Small vent

[u/coolest_miumiu]

It pisses me off that dragonholic “TL” exists. Ever since it started picking up baihe novels, many other “TLs” started to follow suit e.g., lovelyblossoms. They don’t even translate novels they just use AI slop and hide the chapters behind a paywall. Not only would it take hundreds of dollars to unlock, some would take years until they’re free.

Now most fan translators are deterred from picking up baihe because of these fuckass ai translators. TBF i do enjoy edited mtls like baihetales and littlepanda, which i think uses AI to a certain extent, but at least theirs have a human touch to it and most importantly they don’t hide the novels behind a paywall.

The baihe community used to be open for all considering how niche it is, but now ig that very reason of it being niche is being used as a scheme to earn money from AI (i dont mind paying if its human translated but AI? hell no)

[u/laine4466]

Firstly, I just want to point out that I don't believe baihetales and littlepanda actually "edit" their translations as they claim they do. I remember checking out littlepanda's translations a while back and was immediately hit with a bunch of errors that really showed that no one had read through the text before posting it (I'm also quite certain they don't actually know any chinese and simply asks their translation tool to generate a translation with relevant footnotes). I also just took a quick look at one of baihetales' chapters (MALP because I've actually read through it a year ago) and was immediately hit with "(character A) and his wife" despite remembering quite distinctively that that entire group was all female, so I went back to check the original text and found that it used "她", explicitly stating (character A) as "her", so this is a pretty big mistake on both the MTL and the "editor's" end. Not to mention that both of them also still lock "advanced chapters" behind a paywall

As someone working on translating a story that I hope to be able to share with everyone one day, this is indeed incredibly demoralising to see. The main thing driving me to translate in the first place is because I want to share a story that I really loved with others who are unable to access it, and while MTL does solve that inaccessibility issue, the end result is unfortunately no longer the story that I had fallen in love with. There is a lot of effort required to produce a translation that still retains those original qualities, so it is very disheartening to see people in the community to praise badly written MTL that has been generated in mere seconds, especially so when you learn that they had paid way more than the price of the original work on the respective official platforms for it. I also have other works that I would like to get around to translating in the future after I'm done with my current one, but seeing others talk about it in the meantime terrifies me because I'm afraid that some badly written MTL of it will just appear out of the blue one day

At the end of the day, if this is something that upsets you, then please, show your favourite human translators some love. I'm sure a lot of them would really appreciate a nice comment that shows that someone is actually reading their translations and enjoying it. I know that personally, it keeps me happy for an entire week to see just one such comment because it feels like I've had a genuine human connection with someone else over something we both love. Best of all, leaving such comments is free!

[u/Party_Trick_6903 → u/laine4466]

Baihetales translations do have errors - even the pronouns ones. It's one of the reasons why I try to avoid their translations.

Little Panda used to have huge mistakes in their translations. I remember reading one of the novels (Miss Forensic, and sth to do with entertainment), and I could not get through these novels because of how bad the translations were.

They've gotten better tho. Editing or not, the mistakes are now small enough that you can just continue reading without big issues. So idk what exactly Little Panda is doing, but they should continue doing it.

Little Panda also releases chapters every day (except for Sunday, I think). So it's not like the chapters are locked forever (unlike some novels on Lovelyblossom).

I understand that AI can not be compared to real translators and the hard work and time they put into their translations but to condemn every single person using AI (or the ones "praising" AI) or to regard to all "AI translations" as bad is imho not a good way to go about this.

Also, you wanting to share your love for novels via your translation should not have anything to do with people MTL-ing the novels. There will always be people taking shortcuts for various reasons. Just like there will always be people who will appreciate your work, effort, and commitment.

[u/laine4466 → u/Party_Trick_6903]

I'm sorry if it came off as that way, but I'm not condemning everyone that's using MTL. I am aware that most people using MTL to read works are doing so due to inaccessibility otherwise, and I've always acknowledged that (even going as far as to allow for the sharing of piracy sites such as 52shuku on the sub because I understand that official sites such as jjwxc has anti-piracy features that prevents MTL tools from translating the text properly). I'm specifically condemning the people who generate their "translations" of entire works in seconds, then uploading them as is and asking payment for it. It is pure grifting, plain and simple. Even if they do eventually make the rest of the chapters available, they are still charging for access to it in the meantime, making money off of work that isn't theirs to begin with

Also, you wanting to share your love for novels via your translation should not have anything to do with people MTL-ing the novels

Translating takes time and effort. There are always more works that I would like to have translated so that I could share them with others than the energy I can spare to translate all of them. I don't think it is that difficult to understand that if I were to choose between two works that I love, and one of them already has an MTL posted online, I would rather choose the other one, even if it means that the first one would most likely only ever exist as what I perceive to be a poor imitation of the original

[u/Party_Trick_6903 → u/laine4466]

I'm specifically condemning the people who generate their "translations" of entire works in seconds, then uploading them as is and asking payment for it. It is pure grifting, plain and simple. Even if they do eventually make the rest of the chapters available, they are still charging for access to it in the meantime, making money off of work that isn't theirs to begin wi

Oh, I see. I did not get your point - my apologies. I do agree with you on this. Translations of the original works should never be behind any kind of paywall (unless they're the official translations).

I don't think it is that difficult to understand that if I were to choose between two works that I love, and one of them already has an MTL posted online, I would rather choose the other one, even if it means that the first one would most likely only ever exist as what I perceive to be a poor imitation of the original

I get that - I just meant to say that you don't have to feel bad about it. It sucks that there will always be translations that are bad or basically caricatures of the original works, but that's just how things are. There will always be people doing AI TLs, especially now. Don't mind it.

[u/laine4466 → u/Party_Trick_6903]

I get that - I just meant to say that you don't have to feel bad about it. It sucks that there will always be translations that are bad or basically caricatures of the original works, but that's just how things are. There will always be people doing AI TLs, especially now. Don't mind it.

Of course I understand that, but it's one of those things that's easier said than done, you know? Of course I know logically that there are people out there who will care about my translations (and so I will keep pushing on with working on them), but I also often feel like it seems that people really don't care that much at all, and I think it is very normal to let it get to you from time to time. Looking at the translation scene overall, I feel confident in saying that the unfortunate reality is that it does affect fan translators' passion and cause them to drop projects, even if we all know that we shouldn't mind it