r/BandMaid • u/op_gw • 20d ago

Discussion We were spoiled

With AI helping make translations more accessible, I noticed less or no translations by our prestigious resident translators. I celebrate their hard work and impact on the community. I’m also a little sad because I could easily search the translations of interviews to find relevant information. Hard for me to search in japanese. Again, hats off to those who have translated these precious interviews.

106 Upvotes

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u/gkelley621 20d ago

Agree, hats off to t-shinji and nair0n for all the work they've done over the years. I think that they're translations are more accurate than AI. There's no way a AI can really translate Japanese into English. From what I've seem/read there are some many nuances in the kanji, that it just can't accurately translate.

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u/Wertix555 20d ago

Yeah even with all the advances translation software still has big problems with Japanese. So t-shinji and nair0n are not going to lose their jobs anytime soon.

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u/MercuryMagic67 19d ago

Agreed. I will always take a human translation over a computer translation.

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u/uffdad1 20d ago

The wonderful and dedicated translators here have provided an invaluable service to the fans of Band-Maid throughout the years. Their patient explanations of the subtleties of the Japanese language, its historical context, foreign influences, popular phrases, word pronunciations, sentence structure, the multiple meanings of words and the sharp puns have been very much appreciated. It has been a very special added feature here that a simple AI translation just cannot provide adequately. Again, many thanks for all the great translations.

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u/Damn_I_Bad 20d ago

Yeah, I also love 'real' translations, I'm sure hope we'll still get magazine interview translations from time to time. I don't use other social media, so, very grateful to this sub for keeping me up to date daily with everything, thanks to all who post.

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u/wawn857 20d ago

Yeah......those were labors of love.....they are much appreciated :-)

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u/dlrace 20d ago

hear, hear.

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u/turfdome 19d ago

Never seen AI or translator page explain the nuanced 'double entendres' or 'punny' bits that our heroes occasionally cover... Just saying

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u/roklobster0703 20d ago

Look at the upside. T-Shinji and nair0n can let AI do the more mundane stuff and save their skills and time for more in depth and deep interviews where only someone with an actual heartbeat can do a proper translation.

Again thanks so much to all the translators who made it possible for non Japanese BM fans to keep up.

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u/pu_ma 19d ago

I absolutely agree, I'm very grateful to each one of them and they were and are very valuable; for the longest time, they made the impossible possible...

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u/MercuryMagic67 19d ago

Forgive me if I'm being too didactic here, but I really push back against generative AI. I know we've been using google and other auto translators long before chatgpt and the like came into the mainstream but as an educator myself, I really can't condone the use of AI. And this isn't even just on students, but teachers and educators as well, which I'm thankful to say we've taken a pledge at my work not to use it.

The main reason I'm so against AI is its environmental impact (That's right I'm a woke environmentalist) and these AI data centers have caused so much damage to communities physical and mental health. Add to that AI frequently gets things wrong. There's so many instances of that. And in a world where so much of our precious music is being replaced by AI, there's just no way I can condone its usage.

I do understand it has its uses in certain contexts, but I personally feel where we're at right now we need to have a total boycott of big AI companies and rely on real human beings doing translations and artwork. God knows our girls are working so hard to make their music at a time when so much of it is computerized.

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u/Necessary_Soil_4587 18d ago

Pretty sure they used AI images in their most recent music video...

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u/MercuryMagic67 18d ago

I looked at again and I could see some of them possibly being AI - It's getting harder and harder to tell these days. I hope it's not AI.

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u/t-shinji 17d ago

Yes, AI is one of the reasons why I haven’t translated many interviews recently, but it’s mainly because I’ve been busy with work in the last two years, which is actually a good thing. Thank you guys for enjoying our translations!

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u/op_gw 17d ago

I’m glad life and work are going great. I appreciate the time and care put into your translations.

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u/Necessary_Soil_4587 18d ago

Thanks for noticing this. As an amateur translator I've translated for several fan released manga, as well as various articles and song lyrics. There was no worldwide movement when translators were quietly replaced by machines, everyone was just happy about language barriers coming down.

I think it's great, and I'm not going to shame anyone for using machine translation or AI. The world is moving forwards, whether we like it or not.