Thread:LuciaHunter/@comment-30025254-20160921012413/@comment-24187738-20160921031102

Hmm how long have you been studying? To be honest I get these requests quite often and I'm always not sure what to say. There's around six years worth of μ's content left untranslated on the Love Live! History page if you want to do that, anyone can give it a shot and upload their translations afterwards. Dengeki G's Magazine April 2013 and onwards, there's a series of Q&A by the μ's members that haven't really been touched yet, it's a good starting point.

The biggest problem here is I don't have the time to look through everything, nor am I a Japanese teacher. A lot of times people offer to translate things, they're usually people who have watched anime for a while, memorized hiragana and katakana, and maybe taken about a couple of weeks' worth of lessons. This is not enough. Brutally speaking, I wouldn't trust the translations of anyone with less than half a year (maybe even more) of lessons. It's a little harsh, but this is because I feel there is a very, very heavy weight and responsibility on translators to provide accurate translations. Other people who read it have no idea what the source text is saying, and are just going to accept your translation as it is. That's potentially disastrous if you have no clue what you're doing.

Just some points:
 * As a rule of thumb, 2D stuff (the characters) is usually easier to translate than the 3D stuff by the voice actresses.
 * Google Translate is mostly a good and convenient replacement for a dictionary but you'll need to resort to online dictionaries sooner or later. Jisho.org is a good one, many others out there.
 * On the same point, Google Translate does okay for elementary Japanese grammar, but screws up everything more advanced than that. If you see a sentence pattern/verb or noun conjugation you're unfamiliar with, do not trust Google Translate. Go study. Look up more textbooks and online guides until you find something that talks specifically that pattern.
 * Also on the same point, do not just write something and pray it's right if you have no clue what's going on. This is very unethical, and something that I see happen in this fandom way too often. Please find other people to assist you. You can try the Learn Japanese subreddit if you don't know anyone capable of doing that.
 * This will happen a lot more than you might think, and this isn't just because of lack of Japanese skills, but also context. Whether it's colloquial phrases, or lacking cultural context, there are a lot of things that do not carry over into English well. Solutions mostly include a lot of Googling, and asking someone more familiar with Japan.

Anyway. Thanks for offering to help and I do hope this doesn't kill your interest, we do need all the help we can get. It's just awfully pessimistic of me but yeah, sometimes people with unethical and lousy translations end up making more trouble than helping.