All posts by Sylphie

Demon Sword Maiden Chapter 55

After 55 chapters, I’ve finally recruited an Editor for Demon Sword Maiden. Out of all the applications I’ve received, only 3 of them were legit while the rest were spam. And out of all the applicants, only one of them managed to finish the test. Or well… the only one who even bothered to do the test.

So let us give a warm welcome to Deximus-Maximus, the new editor of Demon Sword Maiden and the chief moderator of Demon Sword Maiden Wiki page.

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Demon Sword Maiden Chapter 54

Well, damn… What do you know? Today’s my birthday. Happy 29th years old me… just one more year and I’ll be called a Middle-Aged Uncle… Already 29 years old and I’m still so dependent on my parents, ugh… what a failure of a man I am…

I always tell myself to start looking for a girlfriend and take my work more seriously, but I never went around to do it. Getting a girlfriend would mean less personal time for my hobby (i.e. gaming, reading and translating). And I am lazy by nature so even though I know deep down that I cannot remain like this, I still took my work half-heartedly and always skipping work whenever I can.

So for my birthday wish this year, I wish that I can get over my timid and lazy nature. My first step to overcoming that wall is to post a double chapter today. Don’t thank me just yet, it’s mainly because both are short chapters 😛

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Demon Sword Maiden Chapter 53

Well, damn… What do you know? Today’s my birthday. Happy 29th years old me… just one more year and I’ll be called a Middle-Aged Uncle… Already 29 years old and I’m still so dependent on my parents, ugh… what a failure of a man I am…

I always tell myself to start looking for a girlfriend and take my work more seriously, but I never went around to do it. Getting a girlfriend would mean less personal time for my hobby (i.e. gaming, reading and translating). And I am lazy by nature so even though I know deep down that I cannot remain like this, I still took my work half-heartedly and always skipping work whenever I can.

So for my birthday wish this year, I wish that I can get over my timid and lazy nature. My first step to overcoming that wall is to post a double chapter today. Don’t thank me just yet, it’s mainly because both are short chapters 😛

Click the link below to start reading:

Demon Sword Maiden Chapter 52

It has come to my attention that people are rating this novel with 1 to 3 stars not because of the plot but because they can’t stand the protagonist’s personality. There were quite a few comments bashing at how Lily should man it up and stop wussing out whenever she was about to take a bath or a piss. Where would be the fun in that if she accepted everything readily and looked at her “new” body with no guilty conscience? This is what gender bender is all about.

And I have a firm belief that hate comes from love. There are only three main reasons why you would hate someone or something;

  1. You love them but your love is not rewarded.
  2. They remind you of something unpleasant (mainly due to something you did in the past that you want to forget or your own personality).
  3. They threaten your self-esteem.
If you can’t stand the novel or manga you’re reading, I suggest you to stop reading and come back again after you sort out your feelings. Depending on your feeling at the time you’re reading a certain novel, you can feel different emotions. Let’s take a romance novel for instance, how would you feel when you are reading a romance novel while you are in love and while you just broke up?

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Demon Sword Maiden Chapter 51

An editor? Yup… I might want to recruit one. In case my brain stopped working and unable to come up with the right words for the right time, I might need an editor to help me rewrite the sentence or just brainstorm together with me. I feel like I am starting to hit the limit of my vocabulary and the future translations might become monotonous due to lack of new words. I think I will need an editor with a high level of vocab.

Well, if anyone’s interested in taking up the position of Demon Sword Maiden exclusive editor, fill up the form below. Do note that as an editor, I’ll also require you to manage the Wiki page on top of editing the chapters. Your reward will be early access to chapters I’ve translated without subscribing to Patreon 😛

Make sure to enter your contact email when filling in the form, because I will be sending you a test to assess your ability. Good luck to all.

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Continue reading Demon Sword Maiden Chapter 51

Demon Sword Maiden Chapter 50

Translating is not easy, yeah… I did say that, but if you really want to start translating, there’s nothing to stop you if you can at least speak the language. It is quite common for Chinese who live outside the Mainland to not be able to read Chinese, it’s normal, and there’s nothing to be ashamed of.

I mean, I am among those “foreigners” who can’t read Chinese. I started my translating career due to an impulse to read ahead of a web novel I was following a few years back. I wasn’t able to read, so I decided to translate them to English instead, by using nothing but audio. I would copy the Chinese text and paste them into Google Translate, play the audio over and over until I get the meaning, then I will translate them into English.

After doing that for a few months, I then moved on to use online dictionaries and read the pinyin instead. I’ve been doing that for years and am still translating with the help of online dictionaries. I can now read more Chinese characters than before I started translating, but I still found reading the pinyin to be easier.

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Demon Sword Maiden Chapter 49

It’s a weird feeling. As a translator, I love short chapters because I can finish translating faster and go on to indulge myself in the pool of sloth. But as a reader, I like long chapters because you can never have enough of a good read.

Most translators can probably relate to this feeling, but what about the pure readers. Can they truly feel the pain and struggle a translator goes through without experiencing it themselves? My answer to this question is probably not. If you are only looking at the side, the things that others do may look easy to you, but it is not as easy as you initially thought when you are actually doing it yourselves.

I’m not pointing finger at anyone in particular, I’m only saying this because I’ve personally gone through this experience.

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Demon Sword Maiden Chapter 48

Procrastination and long chapters don’t play nice together. Took me almost one whole week to finish this up. Yup… slowing down the chapter release is definitely a good call in situations such as this. At least I won’t be pressured to speed up my translations in case I have an unproductive week.

Thoughts of the day:
Does anyone like to play the Atelier series? It’s one of my favorite games since the PlayStation 2 Era. Too bad I wasn’t able to get PS3 or PS4 so I was unable to enjoy the rest of the console exclusive series.

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Demon Sword Maiden Chapter 47

This might be a little late, but I have a correction to make.

  • Mountain Child -> Mountain Imp

I don’t know about you but I feel that it is about time we made this correction. I mean, when the name of the monster species was first mentioned, there was nothing much to go with it. We didn’t know whether it was a monster or a human, there was only so much you can tell from the name alone. Now that we know more about the monster, it is high-time we corrected the name.

While I was searching for synonyms of “child”, I stumbled upon “Imp” and thought that this was the perfect choice for our hairy little troublemaker. Continue reading Demon Sword Maiden Chapter 47

Demon Sword Maiden Chapter 46

The greatest joy of a translator is probably seeing return visitors coming back for more chapters. It’s actually quite a blissful thing to see returning visitors leaving a comment and like on a chapter you published. But then again, it can also get quite worrisome when the frequent readers suddenly stop commenting or liking new posts.

Yes, I know who you are and I appreciate you being here with me on this long journey 🙂
Well, okay, maybe I don’t know who you are, if you change your ID and Email, I probably wouldn’t have guessed…
But regardless, I still thank you for making your presence known.

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Demon Sword Maiden Chapter 45

I spent quite some time thinking of the classifier regarding the monster’s ranking system. The direct translation would be Low-Rank Initial Stage, Low-Rank Middle Stage, etc.

I felt that the direct translation would be too long. So I came up with several options:

Option AOption BOption COption DOption E
Low-Rank
Low-Rank+
Superior Low-Rank
etc…
Lesser Low-Rank
Low-Rank
Superior Low-Rank
etc…
Low-Rank
Low-Rank+
Low-Rank++
etc…
Low-Rank
Low-Rank Plus
Low-Rank Plus Ultra
etc…
Low Rank-
Low Rank
Low Rank+
etc…

Obviously, I chose option A, but options C is not bad either. What are your thoughts? Which option do you prefer? If there is none, what other option would you suggest? Please leave your comment below or cast your vote HERE! Continue reading Demon Sword Maiden Chapter 45

Demon Sword Maiden Chapter 44

Well damn, the weather is so hoooooooot lately. I’m not even kidding when I say it’s hooooooooot, emphasizing the hot! It’s so hot that forest fires are almost a daily occurrence around this part. It’s kind of sad to see the green land slowly turning into a wasteland. The forest fires are so frequent that I suspect there might even be an arsonist or two around here.

Is this truly the force of nature, or a man-made fire? Hrm…

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Demon Sword Maiden Chapter 43

Somebody told me to slow down my release pace so I can build up some stockpile for future releases. I’ve been pondering and I think that’s a fair point. In case I got busy in real life, going on a vacation, and whatnot, I will be able to keep up with the chapter release by taking some chapters out of the stockpile and I probably wouldn’t feel as pressured as translating them on the fly.

Well, the Patreon users will probably not be affected by this change since it’s not like my translation speed will slow down or anything, it’s only the public release that’s being slowed down. I think I’ll go at a 1-2-1-2 pace. One chapter on week one, two chapters on week two, back to one chapter on week three then two chapters on week four, rinse and repeat.

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Demon Sword Maiden Chapter 42

Ahh… That hits the spot! A break is nice isn’t it? Though I say that, I was actually planning to take the break and translate at my leisure so I could build up some stockpile, but who’d have thought, I really went and slacked for one whole week without touching the novel.

Even if I can trick myself into thinking that I’m still fine, I can’t trick my body after all. But it was a well-deserved break. I was finally able to take some time to update the Wiki page since nobody wanted to take up the job of managing it.

Thought of the day:
Maybe I should recruit an editor after all? Not only to help check my grammar but to manage the Wiki page as well 😛

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Demon Sword Maiden Chapter 41

Never expect they’d be a day when I actually look forward to weekdays more than the weekends and public holidays, but these hellish days are finally over. I can finally throw back and relax now.

I need to give myself a pat on the back for keeping up with one or two chapters per week despite the busy schedule, but now that the tension is gone, I’m all burnt out and I believe I deserve a good rest. With that said, pardon me for taking next week off and won’t be releasing any chapters.

Thoughts of the day:
I love-hate short chapters. I love it for the fact that I can translate short chapters quickly. I hate it for the fact that short chapters usually contain many difficult words.

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