Hello everyone, and welcome back! At the time I am writing this, we have less than 25,000 pageviews to go before we reach One Million!
So, let’s take another dive into the inner workings of ZNN, and introduce you all to the Translation Team!
The Translation Team searches the many social networks where artists upload their work- specifically those whose primary language is not English. They contact the artist, ask them for permission to translate their work, and then proceed to do so once permission has been granted. Afterwards, they check the English grammar, make sure it’s localized properly, and approve it for posting!
All character images were made by both Sendrax and Quirky-Middle-Child. Get the history of the Translation Team after the break!
The Translation Team started with a very different task in mind. Originally, the intention was to have people help me translate ZNN itself into other languages like Spanish, German, and Japanese. The first translator to join, who was (and still is) in charge of all Spanish material, was Other Andy.
Yes, ZNN has two Andy’s working for it. That’s why I called him Other Andy. So you don’t get confused.
After some time attempting this original venture of translating the site, we came to the realization that it just wasn’t going to work. I write too many posts per day to translate them all into different languages. On top of that, after searching the internet for ways to get Blogger to run a website in multiple languages, we kept coming up with the same answer: “Good F*$^*ng luck!”
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| (Actually, considering the fire nation was based on Japan that is technically true in this case) |
Zootopia was released in Asia, and it EXPLODED in popularity. All of a sudden, there was this HUGE community of unbelievably talented and prolific Chinese, Japanese, and Korean artists making some incredible comics. The English-speaking community was crying out for them, pleading for them!
And this is where the Translation Team came in.
The first members of the New Translation Team were Shadow9692 and N00bTankz
N00bTankz quicky found that he was better suited for Pre-Reading than he was for translation, but Shadow stuck around on the team. At that point we tried all sorts of insane things to translate these comics. For example, Pascal (who you’ll meet officially tomorrow) searched each kanji in the comics… in Wikipedia.
We needed more help.
Enter LMAbacus.
At the time, he was only on the Zootopia subreddit, where he would translate and edit comics by various Japanese artists. However, he had not been asking the original artist for permission to translate their work. In Asian culture, that is a big faux pas. You don’t alter somebody else’s work (even if it is a translation) without the permission of the original creator. You just don’t. And some of the comic artists, thinking he was already associated with ZNN, stopped giving us permission until he stopped translating without permission.
So, I took a gamble, and invited him to join the Translation Team. He accepted, and boy did that gamble pay off! He has been instrumental in both finding and translating a huge amount of the comics we feature on ZNN.
But, as amazing as his work is, he could only translate Japanese. And he could only do so much at a time. We needed more translators.
So we got some.
Introducing Miller Wong, MegaTred, ZootopiaComicsKr, Ryo, Toastee, and QNinjar!
Together, they make up the modern ZNN Translation Team! Their skills and talents give us access to comics in Korean, Chinese, Japanese, and more! And with more comics than I could check on my own, Shadow was given a new role: Master of Manga! His job is now making sure that all the comics are properly localized into English, and that they make sense grammatically.
And there you have it! Now you know the ZNN Translation Team! Join us tomorrow for the Best of the Rest, the people who are incredible at what they do, but don’t necessarily have a full team backing them up. See you then!
These drawings are adorable. You guys have an impressive array of language talent there! Makes me wish my German was actually up to snuff. Sadly far too basic for anything like this.
If only my French classes are really paying off XD
Oui, c'est ca. Je parle un peu de Francais, mais ce n'est pas tres bon. ^.^
Moi aussi. J'adore parler français, et je viens finir ma deuxième année.
Zootropolis et français. C'est très bien!
Holy pancake.
Just how many languages do you speak, Alan?
By the way. Now the translators are on deck, so I can ask. How's my Zootopia pnp going? *nicesmile*
Je suis français moi ^^
These turned out great!
Thank you all for all you do–I've been able to enjoy many a comic thanks to your hard work!
–CS
Omg… thankyou very much for doing this 🙂 .. you are my hero ^^
T-minus 20,907 pageviews.
I LOVE THESE POSTS!
>Two Andys? MIND BLOWN
>I loved Avatar the last airbender. Just seeing it made me smile.
>Finally, it's weird how staying on the Zootopia discord for a few days can get you to pretty much know everyone's name on the ZNN squad.
Thanks so much for this, Andy! Keep up the amazing work! I have no doubt we'll make it to 2 million page views.
Yeah! Two Andys, it's not confusing after knowing us. I've made some posts before but this is our first formal presentation. Glad you're enjoying ZNN!
Awesome to talk to you!
Geez, this site is so amazing.
I swear I check this site more than YouTube each day,
and I've been a pretty hardcore YouTube viewer for about 4 years.
I really have to say, it's great to know that the things we do are making people happy every day. I'm sure i speak for us all when i say this sort of thing is why we all keep working so hard on everything!
Geez, this community is just so positive.
A lot of people complain how the internet is the world of trolling and hate,
but I'm happy that at least here we can set aside our differences, and through the power of one movie, inspire generations worth of creative content to spill forth from the minds and souls of Zootopian fans.
Love these drawings. And I would translate for Spanish, but I'm not ready yet. Still on basic Spanish.
Hahah, this post brings back some old memories of translating with n00btankz. Been quite a while since him and I were the only translators.
I'm not as good as traslation as y wish but now I can show you my story
Ah, the good old times when I tried to translate a comic with wikipedia… Never again xD
Awesome post Andy :3
Yeah, when you told me about that… Oh god… I can't imagine the pain of that…
Wow such a huge Team ,who would have thought?
I love your work guys, if you ever need the help of a native German feel free to contact me.
(Why did this list me as unknown?)
And I'm sitting here waiting for the day some artist makes an Arabic zootopia comic so I can feel useful 😛
You know how I feel in the Spanish department. :/
Hey Andy, if you ever need French translations, I'm your man 😉
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I wish there are more Indonesian comics; that way, I can help out, too! 😉