Amatuer English Translation of Mishima's "Kyoko's House"

Translate a couple of pages, use that as preview and start a Patreon :^)

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Genuinely interested. Translate like 2-3 pages and post them here.

That made me chuckle
Thanks user

Yes do it

tmij888 at gmail, homes.
I will do that, at least.
Th-that smiley face is ironic.

Absolutely desu, I've wanted to read this for years

How difficult would you say it is compared to 憂国?

do it fag

DO IT

I don't know. I haven't read that. Flipping through this book now it's pretty difficult.

I'd be interested. I've never heard the widow thing, but I have read that US publishers didn't want to publish Kyoko's House because they didn't want to pigeonhole Mishima as an LGBT author since they'd already released Confessions of a Mask and Forbidden Colors. Even being featured in the Mishima biopic wasn't enough I guess.

Also don't know if anyone saw this, but it's set for release next July. Maybe a new string of translations?

It i going to feel like running the marathon without any preparation if you're doing it in any proper way. A couple of marathons, actually. Without skill, you just can't survive it, and that's even before we start discussing the quality of the output.

Do it. It's a very rewarding feeling. I've had a few translations published that I did out of love, first.

Godspeed user.

First page, lads. Let me know what you think. My first time doing any translation, it's pretty hard making things sound not just accurate but sound right in the new language. You really do have to stretch the translation in parts for purposes of naturalness as well as cadence.

pastebin.com/sm28S9fF

Dope. I don't actually know how much Mishima is left untranslated. I just knew Kyoko's House and School of the Flesh. Maybe I should try translating the latter since it's only like 250 pages.

We'll see what happens. It allows me study Japanese too. And I'm not setting intense deadlines on myself. If it's done in three years so be it. I could feasibly do a page a day. I could be done faster but I have other hobbies and a job and stuff.

>I don't actually know how much Mishima is left untranslated.
Surprisingly a lot, but I've heard that some of it has been left alone for a reason (stuff he wrote for housewives to make a quick buck). Probably one of the strangest is Beautiful Star, which is apparently his only shot at something like science fiction.

I was just thinking about this book the other day and lamenting the fact I would never be able to read it unless I took the time to master Japanese.
You're doing God's work, user

Put it up on neocities and add it to the novelupdates.com translated novel aggregator for other people to see

>>imgoat.com/uploads/6d767d2f8e/21329.jpg
yeah would love it.

OP here I forgot about that. It was made into a TV show in Japan.

Do it!

Do the translation on Github so additional people can contribute. Also keeps you going.

I've been hoping to read Kyoko's House since I saw Schrader's movie. Please, do it.

>I've been hoping to read Kyoko's House since I saw Schrader's movie.
Same here. The guitar theme that plays in the background made me cream my fucking pants.

Most of Mishima's work is untranslated, all his diaries and political and cultural essays. As well as his apparently shitty pulp novels but no one cares about that

Some guy on a forum did translate beautiful star a few years ago though I never found the file

Shrader is sitting on the only complete English translation, it's probably just a technical translation for the movie but I wonder if he ever thought of getting it published. Publishers are wary of selling any more of Mishima's work, the last one flopped hard

Where are you going to post it?

OP here. Would be interesting to read it. I wonder to what extent the translator bothered to make it sound nice

Not sure yet.

just upload to mediafire

honest question

I've been stuck in my current situation where I can generally understand news articles but I'm shit and conversation and reading dialogue

is there no other way than just throwing myself onto media/conversations to get better at Jap?

I'm very interested, dear user.

Since you speak Japanese and this is about Mishima have you read the book by the dude who was Mishima's lover for a while that was stopped from publishing by his widow?

Watch anime desu

As I said put it on github, make it collaborative

I learned alot of my english by watching lots of Cartoon Network as a kid, but I liked the pretty animation and didn't really think about what they spoke, it just came naturally over time.

should I just watch anime without subtitles until I catch on?

>should I just watch anime without subtitles until I catch on?
That's pretty much what a friend of mine did - started out watching subbed anime, that came out too slow for him so he watched it unsubbed, four or five years later now he's fairly fluent. Very little formal education in this regard, but I should perhaps mention he's a turboweeb so his dedication may be hard to match.

Yes please.

Pastebin's out, please post again.

Can you elaborate. What do you mean bad at reading dialogue. If you can read news articles you should be able to read dialogue? Being shit at conversation is common. I'm better at reading than speaking for sure.

I haven't. I'll check it out and see if it seems interesting.

OP here, always skeptical of these claims. What does "fairly fluent" mean and what does "very little" formal education mean, because that implies some. I find it very hard to believe he literally JUST watched anime, and never cracked a Japanese book or used any other resource. Fluency implies being able to speak, and watching anime is a fully passive, receptive activity. You won't make great strides in speaking ability unless you speak.

It's working for me? Well, here's a slightly new one with some minor edits and corrections.

pastebin.com/y1A0y2Pr

>the dude who was Mishima's lover for a while
What the fuck do you mean by this? He was gay? He had a wife, is this just speculation by some idiots like in Da Vinci's case?

Your language is pretty weird. Anyway:
Switch out 'even from afar' for 'despite being far'.

>He had a wife
Like Oscar Wilde?

... Brother, how can you be in this thread and be so innocent? It's almost cute.

Do you have a digital version of the original text, or are you translating from a physical copy?

Id pay to be able to read this

Hell yeah. Especially if you're a good writer in English.
Love that section of the film "Mishima", it's my favorite track of the score soundtrack

Spellcheck is a thing

I'd change "I wonder what happened" to "I wonder what's happened," sounds a bit more natural.

And I don't know why, but "Ugh" sounds a bit amateurish. Maybe use "Eh" instead? Or another word like that. I don't know, might just be me. Otherwise it's a perfectly serviceable translation, I'd have to read some of the more descriptive passages to get a better feel for it.

Would definitely be interested if you do end up translating the whole thing

Thanks for the comment but I'll respectfully disagree. I think "even from afar" has better cadence. "Despite being far" sounds clunky to me, but I'd welcome other opinions about it. Maybe I could change it to "despite the distance" or something like that.

If you can give other examples of weirdness?

I have a physical copy. The picture in the original post is my copy.

It was a typo.

I get what you mean about "Ugh" sounding amateurish. But "Eh" is definitely too dismissive and doesn't match his mood. He is really frustrated at this point, Probably the interjection he makes is closer to "Tsk"

Yesss
pls do it

Are you being serious?

He was gay in the sense that he liked men but not in the Western LBGT anti-masculinity cult way

Mishima would not want his work made more easily accessible to filthy foreign piggus. Were he with us today your transgression would no doubt leave him shaking with rage. He'd likely be forced to sodomize himself with the hilt of his katana while extolling the virtues of the emperor just to calm down. Shame.

I would definitely be interested in a translation. Depending how far you end up going, I would have no problem sending some money your way.

New pastebin for now until I decide what do to about a more permanent solution. This is the first three pages.

Basically Mishima is just exceedingly difficult. He doesn't really use simple words or language at all in description. Descriptive passages will be a considerable challenge. This is obviously a big boy book and every page is covered in furigana (that's phonetic characters attached to aid the reading of kanji). Dialogue and actions seem pretty doable to me, but pure description is a monster.

The last line of this seems awkward but is in the book and this is a pretty faithful translation. I considered leaving it out altogether but it sounds significant somehow, almost like some kind of portent.

Anyway here it is. I welcome comments or critique.

pastebin.com/h8ak4mNT