About me
Hello, I’m Moon, a Cantonese heritage speaker from the United Kingdom, who has been learning Mandarin Chinese for four years.
Due to my love and interest in Chinese webnovels (danmei in particular) and Chinese TV dramas, I picked up learning Mandarin Chinese in May 2020.
Since then, I have read countless Chinese webnovels and have watched thousands of hours of Chinese drama.
You can find out a bit more about my journey over at my Chinese media blog.
My Translation Experience
I have zero professional experience in translation or English language and literature. My daytime job has absolutely nothing to do with translation or English.
Translating Chinese webnovels is simply a hobby and a way for me to show the international danmei fandom some of my favourite webnovels.
I also want to inspire more people to learn the language, and I hope that they will spark an interest after reading the translations.
Translation Style and Quality
As mentioned above, I’m not a professional and don’t have much experience in translation, but I am trying to translate as best as I can.
Despite understanding the Chinese text of the webnovels I’m translating, conveying the same message in English is extremely challenging.
Chinese is a very different language from English. It has different sentence structures, punctuation and grammar, and the style used to convey messages is quite different.
In order to improve the reading experience for readers, I have decided on a mix of literal and localised translation while keeping the feel of the original text. The sentence structures, punctuation, and style will often be different from the original text. A literal translation will sometimes be used as changing too much will change the feel of the original.
When relevant, I will leave notes to explain Chinese culture and expressions, particularly idioms, known as 成语 (“chengyu”) in Chinese.
Tools
I am going to be transparent. I use various tools, including Gemini, Baidu, Grammarly, Dictionary.com and Thesaurus.com, to aid me with translation, correct grammar, proper punctuation, and finding suitable expressions.
I have a Notion for each chapter with the Chinese and English shown side by side, and I check, translate and edit sentence by sentence. Each chapter will go through at least three rounds of edits.
Due to the involvement of translation tools, some will consider this as edited machine translation, while others will consider it as assisted translation. Overall, it doesn’t matter what this is considered to be. Remember, I am not a professional translator, nor do I have professional experience in English literature, so these tools help me bring some of my favourite danmei webnovels to you.
Translation is translation, after all, and it can never fully represent the original. So, if you want to experience the original to its fullest, learn Mandarin Chinese and read the original work! There are plenty of other reasons to learn Chinese; you can read about them in this article: Is it worth learning Mandarin Chinese for danmei webnovels?
FAQ
Will you edit past translations?
I want the translation to be as readable and accurate as possible, so that readers can have a great experience reading these novels. As my translation ability improves (which I hope it will), I will occasionally go back and edit and make improvements to my old translations.
Translation decisions could change during the translation process, and I would need to edit past chapters to ensure that they match the later chapters. This will often be the case for names and terms.
Can I make a request for a translation?
At this moment in time, I am only translating webnovels that I have read and really enjoy. I currently have no interest in translating something I haven’t picked myself.
Can you provide an ePub and PDF?
I won’t be providing these. Please don’t create one and distribute them around. Also, you should know that I will re-edit past translations, so reading directly on this website is the best option.
The website is very mobile-friendly, and it includes the option for dark mode (see the little moon icon on the bottom left of the page). All the current translations are free to read. If you find any problems with the website please let me know.
Do I need to pay for these translations?
All translations will be provided free of charge; however, in the future, I may request proof of purchase of the original Chinese webnovels.
I will be creating a post soon to explain how you can support the authors.