Original x Machine Translator; can my readers really understand what I mean?

[NekoYasha]

Recently I was advised by other authors to start translating my novel into English and post it on Scribble Hub, I thought it wouldn't be too difficult since my writing is direct and simple, but then I realized a big problem: cultural difference.

Some jokes and puns in my novel don't make sense in English and I have to constantly turn to a native speaker for help.
Apparently, people can understand my novel, but I'm worried about not getting any feedback (I use a Machine Translator, so sometimes the text can get confusing).

Anyway, I'm seriously considering giving the translation of my novel to a scanlator group or someone interested in translating.
Has anyone else experienced this problem? Can machine translator really deliver the same message and feelings in the same tone of voice to another language?

 

[Agentt]

Can machine translator really deliver the same message and feelings in the same tone of voice to another language?

Nope. Never. You would always need to edit many things out.

 

[SailusGebel]

Can machine translator really deliver the same message and feelings in the same tone of voice to another language?

No.

 

[Agentt]

You can try, of course. No harm in trying, and you might even become famous

 

[Western42]

I wish I can help ya, but I really can't. All I can say is good luck!

 

[Ymadthepirate]

They can understand it would just be weird if you use google translate

 

[NekoYasha]

I use DeepL translator, I find it more reliable

 

[AliceShiki]

Recently I was advised by other authors to start translating my novel into English and post it on Scribble Hub, I thought it wouldn't be too difficult since my writing is direct and simple, but then I realized a big problem: cultural difference.

Some jokes and puns in my novel don't make sense in English and I have to constantly turn to a native speaker for help.
Apparently, people can understand my novel, but I'm worried about not getting any feedback (I use a Machine Translator, so sometimes the text can get confusing).

Anyway, I'm seriously considering giving the translation of my novel to a scanlator group or someone interested in translating.
Has anyone else experienced this problem? Can machine translator really deliver the same message and feelings in the same tone of voice to another language?

It depends on the your native language and on how much time you put on editing the English text.

Languages like Japanese, Chinese and Korean give horrible results when translated to English. Don't expect stuff like DeepL or Google Translate to do a good job when trying to translate a novel from your native language to English if your language is similar to those.

On the other hand, Latin-based languages tend to get much better results when doing the translation to English, so DeepL and Google Translate can still do a good chunk of the work for you... Still, you'd probably still need to edit it out, as not everything would be done right.

 

[akira_]

I also use machine translation and I've been through it

I do the translation in two steps.

From my language to English and from English to my language.

So I can correct the errors found while reading the translation into my language, it works perfectly for me

Try this, read as if you were the reader, and correct the parts you think need changing to cause deeper emotion.

As for idioms, I can't help you.

I don't use them normally, so I can't give you any tips to adapt them.