Translations

[Technatorium]

If they made it a stretch goal I'd really try to support for it even though I'm a native English speaker. I really think there is a big userbase in the East European/Asia area and having official translations at least helps. I really believe Obsidian could do it.

[evdk]

Nonsense, that's just a communist ploy!

 

Hah! You're being mean because evryone is laughing at Czech being just a version of Polish for children

Learn to brew a drinkable beer, then we'll talk.

Edited October 3, 2012 by evdk

[norolim]

OK. For fear that the mods might misunderstand and close this valued topic, this is the last one from me (I'll let you have the last word):

 

Learn to brew a drinkable beer, then we'll talk.

We will. Definitely before you learn to make movies that make sense.

[evdk]

OK. For fear that the mods might misunderstand and close this valued topic, this is the last one from me (I'll let you have the last word):

 

Learn to brew a drinkable beer, then we'll talk.

We will. Definitely before you learn to make movies that make sense.

I never understood that saying

[LostSenSS]

Update #15: PayPal, Polish and Russian support

One question: translate will be in kickstarter-version of game or only in local distributors version in Russia and Poland?

[melkathi]

Just a few short notes with my thoughts to whoever can be bothered to read them:

 

I just got my first paycheck for my translation work (woohoo! Money!). I only started this kind of thing recently and am not planning to make it a permanent career. There was a need that had to be met and there were only two of us available to do the job.

Someone said early on in the thread that translations are cheap. No they are not.

Usually transaltors are paid by word or line. This means that regardless how experienced they are and how deep they are in the subject matter, the rate you will be paying them at will be constant. There is no "This is easy so it will be cheap". Some blant description will cost just as much as the Gann's dialogue

Usually translators are specialised on subject matter. As this is a tanslation of fiction though, you cannot just hire a specialised translator who already knows all that you could be writing.

Translations aren't easy. And especialy fiction. You need to balance the original style with what works in the language you translate into. Some languages are very different from each other. So while the original had short sentences, giving a sense of haste and imediacy, it may be extremly hard to do the same in the target language.

And there always is the simple technical problem. I had read a comment from the guys at CD Project about the original Witcher game and the trouble they had with the english translation, something they managd to fix with the Enhanced Edition. If I remember correctly the problem was in part that to express certain ideas, which in languages like german would be easy, allowing for the "creation" of words by "adding" them together, would take long texts in english. Lengths of text the game just didn't allow for. Especially with cutscenes, there is only so much text that can be added. Just think of the silly effect of dubbed into englih old karate movies where the lips of actors move far longer than the speech we hear. I currently keep facing the problem that the german word in my translation may be twice as long as the english word - and I keep getting sentences send back with a note "Can you try to shorten this just a little bit so it can fit in the space we have?"

And a good translation needs constant correspondence between translator and writer, to ensure that the spirit, the style, the subtetlies of the original aren't lost.

Bad translation to some point result in the translators not knowing what the hell they are translating. I get emails saying "Can you quickly translate this sentence" or, even worse, "is the translation for this word this?" and I often have to reply "What's the context?" or "Well if the context is a) then this or b) then this..."

A good translation can reach a lot more potential customers. It can create goodwill among these customers who decide that this company cares about them.

But a bad translation can alienate them completly and drive them away. Champions Online had terrible localization like that. It reach "All You Base" lows.

So while I applaud the enthusiasm of everyone offering to help with translation into other languages, do make sure you know what you are getting yourself into. And be sure you can actually provide the quality that will make the project and your love for it justice.

 

As for anyone who thinks translations would be cheap or easy, as a gamer and someone who frequents the net, you shoul be aware of All Your Base and thus know exactly what that kind of quality that attitude ends up with.

 

 

edit:

related unrelated:

Quenya would be an interesting localisation for a high fantasy game

Edited October 4, 2012 by melkathi

[lordgizka]

Update #15: PayPal, Polish and Russian support

One question: translate will be in kickstarter-version of game or only in local distributors version in Russia and Poland?

The normal route is always to sell the license to another company and let them do the work. Russia is relatively unadapted to digital distribution, so Obsidian is likely to lose money otherwise.

[norolim]

wall of text

 

You might have missed the news, but Obsidian already decided on Polish and Russian translations. They will be done by distributors in Poland and Russia. Although Obsidian didn't mention any companies, we have reasons to believe that we know who they are and fear that quality will be an issue.

 

As far as length restrictions are concerned...nothing unusual, really. It's just a skill you need to have, if you want to do your job well. I wouldn't say it significantly effects translation efficiency.

Edited October 4, 2012 by norolim

[melkathi]

wall of text

 

You might have missed, but Obsidian already decided on Polish and Russian translations. They will be done by distributors in Poland and Russia. Although Obsidian didn't mention any companies, we have reasons to believe that we know who they are and fear that quality will be an issue.

 

As far as length restrictions are concerned...nothing unusual, really. It's just a skill you need to have, if you want to do your job well. I wouldn't say it significantly effects translation efficiency.

 

Yeah I saw that after posting.

 

As far as your comment on length, it is not unusual, that's why I mention it. And its sadly ignored by many. While yes, there is skill involved (for menus and buttons you will quickly have a working formula worked out) especially when it comes to ficiton and dialogues, there is a lot more involved beside just shortening something. It does affect results (I am not sure efficiency is the right word here).

But re-reading the example of the Witcher I mentioned, I suppose the biggest factor for them was cost.

 

Yes, there are terrible translators out there. I have seen greek subtitles in movies that had me spending the rest of the movie laughing at the translation (for example you have one cop congratulating another on a bust and the subtitles had "bust" translated as a sculpture ). I sure hope the russian and polish translations are better than that

Edited October 4, 2012 by melkathi

[jagttt]

Hi. I'm voting for Chinese translation. Additionally:

 

1. I think I'll buy the Steam version since Steam support Alipay which is widely available in China.

2. Torchlight2 has reached out for 3DM for translation. They're doing a lot of 3rd party translating for quite a long time and really did good quality translation. I think this might be helpful.

 

Otherwise if Chinese localization is supported I'll definitively buy it on steam release.

[ImRhoven]

Despite being Dutch I couldn't care less about a Dutch translation. The very few (mature) games that actually get a Dutch version had always completely dreadful translations done by people who knew absolutely nothing about the game in question which resulted in the wrong words being picked for words with more than one meaning and loads of context getting lost, humor completely missing the mark and other abominations. Not to mention the horrid voice acting (I'm looking at you specifically Black&White *shudder*).

 

I'll take the original English version, thanks.

[steward]

Hi. I'm voting for Chinese translation. Additionally:

 

1. I think I'll buy the Steam version since Steam support Alipay which is widely available in China.

2. Torchlight2 has reached out for 3DM for translation. They're doing a lot of 3rd party translating for quite a long time and really did good quality translation. I think this might be helpful.

 

Otherwise if Chinese localization is supported I'll definitively buy it on steam release.

 

I'm also voting for Chinese translation. However, I do not think 3DM is a good choice. For one thing, they are famous (or infamous) for providing pirated games and game cracks. For another, they have a very bad track record of releasing "day 1" translations and cracks in order to attract more traffic to their site, and these "day 1 translations" are usually machine translations that make no sense.

 

I love Obsidian and I want them to do well in China, and I hope everyone who likes their games can support them by buying legitimate copies. I just simply cannot connect 3DM with the word "official" or "legitimate".

 

GoG is also a good place for Chinese gamers to buy games. They accept Paypal and support DRM free games

[sczkler]

Hi. I'm voting for Chinese translation. Additionally:

 

1. I think I'll buy the Steam version since Steam support Alipay which is widely available in China.

2. Torchlight2 has reached out for 3DM for translation. They're doing a lot of 3rd party translating for quite a long time and really did good quality translation. I think this might be helpful.

 

Otherwise if Chinese localization is supported I'll definitively buy it on steam release.

 

convey XXX damage

传递XXX伤害

thats not good translation……

[GA_Frank]

Hi. I'm voting for Chinese translation. Additionally:

 

1. I think I'll buy the Steam version since Steam support Alipay which is widely available in China.

2. Torchlight2 has reached out for 3DM for translation. They're doing a lot of 3rd party translating for quite a long time and really did good quality translation. I think this might be helpful.

 

Otherwise if Chinese localization is supported I'll definitively buy it on steam release.

 

God. Please not 3DM... Please.

[norolim]

After this post from Obsidian on the Kickstarter page:

 

@Melhelix We will make sure that the people we team up with do a good job. And, we've heard a lot of things about 1C now that will make us really ask them a lot of questions and require a lot from them - if we were to work with them. Not saying that we are working with them.

 

it's almost certain that Cenega/1C are handling Polish and Russian translations. Oh man...now we're screwed. And we ourselves asked for it. I sincerely hope that at least the GOG version will be in English and untouched by Cenega/1C.

Edited October 5, 2012 by norolim

[gsalerno]

Are there any plans for the Italian translation ?

 

I've seen no announcements on 2,4 2,5 and 2,6 goals talking about any more translation.

[ZoroRoronoa87]

The Italian! Please give us Italian.

 

We want Italian!!!

[Lusankya]

After this post from Obsidian on the Kickstarter page:

 

@Melhelix We will make sure that the people we team up with do a good job. And, we've heard a lot of things about 1C now that will make us really ask them a lot of questions and require a lot from them - if we were to work with them. Not saying that we are working with them.

 

it's almost certain that Cenega/1C are handling Polish and Russian translations. Oh man...now we're screwed. And we ourselves asked for it. I sincerely hope that at least the GOG version will be in English and untouched by Cenega/1C.

What do you mean with "at least the GOG version"? In Steam you can easily change language settings.

[melkathi]

 

 

it's almost certain that Cenega/1C are handling Polish and Russian translations. Oh man...now we're screwed. And we ourselves asked for it. I sincerely hope that at least the GOG version will be in English and untouched by Cenega/1C.

 

You are the one with experience with them.

But for what it's worth, maybe this time around, with no publisher making decisions for Obsidian, perhaps communication with the translation team will be better and you get apositive surprise.

One can always hope, right?

[evdk]

After this post from Obsidian on the Kickstarter page:

 

@Melhelix We will make sure that the people we team up with do a good job. And, we've heard a lot of things about 1C now that will make us really ask them a lot of questions and require a lot from them - if we were to work with them. Not saying that we are working with them.

 

it's almost certain that Cenega/1C are handling Polish and Russian translations. Oh man...now we're screwed. And we ourselves asked for it. I sincerely hope that at least the GOG version will be in English and untouched by Cenega/1C.

Well GOG offers all the games primarily in English and their distribution deal with Obsidian would be independent of the one with the translator (probably), so you should at least be able to get the original version easily.

BTW This is monkey paw in action

[LordCrash]

Oin the comments section on kickstarter a few hours ago Feargus stated that they haven't chosen a distributor in Russia and Poland yet. And he stated that they noticed your doubts about C1/Denega and will be very strict in negotiations with any possible distributor when it comes to quality. So have some faith in Obsidian that they will not let your translations down....

Edited October 5, 2012 by LordCrash

[f5f9]

Poles of GOG hate the Italian

I hope that obsidian is not so

[gakmen]

Agreed with complaints about 1C-Softclub localizations in Russia. Unfortunately, they are the most developed publishers on Russian market, so Obsidian is going to pick them anyway, I suppose. In that case, I hope they will fulfill their promise to be really strict and demanding with publisher. And please, let them translate just text (no voiceovers, Subs for vids) and make sure there is a possibility to choose language on Steam. Thanks.

[norolim]

Oin the comments section on kickstarter a few hours ago Feargus stated that they haven't chosen a distributor in Russia and Poland yet. And he stated that they noticed your doubts about C1/Denega and will be very strict in negotiations with any possible distributor when it comes to quality. So have some faith in Obsidian that they will not let your translations down....

 

If this is the comment you are referring to:

 

@Melhelix We will make sure that the people we team up with do a good job. And, we've heard a lot of things about 1C now that will make us really ask them a lot of questions and require a lot from them - if we were to work with them. Not saying that we are working with them.

 

I don't realy see where "he stated that they haven't chosen a distributor in Russia and Poland yet".

[LordCrash]

Oin the comments section on kickstarter a few hours ago Feargus stated that they haven't chosen a distributor in Russia and Poland yet. And he stated that they noticed your doubts about C1/Denega and will be very strict in negotiations with any possible distributor when it comes to quality. So have some faith in Obsidian that they will not let your translations down....

 

If this is the comment you are referring to:

 

@Melhelix We will make sure that the people we team up with do a good job. And, we've heard a lot of things about 1C now that will make us really ask them a lot of questions and require a lot from them - if we were to work with them. Not saying that we are working with them.

 

I don't realy see where "he stated that they haven't chosen a distributor in Russia and Poland yet".

"if we were to work with them. Not saying that we are working with them" That's no confirmation for me but who knows....