Raze Posts

Of all the languages I've encountered, I'd have to say Chinese takes the cake for being the most difficult to master. As someone who has attained fluency in even the dreaded Japanese in less than a year's time, I can honestly say that if Chinese was not my first language, I would never be able to learn it.

For one thing, it's pretty much the only commonly-used character-based language in the modern world (Japanese has kana, and Korean is phonetic). Other languages somewhat commonly used today are sound-based or alphabetical (yes, even Arabic). Someone who is considered well-educated in the language will have command of over 5000 characters (there were over 86,000 in existence back in 1994). Because I know some of you will look at that and go "that's not very many", stop for a moment and imagine 5000 breasts. Not 50, not 500, not 1000, but 5000. That's a lot of breasts.

Also, you will find that most people who know Chinese can speak, listen to, and read it far, far better than they can write it. The reason is simple: you really think it's an easy task to memorize over five-thousand of what are pretty much pictograms (compared to the 26 of the English alphabet, or about 200 times less), and be able to recall every single one of them at will when writing something? I myself have had many an experience where I would sort of know how a character I wanted to write roughly looked like, but was unable to produce it on paper; I'm sure those of you who know Chinese or Japanese (well) know what I mean when I say that the character kinda almost surfaces in your brain but never really actually surfaces. And, unlike Japanese, you can't just write out the hiragana to compensate; you forget the character, that's it. Find a dictionary or give up.

And, Chinese is a language with such incredible depth it is absolutely impossible for one to even hope to master even part of it (the great professors and scholars definitely know a lot, but they still use a lot of reference books and resources with the more ancient texts). Chinese has no grammar; characters are strung together, and what a particular sentence means comes from convention. A particular character can serve as a noun, verb, or adjective with absolutely no hint of what it is except of what experience tells you. This means that one can arrange characters in different and novel ways to create a sentence that is more poetic, has a deeper meaning, or a different one altogether, but it's not like you can just randomly arrange them either. In this sense, Chinese is a very artistic language. Anyone who has encountered Chinese art will know that various crafts of Chinese culture were not meant to be understood by the layman, but only by scholars, and the language itself owes its unfathomable depth to this attitude.

And, anyone who's gone further than knowing enough to survive in China (or even has advanced Japanese skills) will know, Chinese makes use of expressions, many of which whose meaning is rooted in some ancient story or moral and is not immediately apparent in just the idiom. For example, "塞翁失马" literally means "Old Cai lost his horse", but we say it to remind people that something greater may come in place of what you have just lost. There are so many of these in the Chinese language that even the average teenager will know very, very many of them. Oh, and did I mention that China has a history of almost five millennia, meaning the Chinese language had that much time to develop and get more complicated, incorporating various historical events and legends that arose?

And, if that's not bad enough, because China is so huge and various parts are topographically isolated to a certain extent, there are god knows how many dialects spoken in China. And these dialects are not like the dialects of Japanese, where people who come from different parts of Japan can still understand each other pretty much. No, each dialect in Chinese sounds like a different language altogether; we do not understand or even recognize a dialect we are not familiar with. And it's not as if each dialect makes use of the same expressions; particularly with casual phrases, each dialect will have unique, slangish ways of saying the same thing which, even if you look at the characters for them, won't make any sense unless you speak that dialect.

I hope this was informative. In fact, everything people struggle with in Japanese is due to what they imported from Chinese: kanji, numerical modifiers (eg. 一枚), idioms (some common ones are 一石二鳥, 一生懸命, 精一杯 etc.), you name it. Feel free to disagree, but from my experience (I am fluent and literate in English, Chinese (Mandarin and two other dialects), and Japanese, and know some French and German) and what I know about various societies from my studies this is the conclusion I have come to.

I mean look at their names: Tomoya/Tomoyo! Are they not made for each other? I mean, come on!

Hahahah. Lame jokes aside, while Tomoyo is my favorite (Kyou is a close second), I'll have to agree none of the other girls are a better fit for Tomoya than Nagisa. Tomoyo is simply too good for Tomoya (but this was what made the Tomoyo arc/Tomoyo OVA awesome really). Kyou, while insanely hot, does not bring out some beautiful quality from Tomoya that he has previously suppressed (unlike Nagisa and Tomoyo). As for why Tomoya doesn't fit with Ryou, Kotomi, or Fuuko quite as well as Nagisa or even Tomoyo, I believe that's self-explanatory if you have played the game.

While most of you may be aware of how much Nagisa has changed since she met Tomoya, don't forget to also consider how much Tomoya himself changed after meeting Nagisa. He used to be an apathetic delinquent who no longer placed any value in his own existence. Look at him now, at the very start of this episode. Nagisa managed to bring out everything that was good about Tomoya: that he is capable of loving, protecting what he loves, and is a genuinely good person. This also, of course, sets up for the course of events this series will follow, namely the After Story arc of the Clannad game.

Nagisa isn't a favorite of mine (I don't hate her or anything though), but her place as the main heroine of Clannad is secure. If you don't like Nagisa, too bad really. If you like her, then good. No need to for all the hate; let's all enjoy the what the series has to offer (or if you don't like the series, enjoy something else as opposed to posting "I hate it").

This is the one I used, and is by far the best guide out there if you know Japanese.

http://yuzz21.web.fc2.com/CLANNAD.html

Otherwise, here's an English one I found through Google.

http://www.mediafire.com/?2m31509d1ln

Our beloved cast of CLANNAD characters are back!


Man, that was such an AWESOME episode. So many Easter Eggs from both the Clannad game and Tomoyo After!

My answer to that would be: not enough. XD

I typically tend to just write the prose out, post it here on the thread, then proofread it on FAKKU and correct/improve anything that needs it. And, before I released that pdf file, I went through the whole thing once more. So, basically, twice so far, but I did make a lot of changes each time.

Fall break is coming up! I'm hoping to get Chapter 3 churned out then. Also, I should probably get around to composing a theme song for this... XD

You'd think that an admin would know better than to have plot spoilers out in the open instead of in a spoiler box right. XD

It's free of spoilers. I made sure of that.


Not quite. The Dark Saber in Heaven's Feel still has her ahoge, if I remember correctly. The idea that removing Saber's ahoge changes her into Dark Saber comes from Fate/Hollow Ataraxia.

So, it's rare to see all three of us admins making the front page in a space of less than twenty-four hours. I myself have been extremely busy and can already feel my presence on FAKKU dwindling. I still love you guys though. *sheds manly tear*

Anyway, I have a new release (yes, again!) for you all. More yandere freakiness! On behalf of FAKKU-Subs I present to you: Aishite Yamanai Shoujo by Kirintei!


We will probably release a version two sometime in the future with the decensored pages put in, but that's still being worked on at the moment.

So, we had a new editor for this project: Rook! She's very excited about her first project, and here it is! She did a very good job and put a lot of effort into making this as good as it could possibly get for all of you, so make sure she knows how much she (and all of the translation team members) mean to you!

Anyway, the usual. Discussion/appreciation/download for this doujin can be found here, or you can simply click the picture above.

Oh, and I guess I'll mention this here. Yes, we are in the process of subbing Ultimatum Sera Episode 2, so you guys can look forward to that.

Enjoy!

Yes, Dark Saber's from the Heaven's Feel route, which I've been telling people since December last year is easily the best FSN route in terms of suspense and plot twists. Dark as hell and kept me on the edge of my seat. I'm not someone who can grind, but during the winter holidays last year I did nothing but eat, sleep, and play Heaven's Feel. I wish I knew about the game earlier though. T_T

Though Saber/Dark Saber isn't a big focus in Heaven's Feel really (sure she plays a big role, but you don't really see that much of her at all); it's all Sakura. I personally found Dark Saber simply intimidating, and did not like her at all as depicted in the route; you really get that 'enemy vibe' from her. It's in Fate/Hollow Ataraxia where you get to see the side of Dark Saber that has driven fans to draw fanart and doujins of her.

Hmm. It's not that I don't like the idea, but more because it wouldn't work. I mean, if I (or Nikon) feel that something is worth translating, it happens. Nominating projects kinda defeats that purpose because if it's already that awesome to be nominated, we might as well just do it, or if you guys end up picking something that we don't like, then it becomes an obligation to meet the needs of the community and translate it even if we don't have to. I'd rather members of the team enjoy what they do rather than have them work on something requested by others (yes, even you lovely members of the community), and it's something I've always felt very strongly for.

I do agree that the poll needs to be changed, and if I remember the next time we talk I'll get Jacob to change it.

I have this incredible urge to tell you off.

Stop taking translated stuff for granted! Not every single thing that comes out of Japan has to get translated, and this one much less likely, since it's from a magazine/tankoubon more than two years old. And, if all you're providing is a one page where the only information as to what it is is a title, don't expect much help.

Sure you can request, but be patient. Also, it helps if you use your brain. Try to think what your request looks like to other people first.

For those of you who are interested as to what this is, this is a chapter from Menou Kuroiwa's "Milk Crown" entitled "Keiko to Manabu", also featured in Comic Megastore H Sept. 2006. I seriously doubt it's been translated. Happy finding.

I don't see a problem with including it really. If you prefer to stay anonymous, we could just have a 'prefer to hide gender/location' option, and if you want people to know more about yourself, then whoopee.

I guess I'll talk to Jacob and Nikon about it.

Rep-begging, well, does more harm than good really. I don't think I'd rep someone if they were begging for it if I was an ordinary user.

So, we won't penalize begging for rep, (unlike whoring post count, which WILL be), but I'm sure the users themselves will deal retribution anyway, and the staff will simply feel sorry for you.

Good point. Sorry for the confusion.

I've moved the Requests forum to General, which should be the better place for it.

I'll be darn honest with you, you're asking for a heck load. You're basically asking someone to sub an anime without the video, AND time it for you. This would amount to, for example, me and Bob64 working on a new h-anime release, and even that won't be as long in time as yours.

Worst still, fluent Japanese translators are hard to find out there, since most fluent Japanese people won't be assed to spend what will certainly be a few hours on a favor. I certainly feel you'd be far better off learning Japanese and pulling it off yourself.

I'm not trying to be an asshole, I just wanted to point out to you the magnitude of what you're trying to ask for from a largely Japanese illiterate community. If you'd rather I not post this, I'll be glad to delete it.

Lastly, this is in the wrong section, since this is clearly a Request. I've moved it for you, but please post in the correct section next time.

New FAKKU release! We finally hit the thirty doujin mark with this baby, which is as sweet as these doujins come. On behalf of FAKKU-Subs I present to you a translated Code Geass doujin: Inochi Karagara by DNA Lab!


I'm really needing my sleep right now, so I'll write more later. The stars of this release are dear old Ershin and Mike, the toughest guy on FAKKU. As usual, the release thread is here, where you can download, discuss, and leave thanks.

*Logs out of FAKKU and falls face-first into his bed*

For future reference, topics like this belong in Incoherent Babbling and not in Serious Discussion. Don't make the same mistake again.