to the experience. Otherwise every single game would just be 'meet guy at location x > complication y > resolution z > surprise birthday party > moving love confession > officially dating > anniversary celebration > proposal > meeting the family > engagement party > marriage'. But if all you're here for is the relationship milestones then yeah, go ahead and speedread.

Typing speed - This will only improve translation speed if your fingers can work at the speed your mind generates the translation. Also fairly impossible unless you're a super genius.

With that in mind, here are the average industry standard statistics on how fast a professional translator in any field can translate with and without the help of a CAT tool (in this case, machine translation tool such as Google Translate or even ChatGPT) on a normal 8-hour work day.

Human translator:Hourly - 300 to 500 wordsDaily - 2500 to 4000 words

PEMT:Hourly - 700 to 1000 wordsDaily - 5000 to 8000 words

100 Japanese characters = 50 to 60 words100 Chinese characters = 60 to 70 words

A text-heavy 2hr 30 min card date from Light and Night (缠缚年华) was 65,484 Chinese characters—the equivalent to around 45,800 words. Even if you're provided the full script and run it through a machine translation, a full post-editing of that would still at least take 46 hours to complete. And this is assuming the person translating has all required reading and writing language skills, has deep knowledge of the content and is an experienced translator and post-editor (yeah they're different skills). This excludes any time required for formatting, subtitling and rest. Yes, translators need rest like any healthy working human. An 8-hour workday with no rest would tire anyone mentally and physically. Quality plummets from that point onwards that it'd be more productive to rest and do it the next day.

Therefore if any fan-translation comes out faster than 4000 words per day, I objectively judge this as a PEMT, not human translation, not of high quality, and a translation prone to mistakes, unless produced by a translator I already trust. It is therefore not a translation I can vouch for.

And if any PEMT comes out faster than 8000 words per day, I'd be doubting if even any post-editing was involved. It would sound much more like quick proofreading while formatting. I would not even want to perceive, let alone check out to see if I can vouch for it.

I know there are people out there who will tell me to "chill, it's just fan translation, just a hobby". It might be to them, but it's not for me. Translation is an art that deals with language and culture exchange. Misinformation is spread the easiest because there are always "receipts". It's gotten worse with the way gen-AI translation and machine translation is being used on social media these days to mean the absolute truth. There are people fighting to be the first to release things for the attention it brings, consumers are trained to accept such fast food quality translations, and we lose the appreciation for the art within the fandom. It doesn't stay within the fandom, it leaks into the professional industry too and you see the quality of translations in pop literature drop because the companies think their consumers will accept any quality of work because "at least there's a translation".

To those saying "but they're making it accessible", yes I agree. I'm not stopping anyone from doing this, nor can I stop them. It's not plausible. But readers have a right to make an informed choice. They have a right to know they're reading something that has been PEMT by a non-professional translator so they have a reasonable expectation of accuracy, so you know that what you're reading might actually be interpreted differently by someone else and lead to a different experience. This happens in professionally localised content as well. Some things will anger you in English, but when you hear it in for example, Japanese, it might be acceptable. e.g. いい子 is sweet in Japanese, but "good girl" might be offensive to some in English.

To those saying "oh but they must have a stockpile", your fan translator probably has made social media posts on their progress and schedule and you can calculate how fast they translate from that.

To those saying "who are you to judge these people pouring hours of hard sweat, blood and soul into these translation and making it available for us to read", I'm happy to agree on disagreeing here because I am one of those people who do exactly that on a fan and professional level. I also have no obligation to provide you with any receipts. My actions and words speak louder than any of those things.

Am I being pessimistic? Yes. Am I being cynical? Yes. Have I seen all this before? Yes. So I will uphold my own standards. I will get offended when people pass off PEMT as human translations, do not inform their readers they are reading a PEMT, and still call themselves a translator. We can co-exist civilly as long as we do not paths on translations. I do not want or need to know about them. They also do not need to know about me. You can't get annoyed at something you're not aware of (眼不见心不烦).

If you read all the way to the end, thank you for coming to my TED talk.

References (for the benefit of people who like "evidence" but I know these stats off by heart):https://slator.com/how-fast-can-you-post-edit-machine-translation/https://www.pactranz.com/translation-times/https://www.a-zworld.ca/translation-services-canada-blog/how-many-words-can-a-translator-produce-per-day/https://www.tianhengconsulting.com/translation/word_count.htm

If you mean translations of the in-game text on a blog somewhere, then I'm not aware of any I can vouch for. I will only vouch for translations I have read carefully from start to finish with the source text and without the source text, or if it comes from someone I trust with translation quality.

These people are either really good to begin with, or I am seeing or have seen them develop as a translator. Yes, we all have to start somewhere, I did too. So improvement is always a great indicator the translator is developing their own style and improving their knowledge in the field.

I don't want to be recommending anything I personally would not consume. Of course, just because I don't consume it, doesn't mean you can't enjoy it especially if it helps you get over the language barrier but it is better consumed when you're making an informed choice when choosing to experience the game through the fan translations.

I'm sure you can find some floating around on all the different social media platforms. But if you don't, 

 might help you self-troubleshoot why you're finding it hard to download the game.

!Warning! - Incoming rant and TED talk you didn't ask for

While we're here, I wanted to address something that's always bugged me but has gotten worse over the past year - 

 and calling themselves a translator when they don't have the language skills.

I know for sure my expectations for translations are high by fandom standards, and no I don't expect every fan translator to work to the standard I enjoy reading. Unfortunately I've been seeing too much of that.

Don't get me wrong, I don't have anything against PEMT. It's not wrong, not bad or evil. It is the trend these days because there's the assumption doing it this way makes people work faster even in the professional field, let alone in the fandom, especially so with the generative AI now also being introduced.

I do PEMT professionally and read PEMT of webnovels when my brain is just too tired to read the source text and I just want to know the plot of a webnovels. But I expect them to be of low quality, have awkward grammar, or make little logical sense and I 

 for key words and key plot points. What's "bad" is, as always, the way people wield this powerful tool, parading as something they're not.

So one way (and the way I do it) to judge what kind of quality fan translation you're getting and whether what you're reading is PEMT or a human translation is quite simple. 

. But let's further break down what translation, 

- how can you even translate the text if you don't even understand what the author is trying to convey in the source text? How can you proofread and quality check the translated text if you don't have the reading proficiency to pick these errors up in the target language?

 - how can you convey, in the target language, what the author was trying to if you don't have the writing skills to put it down into words? Understanding the idea or concept of what they mean is not the same as being able to put it into words.

 - how can you translate a novel if you don't even know how to write a novel, or at the very least how it is structured? How do you choose your words so it sounds like a novel and not a newspaper article without this?

 - a fast reading speed (or speedreading) is only helpful if you can read and comprehend on a deep level what the author is saying at a glance. Fairly impossible unless you've worked with the same author for years and know them well. Speedreading is a skill developed to pick up key information from a long text, usually used for informative texts because the rest is evidence or an establishing argument you can refer back to later. Otome games are there for companionship. The 

 are the what develop this and are essential to the experience. Otherwise every single game would just be 

'meet guy at location x > complication y > resolution z > surprise birthday party > moving love confession > officially dating > anniversary celebration > proposal > meeting the family > engagement party > marriage'.

 But if all you're here for is the relationship milestones then yeah, go ahead and speedread.

 - This will only improve translation speed if your fingers can work at the speed your mind generates the translation. Also fairly impossible unless you're a super genius.

 can translate with and without the help of a CAT tool (in this case, machine translation tool such as Google Translate or even ChatGPT) on a normal 

A text-heavy 2hr 30 min card date from Light and Night (缠缚年华) was 65,484 Chinese characters—the equivalent to around 45,800 words. Even if you're provided the full script and run it through a machine translation, a full post-editing of that would still at least take 

 to complete. And this is assuming the person translating has all required reading and writing language skills, has deep knowledge of the content and is an 

 (yeah they're different skills). This excludes any time required for formatting, subtitling and rest. Yes, translators need rest like any healthy working human. An 8-hour workday with no rest would tire anyone mentally and physically. Quality plummets from that point onwards that it'd be more productive to rest and do it the next day.

Therefore if any fan-translation comes out faster than 

, I objectively judge this as a PEMT, not human translation, not of high quality, and a translation prone to mistakes, unless produced by a translator I already trust. It is therefore not a translation I can vouch for.

, I'd be doubting if even any post-editing was involved. It would sound much more like quick proofreading while formatting. I would not even want to perceive, let alone check out to see if I can vouch for it.

I know there are people out there who will tell me to "chill, it's just fan translation, just a hobby". It might be to them, but it's not for me. Translation is an art that deals with language and culture exchange. Misinformation is spread the easiest because there are always "receipts". It's gotten worse with the way gen-AI translation and machine translation is being used on social media these days to mean the absolute truth. There are people fighting to be the first to release things for the attention it brings, consumers are trained to accept such fast food quality translations, and we lose the appreciation for the art within the fandom. It doesn't stay within the fandom, it leaks into the professional industry too and you see the quality of translations in pop literature drop because the companies think their consumers will accept any quality of work because "at least there's a translation".

To those saying "but they're making it accessible", yes I agree. I'm not stopping anyone from doing this, nor can I stop them. It's not plausible. But readers have a right to make an informed choice. They have a right to know they're reading something that has been PEMT by a non-professional translator so they have a reasonable expectation of accuracy, so you know that what you're reading might actually be interpreted differently by someone else and lead to a different experience. This happens in professionally localised content as well. Some things will anger you in English, but when you hear it in for example, Japanese, it might be acceptable. e.g. いい子 is sweet in Japanese, but "good girl" might be offensive to some in English.

To those saying "oh but they must have a stockpile", your fan translator probably has made social media posts on their progress and schedule and you can calculate how fast they translate from that.

To those saying "who are you to judge these people pouring hours of hard sweat, blood and soul into these translation and making it available for us to read", I'm happy to agree on disagreeing here because I am one of those people who do exactly that on a fan and professional level. I also have no obligation to provide you with any receipts. My actions and words speak louder than any of those things.

Am I being pessimistic? Yes. Am I being cynical? Yes. Have I seen all this before? Yes. So I will uphold my own standards. 

I will get offended when people pass off PEMT as human translations, do not inform their readers they are reading a PEMT, and still call themselves a translator.

 We can co-exist civilly as long as we do not paths on translations. I do not want or need to know about them. They also do not need to know about me. You can't get annoyed at something you're not aware of (眼不见心不烦).

If you read all the way to the end, thank you for coming to my TED talk.

References (for the benefit of people who like "evidence" but I know these stats off by heart):

https://slator.com/how-fast-can-you-post-edit-machine-translation/

https://www.pactranz.com/translation-times/

https://www.a-zworld.ca/translation-services-canada-blog/how-many-words-can-a-translator-produce-per-day/

https://www.tianhengconsulting.com/translation/word_count.htm

Doropyan

Is there any web translate the BTW’s chapters? It’s so hard to download the game (T_T)

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