>long as fuck names for characters, places, concepts etc (had to write them down to memorize them)>weird non-flowing sentences>lots of poetry-ish sounding sentencesIt seems like the author literally translated ancient chinese slang into modern day english, its just difficult for me to read. Anybody else experience this?
>>25194386that's just how chinese translates
>>25194426This is basically what it all sounds like to me, im really trying to enjoy it but its really difficult to read it
>>25194443vgh the unmatched lyricism of the Chinese language.......
>>25194386>It seems like the author literally translated ancient chinese slang into modern day englishThat's just what you get with an amateur, literal Chinese translation.
>>25194386Can you post the specific passages that you found difficult to read/understand?
you get used to itpro tip: the names and the concepts don't matter, you can just skip over them.Yes, I know that the author said that "the unfathomable demonic banner and its myriad ancient spirits are enough to allow a foundation builder to contend for an incense stick of time against an old monster half a step from the third level of the nascent soul realm," but the truth is that the author will never mention the banner again by the time the MC impacts the realm barrier between the third revolution of his (seventh patterned) golden core and the fourth coalescence of his divine sense (i.e. in ten chapters). By your third xianxia you should be able to tell what they mean at a glance. Besides it's not like the MC will ever be in a difficult situation.
>>25195212>the names and the concepts don't matter>it's not like the MC will ever be in a difficult situationthis nigga could not be more wrong
>>25194386Translation is an art by itself because it is so trick to transpose the multitude of information, feels, meaning and context, which among other things can be easily bent out of shape, specially when language structure context and culture are as different and diverse as say, Chinese and English.This arouses me though, like, there's beauty in the sense of venturing into the unknown and in my own way, I'm off for that.
>>25194426It's up to the translator how it translates. When translating literature you have the semi-competing pressures of fidelity and sounding natural in the target language.
>>25195693how many chinese novels have you read translations of?
>>25196113Not many, but then I read Chinese.
>>25196122congrats. the original and the translation are two different beasts. I've read at least a dozen, classical and modern, and they all "suffer" from the same problems. Chinese and English are just too different for a smooth translation, especially with the chinese love for idioms.
>>25194386Googled this sloppa out of curiosity and it’s banned by the Chinese government? That has me interested but 2000+ chapters doesn’t seem worth it
>>25196148Or you can try obsessing a little less with literalness and try for "how a native English speaker would express the same concept".
>>25196154why are you telling me this? I don't translate chinese books.
>>25196156I mean impersonal/generic "you"
>>25194386The pacing is god-tier not too slow and not too fast, just right, obviously the entire story is pretty much about MC saying lmao to all the rules and groups and factions then almost dying then lmao then doing impossible things then almost dying then lmaoing then doing impossible things while monologuing about how he alone is the strongest but that's the beauty of it
>>25196154there has to be a reason so many different translators don't.
Basically everything Chinese is poorly translated. I'm sure it's not easy to do, but reading Chinese fantasy novels is an absolute slog because of that. Lord of the Mysteries isn't hard to understand or anything, but everything just sounds so clunky.
>>25196153Read 200 chapters, that's the first book.
>>25196154it's impossible when half the text is made of chengyu. might as well rewrite the book
>>25196215And how much of English text is made up of idioms and allusions?
>>25196216much less
>>25196217Depends on the text, though generally yes.
>>25196148I have not read the original and frankly I don't care too much about muh idioms. It may be a big thing in Chinese (though I don't think it is) but in English it's not. If some (or all) idioms are missing and where replaced with English text that conveys similar meaning, or even if translator took liberties and changed the text, maybe added English/western idioms to convey the idea I am ok with it. I've seen "green behind the ears" used in translated xianxia, definitely not a Chinese saying but it was likely used in place of one.
>>25194443There are people here that actually read this cancer? Learn chinese or skip this.
>>25196608Those are just words in random order.
Not wanting to be trampled on, there are two ways. One is to become strong, strong until no one dares to step on you. Another is to turn into dog shit, something no one would want to step on.
kids game compared to finnegans wake, git gud fattie
