How would I ask a Japanese person for a translation or correction that isn't 1:1 with my English example?


Let's say, on a site like lang-8, I present the following string, hoping for
native speakers to help me by correcting it.

あー、あなたかな？

And let's say in the "Native Language" section, I write this:

Oh, Who are you?

Now, a lot of the time, they will respond by writing a 1:1 translation of the
English, rather then correcting the Japanese.

If I'm trying to make, for example, a translation for a game; I may not want a
1:1 translation, but rather some equivalent, based on the Japanese I
presented.

You know, what could I add to my post to ask the native speaker to treat it
more like a localization, rather then a perfect 1:1 translation, respecting
what I originally wrote?

Sorry if this is a dumb request, but I'm a novice and am at a loss for what to
use to achieve this goal, thus I thought I'd ask here.

PS. Sorry if my examples fairly bad. The point is that English uses a lot of
set phrases, which Japanese people will often translate literally, which,
among other things, is what I want to ask them to avoid.




Here are some common expressions:

  * 逐語訳【ちくごやく】: word-by-word translation
  * 直訳【ちょくやく】: literal translation
  * 意訳【いやく】: free translation
  * 自然な訳: natural translation

The difference between 逐語訳 and 直訳 is not large, but the former may sometimes
refer to strictly 1:1 translation which can even be ungrammatical.

Taking "It's a piece of cake" for instance, its 直訳 would be 「それはケーキの一切れだ」 and
its 自然な訳 would be 「楽勝だよ」. In your case, you can say なるべく自然な日本語訳でお願いします or
something like that to request natural translations.

* * *

By the way, あなたかな means "Is that you?", not "Who are you?" Frankly, there
seems to be no way to "correct" this Japanese sentence so that it means "who
are you"...

