Glossary

The words behind manga translation.

Short definitions of the terms you meet when translating manga, manhwa and webtoons, and how RuneManga handles each one.

Terms A to Z

  1. CleaningCleaning is removing the original text from a comic page before the translation is lettered in. It covers erasing the lettering inside speech bubbles and restoring the art, tone or color underneath, so that the page looks as if the text had never been there.Read
  2. FuriganaFurigana are small kana characters printed beside or above kanji to show how they are read. Manga for younger readers often puts furigana on every kanji, and other manga uses it for rare words, names and invented readings. For a manga translator, furigana is tiny text that can confuse OCR.Read
  3. HonorificsHonorifics are words added to names or used instead of them to show respect, closeness or rank, such as -san, -kun and senpai in Japanese or hyung and noona in Korean. They have no direct English equivalent, which makes them one of the classic problems in translating manga and manhwa.Read
  4. InpaintingInpainting is filling in a removed part of an image so that it matches what surrounds it. In manga translation it erases the original lettering and rebuilds the screentone and background underneath, instead of covering the bubble with a white box.Read
  5. Machine translationMachine translation is the automatic translation of text from one language into another by software, with no human translator involved. In a manga translator it is the step between reading the text and putting the translation back into the speech bubble.Read
  6. ManhuaManhua is the Chinese word for comics. It is written 漫画 or 漫畫 and uses the same characters as Japanese manga and Korean manhwa. Many current manhua are published online as full-color webcomics in a vertical-scroll format, though print manhua exists too.Read
  7. ManhwaManhwa is the Korean word for comics. It is written 만화 in Hangul and uses the same characters, 漫畫, as Japanese manga and Chinese manhua. Today most manhwa is published as webtoons: full-color comics in long vertical strips made for scrolling on a phone.Read
  8. OCR (optical character recognition)OCR, short for optical character recognition, is software that reads text from an image and turns it into characters a computer can edit and translate. In a manga translator it is the step that reads the lettering inside speech bubbles, before any translation happens.Read
  9. Raw manga (raws)Raws, or raw scans, are comic pages in their original language with no translation, such as Japanese manga or Korean manhwa exactly as published. Readers use the word for untranslated pages in general, whether they come from a bought e-book, a scanned volume or a capture of a site.Read
  10. Right-to-left readingRight-to-left reading is the direction Japanese manga is read in: pages turn from right to left, and panels and bubbles on each page are read from the top right to the bottom left. English editions often keep this order, while manhwa and most manhua read from left to right.Read
  11. Scanlation (fan translation)Scanlation, or fan translation, is a translation of a comic made by readers instead of the publisher, usually by volunteer groups who scan or capture the pages, translate the text and letter it back in. Most are shared without the rights holder's permission, so their legal standing varies.Read
  12. Sound effects (SFX)Sound effects, also called SFX or onomatopoeia, are the words in a comic that stand for sounds and sensations, such as a crash, footsteps or a heartbeat. In manga and manhwa they are usually drawn into the art in large, stylized lettering, not typed inside speech bubbles.Read
  13. Speech bubble detectionSpeech bubble detection finds the speech bubbles and text boxes on a comic page, usually with an image model that draws an outline around each one. A manga translator needs it to know where the dialogue is and how much space the translation has.Read
  14. TypesettingTypesetting is placing translated text into a page so that it is readable and looks natural: choosing a font and size, breaking lines to fit the bubble and centering the text. In manga translation it comes after the original lettering has been erased.Read
  15. Vertical text (tategaki)Vertical text, called tategaki in Japanese, is writing that runs from top to bottom in columns that are read from right to left. Most Japanese manga letters its dialogue this way, and older Chinese and some Korean comics do too, which is why bubbles in manga are often tall and narrow.Read
  16. WebtoonA webtoon is a digital comic made to be read by scrolling down, usually as one very long vertical strip per episode and often in full color. The format came from Korea and is also used by comics from other countries. Webtoon is also the name of a publishing platform.Read