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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• • Volume 1 (Second Arc): Chapter 20

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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• • Volume 1 (Second Arc): Chapter 19

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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• • Volume 1 (Second Arc): Chapter 18

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 →

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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• • Volume 1 (Second Arc): Chapter 16

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:

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 →

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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• • Volume 1 (Second Arc): Chapter 14

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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• • Volume 1 (Second Arc): Chapter 13