Translation and Proofreading Guidelines
Contains all information required by HoloResort Translations translators, proofreaders, and translation checkers.
Translators' main goal is to communicate the meaning as close as possible from the source language to the target language. Proofreaders assist translators with this task by making sure the translators' output is well understood by the audience of the target language. Translation Checkers serve as a second opinion to double-check the work of translators. For all three, they are held to a certain standard in both the conversion process to target language as well as the quality of the final output in the target language.
This guide was made with a focus on Japanese-to-English translation, with additional info on Chinese-to-English and Indonesian-to-English translation.
Written by Respect and Chimatta, with edits by Madekuji.
Overall
Try to maintain phrase-by-phrase (rather than word-by-word) loyalty to the source language, unles...
Punctuation
Follow this for punctuation as best as possible: https://www.thepunctuationguide.com/index.html ...
Intro
Follow this for punctuation as best as possible: https://www.thepunctuationguide.com/index.htmlAl...
Commas (,)
More info: https://prowritingaid.com/CommaComma chainsUse Oxford commas.e.g. “I love my parents, ...
Quotations (“ ” and ‘ ’)
Use double quotation marks (“ ”) for quotations. In case you need to apply a "second layer" of qu...
Parentheses ()
A space is always needed between a parenthesis and the preceding/succeeding word.Punctuation can ...
Slash (/)
Make sure to always use a forward slash (i.e. “/”) instead of a backslash (i.e. “\”).If used afte...
Dashes
Refer to the Punctuation guide for more details!En dash (–)Mainly used to indicate spans of times...
Colons and Semicolons
More info: https://writingcenter.unc.edu/tips-and-tools/semi-colons-colons-and-dashes/Colon (:)Ge...
Abbreviated English honorifics
There is a difference by nation. Mr. is American, Mr is British. Use the former as per US English...
Sentence endings
In all cases, make sure you have punctuation, aside from one exception with ellipses.In dialogue,...
CPS Overflow
You may need to artificially cut up a wordy line into two or more separate lines to handle CPS is...
Songs
Follow standard punctuation rules.Full stops can sometimes be replaced with tildes at your discre...
Spelling and Grammar
If you get their/they’re/there wrong, you will be publicly lynched.- Also we’re and were and wher...
Intro
If you get their/they’re/there wrong, you will be publicly lynched.- Also we’re and were and wher...
Stuttering
Separate with hyphens. First phoneme repeats, including capitals. Repeat vowels if necessary.Refe...
“Any”
Any should always be followed by uncountable nouns or plurals.e.g. “Do you own any books?”
Broken English being spoken by one of the talents
Leave as is; there is no need to fix any grammar mistakes made by the talents themselves.
Comma before “Too,” “Though,” etc.
Add a comma before them when in the middle of a sentence.Adding a comma at the end of a sentence ...
Songs
Punctuation in songs follows the standard rules. Every sentence should end with punctuation, and ...
Units of measure
This comes from the official SI manual and is non-negotiable for translations.The numerical value...
Time and dates
Follow the European/military conventions: dd/mm/yy, 24 hours. dd/mm/yy (e.g. “11/05/21” = “May 11...
Elongated syllables
Use only if absolutely necessary.Can be replaced with:Italics (e.g. “Really.”)Tildes at the end o...
Past perfect tense
Keep in mind that while past perfect may be accurate, it is sparingly used in casual English spee...
Plural acronyms and abbreviations
There are different ways to form plural acronyms and it highly depends on the individual acronym ...
Numbers
Numbers Numbers can be either spelled out (e.g. “Nine thousands”) or written in numerals (e.g. “...
Currency
Follow standard numbers rules outlined in said section.Currency names should not be capitalized (...
Repetitions
If only 2 repetitions are present, either leave as-is (e.g. “Hey, hey.”) or add a counter (e.g. “...
Illeisms (i.e. Speaking in the third person)
Avoid whenever possible.(e.g. Pekora saying “Pekora is…” turns into “I am…”)
Specific jargon and special cases
When they’re thanking their subscribers, write ‘’400K subscribers.’’ In these instances change ‘’...
Onomatopoeia
The word itselfTry to localize as much as possible. This may mean it is changed to an actual desc...
Japanese-specific (Neologisms)
Character-defining speech ending tics (gobi 語尾) or catchphrase: GobiAs much as possible, mix it w...
Chinese-specific
IdiomsThere are many websites for idiom translations. In the best case scenario, you should trans...
Indonesian-specific
IdiomsUse many websites as references since our idioms could be interpreted differently in Englis...