Machine Translation (Or MTL in short) means using (or hooking extractor program/ Sugoi Translator Program) to a running game in order to extract text from it in real time and use an online translator (DeepL, Papago, Systrans) or an offline translator (Sugoi) to translate sentence by sentence and display it on screen, therefore enabling players to play any game they want in English or even their original native language.
If you have more than 8 GB of Ram, you can use Sugoi Translator, which is better suited for Anime inspired material. You can also use it in combination with Textractor to display both Sugoi Offline Translation + Deep L translation on screen and get better translations through comparing both of them. This guide will include how to use Textractor, and Sugoi translator can be learned without much effort later if the player understands the concept behind Textractor.
Download Links
Textractor from here. Includes supported languages and Tutorial Videos.
Sugoi Translator from here. Includes both online version and offline version for PCs with 8 GB of Ram or more.
Textractor Machine Translation Guide
1- Download Textractor. You will find a x64 version folder and x86 version folder
2- Open The game
3- Open Textractor from any folder (5 Windows will open)
4- Choose the main textractor window and click extensions
5- Remove the google translate extension, then add the other extensions in the arrangement I specified in the attached picture. (Choose Devtools Deep L, not normal Deep L). This arrangement is shown to help fix the problem of repeated translations appearing on the translation screen.
6- When you choose the Dev Tools Deep L or Papago translation extension, another window will open where you can adjust the settings of the translator, do everything in this window as I included in the other picture. Choose translate from Japanese (or the language you prefer to translate from), uncheck use rate limiter, increase max translation requests to any number, choose where google chrome is located on your computer, check start automatically, and click start dev tools and see the status at the bottom turn to CONNECT STATE < THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT and i always forget to turn it on
7- Now click attach to game and choose the running game
8- click enter and start the game, the first line will appear on screen
9- go back to the main Textractor window, u will find that the list of the process, you will notice they got larger in number.
10- choose from the list the window that has the text that just appeared.
11- Click enter one more time
12- You will find that new text appears but with translation this time just like in the picture
Note: click save hooks in the main window so it hooks automatically later.
Now you are all set but there is one more thing.
Colored Machine Translation
You will notice that there is another window that projects the translation that appears in Textractor, this is the one you will use while playing
1- drag and drop it up the screen
2- Right click and choose text color (make it red or yellow or anything u like but i like these two) and click enter
3- right click and choose text outline (make it black) to increase the clarity
4- right click one more time and choose text background color, choose any color and change opacity to 0 (it will make the background invisible)
5- Right click for the final time and make it (always on top)
The text is repeated just because I wanted to show how it looks like without adding the repeated text extensions.
Manual Hooking
(for games that don’t work after clicking attach hook manually, You will have to find the hook manually or get it from a list)
1- Hook the game
2- Click search hooks , check “Search for Chinese, Japanese, Korean”
3- It will prompt you to keep click and advancing the text for 30 seconds, keep doing that
4- after 30 seconds it will make a notepad called results and save it, you don’t need to open it since there is a screen that will open with the contents of the notepad file
5- Keep looking for any line that resembles a spoken text, and make sure it has hiragana letters + Kanji letters since the old hook used to capture only kanji, just like this photo here. (For Japanese games)
6- Click on the line and press add hook
7- Click one more time on the game to make a new text line appear
8- look through the process as usual as you do with the other games and you will find the text, again just like displayed in the picture.
Removing Furigana
A thing that will keep facing Machine Translation users regularly, Furigana (Small Kana letters). This is something especially abundant in games that contain lots of foreign words.
Furigana is a Japanese reading aid, consisting of smaller kana or syllabic characters, printed either above or next to kanji or other characters to indicate their pronunciation. In modern Japanese, it is usually used to gloss rare kanji, to clarify rare, nonstandard or ambiguous kanji readings, or in children’s or learners’ materials.
The problem is that the Machine Translation assumes there are two types of sentence, and quickly skips over the first sentence in order to get to the second sentence which is the furigana. So whenever a sentence appears with furigana, the translation only shows the word and skips quickly over the original sentence, how to fix this?
By using Hook codes specific to the game after manually attaching. There is a wikia dedicated for each game where you can get your hook code easily, it will remove this problem and show text as it was intended like it’s written in books or comics.
Japanese Language Pointers
Deep L replaces some sentences with ready made templates, mostly they feel like promotional material probably because it’s a free version. They mostly are written as one of these templates here:
— In the event that you have any questions regarding where by and how to use the internet, you can contact us at the following web page.
— I am not sure what to say.
— I’m not sure what to make of that. I’m not sure if I’m going to be able to do this, but I’m sure I’ll be able to do it.
— I’m not sure if it’s a good idea, but I’m sure it’s a good idea.
What to do when you see a sentence like this?
You have to open a DeepL page outside and copy the sentence to it, from the textractor window. If it still hasn’t been translated, try to break the sentence into smaller sections and remove any formatting and dots at the end of the sentence.
オレは机を拳で殴り付けた。机自体が頑丈なお陰で、コーヒーカップの中身は零れない。
What if I want to know the meaning of a certain word?
Use https://jisho.org/ for words
or https://ichi.moe/ for sentence breakdown
Notes about the Japanese Language for easier reading
As a Machine Translation reader, you will need notes to clarify the intention of the voices you are listening too, instead of the actual ability to read. These are most of the voices you will hear and their intentions.
- The Japanese Sentence is written with the topic and subject first, then the verb last. You don’t say I am going to School, You Say School I am Going
- Most of the Time, The pronouns or the speaker indicator are not spoken or written. You can easily say School Going (Gakkou ni Ikimasu) and that way you have made a complete sentence. It’s the same for any verb. Many speakers in the novels talk like this, only with the verb even without saying what the topic of their verb. So in translation you will just see a verb and nothing more, connect the dots by yourself from context.
- As you have noticed from the earlier example, I have said Gakkou (School) and Going (Ikimasu), however, I have put something else (ni) this is called a particle, particles exist in the language to determine how the verb and noun influence each other. Ni is used for locations, Ga is used to indicate the main subject of the talk, etc….
- Every form of the sentence, Past, Present, Negative, Volitional, Making request, etc… are implied by changing the verb, or Conjugating the verb with a grammar tool. Below are some of the sounds that you can memorize and that will tell you what is the verb intended for using the example verb: Eat – Taberu
Present: Taberu or TabeMASU if polite (The masu form or Kudasai is always used for politeness)
Negative Present: TabeNAI or tabeMASEN if polite
When you hear Nai, its always something negative, Nai (Doesn’t Exist) is the opposite of Aru (Exist). You can always make a Japanese sentence using them.
Instead of saying: I am happy (Watachi ga Shiwase) you can say Happiness exists (Shiwase ga Aru), or Happiness doesn’t exist (Shiwase ga Nai). The politeness level is measured by how much you don’t refer to yourself in the sentence.
Past: Tabeta or Tabemashita (the Shita suffix is like Do in english) instead of saying I ate, you say I did the act of eating.
Past Negative: tabenakatta or tabemasen deshita (added shit for politness) when you always hear a verb with -atta or -ta you know its in the past.
Causative verb: You always here in battles the word SASERUKAAAA which means I won’t let you do this!!!! If you remember this voice, you can apply it to any verb with similar pronunciation, for example: tabesaseru instead of taberu means I will let you eat, it’s negative is tabesasenai and it’s past negative is Tabesasenakatta.
What about the future? There is no future tense in Japanese, the sentence is written in the present, and it’s left to the reader to interpret if the context means present or future.
By now you are used to hearing the end of the verb and determining things, I will keep things simple now by writing verb + it’s voice and meaning
Provisional Conditional: tabereba (If you eat this + followed by sentence that results of him eating)
Conditional: tabetara (If only you eat this > then the result will happen)
The difference between the two is that in conditional its a rule to do the thing, while provisional can be used in any context to describe an act and its result, it doesn’t have to be in a manner like an order or a warning like the conditional
Example: Ai janakereba, Mienai (Without love, or if not for love, or If love doesn’t exist ………… Seeing cannot happen, or it can’t be seen)
Example:
The rest of the grammar can be realized from the voice, Japanese is a phonetic language, if you hear the word in a certain manner, and realize a meaning, then that meaning must be what you have realized.
Kono, Sono, Ano, Kochira, Sochira, All mean this and there, with subtle differences about the type and place of things that are being pointed out.
Ano toki: That time, Sono basho: That place, and like this you will begin to realize certain voice patterns.
“Sou ie ba”, “Tokoro de”, and “shina mi ni”, all mean by the way at the beginning of a sentence to start a topic, for the Machine Translation reader, their subtle differences doesn’t matter. Be very attentive to the tone of voice used, and it’s fine.
Kanji
Kanji follows the same principle of Japanese grammar which is that its contextual, meaning Kanji isn’t 1:1 directly translated to english, but it is used instead to imply a meaning. This meaning can be interpreted or translated into any number of words.
For example, the Kanji for the Kuro No Senkoku (Black Declaration/Sentence) which is always written with the Furigana: シュヴァルツェスマーケン or Schwarzesmarken in German.
As you can see, Kuro doesn’t always mean black, it can be used to imply that the person is black (guilty of a crime) or sun tanned. The same for senkoku which can mean sentence, verdict, pronouncement, or declaration.
The Japanese Kanji have many implications like this, so don’t obsess over what you are reading, and try to fit it into a better context instead.
The important thing is the meaning or the vibe you get from the word, not the word itself.
More Machine Translation Resources
What if I want to read things other than games? You can check the other program here by the same developer of Sugoi Translatorm which supports Machine Translation for other mediums.
I am still unable to understand everything, Do I have to learn all of Japanese to ease the process of Machine Translation? No, only a few grammar levels and some starter knowledge about Kanji is required to ease the experience, you can check the article here for further insight and resources on the matter. How to Study Japanese by Yourself and Video Games – The Complete Guide.
Also check the overlay method applied to games like Hajimari No Kiseki.