How do you go about translating H-scene dialogue and narration? From the unnatural spoken narration (You're xxxing my yyy!) to the constrained grunts and even the large amount of onomatopoeias, it's just a nightmare. Any advice?
Honestly, a lot of different things go into it for me. Experience and observation, for one. If you take a bit of time to think about and pay attention to the sounds you and your partner make during sex, you can get a good feel for what sounds natural and real. A lot of English developed games tend to overlook the importance of sound effects, using descriptions like "moaning" and "gasping" instead of trying to grasp the sound itself. I think you can lose a lot in doing that, considering how arousing it can be to hear and imagine a sexy panting in detail--especially when you can add detail to its variations through the use of additional letters to show extended sighs, or long breaths in the middle of a quick pant. (IE, Hah, haah, hahh, haahhh, etc. all describe rather different breaths.)
It also gives you an idea of how dirty talk works between couples too. Granted, not every couple engages in dirty talk all the time. Some are too shy, embarrassed, or too engrossed to really keep dirty talk going. Yet it can still be quite arousing. Something you can actually try with a partner is to describe an entire scene about how you'd have sex with them, just whispered into their ear with a sultry voice and little more than a few hugs or caresses. If you two get excited from it, you've got the general idea down.
From there, it's just tweaking what's natural to fit porn and fit the scene. A lot of "unnatural" dialog in such scenes is filling that role of essentially dirty talking into the player's ear, describing the action so they can get turned on by it. To approach it as "no one would say this during sex" is to miss the point -- the scripts are written with the goal of getting readers turned on, and hearing a character pant and moan as they talks about how good they're having sex is a highly effective way to arouse most readers--just as it would likely arouse a real partner if you whispered how you were going to have sex with them long before the act.
In terms of onomatopoeia, probably the least complicated yet most intuitive strategy to honing them is gaining experiential knowledge through self-practice. You don't need a partner to stick a few fingers in your mouth and pretend to suck a dick or talk around one. I've actually read quite a few VA interviews where they talk about doing so themselves to try and master making some of the more common blowjob sounds. It's common enough that it comes up in the Koe de Oshigoto manga too. And it's a trick that works just as well for figuring out how to write sounds too, since you can get a feel for how it should sound.
The more academic path one can take is to research into phonemes, and try to understand the linguistics of how different vowels, consonants, and so forth can carry meanings all on their own, and then tweak the sound effects with that knowledge at hand.
It also gives you an idea of how dirty talk works between couples too. Granted, not every couple engages in dirty talk all the time. Some are too shy, embarrassed, or too engrossed to really keep dirty talk going. Yet it can still be quite arousing. Something you can actually try with a partner is to describe an entire scene about how you'd have sex with them, just whispered into their ear with a sultry voice and little more than a few hugs or caresses. If you two get excited from it, you've got the general idea down.
From there, it's just tweaking what's natural to fit porn and fit the scene. A lot of "unnatural" dialog in such scenes is filling that role of essentially dirty talking into the player's ear, describing the action so they can get turned on by it. To approach it as "no one would say this during sex" is to miss the point -- the scripts are written with the goal of getting readers turned on, and hearing a character pant and moan as they talks about how good they're having sex is a highly effective way to arouse most readers--just as it would likely arouse a real partner if you whispered how you were going to have sex with them long before the act.
In terms of onomatopoeia, probably the least complicated yet most intuitive strategy to honing them is gaining experiential knowledge through self-practice. You don't need a partner to stick a few fingers in your mouth and pretend to suck a dick or talk around one. I've actually read quite a few VA interviews where they talk about doing so themselves to try and master making some of the more common blowjob sounds. It's common enough that it comes up in the Koe de Oshigoto manga too. And it's a trick that works just as well for figuring out how to write sounds too, since you can get a feel for how it should sound.
The more academic path one can take is to research into phonemes, and try to understand the linguistics of how different vowels, consonants, and so forth can carry meanings all on their own, and then tweak the sound effects with that knowledge at hand.
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Rinzan
Фенрир Деймос
Teira Inaba