Translation Tools

Which translation you get depends on the chapter and your tier, not a toggle you control freely, though you can retranslate a chapter or fetch its source text again if something looks wrong. This page covers when each tool applies, the daily limits, and how to leave feedback on a bad translation.

AI translation vs. Google Translate#

Whether you read an AI translation or a Google Translate version depends on the chapter and your tier, not a choice you make freely:

• $5 tier patrons and higher (and staff accounts) always get the AI translation, on every chapter.
• On a novel's first 50 chapters (translated for everyone), readers below that tier can toggle between the AI translation already produced for that chapter and a Google Translate version, translated live in your browser.
• On chapter 51 onward, reading the AI translation requires the $5 tier or higher. Everyone else reads a Google Translate version, run through the novel's glossary, instead, even on a chapter that already has an AI translation.

Google Translate runs in your own browser, sending that chapter's text to Google; see the note on How Translation Works for what that means for privacy and translation quality.

On-demand translation#

A novel's first 50 chapters translate automatically as soon as it's added. Chapters beyond 50 translate the first time a $5 tier patron opens them, typically within about 10 seconds, and you see a progress bar and status text while it happens. A background process is also steadily translating chapters across the whole site whether or not anyone opens them; see How Translation Works for how the two paths fit together.

Retranslating a chapter#

Select the retranslate icon in the chapter view to redo the whole chapter's translation. There's no confirmation step; it runs as soon as you select it, as a background job, and the text updates in place once it's done without losing your scroll position.

Retranslating a chapter requires the $5 tier or higher and counts against your daily retranslate limit.

Retranslating one paragraph#

Open a paragraph's menu (see The Reader) and choose Retranslate to redo just that paragraph, or an entire system-panel block as one unit. It requires the same $5 tier or higher and only works while you're reading the AI translation, not Google Translate. There's no confirmation step, and it draws from a separate, larger daily allowance than a full-chapter retranslate. Retranslating a chapter's title works the same way and shares this paragraph allowance.

Rescraping a chapter#

On the Original tab, select the rescrape icon to fetch the chapter's original text again from its source site, then retranslate from the new text. Use this when the original text looks wrong, cut off, or out of date. Rescraping requires the $5 tier or higher and shares the same daily limit as a full-chapter retranslate.

Daily limits by tier#

Chapter retranslate and rescrape draw from one shared daily counter. Paragraph retranslate (and title retranslate, which shares its allowance) draws from a separate, larger counter. Both counters scale up with tier, and neither is available below the $5 tier, including to logged-out readers. See Pricing and Limits for the exact numbers at each tier.

Readers below the $5 tier can't retranslate or rescrape at all. Their translation is Google Translate, which runs fresh in the browser each time rather than being stored and redone.

Your place is kept#

Retranslating a chapter or a paragraph updates the text where it is, so your scroll position doesn't move. Rescraping keeps you roughly in place too, though not exactly: fetching the source again can come back with a different number of paragraphs than before.

Translation feedback#

At the end of every chapter, under How was this translation?, you can vote thumbs up or thumbs down.

A thumbs-down opens a list of tags to describe the issue: Mistranslation, Grammar, Wrong Names, Formatting, Missing Text, or Other, all optional. The first time you vote thumbs-down on a chapter, it automatically files a report for moderator review; voting thumbs-down again on the same chapter doesn't file a second report.

Which tool to use#

• If a chapter reads oddly and you're eligible, retranslate the chapter.
• If only one paragraph or line is wrong, retranslate that paragraph instead, it's cheaper against your daily limit.
• If the original text itself looks broken, missing, or stale, rescrape before retranslating.
• Either way, leaving feedback helps even when you don't have a tool available to fix it yourself.