3.3.17 Readers’ comments regarding the translation quality

This is one of the questions central to the fanfiction translator-reader relationship, although the results as collected here do not reveal much. Providing feedback on the translation quality in an amateur environment is a sensitive issue, as is well documented for example by Švelch (2013) in his study of user participation in evaluating the quality of Czech fan subtitles for the HBO series Game of Thrones. In the light of his findings, the numbers collected in this questionnaire seem quite high, or perhaps more precisely, do not seem too low.

One aspect needs to be taken into account here, which is that fanfiction readers probably do not “depend” on the translator to provide them with content in their native language in the same way that users of fan-made subtitles “depend” on the fansubber. While the users of fan-made subtitles need the subtitles to enjoy content (movie or a TV series) that they have already picked beforehand and were intent on consuming before they started looking for the subtitles, it does not necessarily work that way for fanfiction readers, who may not even know the original fanfiction story existed until it’s discovered by the fanfiction translator, selected for translation and presented to the reader. The fact that fanfiction readers only provide limited feedback on the translation quality could be interpreted in more than one way. Švelch suggests the users avoid giving critical feedback out of respect for the translator, who has the means to provide them with content they need in order to be able to enjoy the original material. Within the context of the gift culture, the translator may not be seen just as the one who provides critical content but one who provides the community with a gift.

17. Do/did your readers comment on the translation quality?
Number of responses: 76
	respondents	percentage
Never	8	10,5%
Rarely	22	28,9%
Sometimes	29	38,2%
Often	17	22,4%

Table 15.

3.3.18 Are reader’s comments regarding the translation quality important?

This was a freeform question, designed to allow the translators to say more about what readers’ feedback regarding the translation quality mean to them. Only 4 respondents declared that such feedback was not important to them, with the reasoning in two of the cases being that they do not published their translations.

In general, the respondents cite motivation as the most frequent benefit of receiving positive comments, a few state to be grateful for being alerted to a mistake they might have missed. However, constructive criticism with regard to translation quality seems to be rare, at least according to those responses that focused on this angle of the problem.

Selection of answers:

“More eyes, more scrutiny - minor flaws could be easily corrected, but mostly I just received comments praising my work…”

“Yes, especially comments by people who know a lot about translation or who are (were – I'm a veteran) more familiar with the factual background of the world.”

“I prefer being praised.”

“Yes, even the beta reader can miss mistakes.”

“No. It's more important for me that I'm satisfied with my own work. At any rate, translation quality doesn't often get mentioned; readers without linguistic skills tend to be uncritically grateful when someone translates something for them.”

“Definitely, not just as a suggestion for improvement, but also as an interesting discussion point.”

“Not really, I translated just for my own pleasure and I wouldn't get upset when people didn’t like something.”

“As long as it's constructive criticism, then yes.”

“Each review pleases and motivates. If the particular comment took into account that the story was, in fact, a translation, double the joy :)”

“When I started translating, I couldn't quite imagine it, but today I can safely say that yes. The comments didn't necessarily work as a motivation, because I didn't quite need that and I enjoyed translating as it was. BUT, if no one had read my stories… This way, each and every review, whether it was just to say thank you or to share a musing or an emotion in a more detailed way, gave me such a warm and rewarding feeling of joy, when I realized it was really worth it and that it made someone else happy. I didn't write the story, true, but I gave someone else access to it - amazing feeling.”

“They would be, if there were any.”

“It’s an inspiration, to a degree, and quite often the reader picks up a mistake that both I and the beta reader missed.”

“Yes, in rare situations the readers point out a specific mistake, but most often they just say the translation is good in general, reads well etc. When I started translating, this was essential for me as I needed feedback - I needed to know whether all the effort would be worth it. And of course it works as a motivation. Quite often, upon reading a nice review, I stop doing what I'm doing and plunge into translating.”

“Yes, but they're not usually very constructive.”

“No, I just translate for myself, it's a bit heavy-handed.”

“A lot, but they're quite rare.”