Bodice Ripper Readers Anonymous discussion

Many people in this group adore Lemonade and have been eager to read Capitan Swing, Nina Pennacchi's second Dark Historical Romance/Bodice Ripper, set in 1830s England, which so far is only available in Italian (*sobs hysterically*)

The good news is ... I am working on a readable English version of Captain Swing!

The less great news is ... I am not proficient in Italian! I am fluent in French and took Latin at school, so when I see the original Italian version and the horrid Google translation side-by-side, I understand what Nina meant to write (Italian is very similar to Latin and French, so it's a bit like reading a dialect I don't quite grasp).

The struggle is molding the awful machine translation into an actual novel, which takes a lot of editing (there are grammar errors everywhere, some sentences make NO sense at all and often the sentence just doesn't sound like anyone would write English that way).

The entire book has 46 chapters, which each chapter being around 10 pages long. I plan to "fix" 2 or 3 chapters a week until the book isn't a hot mess anymore (no promises though).

Would anyone be willing to beta read the edited English version of Captain Swing and give me pointers for the parts that don't sound "good" to a Native English Speaker? (I'm German so while my English is fluent, it's far from perfect)

Obviously I am doing all of this for free in my spare time with no expectations of ever getting paid - so if you also have free time and would like to do some hopefully mild editing to benefit the bodice ripper loving community, please contact me <3

My hope is to send the completed English version, once it isn't hot garbage anymore, to Nina Pennacchi so she can publish it and make some money off her English-speaking readership ;)

Also I will force all my friends to read it lol

Note: while I don't speak Italian and English isn't my native tongue, I am a professional translator. So if you agree to help me, you can expect me to be professional and to go through my manuscript several times to weed out spelling errors and incomplete sentences etc, so the bulk of the work will be done and your job will be to tell me which sentences sound off or which phrases would be better.

Edit: I have found an Italian Native Speaker who is also a fan of the book who is willing to help me with iffy parts that I don't quite understand <3

I think with an English Native Speaker as a beta reader on board this translation might actually go places.

I am happy to help out, please feel free to message me. Lemonade was fantastic and I'd love to read another by her.

I just wanna say that you and the others who are volunteering to complete this translation are amazing! Thank you so, so much. Wishing you all the best! I can't wait to read it when it's complete!

omg yay, we just need a beta reader and we could really make this happen! Thank you so much for taking the initiative, I wouldn't have known this masterpiece existed if it weren't for people wanting it translated!

Thank you, guys! The dream might just become a reality thanks to your help 🤩🤩🤩

OMG! Good news! I love Lemonade ! I have an italian copy of Captain Swing but I don't read in italian. I really appreciate your initiative!

I LOVE YOU FOR THIS!

UPDATE

Prologue is fixed. 46 Chapters to go. I will be in touch with Mark and Meg ;)

Thanks for the update!

wow! thanks for doing this

Just wondering about how this is coming along.

Kagama-the Literaturevixen wrote: "Just wondering about how this is coming along."

Uhmmmmm

Unfortunately I've been really busy with my IRL job :(

I don't have much time to read and even less to translate :(((

One of my main problems is of practical nature: I use Scrivener to copy edit, and it sucks. I tried Word too, and that sucked as well. Basically I have to manually go through every single sentence and clean everything up as I go. If I'm not careful, I accidentally delete a sentence or a paragraph.

I wish there was some way for me to *digitally* separate the text into single sentences which I could edit, one after the other. That would be so much easier. I haven't found a way to do that yet, which makes editing a slow, unsatisfying grind :/ I just keep staring at a wall of text.

I guess I could maybe make the work easier with a second screen, but I don't have one to spare.

Oh I quite understand how that can be. Also if you are a professional translator it would be like working in your free time.

I found Lemonade to have some occasional weird phrasing and I am.not a a native english speaker. Its surely hard.

Just got excited when I learnt someone was attempting an english translation.

Kagama-the Literaturevixen wrote: "Oh I quite understand how that can be. Also if you are a professional translator it would be like working in your free time.

I found Lemonade to have some occasional weird phrasing and I am.not a ..."

I might get back to it once I have more time, or if I find a solution that makes the editing easier on me.

Thank you, for taking the time to translate this book. I'm looking forward to reading it some day.

I guess I could maybe make the work easier with a second screen, but I don't have one to spare.

Is it possible to re-size the windows of the programs and have them both open side by side?

Ann wrote: "Thank you, for taking the time to translate this book. I'm looking forward to reading it some day.

I guess I could maybe make the work easier with a second screen, but I don't have one to spare.

..."

Possible - yes. I did that.

Practical, though? - Not on my tiny screen. The notebook I have has a tablet-like 11"-screen and that's a large part of what makes word and scrivener annoying and draining to use.

It's fine for the translations I do - which is chopped up sentence by sentence (I do not translate novels). But reading anything longer than half a page is a chore.

I want to buy a new PC in a few months, but even then I might just use my old notebook for a screen to save money.

Totally understandable, Caro.

Thank you for your help & support Mark!! Hopefully this project will see the light one day ~~

Pleaseee any update on your project :((((

Any update on your project? I literally hate myself for not knowing a lick of Italian *sobs onto the floor*

I’m still waiting for this 😭

This was a really cool idea but maybe it turned out to be more of a commitment than expected? Thanks for even making the attempt.

Hot Mess Sommelière ~ Caro wrote: "Thank you for your help & support Mark!! Hopefully this project will see the light one day ~~"

Hi, I was curious. Have you tried using chatGPT to translate. I've heard it is vastly better than google translate?

That’s a good idea I’ll try to translate with ChatGPT and if anyone is fluent enough in Italian can polish it more for us would be a huge service to us lesser mortals 🥲

I really hope this project succeeds!

Since I first saw this post, I drop by every year to check if there has been any progress made. Then I proceed to cry a little bit when I see the obstacles preventing this novel from being translated.

I also have the habit to just read the reviews under this novel and then become extremely jealous of all the people who have read it. That's how badly I want to read it.

I am working on this again


FAQ

"Have you tried using chatGPT to translate. I've heard it is vastly better than google translate?"

Yes it is vastly better. Google translate spits out the wildest sentences, and ChatGPT is better with coherent language, but it's still a ton of editing.

DeepL is even better than that, but outside of my budget.

Q "Please any progress? I want to read it!"

Even if I end up finishing the project in the near future (unlikely), I still have to give the end result to Nina for approval and publication. I do not condone pirating (I bought Capitan Swing legally before Google translate helped me turn it into an English atrocity) so the end result will not be posted here but hopefully published.

Q "Any plans after this?"

Yes I want to translate R Lee Smith's works. (But for real this time, not using a machine) into German

Hi… how the project going ?

I really obsessed with Nina work after Lemonade, the delivery was so d* good.

I know the translation is not an easy work, shall we go Crowdfunding on this project to make it come real ?

anyone ever have a direct contact with author before ?

Xoxo

Xiaomin wrote: "Hi… how the project going ?

I really obsessed with Nina work after Lemonade, the delivery was so d* good.

I know the translation is not an easy work, shall we go Crowdfunding on this project to ..."

Progressing a little bit every other day. Once I am happy with maybe the first 5 or so chapters, I would maybe be willing to hit Nina up and present my work. Before then, it's all just a big work in progress with no actual content to show.

More detailled answer on my progress:

ChatGPT is a much better translator than google translate which I used. The machine translation that I read was painful to read, the output from ChatGPT often isn't.

At the same time, ChatGPT is hard to work with because like a person lying on their CV, ChatGPT will tell you "yes girl I can translate the novel for you and even put it all in a docx, much love!!"

But that is a lie.

I am a pro translator and while ChatGPT is capable of translating segments of ~5000 words input when you copy paste everything, reading a document and translating it is completely beyond this AI.

Examples:

Translation of an entire chapter is impossible. ChatGPT will always output part I, II, and III usually.

"I can give you what I translated so far in PDF form XD" - a lie. This has proven to be completely beyond its capabilities and when a PDF is output, it will have only [Chapter Number] and the beginning of the first sentence, that's it.

GPT insisted that Chapter 27 is the final chapter in the novel and refused to translate the rest. (there are 49 chapters total). Convinving it that there was in fact, a chapter 28 was difficult. I had to copy paste parts of the chapter and tell it to reread the document I gave it and it kept saying "noooo ch 27 was the dramatic finale"

Right now I am therefore still not finished with just getting a document (which of course I am compiling myself) with the entirety of the script, in a first draft of the translation.

Talking to ChatGPT is a bit like talking to a toddler that has all the knowledge in the world but doesn't know how or when to use it.