This article comes fromWeChat official account: Hedgehog Commune (ID: ciweigongshe), author: Jia Xuan, editor: Yang Jing, title figure from the visual China
Open the starting point international app. In the category of English works, the number one online novel on the female frequency best-selling list is “Hellbound With You” by Filipino author KazzenlX. She is 25 years old this year and is a professional teacher. She started writing online articles at Qidian International on January 4, 2019.
Picture Source丨Starting Point International Female Channel Bestseller List
The work that inspired this young Filipino’s passion for creation is a Chinese romance novel that has been translated into English-“May you shine brightly”. This is one of the masterpieces of the domestic romance web master “囧囧有妖”. During the serialization period of Yunqi Academy, the work has long ranked first in sales, with a total reader recommendation of over 4 million and a total subscription of over 260 million, making it the fifth place in the 2017 original list.
After landing on the starting point international, the English version of “May you shine brightly” ranks firmly in the Power Ranking(Overseas monthly ticket list) and Popular(popularity list) runner-up. At the same time, the work also authorized Vietnamese, Thai, TurkishThe text, traditional Chinese and other language versions are published electronically, and in 2018, the top five cultural enterprises in Vietnam are authorized to make film and television adaptations.
囧囧有囧you demon “May you shine so bright” English translation version
Picture source: Starting Point International APP
Yan Lin, the content operator of Reading’s African web-text application “Ficool”, told Hedgehog Commune: “Even in remote Africa, the data of this book is very good.”
Although the categories of content that users love most may differ in different regions, overall, love is an eternal theme for readers all over the world. In addition to the romance novels of 囧囧有妖, the TOP1 of the Africa list is also the romance “cookies” from China-“Sorry I got the heroine script”, the author is the great writer Baixiangmi of Yunqi Academy. Yan Lin said: This book is suitable for all ages, regardless of national boundaries, and can be called a “sacred book”.
Passion Honey “Sorry I took the heroine script” English translation
At the moment when Internet content is frequently blocked from going to the sea, the cultural soil that Internet literature slowly perfuses has not “hardened”, and it is still gradually blooming around the world.
Generate power for love
“Chinese online novels let American guys quit drug addiction”, this is probably one of the most out-of-the-box news in the online literature field in 2017.
American Kevin Kazad became a “addict” because of the pain of losing love, and was introduced by netizensShao accidentally entered the pit “Coiling Dragon”(“English version of Panlong) , the result is “completely sinking”. He did not eat or drink all day, and read five or six (“Panlong” in total), which is equivalent to Chinese one. More than a million words. In the next six months, he simultaneously followed up 15 Chinese web articles on different translation websites, and he successfully quit his drug addiction.
“Coiling Dragon (盘龙)”丨Source: Wuxia World
This incident spread to China. For the first time, it made local netizens realize that Chinese web texts have actually gone out of the country, and a website that specializes in Chinese web text translation-WuxiaWorld(Martial Arts World), entered the public eye.
Chinese-American Lai Jingping, screen name RWX(Ren My Line), is the founder of WuxiaWorld website. He was obsessed with martial arts movies and novels since he was a child. He used his business time to translate many works by writers such as Jin Yong and Gu Long for free for foreign netizens to read. But it is similar to the dilemma faced by Chinese classics in the “going out” of the past: the cultural differences between the East and the West are large, the translation problems are difficult to solve, and the production efficiency is low… so few people care about these translations.
It is the online novel that brought the turning point.
In 2014, Lai Jingping translated the fantasy novel “Panlong” by the author “I Eat Tomatoes”, a great Chinese author. This typical “shuangwen” quickly captured a large number of foreign readers. Lai Jingping immediately founded WuxiaWorld, a website dedicated to English translation of Chinese web texts, and then quit his job with the US Department of Foreign Affairs to run the website full-time. In 2017, WuxiaWorld has about 5 million daily visits and 300,000 to 500,000 unique users. It once became one of the most popular 2,000 websites in the United States.
“Panlong” does have the inherent advantages of overseas dissemination. This work belongs to the “Western fantasy” in the type of Chinese online literature. The naming of Westernized characters such as Lin Lei Baruch, and the use of the four typical western elements such as “earth, water, fire and wind” have allowed this work to break through the “psychological defense” of Western readers from the “shell”. And the story is essentially in line with the usual thinking of typical Chinese web articles: fast-paced, cool plot, easy to understand.
Lai Jing usually said: “The “Xiaobai” in the world is a family”. Young people in Europe and the United States, just like young people in China, hope to get a “cool feeling” from the novel. The story expression of the grassroots counterattack, and the value connotation with oriental characteristics such as giving up one’s life for meaning, aroused the strong interest of western readers. This more than 3 million-word “Panlong”, and even many subsequent martial arts, cultivating, and fantasy novels, successfully attracted a group of foreign “die loyal fans”, and opened a small hole in the European and American markets. .
The overwhelming reports surprised the public. Internet literature, which has not yet been fully recognized by the mainstream in China, has become the “sweet pastry” in the eyes of foreigners? This incident has “burdened” the national pride of Chinese people.
There are rumors that Americans go to Chinese second-hand bookstores to wholesale fantasy novels and bring them back to China for sale. Lai Jingping said: This is not very credible. “It hasn’t been translated yet, who should I sell it to?”
The main reason why “World of Martial Arts” has made a little achievement is that this is the first time that Westerners have been exposed to Chinese online novels through translation. In fact, compared with the influence of Japanese and Korean culture overseas, Chinese online novels are still a niche among the niche.
4000 daily changes
“The update speed of web articles is too slow, what should I do if I don’t see enough?”
Like domestic readers who urge daily updates, foreign readers still face this problem, and it is much more serious.
According to the “Report on Chinese Online Literature Going to the Sea in 2019” released by iResearch, the most important factor affecting the experience of overseas online literature users is the efficiency of online literature going overseas. Over 80% of users will take “stable update of works and diverse subject matter” as the first element of their choice of platform. The problem they often encounter is “the update of novels being updated is too slow and suddenly stops updating”, “no one wants to read the novel translation”.
Iresearch “Research Report on Chinese Internet Literature Going to the Sea in 2019”
In fact, the report shows that in 2017, the inventory of Chinese online literature works reached 16.467 million, while the total number of works on all overseas platforms was less than 500. There is a huge gap in the market.
“Most of them are stuck on translation,” said Tong Ye, the founder of Tweet Technology.
In the past, most of the methods adopted by the offshore platforms were manual translation. For example, Lai Jingping, the founder of Wuxia World, and many folk enthusiasts who love online literature, or small translation studios. However, the production capacity of manual translation is far from being able to meet the needs of foreign readers.
At the same time, manual translation has also increased the cost of going overseas. The contribution fees of web authors and professional translators are superimposed, which is unbearable for readers or enterprises. In the industry, the remuneration for translating online texts is basically 200 yuan and 1,000 words. Compared with simultaneous interpretation, finance, law, medical and other fields, this price cannot attract excellent translators.
Improving translation efficiency is imminent.
In 2017, Tong Ye worked in China’s largest daily newspaper “Reference News”. With the gradual application of machine translation and AI translation in the field of news, he began to think: Is there an opportunity to use AI translation in other industries?
The huge challenge of web-text translation turned out to be his way forward.
In November 2017, Tweet Technology was established. This is a technology company focused on the development of AI translation production and distribution systems. The first target to be overcome is online literature. Nine months later, the world’s first online literature artificial intelligence translation system was launched.
In terms of translation accuracy, the Tweet Technology team is quite confident in this system. They told the Hedgehog Commune: “With a perfect score of 100, professional translators can achieve 85 points. With our latest version of AI solutions in 2020, the translation quality can reach a stable 80 points.” At the same time, the team will not only be satisfied with the 80 points of AI translation. Before and after AI translation, there will be about 30% human intervention for professional refinement.
While ensuring quality, translation efficiency has also been improved. According to reports, “Tweet Technology”‘s AI translation system can automatically monitor, capture, translate and publish copyrighted Chinese novels, increasing the efficiency of the industry by 3,600 times and reducing the cost to 1%. This means that the translation of 1,000 words requires 1 hour of manual labor and only 1 second for AI; for the translation of 1 million words, professional translators need 200,000 yuan, and AI only needs less than 1,000 yuan.
The launching ceremony of China’s web-text joint overseas plan丨The seventh from the right is Tong Ye
Tong Ye said: “It only takes 48 hours from translation to final global release for a web post.” As of October 2020, more than 70 web text CP companies have settled in the web text built by Tweet Technology. On the open platform funstory, the number of tweets daily update English novels exceeded 4,000, and the daily update content ranked first in the industry. In Tong Ye’s eyes, this is the real realization of overseas real-time digital publishing of Chinese novels.
flowers outside the wall
There is a saying on the Internet: Chinese online literature, together with American Hollywood blockbusters, Japanese anime, and Korean idol dramas, are called “Four Wonders of World Culture”.
It is true that from the perspective of influence, China’s online literature is hard to compare with the other three. But in terms of content model, online literature is indeed a unique product of China. It was born in China and then spread this content model overseas.
If we say that Tweet Technology is committed to breaking the longest resistance, establishing a “pipeline” system for translation, and exporting the Internet resources that have been stored for 20 years in China to overseas on a large scale; then, in 2017 The starting point International, which was established in May, is willing to spend several years, intensively farming, and nurturing the “fertile soil” for the growth of online literature outside the wall.
“The first stage is to translate the familiar domestic Xianxia works to the sea, attracting diehard readers abroad. This part of Xianxia’s fantasy translation works opened the door for overseas readers to understand the mysterious power of the East and cultivated new Content consumption habits.” said Yan Lin, the content operator of “Ficool”, an African web-text app under China Reading.
“And in the second stage, some original authors will be born from overseas readers, some authors will imitate the framework of China’s overseas online articles, but some authors will create local characteristics based on local culture, history, and religion. Works. Locally featured works, in turn, help us understand users’ content preferences more comprehensively and increase content richness.” In Yan Lin’s view, it has now entered the second stage of online publishing.
This model is the “starting point”. In other words, this model is very “Chinese Net Text”.
The majority of domestic online writers are transformed from online readers. And overseas, there are also many readers who have developed a passion for creation because of reading Chinese online articles, and take the road of online writing. The transition from overseas readers to original authors is the natural demand of users who have writing ability when the overseas webwen APP develops to a certain scale. At the same time, the platform will also launch a corresponding author training mechanism, on the one hand to promote the increase of localized content, on the other hand, it also increases user stickiness.
Most of the local web writers also have the need to make money from writing. They may be limited by the underdeveloped local publishing business or the high publishing threshold, so they settle on the platform and earn income by writing web articles.
In this process, as a kind of content culture, Chinese online literature has a subtle influence.
The fantasy novel “Library of the Way of Heaven”, which the author of the book sweeps across the world, is a benchmark work of online literature going to sea in recent years. In the African web application “Ficool” under Reading, an African reader who has just finished reading “Library of Heaven” asked for recommendations of similar books from the readership.
A book request post of “Library of Heaven” African readers丨Photo courtesy of Yan Lin
With the “matching” of original novels and film and television IP, there are African readers asking everyone: Is the book “Full-time Master” better, or the TV series better?
African Readers Question Post丨Photo courtesy of Yan Lin
Some netizens have discovered that some domestic web articles with ethnic characteristics have begun to be used for reference by Korean, Japanese, and Southeast Asian authors. They clicked on a novel by a foreign author, from the protagonist’s name and setting to the story routine and background. , All “Chinese style”.
“There is indeed such a situation.” Yan Lin said, “Some overseas authors will use the protagonist as a Chinese name to attract readers, and even the book cover will choose Asian faces.”
This also shows from another aspect that, as a content model, foreign readers have established a certain depth of knowledge of Chinese online articles, and have produced a relatively universal favorability.
This culture has “rooted” outside the wall and is slowly growing. And the builders who go to the sea on the Internet are still exploring the way further.
Reference materials:
[1]. “May the “Tao” be with you, Chinese online literature breaks into the English world”. Southern Weekend. March 16, 2017< /p>
[2]. “How to translate Jindan, Yuanshen and Shenxian?” Online texts have entered the “3.0” era, listen to what the translators have to say”. Shangguan News. June 26, 2019
This article is fromWeChat public account: Hedgehog Commune (ID: ciweigongshe) Author: Jia Xuan, Editor: Yang Jing