I Used AI to Translate a Webnovel from Japanese... | Glass Reflection

[@Authoresswings]

So glad to hear more people talk about Bookworm. It’s so tempting to try and do what you did and translate the web novel to reach the ending. But JNovel’s translations are too good to not wait for. At least that’s my take.

[@FlameGarnet]

oh yeah. I adored my experience binge reading until Part 3 at the time. So blissful. Then I waited a whole year until Christmas/my birthday ish where I can take leave from work just to forget life to read all the newly translated volumes hehe. There's just too much added benefit to the translated volumes to spoil it by reading the mtl web novel. All the coloured art, the shot stories 4 panel manga at the end, all the exquisite nuance that I am kinda rabidly searching for the romance lololol I got spoiled (kinda) that there even is a romance with Myne that isn't her age. And then we get more of the love interest and suddenly it felt like a super slooooow burn romance. And MTL would just lose all the subtle hints of it hehehe

[@NRRC97]

Totally feel you, I've been "blue balled" more times that I can remember and it does feel frustrating when it happens, but there's always a payoff and honestly, when the whole series is over, I'll remember that feeling and I know I'll miss it, praise be Myne day

[@EadTaes]

As a fellow bookwork addict hearing your experience with trying MTL brought a smile to my lips. I tried it with google translate for 2 chapters and it was BEHYOND HORRIBLE! I tried chat gpt a bit but found it too difficult. But yeah the HOLY MAN AT J-NOVELS I PROSTRATE MYSELF TO THEEE!

[@sommeone]

Praise be to Quof

[@cyberiansailor9741]

Thanks be to Quof

[@hitori_9148]

Seeing a Honzuki video, let alone a LN or a WN video from a popular KZbin'er that I actively follow is wild. I'm trying to not go on a full rant about how much I love this series and how happy I am to see others that love the entire series and had similar experiences with reading. Praise be to the Gods!!!

[@Shadx27]

Gilco pose.

[@Malinoric]

This book is literally the reason I can now read Japanese at any usable level whatsoever. I finished season one, found J-Novel Club, caught up to prepubs, and was instantly down the web novel rabbit hole. Thankfully, I had enough Japanese in me by this point that the web novel wasn't entirely unreadable, even if it took a VERY long time to chew through. Now, I read quite a few of the web novels that get popular long before they ever see translation, and it's a very different experience seeing a work you already support suddenly making it to English readers. If you have any interest in pursuing Japanese, web novels are a great resource to practice with, and I highly recommend trying it out without the MTL.

[@aniflowers1998]

Translaters are unsung heros. Not only the profetional, official ones. But also the unoficial fan translators! I'm curently trying to translate the "Akatsuki no Yona" lightnovel into english, using the alredy existing german translation, becouse APARANTLY there is no official english translation yet, and I couldn't find a fan translation, and I just feel sorry for the english fans that they have to miss out on it. Needles to say, that little project gave me a howl new apreciation for translators. Translating one language into another while as good as possible trying to keep the writing style in takt, is really fucking HARD! And soooo exhausting! Translating comics/manga, which are only direct speach, was so much easier in comparisson!

[@abraxolotl]

Ahh yes, more bookworm, directly in my veins please. At least 70% of the reason I am paying my j-novel tithe every month.

[@sandrosliske]

The joy I experienced from seeing someone use "tithe" was more than I would have imagined prior. Thank you.

[@Szystedt]

100% for me ahahah, still so, so, so worth it!

[@abraxolotl]

@@Szystedt True enough. I mean, I do have 1 or 2 others I am happy to read weekly while I have the sub anyway. I most likely wouldn't have bothered jumping through the hoops due to their lack of alternate payment options if not for bookworm. Definitely worth it.

[@Shebeast3]

👏

[@noodles.dumplings.kimchi2878]

Yes please pay the tithe for our sacred gremlin. Praise the Myne day!

[@archwayglow]

Yeah the bookworm translator has been on a death march for years now. Major props. I love the series so much I broke down and read the web novel MTL during the first book of part 4. I still look forward to my weekly releases though.

[@Gameceptor]

I remember when I was reading it live - some things happened and now I'm still stuck at part 4, but I definitely would not replace quof's translation with anything else - it's just written so good and part of the charm was to follow forums after reading new chapters where quof would often explain why he translated something this way or that way. For English speakers, I think he is as irreplacable asset for The Ascendance of a Bookworm as the author herself, and I really hope he will translate the series all to the end... seeing his love for the series though I'm certain we have nothing to worry about :) As for video - it looks like an interesting experiment and... well, it was great as always :D

[@LukasJampen]

I've been on the bookworm hype for about 3 years now and every time a new volume is out I'm done with it after 2 days tops and I regularly look for more youtube content about the series and honestly the lack of youtube attention it gets is completely unacceptable.

[@joja26]

Struggling to read the webnovel is a rite of passage to any obsessed Bookworm fan. Also the great part about the Light Novels is that because they add at least 5 chapters of new content with each release that is all new content that was not in the webnovel so you’re still incentive to continue reading and thats just the main series, there’s also the fanbooks, side characters story volume, etc. J-Novel also announced the production of the audiobook, so that means we could also get the CD dramas with the exclusive content there. Let us pray for more Bookworm content: "O mighty King and Queen of the endless skies, O mighty Eternal Five who rule the mortal realm, O Goddess of Water Flutrane, O God of Fire Leidenschaft, O Goddess of Wind Schutzaria, O God of Life Ewigeliebe. We offer you our prayers and our gratitude."

[@timlerch7425]

As someone who was born with a physical disability and been bedridden most of their life, I cannot describe how much AscBookworm meant to me when watching it.

[@Shebeast3]

👏👏🤗🤗🤗🤗🤗🤗

[@myhandlewastakenandIgaveup]

This book series single handedly rekindled my love of reading. This is the logical next step of the addiction and I just havent been willing to take the plunge yet.

[@hewstonwehaveaproblem]

I had the same experience. Before Bookworm, I hadn't read any books for the greater part of 10 years

[@MouseGoat]

I simply refuse to read anything but the official translation, there to much in there that would be lust if just translated directly. And yes it got me reading books again, but... it also ruined fantasy fro me, because after I seen how real worldbuilding is done, 99% of other stories are just pure trash. The way Bookworm shows how the dynamic of the world works, how being Noble is so much more than just having alot of power money. Like in so many ways i feel the Nobles have it worse than the commoners, its like do you want all the food you can eat, or all the freedom you want? PICK ONE! if you picked freedom you better of as commoner.

[@myhandlewastakenandIgaveup]

@@MouseGoat I agree about the nobles having comfort but not freedom. This series has ruined fantasy in general for me as well. The world building is on such a next level that only the giants of fantasy (Jordan, Tolkien, Sanderson etc) are still enjoyable.

[@Valllefor]

I feel you so much. Currrently reading only the translated LN of AOB. Counting the days for the next volume

[@Nuthouse01]

Aw heck yeah! Bookworm represent! I did the same thing as you with Mushoku Tensei, reading the later books was miserable but at least I knew the plot beats. For Bookworm I chose to just ride J-Novel instead of doing it myself. Rather than saying "2 chapters per week" it's more accurate to say "one-eighth of a book every week". Praise be to QUOF!

[@gibson17155]

I feel the first 5 minutes of this video on a spiritual level. I started reading bookworm when P3V2 came out and it was so difficult to wait for each volume to release. I tried reading the web novel MTL, but it was so difficult to do that I decided to wait. I’ve been reading every week since and it is literally the single best thing about Monday (Myneday) for me. Anyway, read AOB. The anime after season 1 really doesn’t do it justice.

[@aznhomig]

Honzuki is an excellent series with great worldbuilding. It's like Game of Thrones combined with Harry Potter meets cute Isekai tropes with technological breakthroughs in the form of the printing press. Great series, highly recommended. I'm just gonna wait for J-Novel's translations since their pace of translation is very fast, but I am looking forward to the AI translation getting good enough to translate Japanese media that will never be officially or fan translated to English.

[@akon317]

Bookworm? Bookworm!! I love my favorite Light Novel being covered on a large Channel :) Incidently.. As a native German speaker the names of the gods are sometimes really funny :D

[@zidaryn]

Oh? Please share how they're funny? I know the language and god's are highly influenced by German so I'm curious. Is it as bad as "Water lady" or something like that?

[@peachpersona4703]

always nice to see another german bookworm fan

[@annjune7338]

​@@zidaryn Another native German speaker here. I wouldn't say it's bad like that. It varies quite a lot, some gods have very straight or literal translations that refer directly to a German term (such as the god of summer "Leidenschaft" means passion), other names seem like a mixture of German terms that can be quite funny in their combination ("Leisegang" = quiet and walk). Even some character names like "Solange" are quite funny, its literal translation is "as long as". But also there aren't always clear ways to translate a term and you need to interpret it, never knowing for sure what the author was inspired by. "Flutrane" is one example for this. Personally I could guess it's combined of two German words but the first one can be debated, maybe "Flut" (flood) or "früh" (early) or a shortened form of "Frühling" (spring) while the second word seems rather clear as "Träne" (tear as in tear drop). But it could also have its origin in totally different German words. You can't be certain without hearing it straight from the author, nonetheless, it's quite amusing to see all those German origins. If you'd like to see more examples, just let me know, I'm happy to share my knowledge and interpretation, some are really funny, not just gods, also character names, regions, towns, animals and many other terms.

[@zidaryn]

@@annjune7338 That's awesome. Seems to me that there's a part of the character that influenced their name. I think I'm good with this. Those examples are enough for me to have ideas on the rest. I'm glad it's not just flat transitions but some metaphors as well.

[@annjune7338]

@@zidaryn Right, I also think it's quite creative.

[@TheGeladoo]

"I loved this series so much that I chose to read a butchered almost-literal translation of the source material that removes all of the characterization and prose, and a bunch of references, consistent terminology and interconnections between different volumes, chapters and maybe even paragraphs"

[@bravado2809]

Are you alright?

[@TheGeladoo]

@@bravado2809 Yeah, thanks for asking though, I appreciate it

[@Graerth]

Hey, addicts neeeeeed to try get their fix. Even if some eggs and prose gets broken on the way.

[@angelvaca9047]

field rice...

[@hewstonwehaveaproblem]

Looking at literally 2 lines of the MTL that was shown on screen, I immediately recognized the chapters and can definitely feel the weight of that cliffhanger too. I had the same issue and bought the Japanese Light Novel, read all of 3 pages and gave up coz the new week would arrive before I finished page 5. The Merchant Saint is the chapter in question.

[@Tenshi6Tantou6Rei]

Oh saaaaaaaame Merchant Saint almost broke me too. Lol I’m just busy enough to make it to monday every week

[@Aderon]

There are a lot of cases where even in the LN translation, certain things are changed that probably shouldn't have been changed. For instance, in part 1 we see Myne writing her name on a slate, and its very clear that the intended spelling of her name is 'Main', but for the sake of the audience understanding how it's supposed to be pronounced, in the LN they went with 'Myne.' Then there's the matter of Shikikoza, where for plot details, it's relevant to note that his name has 4 syllables, yet in the LN translation they shorten it into something that turns out to be a slur, albeit unintentionally.

[@IronDestinyBlaze]

Iirc quof has stated that while he usually just asks for approval for his name translations, in the case of myne he asked specifically how she wanted it translated without giving her an option he prefered.

[@zkeletonz001]

Yeah it made sense to me why they spelled her name as Main in the anime. And I have no issue with the idea that a name spelled Main could be pronounced as Myne. Having names where the sounds in them are spelled in ways we're not used to seeing is so common that I rarely think twice about it. Why some people have felt the need to get their panties in a bunch over something that innocuous, that has no affect on the story at all, I never understood.

[@Aderon]

@@zkeletonz001 That's a great point. I guess I should have clarified that the Myne/Main debacle is one where I have no side other than noting that in-world her name is spelled like the latter, but they went with the former for the sake of people understanding how they want it pronounced. But as for Shikikoza, that's one where I feel it shouldn't have been changed because there was both quite an amusing pun in his name, but in shortening it, Quof accidentally shortened it into something that's quite offensive in a particular context that Myne could fall into depending on how you look at it.

[@tipulsar85]

Covering only a fraction of the material in the Anime? I also see Holo and Lawrence waving at us from the next hill with their kid and apprentice.

[@xNico1412]

Also regarding people getting into Web Novels, I and many others that I know of have had this experience where we go to read it, despite in some cases (Slime) being very very different from the Light Novel, and believing that it's the Light Novel purely due to the fact that we just do not know much about the difference. So bringing this into the public eye is very much appreciated :D

[@MirageGSM]

I have noticed that Japanese LN authors often do neglect to specify who is talking in which particular line, and not all human translators feel the need to add clarification (or they are not sure themselves and decide to just leave it as is). I haven't had this particular problem with Bookworm, which has a very good translation, but it is not rare for a LN to have four or more consecutive lines spoken by different people without any clarification on who is saying what...

[@liamdell6319]

The thing is with a lot of Japanese works, is that different characters have different verbal ticks which is how they expect you to tell the difference between who's speaking.

[@MirageGSM]

@@liamdell6319 Yeah, but if those ticks do not translate to English, I'd expect the translator to compensate for that.

[@hajamariole3586]

@@MirageGSMI don’t disagree but then you get people complaining about faithfulness to the source material

[@IronDestinyBlaze]

For bookworm quof actually sends a list of clarifying questions to kazuki after finishing the prepub translation of a volume. He has mentioned that in this list he also includes questions about who is actually speaking, this has actually led the english translation including information japanese readers would have no way of getting.

[@zidaryn]

I've noticed this issue in Reincarnated As A Sword. There are a lot of times where they have description of the action, then they throw in about 4 or 5 lines of dialogue (without who is actually speaking what lines.) It makes it so I have to slow down a bunch in those scenes. Which hurts the enjoyment when this should be a high pace fight scene.

[@kunstlerischesetwas1284]

0:44 I swear, you hit the nail on its head. I started reading the light novel after the ending of s2 of bookworm last year and had to realize that not everything has been translated yet, while knowing that the web novel has already been finished. I tried to find fan translations or summaries to know how the series continues, but failed. I eventually stoped planning to wait some years for it all to be translated. Its so cool to see that you love the series just as much as i do

[@hyperhare0624]

I am on part 5, volume 3 too! I can wait a few months! I just rereading the stuff I have. I love how this story is written and the side stories really expand and explain everything better as our narrator is a bit unreliable. Still, I am told that because Rozemyne is unreliable, the web novel was like a mystery because SO MUCH was going on behind our gremlin's back that she doesn't find out about until way later. I think this is a masterpiece! I had the endgame of the main characters spoiled for me by some random forum, but I still don't know how we get there or WHY THE AUTHOR CAN'T JUST KEEP THE SERIES GOING! I mean, I want to see our gremlin get married, have a ton of kids, and find all kinds of solutions to the general reproductive difficulties of nobles. I bet she is totally going to have twins that each have enough mana to be qualified as archduke candidates and that she has to invent contraception to stop having kids because it is too easy for her after she cracks the code. And this is just ONE head cannon tangent of mine. This series covers so many topics that the discussions could never end. Also, this world doesn't have dragons. I was upset. But, I can hope they just exist in another country.

[@jhaugsne]

Raimund needs to debug his translation magic circles.

[@maxmouse713]

Translation, especially for literature and similar, is half art and half science. Machine Learning Algorithms (and I agree about it not being AI properly) often lack both. But there is something I do think they could be useful for: "fixing" subtle "errors" in existing translations. Things like disagreements over translation conventions or what a term should be translated to can ruin an experience for some people. But going back and "fixing" these would take a human too much effort, time, and money that they would likely rather spend elsewhere. But an "AI" could reasonably do "find & replace" and any required extra steps with acceptable quality and accuracy. (I put "errors" in quotes because in many cases it is purely a matter of opinion since there is no real right answer since many words don't even have the same connotations in different languages for example.)

[@domnik908]

3 more days until Myne-day

[@domnik908]

Always looking forward to them Mondays

[@bleachbleachBLEACHER]

This is amusingly timed for me because I just got done using machine translators to make a fan translation for the .Hack//Epitaph of Twilight novels. But I want to be very clear in my process for all of this, because I spent A YEAR working on this project to make it as good a translation as I could manage. So I used a combination of Google Translate and DeepL Translate when working with the Japanese text, but one thing I absolutely DID NOT DO was slap in paragraphs of text at a time and expect the machine algorithms to properly parse through it all at once. Instead, I took the novels sentence by sentence - sometimes even word by word if it felt like the sentence or its structure was being misinterpreted - and carefully re-interpreted what the machines gave me to piece together the proper and intended meaning of the original Japanese. I went through the full novels once, then went through all of it again to build a second draft where I doubled down on re-interpreting and rewording my basic translations to ensure everything flowed well in English, that everything could be understood, and most importantly that I had the full context of the story as I translated it, allowing me to create a more genuine translation of the work. If I ran into phrases or idioms that didn't make sense to me, I made sure to do further research on the origin of them, I looked up any and all information that already existed on the story through the .Hack wiki and other sources to make sure I was being accurate with the translated names of people and places, and I always, always, always double and triple checked my translations if anything sounded off or didn't completely make sense. Every time I see this discussion topic come up regarding machine translations and whether or not its good enough to compete with human translators, it always seems to be on the basis of the PURE machine translation vs what a linguist can do on their own - and the answer they come to every time is that of course the pure machine translation doesn't compare. But in my case I absolutely did not stop at the pure machine translation, I took the machine translation and put as much of my own human language comprehension and writing skill into deciphering the intended meaning of the text, using the machine translations only as a base from which to work off of.

[@Csaboka3]

To be fair to the Crunchyroll translation, there is no Latin spelling in the original. Her name is マイン, which becomes Main if you transliterate it using the official rules. I'm sure quof went with the "Myne" spelling because it sounds right when you read it with the usual English assumption about how letters are supposed to sound like. Crunchyroll doesn't have this problem because you can just hear characters speaking the name out loud.

[@Syastsk]

I went with Myne because I asked the original Japanese author how to romanize it and she said Myne.

[@elfwyn8707]

Chat GPT (3.5) has a short attention span. Thats because all previous prompts are normally taken into account when creating the next translation. So as the prompts continue the oldest information provided fades away slowly until the original order might dissappear from its "memory". Secondly GPT 3.5 is not really good at tracking complex situations and becomes far easier confused than the newer GPT 4.0. (which is currently no option for this type of task since it can only answer 25 prompts every 3 hours.)

[@bobemmerson1580]

Free DeepL will translate 5000 words at a time. So you can paste a block of text at a time and work through that way. My solution was 3 windows open, one with the original text (so I could keep an eye on my place), on with DeepL, and one with google translate. Switching between translations when the going is tough. It vaguely worked, but QuoF is a top bloke in my book, well worth reading his translations even if I got the gist of the story though MTL.

[@Fa1seP0sitive]

Brought to this video after the most recent 5 chapter long pre-pub. I've tried doing MTL a few times before (possibly even from one of the same cliffhangers you decided to go in on, I've been reading the weekly translations for almost a full year now since I lost patience for full volume releases.) Now I'm about to do it again, just because its getting so so good and I know I'll wait a week just for the side stories as we enter the end of the volume, so it'll be two weeks before the main plot continues.

[@GainingDespair]

DeepL is a pretty good translator, they often give you a literal meaning (word for word) and a figurative meaning given past sentences context (when set up correctly). What really makes it shine however is it's outstanding support/understanding of japanese slang which you often see in manga, novels, VN's It's commonly used in the VN community with other software which allows it to pull the VN's text, and translate it in real time. It will goof from time to time, however it can be very surprising as a reading given how the translations often come off as very proper/native English.

[@podracer35]

It works really well, but when I tried to feed longer passages, I noticed it would sometimes insert a random sentence that made absolutely no sense and wasn't in the source text. I don't know why it happens, but it can get annoying. What I ended up doing in my case was making a spreadsheet with both DeepL and Google Translate side by side, and I could comfortably read and understand everything between the two of them.

[@heerotomoe]

DeepL often repeats sentences or eats entire paragraphs. just be aware. It's also wrong quite a lot, although more accurate on more occasions than GTL That said, there are times when GTL is more correct than DeepL, and ofc many more times both are wrong. So long as you're aware of this, it's fine, just don't use machine translations with the expectations that they're completely accurate or true simply because they sound like a human wrote it. Too many times I've seen people post a mtl screenshot as some sort of weapon of proof against a real person's translation, when that mtl was completely off

[@podracer35]

@@heerotomoe yeah, I've noticed it struggles with multi line dialogue and repeats itself constantly

[@venrajful]

I feel your pain. i myself spent every week waiting for two more chapters of this series. I supplement my bookworm difficiancy by reading fanfics (not recommended if you dislike spoilers)

[@enjeruslight6310]

Yes, I have been using fan fiction lately as well. My only problem is I then have to deal with delays, inconsistent schedule, or hiatus that have no resolution. I will skip the topic of AU or non-cannon as sometimes it is refreshing and other times...

[@GreenTeaLover12]

OMG Quof got a shout out! They have my upmost respect for there dedication regular translations. Great Series, glad to hear your story on trying to get more material on AOBW, I am "patiently" waiting for all the releases XD

[@RuxUnderscore]

ChatGPT can only remember and carry the context from previous messages for only so many messages, so the best method would probably be training your own LLM (Large Language Model), which is what ChatGPT actually is, trained on translation and information you feed it, like the aforementioned translation guide of the names. Something that not many people in the anime community are probably willing to do.

[@Norbert_Sattler]

The Main/Myne is the age-old issue of "do you want to the original spelling, or do you want something that sounds the same when said." Because in the original Japanese (and in the local script of the Bookworm world for that matter) she is indeed spelled Main. However, if you say the name out loud in Japanese (or in German, coincidentally), and then ask an English speaker to put what they heard to a page, it will come out as Myne. So in that sense, Crunchyroll is absolutely correct... and so is Quof. It's just a matter of, I guess philosophy or preferance regarding translations.

[@esoqueexiste]

I have been thinking this for a time, but Myne Monday is good enough

[@rilkecadmus5143]

I am stealing this, Myne Mondays have been a staple for me for about a year now

[@jagger1008]

I did this too with some japanese ebooks I bought online from the publisher. I used GPT-4 API and the results were decent. It wasn't consistent with the translation of names between different batches of translations, and sometimes it would repeat a section for no apparent reason. I expect that with the new GPT-4 model, which is cheaper and holds 4x as much context, someone could make a translation bot that remember keys details of the story, and how it spells names to stay consistent. I might give it a go some day if no one else does. But I'm sure in the near future, you could just paste a whole book in and get a whole book out, and then it'd be defunct.

[@CJBooks4]

I would also choose a human translator over CHATGPT any day too: because we are a walking contradiction of a species, so trying to digitally replicate human nuance, both linguistically and just in general, to something like CHATGPT/AI is something that I believe is currently impossible due to how much we contridict ourselves as a species

[@kirabrabazon219]

I literally also did this. I literally ran the webnovel of Bookworm through google translate when only up to the beginning of part three was available in English, and I read alllllll the way to the end trying my best to make sense of what Google was telling me they were saying.

[@sillum]

Same

[@Drachnon]

I did that too, and then a year later I did it again. Don't ask me why.

[@Sn1PeRZzBLOOD]

Amazing hearing you talk about one of my favourite shows. I fell in love with the world while watching season 1 and luckily s2 was released soon after. :) So excited for its future!

[@fezzman9898]

36 episodes, to cover the fucking prologue :D Also, it's not just japanese, it's all asian languages. They're structured VERY differently from the germanic languages.

[@Id334ler]

I jumped on the Light Novel train right before season 2 ended, during the trombe extermination. I needed to know more. I read everything that was available in English at that point, but I kept to the Light Novels due to the fast release date. When I started reading, we got a new volume every 3 months, which turned to every 8 weeks. That's waaaay faster than other series such as Reincarnated as a slime and Danmachi, ect. But, at one point, I was desperate, and I tried to read the web novel...just, no. It wasn't worth it for me, so I stopped after a page or two. You're right about it lacking soul, and being readable. I'm not sure if the site I was on used MTL or Google Translate.

[@DragonGirl408]

Can't wait for season 4!

[@MouseGoat]

I mean yeah thats everything with ChatGPT it will give you what you ask for but it lacks any intent, will, or "soul" But im like, what did you expect, it dose not know how to "care" for things and we lucky it dose not, becuse once AI starts "careering" we all pretty fucked

[@connorbrotcke254]

This makes me curious about how well DeepL's paid version would work since its more suited to these purposes

[@enjeruslight6310]

Your video was like a trip down memory lane for me. 😂 The pain and triumphs...but yes it happens to us all and it's nice to know I was not the only one that felt the change in flavor. I must admit to correcting the translation just for smoother reading.😅

[@firstprimehunter]

And controversy in 3… 2… 1..

[@cloudstrife4534]

Do you mean Arc getting controversy for this?

[@thoopsy]

​@@cloudstrife4534it's probably what they mean, yeah. Since when you put something into AI it's part of the dataset forever, many online content creators are NOT happy about their work being put in.

[@cloudstrife4534]

@@thoopsyThat does makes sense why people would be unhappy about that. Thanks for letting me know!

[@ailliar3287]

Shoutout to all of the official translators of course, and the fan translators who work super hard so others can consume content that isn't licensed in our language, usually for free!! Mad respect, they are why I almost never have to turn to mtl

[@nancyjay790]

Thank you for sacrificing your patience for this information.

[@takaotsu3592]

I was thinking about getting a job translating mangas. I’m fluent in both Japanese and English.

[@jdneko1078]

5:20. Yes! Yes! Yeeeees!!!!!!! Welcome to the club of hungry bookworms!

[@bosaad502]

Ahhh the eventual evolution of an anime fan passing the manga/manhwa stage, it the novels time. You start with JP novel and discover CN and KR novels some of them grab your attention. And soon you will look at a 1000 chapter CN Webnovel and think it kinda short. As a veteran reader of more than 6 years, read Lord of Mysteries. It’s probably one of the best entertainment fiction there is.

[@bobemmerson1580]

"Rice-paddy" "answering machine" - if you know you know.

[@nadirku]

Yeah, I did something similar with a fan translation of a web novel, when I wanted to catch up with the latest, a very confusing experience... though does make me appreciate the fan translator (and now the official translator of the light novel version of the story).

[@outforbeer]

Bookworm is the first series I used mtl to read. It was that good that I couldn’t wait

[@LimeyLassen]

I get the impression that even a very well translated web novel would still be worse than the LN, because the authors rewrite the story with an editor when they publish to raise the quality to print standards, and they tend to be more experienced and competent writers at that point anyway.

[@igamergirl14]

10:38 Ok but Damuel's name of all names being mistranslated like this is HILARIOUS when you consider that the name in of itself is a typo the author made and then decided to stick with

[@samizo5842]

You should write the prompt translate and keep it in context

[@davidbowen9596]

I can relate. I've been hooked on Ascendence since season 1 of the anime. I've been reading the light novel as they come out on BookWalker of which I have been satisfied for the most part. Somehow I have been able to resist the temptation of going to the web novel. But it hasn't been easy.

[@Saltyorange11]

I just started watching ascendance of a bookworm good to know that I’m in for a lot of reading (I’m already very invested and I’m at episode 10 also it’s already setting my shipers heart ablaze and given a clip I’ve seen I’m assuming it doesn’t work out)

[@mati4193]

please make more ascendance of a bookworm content, especially around the light novel and spoiler territory, it is such a great story but not many content creators choose to make content on it since it doesnt have a greater mainstream presence not to mention how light novels are a lot less popular to anime itself. please if you love the story just as much as the rest of us bookworm fans please scratch that itch that we have for more content as we wait for new lightnovel volumes to release. PLEASE

[@clintcarpentier2424]

Chuckles Rosemyne - "So-n-so, go do x y and z." Retainer - "I'm smart!" Me - ummm...

[@zkeletonz001]

I really hope we see a continuation of the anime at some point.

[@justice5408]

You know what, this is sparking my interest in actually reading the LN cus I loved bookworm

[@Shadx27]

Bookworm has claimed another soul. What a gremlin!

[@xriya7466]

I never was sure of your tastes in anime but being a Bookworm fan confirms your excellent taste

[@TheCreepypro]

didn't know about any of this so it was fun to learn

[@KnifeChampion]

FYI: there are third party projects using chatGPT expanding its funktionality such as retention of names and other memories havent looked into it if there are any aimed at translations but in that community there might even be one project specifically for light novel translation just saying this here since you didnt mention it and hope it helps

[@phazei]

Since your use of ChatGPT was free, you likely weren't using GPT4, which is massively better. It is much more able to understand context and translates much better. I used it for a couple chinese web novel chapters, and I switched back and forth between 3 and 4, 4 was a huge improvement, albeit much slower.

[@とふこ]

BTW 4 is also free in Bing chat ... until bing don't break the line.

[@ozerune]

This could be a great tool for actual translators to translate more things faster as long as they actually check the work of the AI using their real translation experience.

[@tommihommi1]

Many (most?) hobby WN and manga translators use computer translations to help them

[@KhanMann66]

More often fan translation is more accurate than local translation.

[@TheGeladoo]

Checking machine translation usually just results in almost fully retranslating or reworking the machine's work anyways, so it doesn't really help in that way.

[@ozerune]

@@TheGeladoo Yes but it provides a rough guideline. It may be a small time saver but still a time saver regardless.

[@kimdavis2433]

As an actual translator, it takes longer to edit a bad translation into a good one than to just do it from scratch myself, and AI does an awful job at translating Japanese because it's such a heavily context-dependent language where you need to be able to read between the lines to understand what's going on.

[@scruffy3121]

Wago 221 is the best patron name so far

[@measinme8871]

I watched Bookworm on a forbidden site and it switched back and forth from Myne to Main. At first I thought it was correcting Myne to Main based on the way we see her name spelt on her little chalkboard. Those letters did indeed look more like Main than Myne but ofc English speakers already have a different pronounciation of main so Myne makes the most sense.

[@tron0150]

Google translate is kinda useble after some years of experience, you just have to strip down words to their most basic meaning and string them into sentences yourself, it works fine with primitive text like in most web novels.

[@percivallavoie4415]

I appreciate that you didn't spoil anything!

[@knaditya8228]

ok This remained of this novel called release that witch it was so good that i wanted more of it but the translations were very slow so I actually went to a part time job after class just so I can pay for a translator who will translate the novel for me to read, My friends and family never understood why I was always broke even after working after school.😅😆

[@Nunu_]

I had to purposely spoil myself on some key events just to keep myself from going down the MTL rabbithole

[@zennvirus7980]

Quof... you are a god and your work and your consistency and flair are what makes Bookworm in English be my one book per day, and your translation is Well. Worth. The. Wait. So people, please buy the novels JNC publishes so we support this translator.

[@metal123498]

"THe MTL will never be able to talk to the author and clarify things" *flashbacks to the great renaming bedate*

[@ChristianVonCarmian40kVtuber]

I also agree that they are not really AI but boy does marketing work with it

[@zelda123122]

I once read a visual novel/card game thing entirely translated with Deep L You can make it work if you really gotta read/watch/play something But it is a struggle at times glad to see someone else is as crazy as i am

[@Tenshi6Tantou6Rei]

Muehehehe if a series deserves it, it’s bookworm

[@HerculePyro]

Ser, we are so close to Part 5 volume 12, as I write this the first chapter will be getting translated next week. I require a review of the whole series.

[@nikonp5994]

I also prefer the official English translation. Having instant excellent translation for free is a dream, but I'm happy that human translation is still valuable.

[@wfe4210]

We need more seasons of Bookworm.

[@liamdell6319]

I just read the official novel translations every week.

[@daenerys231]

I just used Chrome's auto translate feature, and it seemed to work quite well.

[@jackyisking]

I bet it was the "out of time" chapter that make you gave in. Bookworm is meant to simulate how myne felt needing to wait for opportunity for a new book realease

[@marjeusw.9819]

Just wanna let you all know that Wit studio is continuing the anime lez goo

[@fakesmile172]

Hope it gets more seasons! Also, it seems a lot of LN anime adaptations cut out a lot of the story sadly, though some of the anime manage to be great in spite of that. I need to start reading light novels...

[@nebufabu]

Nature of the beast. Unless it's something mega-popular and guaranteed to be renewed for the next season _forever_ (then you have the opposite problem) you need to put at least a couple volume's worth of the main story into a single season, with webnovels usually written in straight-to-the point style, you don't have much in the way of description or exposition to be replaced by the visuals, so you basically trying to cram ~12 hours of read-aloud story into 12 20-minute episodes :(

[@JEL625]

Thing is, the anime ended at a natural end point where the studio could say "go read the light novel" in a gentle way as that part of the story is over. That won't happen again as the rest of the story is extremely interconnected. So if the studio wants to make a new season it's kinda forced to keep going. There is also another 5 volumes before we get into the major hooks of the series. The first 7 volumes would be maybe 1-2 episodes in a normal isekai. AoB is DENSE and detailed with excellent foreshadowing.

[@ReflectionsofChristianMadman]

Bookworm is so good! I love the light novels and recommend them often.

[@Achraf.OUBELLA_AcOu]

ALL MTL Readers see their selves in this man!

[@mikecalvento]

I'm part of the Pre-pub gang, but after last Monday, I'm 5 seconds away from looking into the WN.

[@5thBabbitt]

Laughs in prepub, cries in waiting a week between releases

[@Roxasandaxel13]

Cause I can´t wait, I read the whole series from start to finish. Then I start again. Send help I´m stuck in an endless Loop😱

[@ObiwanNekody]

I used Google Translate to translate Bookworm before the Anime was announced. It was totally worth it IMO.

[@JoseAlba87]

Yeah that's my biggest pet peeve too. After finishing watching an anime you get hooked, I ask "what happened Next???" Into the dark web I go trying to find MANGA in Eng 😢

[@elsewhereprince3969]

I'm with you on the whole not actually AI thing.

[@AltaroRitmerZaxmer]

Actually, I usually use Immersive Translate to help me translate foreign books directly and accuratly.