And when I read this, my “feeling” from what you have written is that you do not believe I correctly convey the feeling of the translators. That somehow, in your eyes, my not sitting about pondering every word makes my words used less valuable…or less correct! Or possibly you mean here - that my writing lacks the FEELING of the original? And also a sense - a “feeling” - that therefore because I do not labor over every SINGLE WORD that you are yes, “looking down on me” for my very competence and speed? And thus…my work has somehow a “feeling” of less value in your eyes…that you do not acknowledge more than an ability to use grammar well in a language you fail to respect!
Were I to “sit with things and ponder them” as the only editor on 50 episodes, perhaps I might have them ready to release in perhaps well, ten or twenty years?
I do think about the meaning and the flow of the drama when I edit. Let’s be absolutely clear about that. Also the bringing together of the work of many in a way that makes sense in English as well as retains the meaning - including T/N for units of measure left IN the original language with explanations, history, AND as much of the original flavor as CAN be brought across to hopefully make it still yes, a CHINESE drama. Chinese idioms are brought over and given the literal translation and then an explanation for the rest of the world to grasp…
I believe you have delivered what is known as a “backhanded compliment” to me…and perhaps this was a message you should have “sat with and pondered” considerably longer before writing to me. After all, it should be widely known around here that if you write to me, I do generally read it…and answer. Essentially you have labeled me as a mechanic…and yourself, an artist. Or artisan, carefully crafting every word?
Or, if I were to read into your message yet another possible “feeling”, you may have felt you were triumphant somehow in gaining with me, “the last word”. Sigh.
I wasn’t going to read this - or answer it - any further. I literally do have other and better ways to occupy my time. But considering your “last word” really is rather insulting - I have two options.
I may ignore it. Or I might…“take it to heart”…or “engrave it on my heart”. Choose whichever of the two “feels” more appropriate to you.
Perhaps it is time for you to stop “looking down on” English grammar and properly embrace it to at least a competent extent. Then perhaps when you write to me, I may get the “feeling” that there is mutual respect, and not merely the “feeling” that because I am not fluent in your mater lingua, that I am entirely lacking…in your eyes…and your “feeling” as you write.
I shall not join anyone in their xenophobic tendency to believe that their mater lingua is the only language worth knowing, or with feeling and soul in it. Whether I will ever achieve fluency that is to the standard I wish for in Chinese remains to be seen, but I shall not stop at a level that leaves me without sufficient grounding in the grammar and niceties of the language and consider myself FLUENT.
GeNie of the Lamp wheels, deftly flips three sonnet-line daggers carefully through the heart of the phrase “not that you’re doing a bad job” in the above message, THWOCK! slicing it from its moorings and sending it sailing to the floor, floating on the air currents generated by the passage of the weapons. The PROUD DRAGON REPENTS! KaBLAM! exiting into the mists….POOF!
