Talk:Zero no Tsukaima:Volume1 Story1 Chapter1
Chapter One
Page number
I'll keep the page numbers for now, until we get the first half of the chapter.
Onizuka-gto 08:31, 19 August 2006 (PDT)
Actually just keep the page number, the other groups will need it for the scans.
Onizuka-gto 17:12, 19 August 2006 (PDT)
Page 12
The girl looked into Saito's face steadily, with the blue sky which seemed like it would fall out behind her.(1) She seemed to be around Saito's age and she wore(2) a white blouse with a gray pleated skirt under a black cape. She crouched down, looking at his face as if she was disgusted.
Her face is... Cute. Her reddish-brown eyes danced, with her strawberry blond hair and her flawless white skin for their stage.(3) She seems like a foreigner. Well... She is(4). But she is such a cute foreigner girl(5), like a doll. Or is she a half?(6)
Anyway her uniform, I wonder which school it belongs to? I have never seen it before.
Saito seems to be lying with his back on the ground, he lifted his head up to look around.(7)
There were a lot of people with black capes looking at him as a stranger.(8) There, on an endlessly rich grassy plain, he finds a huge castle with stone walls in the distance just like he has seen in those European trip photographs.(9) This was just like a fantasy.
Okay. Everything I highlighted and numbered in bold are points I'd like to bring into attention.
(1) This sentence seems rather odd. How does the sky fall out behind a person?
Is the girl looking at Saito's face, staring at Saito's face or looking/staring into Saito's eyes?
(2) Wore –> was wearing. If I’m not mistaken, the word “wore” is strictly reserved for anything described in past tense. The story so far seems to be told in present tense.
(3) I'm not too sure about the phrase "...red eyes danced..." but I think it may be lacking in description. It might sound better if written as "Her red eyes danced about".
The rest of the sentence: "...with her strawberry blond hair and her flawless white skin for their stage" does not make any particular sense. What is "for their stage" supposed to represent? Her age?
(4) Is "Well... She is" the actual statement? I assume that "Saito" comes to this conclusion since she does not appear to be of the Japanese ethnic (presuming Saito is Japanese).
(5) foreigner girl -> foreign girl
(6) This sentence on its own is ambiguous since the noun that should follow the word "half" is absent. While this would seem clear enough to people well versed in Japanese "pop-culture" (and for people who think about the options of what the girl could be half of), I think that this should be clarified slightly. e.g. "Or is she half-Japanese?
(7) I moved the sentence down since I noticed a change of writing style (from the first person, to the third person). This however, may be the unusual manner of writing that the author chose to use.
(8) Under normal circumstances, the vast majority of people are strangers relative to oneself. In this case, assuming that it is common for people to wear black capes at that particular school (or that Saito looks like an alien compared to the others), a more appropriate sentence would be: "There were a lot of people with black capes looking at him as a though he were a stranger".
(9) Unless Saito was specifically looking around, I don't think the word "finds" is appropriate. I would suggest words such as "sees", "saw", "spots", "spotted", "notices", "noticed" .etc
Again, due to the somewhat ambiguous transition between the past and present tense (and that I haven't looked at the Japanese script yet), I can't decide on an accurate substitute.
Da~Mike 17:07, 21 August 2006 (GMT)
- I Interpreted them as past tense, but then again the first half is talking from a first person perspective.
I guess it's best to check.
got to get cala-kun help, or naming_game
Onizuka-gto 10:56, 20 August 2006 (PDT)
Page 26
Maijis those flew away from here and those fantasy word connect.
Maijis?
Mages perhaps?
Page 14
"Mr. Colbert!" The girl who has been called Louise shouted(1). The wall of people divided, and there appeared a middle aged man.(2)
Saito thought it was funny. Because this man looked ridiculous.(3) He had a big wooden cane(4) and was wearing a black robe that covered him.(5) What kind of look is that? He seemed like a wizard, is he sane?
I got it, this place must be a place for cosplay. But this atmosphere doesn't seem right for it.(6)
All of a sudden Saito was gripped with fear. What am I going to do if this was an religious
group? It is possible. They must have put me to sleep some how and brought me here while I was taking a walk in
town. That mirror must have been a trap. If not I have no explanation for this.
Stay quiet, until he knows what was going on(6), Saito thought to himself.
That girl Louise keeps on talking, saying "Let me try it again", or "please", and shaking
her arms wildly.(7)
I felt sorry for her to be in this weird religious group, especially since she is so cute.
"What is it, Miss. Valiale?"
"Please! let me try the summoning one more time!"
I'll use this symbol -> to indicate that I have or want to substitute something.
(1) -> "The girl called Louise shouted" (removed "has been")
(2) -> "and there, appeared a middle-aged man." (added a comma and a hypen)
(3) -> "Saito thought it was funny because this man looked ridiculous." (joined the two sentences)
(4) -> "sported a big wooden cane" (used the word "sported" to emphasise that the man looks ridiculous)
(5) Does the black robe cover him entirely or? Robes are either worn or donned. I don't think they "cover" people. Other ways to suggest how the man is wearing the robe would be: "the black robe was draped over him" or "the black robe hung from his shoulders".
(6) -> "But this doesn't seem to be the right atmosphere for it." (Mild grammatical change)
(7) -> "until he knows what is going on" (I don't believe people think to themselves in past tense...)
(8) -> "That girl Louise kept on saying "Let me try it again", or "please", whilst shaking her arms wildly." (IMHO, Louise was being described in the past tense, not the present tense.)
Da~Mike 19:01, 21 August 2006 (GMT)
Zero no Tsukaima Unified Guidelines
Hello, in this thread we will discuss terminalogy, the correct speeling and words ofthe translation.
It is best that we get this out of the way, as at Baka-Tsuki has experienced, failure to not lay down these issues first will result in delay, and unnecessary disagreements.
For example, an entry could look like:
ガンダールブ - Gandalfr
or
竜の羽衣 - Dragon's Raiment
or
カトレヤ ラ・ヴァリエール - Kattleya La Valliere
something like that.
This does not apply to Translators, they shoud not be pressured to change their translation habits, it is up to the editors to crrect the script.
--onizuka-gto
Quote:
I have a headache. Saito said as he shook his head.
Is he talking to himself outloud or in his head?
Since no speech marks i assume it's in his head.
Quote:
"which commoner are you from?"
is she asking him which commoner location he is from, or what type of commoner is he?
i think she is referring to which region of the this world he is from.
Quote:
Louise of Zero
How are we going to standardlized this phrase?
Zero Louise Louise the Zero
I favour "Zero Louise"
Quote:
I don't see any building to symblize it.
it seems to me like Saito is trying to say, that he does not recognise any building typical to a school campus
Quote:
Was there any location like this in Japan?
I interpret this as saito saying was there any location like this in Japan, with a western castle on a wide open field....
Quote:
Let me try it again, or please and shaking her arm wildly.
I have no idea what this is suppose to mean.
Is saito trying to plead with louise for help? or is he just observing her actions?
Well i;ve done a first pass of part one of k.neko's script.
I'll start on the other tomorrow morning. hopefully we will get the rest of the sript then i can do a second on the complete chapter.
--onizuka-gto
Zero no Louise
I will use my favorite example for the Japanese "no" ... in many ways it's like the Chinese "de" .. but I digress.
"Hoshi" = "celestial body" -- both planets and stars.
I believe these are the official English titles for these songs. One is a Gackt song, the other is an anime soundtrack, I believe by Utada Hikari. I heard both on kawaii-radio.net, so the info is as reliable as they are.
"Hoshi no Suna" -> "Star's Sand" -> "Star Sand" "Suna no Hoshi" -> "Sand's Planet" -> "Sandy Planet"
"Zero no Louise" -> "Zero's Louise" -> "Zero-y Louise" .... ?
I imagine "Goose Egg Louise" to be something you might hear in some British schoolyard somewhere. The Britons here can weigh in on this. "Louise the Zero" seems like another likely name. "Zero Louise" sounds less likely. But honestly, I don't really care. They all sound fine, and we'll get used to any of them in time.
I don't see any building to symblize it.
Sore rashii tatemono wa dokonimo mienai
sore : that
rashii (aux-adj) seems
tatemono (n) building
dokonimo : nowhere -- see here for the example sentence "Went nowhere this weekend."
mieru (ru-verb) to be seen; to be in sight; to look; to seem; to appear -> mienai : negative present
That like building nowhere not-looks-like. (Note that Japanese appears to use a double negative for this.) That kind of building nowhere appears. You won't see that kind of building anywhere.
(Well, that's my guess, anyway. Man, I thought we were supposed to be EDITORS.)
"which commoner are you from?" From the example sentences I've seen, it's better translated as "What kind of commoner are you?" or "What kind of commoner is this?" -- the subject really isn't specified, so you have to use context. If it's Louise talking, it'd be "you." If it's from the peanut gallery, it'd probably be "this."
I'm more inclined to go with "you" since that's what the translator chose. There are just some things you really can't reason out, and this seems to be one of them. I'm assuming the translator, being "Yuko", is a native Japanese speaker? We can probably trust large scale decisions, then, but have to be suspicious of the trip to English.
I have a headache. Saito said as he shook his head. Zutsuu ga suru. Saito wa kaburi wo furi nagara itta.
kaburi wo furi : shake one's head (opposite of nod) furu : shake (ru-verb) -> furi ... the verb stem for -masu, and lots of other things. Like "go" iku -> iki-masu (polite form) nagara : while -- see here iu : say (u-verb) -> itta : past
Headache doing. Saito shook head while said.
(Oh great, I did all that work, and still can't tell if the "said" refers to the headache part or the part that comes next. Going by Japanese convention, it's probably the headache statement.)
That girl Louise is keep on talking. Let me try it again, or please and shaking her arm wildly. I've ended up looking at more Japanese tonight than English. While I do want to learn, it's a lot crazier on a deadline. I'm not going to do the same pretty here, but it's basically this:
That girl Louise keeps on talking. "Let me try it again", or "please" ("onegai desu"), and shaking her arms wildly.
Ok, time to study some more. I found a lot of things that are in those last few sections. After I finish those, I have to fear for the things that aren't in those sections. (there's jgram.org, though) Would love to draft a Japanese language consultant. But then again, if we had one, they'd be translating, wouldn't they?
Ugh. Took me way too long to write this up. Will have to optimize methods. Didn't get to do much editing -- and just on a local copy. It's a pretty major rewording of the first and start of the second pages, as a warning.
P.S.
@Kawool If you happen to be listening in on this thread, I fully admit to complaining. Yet there are still a lot of fun parts. Complaining just happens to be one of them. But not the only one!
@onizuka Are you able to come on irc? Discussion would be faster that way. If tonight is getting too late for you, sometime tomorrow?
@everyone Same goes for the others. It'd be nice if we could all meet up twice before the deadline. I'd prefer IRC, because I don't have to install anything, but I'll do MSN if I absolutely have to. My IRC client can't do Japanese, unfortunately.
--the_naming_game
I rather do msn mainly because I can't make heads or tails of IRC and i get sensory overloads from all those different speed scrolling text, and partly because i don't have to install anything.
- Wink:
tomorrows fine.
msn details below. Please pester me after noon GMT
- Wink:
p.s: ive removed security tag.
only those with permission can access special pages such as special:recentpage.
--onizuka-gto
absolutely not objective as i prefer Louise the Zero due to the fact we use that...
--Kawool
okay .im awake now. im on msn as of now.
so any immediate discussion of the edit, please do so now.
Quote:
=summon servant=
I substitute this as "The spell of Summoning"
Quote:
=servant contract=
I substitute this as the servant contract spell
I also remove speech marks for saitos dialogue, the reason being that it was not consistance, and we all know that in the first part, saito could not communicate to the other anyway, they don't understand Japanese.
Quote:
"Mr. Colbert! A =flood='s mommolancey has insulted me!"
=flood='s mommolancey?
I have no idea what is this suppose to mean.
edit: oh okay it explains in the next page.
i would change it to "Mommolancey the Flood"
or even floods of mommolancey
--onizuka-gto
Quote:
I also remove speech marks for saitos dialogue, the reason being that it was not consistance, and we all know that in the first part, saito could not communicate to the other anyway, they don't understand Japanese.
I think that's a change that was made for the anime, and that in the novels he can understand things from the beginning. He can be understood too, not that anyone cares much what he says.
Anyway, I think the key passages that will explain that for sure are yet to be translated, so we'll see.
--BlckKnght
need someone to c heck page 21 - 22
seems like in the novel saito can be understood by louise, but not by others.
so removing some of saito's speech marks might be in error, when he is addressing louise.
--onizuka-gto
momolency ??? are you sure its not Montmorency?
--Kawool
oh right. well that was what was in the translation.
--onizuka-gto
Ch1, page 35-39 comments. Much as I was loath to look at the text out-of-order, curiosity got the better of me. I have to say, that I'm pretty impressed with Cala-kun's translation. I can't find very much that I'd want to change, and what I would is mostly nitpicky stuff. No grammar or spelling problems whatsoever.
To the other editors, if the security hole gets plugged later, and you feel you want to reformat lines to form a single paragraph, note that as long as there is no space between lines, the wiki automatically makes it one paragraph. Please do that instead of actually joining lines, because then the diffs tend to be a lot nicer. Wikipedia does have a per-word diff, but it's really a line diff followed by a word diff. Not quite the same thing.
Also, there is a place near the end of page 39 where the tense changes. Quote: Her eyes were like a curious kitten's, and her eyebrows traced a subtle line over them. If Saito had met her through the message boards of a dating site, he would've hopped and leaped for joy. But alas, this isn't Earth. Not matter how much he wants to go back, he can't. Saito choked up at this thought, and his shoulders drooped.
Original text -- incidentally, it was formatted in two paragraphs; the kitten sentence was separate. Quote: 目は子猫みたいによく動く。生意気そうな眉が、目の上の微妙なラインを走っている。 出会ったのが出会い系の掲示板なら跳び上がって喜んだかもしれない。でも、ここは地 球じゃない。帰りたいけど帰れない。才人はせつなくなって、がっくりと肩を落とした。
I am against normalizing the tense.
First, because those two sentences are in present tense in the original.
Second, because I believe that use of present tense has a few possible meanings that would be lost if we changed it to past tense. If we take the text as Cala-kun has it, then it sounds like the author is interjecting his thoughts. This is a little confused by the fact that Saito is said to have that thought in the last sentence. But since "thought" is never explicitly stated in that last sentence,
It's true; there's no literal mention of "thought"; it just says that "he felt badly, and heartbrokenly let his shoulders droop." It may be strongly implied in Japanese; I have no idea.
----
I've done a breakdown of that sentence, just to make it clear. Note that this is based on grammar knowledge I've only recently learned, so I could easily be wrong about something. Corrections welcome, obviously.
(Please excuse my romaji. If everyone here says they prefer hiragana+katakana+kanji, I'll switch for any future such discussions.)
"Saito wa setsunaku natte, gakkiri to kata wo otosita."
o setsunai (adj): painful -> setsunaku (adv): painfully
o naru (ru-verb): become -> natte: te-form; in this context, I consider it to be this usage.
o gakkiri (adv,n,vs): heartbroken-ness (noun -- I interpret "gakkiri to" as "with heartbroken-ness" ... I can't currently imagine how to interpret it as "heartbroken-ly")
o kata (n): shoulder
o otosu (u-verb): drop, lose, let fall -> otosita: past tense
(All of these can be looked up at wwwjdic; just check the "Check if the keyword is romanized Japanese" option.)
So as literally as I can make it:
"Saito became painfully; with heartbroken-ness, drooped his shoulders."
(The following could be wrong, but is to the best of my current knowledge.)
"Saito became in pain, and with heartbroken-ness, drooped his shoulders."
(But since "thought" is never explicitly stated in that last sentence, ...) you really can interpret it as an author's interjection, setting the mood, describing the situation, and afterwards, the character reacting to the situation on his own terms. If we take the past tense, then we're affirming those as Saito's direct thoughts, but I can't really imagine that to be so. They sound far too literary and grandiose, to my ear. Saito's thoughts were probably both more vague and more explicit like: "I really wanted to see that new 'Zero no Tsukaima' anime this week." and "Where the hell am I? What's going on?", and so on.
The other interpretation I can think of, is that the subject is actually "I", and not "he" -- there actually isn't an explicit subject or topic in the original Japanese of those present tense sentences. Using that, you could interpret "But alas, this isn't Earth. Not matter how much I want to go back, I can't." as Saito's internal dialogue. Then the sentence after, would be a switch back to normal narrative. I'm somewhat partial to that, since it's something I do in my own writing style, but oh well. I believe the first interpretation is more likely, as per my previous thoughts on the thoughts Saito would be more likely to have.
I've said my piece. I really don't know the way a native Japanese speaker interpret things. Most likely he wouldn't bat an eyelash at the tense change. Or maybe there's a certain sense given by the tense change? Or is this some sort of convention? Wonder if we could bother Cala-kun.
I'm also curious to know if he did any tense changes in his translation. I didn't note any in that paragraph, but it'd take me too long to go through all pages that same way. Maybe I'll be faster in a few months.
"Hmm. But that's (note: possibly referring to the element association?) the only thing I don't understand." My opinion is that it's referring to the computer, since right afterwards, Saito challenges her by talking about the computer, not by asking if they have anything like a "science" element in their world. Also, I think the "only thing" part should be left in, because Louise is trying to be dismissive of Saito. If she says "But that's what I don't understand." -- that indicates she wants to know more. I doubt this is true, at least for the moment.
"Had died" You would have to make Saito's following question into "Had what?" to match ... please, no, for the love of Haruhi...
Possible, if "has died" is truly objectionable: Quote: "Completely ineffective unless the familiar you first summoned dies."
"What are you saying?" ("Say what?" "Does what?" "What?")
I don't know how to interpret Saito's "What?" --「なんですと？」in the Japanese. I segment that sentence as "nan desu to?" My likely wrong interpretation is "What is it that you said?" (I interpret "to" in context to be the interpreted quote operation. However, there is no "said" type verb following. I am just guessing it's left off as slang. But this is a WILD GUESS. After all, there's already an accepted shorthand ("tte" -- って) for that. Someone please help!) The safe interpretation is just "What?" I've given up on trying to parse it, for now. It's probably not a major point, anyway.
Where should we put discussions like this? I assume the talk pages would need that same comment protection. I guess it's the forums then. Sorry for being nitpicky ... that's why I'm an editor.
--the_naming_game
