Fanlation

noun, slang

noun, slang ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    Translation by fans. slang, uncountable

    "I liked his catch of the clever combination of "fan" and "Android" to describe staunch defenders of the Google operating system for smart phones. I especially liked it because I had just suggested that we use a new term for the kind of crowdsourced translation that the likes of Twitter and Facebook do when they engage hordes of enthused users to translate their products: fanlation. Though this may be not as clever as fandroids, it might still serve a very noble purpose: to separate professional translation from the eager-beaver fanlation efforts of passionate users."

  2. 2
    A translation made by a fan or fans. countable, slang

    "Some publishers have expurgated manga for the American market. But they run the risk of outraging fans, many of whom buy the books in the original Japanese and find fan translations online (known as “fanlations”) to make sure they’re getting their manga pure."

Example

More examples

"I liked his catch of the clever combination of "fan" and "Android" to describe staunch defenders of the Google operating system for smart phones. I especially liked it because I had just suggested that we use a new term for the kind of crowdsourced translation that the likes of Twitter and Facebook do when they engage hordes of enthused users to translate their products: fanlation. Though this may be not as clever as fandroids, it might still serve a very noble purpose: to separate professional translation from the eager-beaver fanlation efforts of passionate users."

Etymology

Blend of fan + translation.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.