Translation Preview/Feedback fest for If I Could Mail You A Book (如果给你寄一本书) by Yi Zhan Ye Deng

[hazevi]

Hi all,

Being three days away from an important midterm for me means that I'm doing anything but studying, SO instead of doing unproductive things I've decided that I should at least try and scrape together a little preview for one of the translation projects I'm working on. (This is also to give myself just a bit of accountability so that I don't abandon this project, and ALSO to keep me sane as a reminder that I have something to come back to after I survive my midterm.)

The novel is "If I Could Mail You A Book", author Yi Zhan Ye Deng's most recent novel from 2021-2022, and the one that I love the most, even if it is the MOST SLEPT ON BOOK. So, obviously, I decided to take it upon myself to translate it, and come up with a host of other things that would help me share this novel with everyone else.

I've decided to use Wordpress, but then I quickly realized that I am not exactly tech savvy with Wordpress's interface, so this site is still very much under construction (Do Not Click the 'Masterlist of Translations' page or the 'Bai Zhou' page please :3). However, I do think that I have most of the important information down for a good reading experience for the first chapter.

Click here for the link to the translation page/general info.

Click here for the link to the first chapter.

Click here for the really simple carrd I made.

Click here for the JJWXC raws.

Finally, the most important thing: if everyone who sees this could be so bothered, I'd like a bit of feedback regarding my current setup, so that if I need to make any changes before I get to publishing the first five chapters or so, and throw it out on novelupdates/twitter, I can. I have a close friend who is beta/proofreading most of my work, but even then we would like to know about ease of readability of our prose (yes we had fun with the prose, no machine translation thing would ever understand), and whether the format is alright (with the footnotes and page setup).

Finally, here's a very specific question for those who care: Yi Zhan Ye Deng uses a lot of very specific descriptions of real objects that have pictures online (see the descriptions of cars within the first chapter). Do you think that including pictures of those things (that do exist in real life) in the footnotes would be beneficial? This is the matter I'm debating the most over.

That's all! Here's to hoping that chemistry doesn't finish me before I finish this translation~ Thank you all very much for taking the time!
(and for putting up with my dramatic antics through this post haha!)

Comments

[aurumcalendula]

Ooh! I'm excited to check this out!

[hazevi]

<3

[octahedrite]

Not that I want to help you procrastinate more, but you could set up a DW comm for the translation if Wordpress isn't working out. Either way, looks intriguing, will look forward to it!

[octahedrite]

Also yes, pictures are beneficial!

[hazevi]

Good to know, thanks!

[halfcactus]

Thank you so much for sharing! I just skimmed chapter 1 and it reads very smoothly and appropriately modern! I'm delighted to see that the MC is 30+ too.

Re: images - images for visual reference would be nice (and fun!), but not required. You could link to the image in the translation so it's more unobtrusive + you don't have to code a footnote. It looks like a lot of extra work for things that are easily Google-able though so I guess it's ultimately up to how much effort you want to put in.

Good luck with your exams!!!

[hazevi]

Since there are more people who think pics are nicer to have than not, I'll probably try to figure out a way. And thank you!

[douqi]

Excited to see this up! I'll add a tag for the novel.

The site seems generally fine to me. I find the ads are a bit intrusive, but not much can realistically be done about that. One thing you might like to add (or might be thinking about adding) is navigation buttons/links on each chapter page so that you can go directly to the previous/next chapters as well as the table of contents?

I also had a possibly (hopefully!) helpful note about the translation, but wasn't sure if you'd like me to post it here or send it privately to you. Do let me know (also feel free to ignore this if that's not something you're after).

Incidentally, if you'd like to write an overview post about Yi Zhan Ye Deng's novels, that would be very welcome :)

[hazevi]

Yeah, the ads thing is a WordPress thing since I'm not on their plan I believe? Maybe I'll move, maybe I won't. Good point about navigation buttons, I'll figure it out with wordpress or whatever else I might turn to...

I wouldn't mind hearing the suggestion here if you'd want to comment it, I'd take it into consideration!

Hmmm. Now I'm a little interested in writing a big overview for all of Yi Zhan Ye Deng's novels, though I would have to read the fourth book (电光幻影, a showbiz novel) that I haven't yet. Maybe over spring break I'll binge it, I'll keep it in mind~.

Thank you for all the suggestions!

[douqi]

The note about the translation is about how directly you want to be translating colloquialisms for an English-first audience. For instance, the line 'Lao Han has a big belly right now' slightly threw me while reading because that's not how an English speaker would typically express it (they'd be more likely to say 'pregnant' or 'expecting' for a more neutral tone, or use English colloquialisms like 'bun in the oven' if they wanted to be more jocular).

(also one additional small point: did you mean windshield/windscreen instead of front dashboard?)

An overview of all Yi Zhan Ye Deng's novels would be cool!

[hazevi]

Hmm that's a good point about colloquialisms, I'll sleep on it a bit more. Also headpalm yes it should be windshield since it's on the outside haha. Thank you so much!

[hazevi]

Update: finished my midterm (I think I didn't fail!!) And I'm in the process of implementing feedback and tidying up the site. Thank you to everyone who left comments and encouragement!