Multilangual Kanzenshuu site?

[Cold Skin]

Kanzenshuu is undoubtedly the greatest international website when it comes to the Dragon Ball community.
When thinking about all of the people being from all around the world in this thread, sometimes I think about the possibility of having some pages (all pages?) available in multiple languages because when I see the general level of English in France, I have to imagine most Dragon Ball fans wouldn't even be able to understand the main news and would just give up and backtrack as soon as they reach this wonderful website, missing on all the updates and the amazing content that is available.

There is nothing we can do about the forum or the podcasts being all in English, it's only natural that spontaneous conversations between members from all around the world should be in one common language: the international language. But sometimes, I feel like as far as the main Kanzenshuu site itself goes - with its large quantity of carefully prepared information -, it could progressively be made available in multiple languages to suit people around the world who would usually "run away" from the site when they see their English level is not high enough to understand all of this despite being interested in Dragon Ball.

So this thread is meant to just say what you think about that idea, though there won't necessarily be anything done about it anytime soon: for now, it's just about talking about the possibility of pages being available in several languages in the (either close or distant) future.
Imagine that in an article (news or long-lasting feature), there is a link (a country flag or a message) to access a version of this content localized in a specific language. Do you think it's possible? What would be the benefits and drawbacks of multilingual Kanzenshuu pages? What would it require? Would the results be worth the efforts?



As far as I'm concerned, here are a few of my thoughts about it all:

1. Embracing the international aspect of the greatest Dragon Ball site.
That would definately be an advantage to have the greatest international site being available in all languages, it just seems more professionnal and more accessible to the community it's aimed at.

2. Web resources: is it too much to ask?
The problem with multilanguage pages is that it makes that many pages to add to the website. If you imagine that all pages (upcoming news and various guides and interviews) are translated into just one new language as an option, that multiplies the number of pages the server must handle by two for Kanzenshuu, let alone if there's like five languages for each page in the end (five times more pages).
And then how would we organize it all so that it ends up being posted. Would we PDF the translated article (keeping everything with the same presentation) and send it to the Kanzenshuu leaders who would handle the "put it online properly" part? Wouldn't it be additionnal work on their already-heavy-loaded shoulders? Would there be another way?

3. Terminology: sticking with Kanzenshuu names for the site.
Countries have developped their own official translations for names (and fans themselves have their own preferences). However, it should be noted the Kanzenshuu staff don't restrain themselves to an official translation and use what they chose as more logical themselves. Translations would usually require to adapt the names to the countries' official choices to be natural to viewers, but much like it's already the case in English, I don't think it would be a problem to stick with the names used by the Kanzenshuu staff in their original English texts rather than trying to use local versions. For example, French fans are only used to "Freezer" in all official products, they never really new anything else (except for a few Budokai games using "Frieza"), yet I think it wouldn't bother them at all to see the French translation of Kanzenshuu articles mentionning "Freeza" even if they're not used to it. If everyone in every country sticks to the Kanzenshuu terminology, this would avoid a lot of problems and make the translation process much easier and more coherent, regardless of the number of languages for an article.

4. Which sections should be translated?
If there were multilangual articles on Kanzenshuu, what would be worth translating: the daily news? The guides and features? Interviews? Forum rules? All of it? What should be the priority and the most interesting to offer in multiple languages? News are undoubtedly the easiest and fastest things to translate, which could be handy to quickly offer them as multilanguage news offering to "see that news in [insert name of language here]". On the other hand, they're also ephemeral and will soon be lost in the depths of unseen old news. They are also perhaps the easiest thing to understand for people not comfortable with English. On the other hand, guides and interviews are much more lengthy and complicated to translate, but at the same time, they're likely here forever and their interest doesn't fade away with time.

5. Possible problem: trusting members.
The Kanzenshuu leaders obviously can't cover all languages around the world. Members of this community speak various languages and could volunteer to translate the news and/or long-lasting features. But the Kanzenshuu staff would not always be able to properly check that their translations cover faithfully what they wrote. They would really have to trust the members they chose as translators. On the other hand, there are a lot of members from a same country in this community: you can bet that if one of them wrote something that fell out of line, other members being able to understand the translation would be quick to react.

6. Is it worth it?
The big question. Adding multilangual pages to the Kanzenshuu site would be a step-up for a site aimed at the international community of Dragon Ball fans. But how big of a step up would it be? Would it only be useful to a minority and be too many efforts for little interest in the end? If we had pages available in French, Italian, German and Spanish, are we sure that it would indeed be useful to a certain number of people (possibly be a reason to attract non-English speakers to the site though they would likely not get involved in the forum)?

7. Trial period?
A possibility that is to be examined could be a determined time set to try it. Members who are volunteer to translate (I would be for French pages, since it would actually put my Translation Master to use now that I started being a teacher rather than a translator) could try to make multilangual pages, Kanzenshuu would try for a few weeks to see if it works and either carry on with it if they like the primary results and see potential in it, or erase the few pages and proceed like it never happened if it proved to be a bad idea.

8. On localized articles, a short message for "English only" content.
Most notably, the forum and podcasts can't be translated. A simple thing to do on the translated pages about untranslated content would be to have a short warning message at the end to remind you that the following content is only available in English. For example, when introducing the podcast, the translator would add at the end of the translated introduction and before the podcast itself "Note: the podcast can't be translated and is only available in English".

DEMO OF THE "PODCAST #0351" NEWS AVAILABLE IN FRENCH:

[Herms]

I do want a big part of the long-awaited wiki to be having the pages in as many languages as we could manage, pretty much for the reasons you outlined.

[Tzigi]

3. Terminology: sticking with Kanzenshuu names for the site.
Countries have developped their own official translations for names (and fans themselves have their own preferences). However, it should be noted the Kanzenshuu staff don't restrain themselves to an official translation and use what they chose as more logical themselves. Translations would usually require to adapt the names to the countries' official choices to be natural to viewers, but much like it's already the case in English, I don't think it would be a problem to stick with the names used by the Kanzenshuu staff in their original English texts rather than trying to use local versions. For example, French fans are only used to "Freezer" in all official products, they never really new anything else (except for a few Budokai games using "Freeza"), yet I think it wouldn't bother them at all to see the French translation of Kanzenshuu articles mentionning "Freeza" even if they're not used to it. If everyone in every country sticks to the Kanzenshuu terminology, this would avoid a lot of problems and make the translation process much easier and more coherent, regardless of the number of languages for an article.

This is something I'd argue with. I know the situation concerning translation well enough to talk about it only in Poland, so I'll try to keep to this terrain. In Poland the whole DB franchise had 2 major "editors". The first one was a TV channel that bought the French dub and added a voice-over to it. The already abysmall French version was then changed into a hell of incoherence, stupidity and censorship (that makes the changes done by Funi seem small and insignificant). Then there was the second version - the manga. It was published by the best Polish manga publishing house - JPF. They publish the majority of hugely popular mangas - Naruto, Bleach, One Piece, Neon Genesis Evangelion, Oh My Goddess etc and they do a great job at it but they have a policy of trying to provide to the Polish reader the exact same experience as a Japanese reader would have. It entails translating all the names, puns and so on. It is highly debatable and changes significantly the way of reading the mangas they publish - for one it makes DB seem more a gag manga and less a dark, fighting-focused one. It is also the only official and coherent naming style that we've ever had.

And now if Kanzenshuu/Kanzenshuu wikia were to be translated into Polish (I'd actually love to do this), I'd think it disorienting and actually harmful (since there are people still for example who think that Goku's actual name is "Songo") to the Polish fanbase to use a naming style that is different from all the ones present in Polish editions (the anime had different spellings/pronounciations but none of them were similar to the spelling used here; the manga has a coherent naming style but it is highly idiosyncratic and would be difficult to a non-Polish speaker). The same thing would probably happen with other languages - I have never seen any Spanish-speaking DB fan refer to Chichi in other way then "Milk"and the Italian-speaking community has a thing for ending words like "Kakarotto" and "Vegetto" with "-th" ("Kakaroth" and "Vegeth").

I think that if Kanzenshuu wikia decides to become international, it should stick to an official version whenever possible.

[Gaffer Tape]

I'd argue against *that*. Kanzenshuu has never stuck to the "official" local version, so why should it now? It's never been harmful and confusing to the English fanbase that the website uses the name Shen instead of Hero or Tsurusennin instead of Shen. One of the main points of the site is to be a factual database for the original version of the series. It caters to fans of the original version of the series. If they don't deviate from that for their native language, where's the logic and consistency in doing so for other languages?

[Tzigi]

I'd argue against *that*. Kanzenshuu has never stuck to the "official" local version, so why should it now? It's never been harmful and confusing to the English fanbase that the website uses the name Shen instead of Hero or Tsurusennin instead of Shen. One of the main points of the site is to be a factual database for the original version of the series. It caters to fans of the original version of the series. If they don't deviate from that for their native language, where's the logic and consistency in doing so for other languages?

1. Because English has a special situation - it has many "official" versions and they tend to be incompatible.
2. As I have described the Polish translation is actually more faithful to DB as envisioned by Toriyama then the naming conventions here: if Toriyama wanted a name to be a pun and Kanzenshuu has it only transcribed/transliterated and not translated, the non-Japaneses-speaking fans lose a part of enjoyment that the original audience had.
3. I wasn't suggesting that the rule of using one spelling is harmful and confusing to the English fanbase. I was refering to the "special" (in the bad sense of the term) situation of the Polish version of DB - in that it had 2 editions: one that was probably the very epitome of unfaithful and another that was as faithful as a localization can get. And in such a situation creating a good and informative encyclopedia in Polish that would introduce a third, somewhat less faithful to the spirit of actual DB, naming and spelling convention, would confuse the fans enormously.

Of course all is up to the mods here - I'd still like to translate a potential Kanzenshuu wikia into Polish even if I'll be stuck with the "third" naming convention. Nevertheless I hope that my point will be considered.

[Cold Skin]

^ I know where you come from because France - and I suspect, other countries - also had various translations to culminate in a perfect, "100% faithful to Japanese yet 100% natural to the local people" translation for the Kanzenban release). It is really the ultimate French translation with the ultimate French names that deserve to be spread and known to French fans rather than less accurate versions (nowadays, video games still partly use the old French dub names and that irritates me every single time - can't they even know that a new French dub was made for Kai?).

So if I had to translate any product for Dragon Ball for the French market, I would use the final French translation used in the Kanzenban because it's just perfect for French people while also being as faithful as humanly possible to the original Japanese text, just like you would use the perfect Polish version you refer to.

BUT the thing that's debatable about doing this for Kanzenshuu is that we're here to offer exactly what Kanzenshuu has to offer to foreign people. If we were to translate Kanzenshuu or the upcoming wiki, we'd be here to convey the message and thoughts they tried to convey, and that includes the way they chose their spellings, based on their own logic and sometimes with explanations (some articles explained why "Beerus" seemed more logical to them, and how could we properly translate that explanation if we used a whole other spelling instead?).
It's part of the Kanzenshuu identity to have their own thoughts and analysis on names without being restrained to official products and spellings, and our objective would be to carry over the Kanzenshuu identity to the target languages without modifying what the writers said and the choices they made to convey their messages.

I would love to spread the official French Kanzenban names over any French material regarding Dragon Ball - including any French feature on any website -, but this is not directly (or not "only") content from Dragon Ball we're meant to translate here, but "messages" from the Kanzenshuu community, from people who have carefully chosen what to write and how to write it, including the spellings they chose and why they consider it better.
We'd be here to "extend the range" of the original Kanzenshuu texts, not modify them in the process (even though this is a mouthful, since any translation brings necessary modifications to form a proper message in the target language).

That being said, not everything is lost for your cause:

- First, there are some specific instances where we'll exceptionnally have to use the best local version instead of the Kanzenshuu choice, because for once, that choice doesn't fit the target language. For example, French may not be used to it but they would not be overly bothered when seeing "Freeza" instead of "Freezer" or "N°17" instead of "C-17" or "Sauzer" instead of "Thousa". However, "West City" is simply something that doesn't work well as such in French, and exceptionnally, the translator would have to use what's been used in ALL translations - whether good or bad - since the very beginning (for the good reason that it's kinda the only thing that looks/sounds right in our language): "West Capital". So I think on rare occasions, it will be mandatory to detach ourselves from the Kanzenshuu spelling if it simply can't fit the target language and use the best, official local translation instead.

- Second, as you said, it is up to a common decision with the Kanzenshuu staff. They made their own spellings because they found that the ones available in the English dubs and manga were not great enough. But if they think the local mangas (especially when carefully retranslated) are great enough, they might allow the translators to use the official names. Some foreign versions (like the French Kanzenban, and I suspect other Kanzenban releases or the Polish version you mention) strictly keep it to the original Japanese to the max, never taking any liberty unless it is strictly necessary for the local fans to grasp the best of the original Japanese intent. They even prefer adding little footnotes all over the book to explain things rather than modifying the dialogues and names.
And quite importantly, the original Japanese text/name and explanations about it would still be present in the translated article no matter what, which is the most important since it is the common source of everything Dragon Ball regardless of foreign languages.

- Third, if they chose that everyone sticks to the Kanzenshuu terminology regardless of how good the local official versions may be, there would still likely be a part of the article about the existing official translations so far, including the latest and best updates. It could also easily be featured at the very beginning of any Wiki article: for example the French page would call him "Freeza" as intended by Kanzenshuu, but still mention his original Japanese name and his current official French name in the best translation available.
People would read right from the beginning of the article (written in French, but the example here is in English):
"Freeza (Japanese: フリーザ (Furīza) / Official French name: Freezer) is a character and major antagonist in the Dragon Ball franchise."