.hack//LINK Unofficial Fan Translation Project

[Acidod]

Long time lurker, first time poster
Thanks for all the hard work put into this project. It is assuredly appreciated.

Happy holidays!

[Aura Twilight]

(After watching for 2 years, waiting for the patch.... Then watching the Final Fantasy Type-0 english patch team start 6 months ago and now they're on track to relesae the full patch in a few months and watching 2 full english patches get released by absolute zero translations)

*Thinks about this project's speed
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

*Pulls out hair
*Jumps up and down
*Impatiently stamps feet in frustration
*Goes into the fetal position
*Silently rocks back and forth while repeating "I need it..."

[Kazetrigger]

(After watching for 2 years, waiting for the patch.... Then watching the Final Fantasy Type-0 english patch team start 6 months ago and now they're on track to relesae the full patch in a few months and watching 2 full english patches get released by absolute zero translations)

*Thinks about this project's speed
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

*Pulls out hair
*Jumps up and down
*Impatiently stamps feet in frustration
*Goes into the fetal position
*Silently rocks back and forth while repeating "I need it..."

This project has all of four people. One programmer and three translators, all of which have school and/or work obligations. I hate taking so long to complete it, but we can't work on it every single day. The other teams probably had more people or more time to dedicate to it. We'll keep you posted.

[Aura Twilight]

I do appreciate what you guys are doing. I'm not ungreatful. I've just been watching and holding that in for a looooooong time! lol
Keep up the good work. I think you guys need someone like Sean over on the Type-0 project. That guy translates at least 1000 lines of japanese a week. Their pace is incredible. I think they have close to 10 translators, but only 4 are ever active at the same time.

Take a look:
http://gbatemp.net/threads/final-fantas ... ng.340183/

[Kuukai]

It would be great to have more translators, that's our main problem right now. If anyone knows anyone interested in the project, please send them our way!

To be completely honest (not that I've made it a secret), from a personal standpoint I completed my primary goal (a video summary of the game making it comprehensible, and a corresponding patch) several years ago (life is about setting reasonable goals), and I've turned my focus to a project to bring more anime/game-industry guests to America. Kazetrigger and I are still contributing to and coordinating this in the hopes that it will be 100% complete someday but there are only us two as translators right now. What we really need is manpower, both for speed and to ensure quality.

We welcome translator applications.

[Aura Twilight]

I don't know how much help I can be in getting the word out, but I can let a few hundred people know about it on facebook. You guys should send out multiple posts on your facebook page about this as well. You are more likely to get a response because people who are subscribed to that page actually care about the series more than just me or anyone else letting random people know. I say you should do multiple posts about it in a week because random people are online on random days.... and they might not see an important post like that in their facebook news feed if they weren't online the day it was sent out. Do you have any specific contact information you want those potential applicants to have?

[Kuukai]

We can certainly look into promotion, there's really only an unofficial relationship between this project and Dothackers though.

Anyone interested can just contact us here.

[(Phantom) Thief]

I haven't tried out the patch. What sections do you want translated? Not that I'm offering, but not that I haven't thought of trying either <.<

[Erroneous]

I haven't tried out the patch. What sections do you want translated? Not that I'm offering, but not that I haven't thought of trying either <.<

“We can't be afraid of change. You may feel very secure in the pond that you are in, but if you never venture out of it, you will never know that there is such a thing as an ocean, a sea. Holding onto something that is good for you now, may be the very reason why you don't have something better.”
― C. JoyBell C.

[Kuukai]

I haven't tried out the patch. What sections do you want translated? Not that I'm offering, but not that I haven't thought of trying either <.<

If you're interested in contributing, we could definitely talk. This is what we're still working on/reviewing from our goals for the next release:
-This patch will incorporate the emails and dialogues that are bridged by "narration" in Shadow Signs, and using just the patch you will be able to follow the main story from beginning to end without more confusion than if you knew Japanese. (A lot of this is complete, and I can provide a transcript of the narration by request)
-More boss battles will be translated, e.g. Trommel.
-Some sidequests will be translated, e.g. chapter 1 of ZERO or ChupChopCase.

Does that help answer your question? If you contributed we would connect you with the library of translated/untranslated dialogue.

[God Ginrai]

Have you guys tried rounding up translators from over at Baka-Tsuki? There are a lot of talented translators over there, and I'm sure some are likely to be fans of .hack that would consider helping with this effort were they made aware of it.

-God Ginrai

[Kuukai]

Feel free to make people aware of it. We're not going to solicit random people already working on other things though, as a translator myself I know that can be really irritating...

[God Ginrai]

Feel free to make people aware of it. We're not going to solicit random people already working on other things though, as a translator myself I know that can be really irritating...

Yea, I was just thinking about posting in their General D and asking if there were any .hack fans interested in helping with translation. I would link them to this topic. I figure if we make the translators there aware of this project, some of them may want to help.

-God Ginrai

[Morhighan]

I'm not able to translate or anything, but as a professional writer I can offer my services as an editor if you need any assistance.

[Kuukai]

We don't really need a full-time editor for the English side of things, although here are a few professional-English questions we've debated internally that you or other writers in the audience might be able to give feedback on:
-What do you think of name suffixes, like -chan, -kun, etc.? Crunchyroll and pretty much all manga use them, are they acceptable in English now?
-Can characters use slang, grammatically inappropriate phrases, and contractions like "sorta" or "kinda," or is this unacceptable? G.U. tended to use lots of slang, and words like "kinda" were no exception: http://www.neo-prosperity.net/LindzChan ... n/npc.html Should we stick to more professional phraseology for Tokio?

[Kazetrigger]

We don't really need a full-time editor for the English side of things, although here are a few professional-English questions we've debated internally that you or other writers in the audience might be able to give feedback on:
-What do you think of name suffixes, like -chan, -kun, etc.? Crunchyroll and pretty much all manga use them, are they acceptable in English now?
-Can characters use slang, grammatically inappropriate phrases, and contractions like "sorta" or "kinda," or is this unacceptable? G.U. tended to use lots of slang, and words like "kinda" were no exception: http://www.neo-prosperity.net/LindzChan ... n/npc.html Should we stick to more professional phraseology for Tokio?

Personally, as a translator, I despise the use of honorary suffixes, mainly because they are not directly translatable in English and are meaningless letter combinations in English. They, however, can be translated in many other ways in English, which is why I always prefer to take them out.

I don't mind using slang or contractions in my translations, but sorta, kinda, and all those words that cane be written with an -a are just short hand for "of" or the "'ve" from "have," so the -a contractions I feel are not the best writing. I'll gladly translate them if they really suit the character though. The most important thing is consistency.

[Morhighan]

We don't really need a full-time editor for the English side of things, although here are a few professional-English questions we've debated internally that you or other writers in the audience might be able to give feedback on:
-What do you think of name suffixes, like -chan, -kun, etc.? Crunchyroll and pretty much all manga use them, are they acceptable in English now?
-Can characters use slang, grammatically inappropriate phrases, and contractions like "sorta" or "kinda," or is this unacceptable? G.U. tended to use lots of slang, and words like "kinda" were no exception: http://www.neo-prosperity.net/LindzChan ... n/npc.html Should we stick to more professional phraseology for Tokio?

I'm always kind of weird about suffixes. I think that when showing the contrast between a Japanese speaker and an English speaker, it's acceptable. I mean, that happens occasionally. Also in cases where it might translate awkwardly? For instance, maybe a character is uncertain as to how to refer to another character. Usually this would translate okay into English, but there's also gender neutral characters or odd suffixes like "-dono." (Only one I could think of off the top of my head. I don't call people "Lord" or "Sire" all that often. XD)
People have different speaking styles, so if the character uses slang a lot, I think it's acceptable. It's not particularly good to use it in narration. But as long as it's a character talking in a distinct style and not laziness I think it's fine. ^_^

[God Ginrai]

We don't really need a full-time editor for the English side of things, although here are a few professional-English questions we've debated internally that you or other writers in the audience might be able to give feedback on:
-What do you think of name suffixes, like -chan, -kun, etc.? Crunchyroll and pretty much all manga use them, are they acceptable in English now?

I prefer the suffixes. Remember, the Japanese culture is very different from English cultures, and it shows in their language. For example, they could use the suffix -kun or -san to refer to some guy you knew. However, if they use -kun, it shows that there is either a large age difference, or that they are closer than just acquaintances. (Or in the case where they are similar-aged acquaintances, it is often meant to give you the idea that they are overly friendly) This kind of thing is not something that is easy to come up with an English translation for that sounds natural. So it's much more efficient and leaves a less bothersome translation to use the suffix. Most manga, anime, and light novel fans know the meanings of these suffixes by now, (due in large part to English publishers including pages in their manga and light novels that teach the readers) so using the suffixes should be perfectly acceptable.

-Can characters use slang, grammatically inappropriate phrases, and contractions like "sorta" or "kinda," or is this unacceptable? G.U. tended to use lots of slang, and words like "kinda" were no exception: http://www.neo-prosperity.net/LindzChan ... n/npc.html Should we stick to more professional phraseology for Tokio?

I think slang is fine occasionally; It depends how it is used. One of the things that bothers me more than anything is when translators attempt to translate a Kansai dialect as a Southern accent. Adding y'all and other such things. It honestly spoils any translated content I am reading or watching if said character talks enough.

-God Ginrai

[Kuukai]

I think it's important to note that English publishers have widely adopted the process of using name suffixes to represent stuff that just doesn't translate. Even some dubs do.

In the dub of .hack they translated Rachel's Kansai-ben as a thick New York accent, which was written out normally in text. This works really well because Osaka/New York both have a "commerce city" quality to them, which is what they were going for with Rachel. I've adopted that approach of writing it out normally, too. There's one scene where Nuke tries to imitate it (poorly), which will involve some phonetic New York spellings.

[Lindz]

I'm no master of english 'specially since I use sorta/kinda an other apparent slang irl lol. Howevers I'll toss in a noooo to name suffixes. They just seem silly. Plus previous localized .hack works didn't use those. Granted this is a fanslation but aiming for the feel of an official one reminiscent of prior ones shouldn't be to hard a goal ta set your sights on! Pretty much all the old characters verbal quirks or lack of are known so its just the new ones ya gotta find a "voice" for huh? As for slang & Tokio he seems the type to maybe use some but then I dunno a darn thing he says beyond what ya all put out in the first patch(es). Also I'll take this as a roundabout reminder to wrapup work on part 2 (......of 7? x_x) of the redemption script lol.