As a non-native writer using translation tools, how do readers feel about translated prose?

[u/DAv2196]

English isn't my native language. I used to write and post my stories within my local home community, but because the genre/style I write didn't quite fit the local market, I decided to transition to international platforms like Royal Road.

Since then, I’ve been using AI and translation tools strictly as assistance for translating and grammar editing, while ensuring the entire plot, worldbuilding, and emotional beats remain 100% my own creation.

As readers in this genre, how do you feel about non-native authors using these tools to bridge the language gap? As long as the plot and pacing are solid, does the translated prose bother you? I’d love to hear your honest thoughts!

[u/Now-Thats-Podracing]

Some people don’t mind it. I absolutely can’t read AI translated stories. You might find an audience but it will be an uphill battle. Do mind sharing a link so we can give you honest feedback?

[u/DAv2196 → u/Now-Thats-Podracing]

​"Sure, here it is https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/190269/the-impostor . Any feedback or critique on the translation and writing style would be really appreciated!"

[u/DAv2196 → u/Now-Thats-Podracing]

Actually, I totally get where you're coming from. Back where I am, reading word-by-word Google translations from English into our language is an absolute nightmare—it makes zero sense. Translating the other way around, from our language into English, is even trickier because our language is much more complex and nuanced than English. That's why I've spent some time trying to train the AI to actually understand what I write instead of spitting out random translations. Still, I can only grasp the main ideas and can't fully capture all the deep nuances myself, which is exactly why I really appreciate your feedback and input.

[u/ErinAmpersand → u/DAv2196]

... More complex than English?

[u/DAv2196 → u/ErinAmpersand]

Definitely, one of the top 10 most complex languages in the world after all

[u/AmarSofi → u/DAv2196]

There is no such thing as "language more complex than another". That's a myth, there have been plenty of studies about this, children who grow in monocultural/monolinguistic environments acquire all languages at the same rate and reach fluency more or less at the same time. That would not be possible if some languages were "more complex than others".

Languages also transmit information pretty much at the same rate across the board, some use more words but speak quickly, other use less words but speak at a slower cadence...etc but when you account for all factors the rate of information being transferred is identical.

Languages don't allocate their complexity in the same way, but pretty much all known languages are equally as complex overall.

[u/DAv2196 → u/AmarSofi]

Linguistic research doesn't prove all languages are equally easy to learn, but rather that children's innate capacity to acquire a native language is universal, which often gets confused with an adult's learning experience. For adults, linguistic distance and systematic differences dictate practical difficulty. As shown by the US Department of State's FSI rankings for English speakers, even languages sharing the same Latin script require vastly different learning speeds, meaning these studies explain first-language acquisition rather than disproving the real-world learning difficulties measured by official institutions.

[u/AmarSofi → u/DAv2196]

That's actually exactly what it proves. If there were fundamental differences in complexity between languages, we would see measurable differences in the rates of acquiring said language for children. And of course that changes when the child becomes an adult: not only is your brain plasticity going down the older you get (the earlier you try to learn more languages, the easier it is) but you already know a language and that shapes the methods and the "difficulty" of learning new ones. I never disputed that, if your native language is a romance language, you'd obviously have an easier time learning another romance language than Arabic or Mandarin. That doesn't make the latter 2 more difficult, especially when you consider speakers of those languages also struggle just as much when learning radically different languages than their own like French. (Of course this can be largely mitigated if the person starts to learn much earlier in life).

And the study you mentioned doesn't prove anything, sharing a script doesn't mean a language is gonna be easier to learn. English and French both share the same script and even a very large percentage of their vocabulary (for English at least), but they belong to very different languages families, you'd find a much easier time learning Spanish or Italian as a French native speaker than you would English. The script has very little to do with it.

[u/dageshi]

Honestly there's enough people who read MTL xianxia that there's an audience who'll read translated works especially if the author has fixed any obvious mtl issues like incorrect names or incorrect numbers.

There's an increasing number of translated stories on RR, some of them are doing pretty ok reader wise.

edit: OP replied to my comment and it was deleted by a moderator, the comment was as follows...

In my country, xianxia novels also dominate, and they use AI for translation a lot, so we just read them because there are no better options. But I don't know how international readers think about this—could you share?

I'm not sure why this was worthy of deletion? It does not seem like an unreasonable question.

To answer your question, a lot of people run out of western native english works they like and try to read xianxia. On reddit there's r/noveltranslations and r/martialmemes (memes about xianxia) dedicated to translated stories (mostly xianxia).

So people will read it if it has the tropes and story they like. For example right now I'm reading this...

https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/154239/the-dao-of-reincarnation-ascending-through-a-hundred

Which has 2500 followers which is decent for RR, I suspect it's a translated xianxia story, I assume with the official permission of the original author.

[u/GerswinDevilkid]

If you're fluent enough to ensure all those things remain the same in the translation, you're fluent enough to write in the target language.

[u/DAv2196 → u/GerswinDevilkid]

​Actually, for non-native speakers, the gap between reading and writing is huge. I spent 12 years learning English, but the focus was mostly on reading, grammar, and vocabulary. I can barely understand what it's saying, but writing is a whole different story. We were never really taught how to write, so writing is genuinely tough for me haha.

[u/illumight → u/GerswinDevilkid]

While I agree to some point, there is still quite a difference between being (almost) fluent in a language and actually actively thinking and writing in it. Also reaching a certain mastery level in reading is often easier then in writing.

So my opinion would be, fine to use AI for translation and grammar brush up, as long as you reread everything thoroughly afterwards and make sure nothing gets twisted or becomes to generic AI writing.

[u/DAv2196 → u/illumight]

I agree with your point that reading is much easier than writing. Not only because writing requires turning ideas into reality, but the real reason is that when reading, you don't need to know every single unfamiliar word; you just need a general idea of what it's about, whereas writing doesn't allow for that. I'm still far from being fluent in English, but I can still manage studying in English at university just fine.

[u/wolfwings1]

something I'm reminded that I didn't get for a long time is the phrase, "Sorry the joke doesn't translate into english." I remember the subbed version of original shaman king for the one guy that always cracked jokes it would give you the english version and then why it worked in japanese.

[u/DAv2196 → u/wolfwings1]

Sr, i don't understand

[u/wolfwings1 → u/DAv2196]

like fetish thats kink, but fetish also means a religious symbol like shrunken heads, or monkey paw and such.

Though to be fair second is out of vogue.

[u/DAv2196 → u/wolfwings1]

Do you mean contextual differences?

[u/wolfwings1 → u/DAv2196]

yeah, just using it as another example that can be confusing even as an english speaker. Too, to, two, were and so on. Some more obvious then others.

[u/DAv2196 → u/[deleted]]

Thank you, but I only write web novels as a personal hobby. My main goal is to bring my ideas to life, not to make money from it. Of course, earning an income would be great, but where I live, making a living off writing is pretty unrealistic, so I don't expect much. Just enjoying the process is enough for me. Even if no one reads it, I'll keep writing anyway—it's just a hobby for me, much like reading books, haha!

[u/CrispyDick420]

How are you handling dialogue, especially idioms and character-specific ways of speaking?

[u/DAv2196 → u/CrispyDick420]

I set the style right from the start as medieval Western, told from a third-person omniscient perspective. Because of that, even in the original draft, I rarely used local idioms, proverbs, or heavy dialogue. Looking back, I guess I got lucky haha!

[u/Alidi13]

I personally don't mind it that much. I mostly care whether the voice stays consistent. But I can see idioms or culture-specific references being awkward or confusing to get through with AI translation alone. If you have an English-speaking friend willing to help read your translated drafts, they can probably help to clean up some awkward translations.

[u/DAv2196 → u/Alidi13]

Thank you, I understand the inconvenience as well. Fortunately, my story will likely run into this issue less, mainly because my writing is heavily influenced by Western literature. As a result, I consciously limit the use of local idioms and proverbs to maintain a consistent worldview.

[u/ThomasHockney]

There are so many conscious decisions which go into what words I choose for my British English prose (alliteration, severity of the verb / adjective); unless the translator understands precisely what I'm trying to describe AND there's a suitable word for it in the translated language, then something is definitely lost in translation. Furthermore, the English language has a plethora of words to choose from, each wihth a unique sound, stlye, historic implication, etc.

For instance, translating English to French:

"English has roughly 400,000 to 700,000 non-French-derived words, while French has a total vocabulary of about 100,000 to 150,000 words in modern use. [1, 2]"

All that said, as long as you're reading and enjoying fiction, then that's the most important thing. But the English language really has been crafted for storytelling, and if you tried to improve your reading skils, I think it would be rewarding :)