@lcglassman said in Bookworm Part 1: Volume 3 Nigh Unreadable:

I purchase the books and click Read Now

I assume you meant you used a credit on the JNC site/app to get the ebook? if so the "read now" isn't accessing the epub file you paid for (the JNC site/app does NOT have an ePub reader)

you have to download the file from your library -then read it in the ePub app you use(if you downloaded one) if you have an iPhone the 'Books' will open the file, if you have an Android the 'Google Play Books' app is the default, if you have a windows or blackberry phone...get a new phone

if you purchased from bookwalker/kindle the files will open up in those respective apps

reading in JNC site/app will be 'raws' or prepublication versions -- will have errors that ere corrected prior to final release (they don't go back and fix errors in the pre-pubs)
reading anything on JNC site

I've actually found it harder to keep up lately because there's been so much posted that I was actually interested in the last couple months. So I can't see how the quantity has gone down...

@ran said in New epubs don't work on FBReader:

You might be using a really old version of FBReader as well -- the open source version that's in most (all?) repositories hasn't been updated since the developer took it closed source six years ago. :(

I really like foliate as a fully open source alternative, though the style is very different.

Indeed, it's a dated version of FBReader.

I've tried Foliate, and it works ok. I'm not completely a fan of it's style, but I suppose I'll have to manage.

@shiny said in Want to read fullmetal alchemist, please add:

The Fullmetal Alchemist manga is already licensed by VIZ Media. It can be purchased digitally via Amazon Kindle, Kobo and BOOK☆WALKER. VIZ have also announced that they will be publishing the FMA: A New Beginning light novel this autumn.

To add to this: VIZ is also putting out new prints of the previous 5 FMA novels.

A New Beginning - https://www.amazon.com/dp/1974725774
The Land of Sand: Second Edition - https://www.amazon.com/dp/1974725782

@kevin-s said in May we get light novel translations with honorifics:

and the fact that the right choice is sometimes (often?) to drop any "title" at all and account for the familiarity via voice and tone would undermine an auto-replace system from the start.

Yeah if the title is dropped, I think it kills most automated approaches.

But to reiterate, I think the age when J>E translators felt compelled to make a 1:1 correspondence between -san and Mr. (etc.) is dead, and good riddance to it.
That is interesting. I don't disagree with the point. I guess I just consume more subbed anime than light novels and assume too much of the awkward translation stuck. I do see how light novel have more freedom in translation to actually use tone/voice to convey the intent.

I think it's interesting that you recognize that the honorifics don't add anything in certain contexts. I would push you to see that, in terms of the English translation, they don't (or shouldn't) add much in any context.

Perhaps there was too much emphasize on the benefit of the honorifics. Sometimes the English version just feels wrong. Let me try to purge any anime from my mind and focus on just the limited novels I've sampled here... Things like "Brother dearest" break the flow for me. Honestly anything different name or name + title that differs from the anime (or whatever form I consumed the source from first) just feels off. I acknowledge this is completely subjective and comes down to personal taste.

Trying to take my arbitrary bias out of the matter, adding back in honorifics seemed like the most general solution. (It seemed to be a superset of the problem of name/term conversion) Clearly I was underestimating the diligence of the translators in their efforts to convey the similar meaning.

So it was less of honorifics are "correct" or "always better" but more of just what I am used to and would prefer to see.

I'll concede automatic honorifics don't seem to be generally practical at the moment because of how works are currently translated and there isn't a desire to change how things are translated.

I personally still feel like it still has some merit in many cases that are annoying to me (straight name/term changes for example), but doesn't look like this would have general appeal. Probably just build that functionality into my custom app/reader.

Would again like to thank everyone for their input.

@travis-butler said in May we get light novel translations with honorifics:

@bartzbb said in May we get light novel translations with honorifics:

I don't mind if the honorifics are removed as long as the setting is not based on Japanese culture.

If the setting is in a medieval fantasy then it's fine if they are removed but if in that medieval setting there is a country or culture that is based from Japan then I expect that the people there would use honorifics and it would only be exclusive to that place.

But if the story uses a Japanese setting I would prefer to keep the honorifics as is. Even if the setting also has some sci-fi and supernatural elements.

To me, it's all about how smoothly it reads; I don't really care about Japan vs non-Japan setting. If an honorific can be replaced smoothly, I don't mind, no matter where it's set; if it's expressing a distinction that requires awkward phrasing to reproduce, then I don't like it being translated.

I expect the latter case would be more common in Japanese settings, but some of the worst translation hiccups I've encountered have been in fantasy settings.

Is your objection here that you don't like seeing translation-ese replacements for difficult-to-translate honorifics? If so, I have an alternative suggestion to propose: skip over difficult-to-translate honorifics.

By analogy to another "difficult" case: Japanese has a lot of first person pronouns - watashi, watakushi, atashi, wasshi, boku, ore, to list some of the more common ones. Which one a character refers to themselves by is part of that character's voice and how they're presented to the audience. English isn't equipped to properly translate these words as words. Most translations I've read either omit the meaning communicated by a character's voice and choice of first person pronoun or move it to prose outside the dialogue. I believe something similar could be done with difficult honorifics.

This was just addressed a couple days ago https://forums.j-novel.club/topic/4385/demon-lord-retry-volume-7

@jon-mitchell Exactly.

At most, in terms.of improvements, JNC could implement some sort of automatic notification to followers or a post in the forum.

Something like an explanation would only be necessary with chronic delays or long term delays. Even then... we should expect more information than necessary.

As this is regarding feedback for the new website, it would better to post in the new website feedback topic, that will ensure everything stays in one place, and is seen.

I didn't know this was specific to only the new website. Also, the only item that applies to the website is #2: the navigation note. The other items regard the logistics involved, so it would apply to the whole company.

Update: as of now all ebook downloads will update a last downloaded date in the database, which is also available in the response data when set

@chocolatkey I have been using the RSS feed but I wanted to stay out of specific technologies. The new calendar / schedule is very nice and I'd be almost completely satisfied with just another filter option to show only "end" parts. Only additional feature RSS feed gives me is the ability to hide/mark the volume once I've read it, which I can easily do without.

@revenent Thank you for reporting this, it is a known bug that will be fixed shortly

For now it new volumes will appear on series pages when they launch. The future volumes feature has been disabled.

If people wish to comment on that they should post in the new site feedback topic.

Galaxy S10 in vertical, I just feel like when I tried tapping more than somewhat off center the page moved instead of bringing up the interface, but if the columns are all 1/3 rather than something like 1/4-1/2-1/4 I could see why it would seem like that.

I'm not really bothered by it, I don't think I'd ever be using the reader on my phone in the first place if I wasn't trying to troubleshoot something.