So, my friend, DO NOT change anything, if you can. Please, for your own sanity.[...]
And I'm glad you are translating Illusion City, because I would not be in mood to translate it (as I had said I would, before you started your superb work) just because I really would not like to receive "a year of infuriated mails" again.
But it would be even better if people stopped to complain about language correction and really do something about it.
Wow... It is amazing that even if you do such a huge job on translating such a game, people actually have the guts to send angry mails about the translation.
Anyways, I was not talking about 'Englifying' the text, just about correcting grammatical errors. I think there's a world of difference, and I can't see how anyone can complain about good grammar. Look at the example sentences I gave. None of these changed the meaning of the text. And in case of gramatically flawd sentences, I really wonder how people can find them 'more true to the original', if the original was proper Japanese while the English translation is hard to understand because of errors (such as the last one I mentioned). A strict translation doesn't imply bad English, right?
I wrote a reply on this topic, because frankly, on the screenshots page at least the grammar errors were already numerous. Multiply this by 8 disks :). To me, this makes things awkward to read and harder to understand, and it bothered me. So, I thought some constructive comment would be in order :). But right now it looks like the notion is rejected on beforehand because, although a good one, there have been bad experiences in the past. 'Stop complaining, really do something about it?' Er... I offered to help if nessecary, didn't I? And not a hair in my head which would think of not giving any further responses. That's just plain rude. Besides, you know where to find me :) (well, more or less...).
My experience too. Many people complain about correction of texts, but when we send 1MB+ of pure-text messages... guys choke and never finish the job. And frustrating is just a glimpse of the real feeling. (as I know you know).
(And I do not even sent the menu texts, which I had translated alone since they are pretty damn hard to translate because of space restrictions imposed by the game).
Ofcourse you can't really blame people for underestimating the effort needed for such a job. They at least have good intentions... 1 MB of plain text? Ok, a bit on the large side *grin*, but hm, it's only proofreading and correcting a little... how hard can it be. At least, that's what I think :). But! I can not know the amount of work in advance, it is impossible for me to even make an estimate without first seeing the actual text and giving it a try for a short while.
Anyways, about asking Takamichi's permission... Er... It's your project :). If you would like the grammar to be corrected (so, not rough editing, but just make them correct English sentences), feel free to try to arrange something :). After all, you're the one doing the project, and Takamichi knows you do. Although personally I don't think you'd need to ask specific permission for that. Just like you know that your English isn't the world's best, as Patriek said, I am sure Takamichi knows his isn't either.
Anyways, as I said, if you can't find a better suited person (seems so :)), my English isn't perfect but I'd be willing to make an attempt. And it seems like a fun job. I can print the text, and make corrections in the train to college, or something. Like reading a book, but then different :). And if I think it's too much for me to handle after all, I'll let you know soon enough. Anyways, if you want to give this a try (which I hope you do), you know my email address, let me know.
~Grauw
-- Ushiko-san! Kimi wa doushite, Ushiko-san!! _______________________________________________ MSX mailing list ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) Info page: http://lists.stack.nl/mailman/listinfo/msx
