I did end up watching the first episode of the anime. I must say it helped a LOT with understanding the nuances and personalities/emotions of each character! Thanks for everyone’s comments!
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I’ve always found the real secret to understanding stuff is knowing what they’re talking about beforehand. 
(Though I actually meant it more in reference to reading news articles - it’s a lot easier to scan NHK Easy when you already have a good idea about the types of things that are making headlines around the world)
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Okay, so my second read through went a lot smoother! There is only one sentence that’s giving me kind of a hard time to grasp the correct meaning…
p 29
昇降口横から抜けた方が早いか
I couldn’t get the translation quite right, but I got the impression that it would mean something like “Going through the entrance seems fast(er)”.
Then, I entered the sentence into ichi.moe and translated it to “If it is faster to go (through) the side entrance?”.
To make sure that I got this correct, I then asked deepL and got this: " Is it faster to go out from the side of the elevator?"
Where the heck does the elevator come from? I checked the German translation of the Manga, which I have on hand, andere there too was the elevator mentioned!
I tripple checked Yomichan, and that is what the translation says:
Could this be a translation error from deepL and the German translation?
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p29
That’s a translation error from Deepl. When I tried it, mentioned no elevators
昇降口 in terms of a school is meant to be the main entrance, where the shoe lockers are and stuff like that
Edit: nvm, I’m getting that translation now a s well, you just had the wrong kanji in your post for 横
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I think it helps to have a good grasp of the general context to be able to navigate through it successfully and fill in the gaps for the words one doesn’t understand 100%. That’s what I do when playing visual novels.
Translations and visual cues definitely help with that, especially when the characters speak in slang / super casually.
Definitely. There is no elevator mentioned in the Japanese text and from the N mangas I read, I don’t think Japanese schools commonly have elevators.
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p30
このままフェンスを越えー
Just wanted to double check the meaning of まま here? Jisho has it listed as occassionally, sometimes.
Given he’s just thought about going out the side entrance as quicker, is it that he’s then spotted there’s no one near the fence and gone
“Oh! Sometimes jumping the fence is-” (quicker)
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p30
You’ll see まま often. It roughly translates to “state” or “situation”. このまま is specifically often “like this” or “in this way”. In this example, I’d say it’s about how noone is around, maybe something like “If it’s like that, I can jump the fence” or something.
Generally it’s about a state that doesn’t change,
戸は閉まったままだった。
“The door remained closed”
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p30
I think it’s part of a phrase, このまま in this case. このまま has a few meanings, but I think it’s closer to ‘in this instance’, or ‘if it’s like this, then-’ [since nobody else is around].
/edit Gorbeaten
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Yeah, I noticed that typo (an error from Mokuro) and forgot to correct it in my post. (Will edit it right away).
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I tried reading the french translation and while it’s probably not wrong, it just doesn’t sound right. As in, you can tell it’s a translation. The french text is not “smooth”, with slightly weird sentences and / or changes in tone.
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Before we go all in on translator bashing it’s worth noting manga translation is generally regarded as being pretty poorly paid with tight deadlines, at least in English speaking spheres. Don’t know if that’s the case for other languages, but…
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You are probably right. Since the German publisher is a well known and established publisher (also publishes the Asterix comics), I was rather surprised
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Totally. I’m not bashing anyone, I know the work of a freelance translator is a difficult and underpaid one.
With France being the biggest market for manga outside japan, I would expect things to be a bit better. But it also means there is a lot of small publishing companies and a lot of freelance translators.
It’s also quite possible that many publishers cheap out by translating into french / german from the english version instead of the Japanese one (ugh…)
(okay, I may be bashing those publishers…)
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It’s funny that you mention this specific panel here in the german translation, because a few months ago I had to help a friend who (who is a german learner and was reading horimiya in german) try to figure out what the heck was going on here. I translated the japanese for him and we were both so confused as to where it was getting elevator from, and then he ended up asking his german friend who was like “yeah this is probably just mistranslated, don’t worry about it”
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I have heard the rumor, that many manga and anime translation companies provide you with machine translation done by AI, and only expect you to correct it, because they expect (and honestly are quite right about) that decreasing the necessary hours, therefore the necessary payment. Don’t think this was the case for Horimiya specifically, mainly because I’m not sure if deepl existed when this translation was made, but maybe this was where deepl got the idea? Not sure
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That’s quite possible. And stupid. The difficult part of translating is not to get a somewhat good rough first draft. It’s what comes after that.
But hey, if all they do is get a machine translate, and give a human translator a short time to correct the most blatant mistakes… in the end they get what they paid for. What a shame 
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Before I post the next thread, how was the pace last week?
- I need the pace to be slower
- I managed to keep up despite the increase in pace
- I don’t really mind either way
0
voters
Poll is anonymous!
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Just finished this section, I have decided to stop writing down new vocab / Kanji in my little notebook because it makes reading take a lot longer and I don’t have a lot of time to spend on my japanese reading but still don’t want to fall behind. I will either pick it back up again when I am slightly less busy, or just go through the vocab sheet at the end and make an Anki deck with anything that was new.
Anyways, on to Week 5
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Week 5’s thread is now live for discussion! Sorry for getting this up so late in the day!
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