Introductions Thread

[Lygerzero0zero]

Shall we break the ice? Introductions? Why don't we start with:

Link your YouTube channel
Brief bio, stuff like age, location, interests
And your experience with Japanese (or English as the case may be) and translation

So I'll start, I suppose.

My channel's already in my signature but here it is again: http://www.youtube.com/user/lygerzero0zero

Currently a rising sophomore going to college in New York City, fresh and young at 18 years old, studying either physics or chemistry (haven't decided yet). Anime otaku and Vocaloid fan.

I hope to test into 2nd year Japanese next year, I bought the first year textbooks off my friend and I'll study them over the summer. Everything else I know has been self taught off of http://nihongoresources.com and watching too much anime.

That's about it. Now everyone else, have your say!

[cqallenwalker]

Well....first off, here is my channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/cqallenwalker

Um.....well, I am cqallenwalker, however the Allen Walker thing is just something that came when I was 13 and imported two volumes of D.Gray Man before it came out in the US. I do not watch that much anime now(and I often have to explain to my peers WHY it is not good for learning japanese) except for some stuff like FMABH.

Anyway, I am digressing. Me and my twin began actively studying the Japanese language(anything else before that was just horrible anime-ben back when I was a horrible weaboo) a year or two ago. Our knowledge of the language is the product of self-study, however we both are graduating high school this year(in a matter of days as of this post) and are pursuing japanese courses in the university we are going to. We both are actively pursuing to have a life in the nation of japan after college(BTW, its not in Tokyo) and already I am following a civil rights movement for foreigners living in Japan by means of Arudou Debito and his website(www.debito.org). As of right now, I am on hiatus because my twin and I both wish to improve our knowledge of the japanese language before we continue this marvelous work. I have met many great people in this community and I still wish to keep in contact.

--Allen

[Reicheru]

Well! My names Rachael, [Obviously Japanified as Reicheru, ha.], aged 16, and I'm a very, very new beginner. I've been studying (More like procrastinating orzorz) Japanese for about.. 3-4 months?

Japanese is the first language I've gotten "serious" about learning - I had made previous attempts on Malaysian and Italian, though lack of real inspiration prevented me from getting anywhere.

Outside of translating, I enjoy reading and writing fanfiction, drawing, and doing my best at school. Next year I hope to be in university studying with a major in mathematics! Or maybe physics. I cannot decide either xD

Other miscellaneous information: I live in Australia, am allergic to cold, like to wear copious amounts of black, really picky with anime, and a I'm a total dreamer ;P

Oh! Click for my Youtube Channel~

[blacksaingrain]

My Youtube channel is here http://www.youtube.com/user/blacksaingrain

Well, I'm working in Tokyo now and once lived in England.
I had to learn Japanese ever since I was born.
My English experience...yeah, my first English teachers were "My Little Pony" and "Care Bears". I've roughly learned British English for 3 years and then Japanese English (some of my friends say what we were taught at school in Japan was one-hundred-year-ago English) for about 12 years, but I hardly used it after I got my present job. When I started translating Vocaloid songs last year, I found I didn't keep my rough English well.
Since then I tried to take it back and I'm sure I studied much harder than when I was a student. Now I'm getting used to American English and catching up on English spoken words or slangs a little, not enough though.
Sometimes I still feel English grammars, such as the English grammatical number or articles, aren't easy when I translate Japanese lyrics into English. You know, they're extremely different from those of Japanese.

If you feel any uncertainty about what I say, just ask.
When asked, I'd clarify them on details.

Oh, I forgot to tell you, if I make mistakes, especially silly typo errors or omissions, please correct them. That would help me a lot.
Thanks for your reading~

[ghostsubs]

Channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/ghostsubs

We kind of wanted to be secretive, and give no information, but in the interest of being involved in the community here (which is a pretty good idea), we will. Lol

There are two of us, both around age twenty. One of us is British and one American. We have been friends for a long time now, and finally decided to work on a project or something - it was either this or subbing anime (which could also happen, maybe).

The translator took Japanese in undergraduate, including study abroad at a university, and is now going to graduate school for it. Not too much experience with translation in general, though - only a few stories and things, so the translating of these songs is actually good practice, and helps train attention-to-detail. Still unable to write really formal, polite/business Japanese, though. Academic Japanese - almost, at least I think so. =P Unnatural still.

Both of us became interested by anime and video games, probably video games first. One of us found Vocaloid a couple of years ago and forced the other to watch. =P

[RENA]

Regular Channel
Subs Channel
Text Blog

I'm a super-novice at translating, all I can do is try my best. Though.. even if it's wrong, I hate when people say that I add too many words or liberties on my translyrics, cause they are meant for singing, not just a translation!!

Anyways, I'm in 10th grade. I started learning Japanese in 8th grade and got this far with self-study, handy dictionaries, and my beloved friends who helped me. I wish I could take a class, but my parents are so much into the idea that learning such a language is useless and unpractical. So, I am stuck with as much skill as I can attain on my own.

My name is cause my LJ was originally a Rena character account, but I never used it, so I started posting translyrics on it and it kinda just went from there...

I found out about Vocaloid around late July-early August '07 (right before Miku came out) and since then.. about 90% of what I listen to is Vocaloid. Probably because it is not conventional music.

I am a hopeless romantic, so a lot of that is put into my interpretations.

[cqallenwalker]

@Blacksaingrain You've had to learn japanese since when you were born? Perhaps I am misunderstanding, but it sounds like you were forced? Anyway, England? That is really cool. People mistake my speech for being British(75%)/German/Swedish/everywhere else in Europe(25%). Also, I have to apologize for English. It really is one of the hardest languages to learn in my opinion.

@Ghostsubs Ah, another army of two? That's cool. One British and one American? What if you translate a word like "Iro"? Would it be "Color" or "Colour"? XD Y'all seem very professional, so hearing that you are students too is a shock. A pleasant shock, mind you.

@RENA Ah, Rena/Neibaku/takeitallhome. The girl with a million names and one of the first kind people my twin and I met in this community. You forgot to mention your good singing!

[ghostsubs]

"Colour". Though, actually, I have not noticed what happens to realize/realise and others. Probably some strange mixture.

I am not sure what he thinks about my saying this, but I like working with a second person that is willing to do the actual subbing. That is really painful to do. =P
Also, it can be difficult to proofread what you have written yourself, or realize when something is too unnatural in English (which probably is still a lot of the time). I think working with at least one other person is the way to go.

I am more shocked by the people that say they have taken no Japanese classes and/or are in high school, yet are at the skill level that they are. I wonder if people are either just very smart, or are lying about how long they have been studying. =P



There are quite a few more members registered to the forum than have posted. If anyone is wondering whether they should post or not, please introduce yourselves! (^^)b

[Lygerzero0zero]

@cgallenwalker: I think what Blacksaingrain means is that he's (she? What're the genders around her? I'm male... and I guess Reicheru's obviously female... anyway...) ethnically Japanese and/or lived in Japan most of his life.

@ghostsubs: Do you two have separate online identities at all? Feels a little unusual talking to a two-person account... it's like, split personalities, who's in control now? XD Well, it's fine either way.

As for how long and how much we've all been studying, Reicheru's 3-4 months is what really impresses me. I think for me, after 3-4 months I... knew the kana and a couple verb forms and maybe half a dozen particles. Wouldn't have even attempted to translate anything as long or complicated as a song.

Then again I never really marked a specific time I started learning. It was more like a progression that started with picking up tidbits about the language and some vocabulary and then some basic grammar and at some point I decided, I may as well learn it all. But I'd say I'm going on two years, give or take, of Japanese study. The site I mentioned in my first post is really great though, it's got a free 300+ page textbook up for download, which is essentially where most of my grammar knowledge comes from.

It does help a ton that I have a background in Chinese. Since I didn't have to worry half as much about the kanji, I could focus on the grammar.

[hokorik]

Started learning Japanese way back when I fell in love with Yu Yu Hakusho and tried to follow the song lyrics and manually tried to match each sound with each shape (no access to internet back then so no easy A-I-U-E-O table ^^; )

Mostly learnt on my own by reading books and lyrics, took a class after passing JLPT1 with the hope of improving my ability to form my own sentences, that didn't really work so I'm still confined being okay in listening/reading, but totally fail at speaking/writing...

(p.s. learned English mostly the same way when I fell in love with Goosebump books [shut up, I was 12 XD] and musicals... went from getting E/F in English to A/B over a summer holiday... love for books+music are powerful things )

KAITO fan to the point that my room is running out of room for KAITO figures/CD/doujin/blue-stuff...

Sorta on hiatus due to busy work, wanting to contact the author to get premission before hand but not having the courage to send that email, and being super lazy...

channel that hadn't been updated in months: http://www.youtube.com/user/hokorichan

[blacksaingrain]

@RENA
I understand it’s almost impossible to translate lyrics for singing without changing their meanings. Well, I occasionally add some words for rhyming or something to the translated lyrics and always post a note that I changed or added words to them on the description when I do it. If you explain the way you translate like that, I‘d bet those people would support you. Just my two cents. You know, what people look to translators differ greatly in individuals. Some want the translation to be faithful and accurate, some want to sing it or some want it to sound good and natural, and we can't please everybody with just one translation. Some people who don’t have much experience of translating seem to need explanation to understand that.

@cqallenwalker
I just meant to say I couldn’t choose my mother tongue XD But yeah, I went to the elementary and junior high schools that were famous for their Japanese education and was forced to study Japanese hard as the teachers were really strict >< I didn’t understand how the fundamentals are important at that time but I'm so grateful to them and love Japanese now. Each language has each difficulty, isn’t it? By the way, it’s a bit hard for me to distinguish Southern American English while English used in New England sounds more familiar. It seems that it varies by region or person. Ah, I wanna visit the United States someday.

@Lygerzero0zero
Yeah, I’m ethnically Japanese, a female Japanese

@hokorik
Take it easy~

[Reicheru]

Ah, everyone seems to have much more experience than me. I need more study! (2 years+ versus my few months? orz.)

Good to know I'm not the only one who's learning without "official" aid. It would kinda be nice to have a teacher though, sometimes. I just learn what I want to learn, not really in the proper order xD

[cqallenwalker]

@Blacksaingrain Ah, sorry for misunderstanding. Anyway, for some reason, I always knew that you were female. But then again, I assume all translators are female until proven male(such as Damesuke-kun with his name and all). Also, uh oh....I am a southern man. Heck, I can speak in all the southern dialects(General Southern, Mountain/Hillbilly, Plantation, West Texas) but it also helps that I am an actor as well. The United States is a interesting place....for better or for worse. I haven't been to the places most foreigners think of when they think of America, such as New York, although I have been the Washington D.C. Well, if you visit, I hope you enjoy your time there.

[blacksaingrain]

@Reicheru
Yeah, enjoying is the best way and official aid makes one's biggest gains when he wants it independently without being forced. I wasn’t a good student XD

@cqallenwalker
Oh, it’s okay.
Wow, you can use them as you like. That’s great. The southern English sounds very friendly like Kansai-ben and I wanna gain the ability to recognize. America is so vast and I'm sure I'll have to think a lot about where to go before my visit.

[cqallenwalker]

@Blacksaingrain Ah, you compared southern dialect to Kansai-ben as well? That's cool. At least it isn't anime-ben.

@Reicheru Well, good luck. I have gotten as far as I have on self-study alone so its not a hopeless road to take. The reason why I am starting a class is because I like order and organization and its something I cannot do by myself efficiently. '''^_^'''