Spanish not equal Spain, the project spanish page is wrong for 350 millions of people

[Vaesark]

As far as I know it's only translated and not dubbed, text doesn't have any accent, the only difference is that you won't read common central/south American expressions like "che" "chingo", "weon", "pinche", etc

 

Also, one of the reasons why a lot of games are dubbed into Spanish "from Spain" is because of sales, the video-game industry sells more in Spain than in Italy for example and almost as much as in Germany, despite having less population. Very few companies would risk the investment of dubbing into any central/south American Spanish variant.

 

In the end it's all about the money.

 

If it's about the money, then these videogame would take the risk of dubbing in Mexico and South American market. The Mexico videogame market has been making billions of dollars every year from what I know as a video game developer, and it's still growing. Even Brazil (a country that speaks Portuguese) has one of the fastest growing videogame markets in the world, especially in Online gaming (League of Legends had to create a Brazil server because there were so many Brazilians on the North American server).

 

I don't know, it doesn't seem plausible that, if they would make more money in that market, they would willingly ignore it.

 

There should be another reason then? Any theories on why most game developers/publishers give priority to the Spanish market in detriment of the Latin American?

[AwesomeOcelot]

As far as I know it's only translated and not dubbed, text doesn't have any accent, the only difference is that you won't read common central/south American expressions like "che" "chingo", "weon", "pinche", etc

 

Also, one of the reasons why a lot of games are dubbed into Spanish "from Spain" is because of sales, the video-game industry sells more in Spain than in Italy for example and almost as much as in Germany, despite having less population. Very few companies would risk the investment of dubbing into any central/south American Spanish variant.

 

In the end it's all about the money.

 

If it's about the money, then these videogame would take the risk of dubbing in Mexico and South American market. The Mexico videogame market has been making billions of dollars every year from what I know as a video game developer, and it's still growing. Even Brazil (a country that speaks Portuguese) has one of the fastest growing videogame markets in the world, especially in Online gaming (League of Legends had to create a Brazil server because there were so many Brazilians on the North American server).

 

I don't know, it doesn't seem plausible that, if they would make more money in that market, they would willingly ignore it.

 

There should be another reason then? Any theories on why most game developers/publishers give priority to the Spanish market in detriment of the Latin American?

 

Notice the only named game is a free to play game, and that's a pattern I see when people talk about Brazilians and online games.

[Water Rabbit]

The simple answer for this is that English doesn't have the equivalent to Real Academia Española. I agree with the poster from Costa Rica. Clearly words are used differently in different dialects. However, in the formal, grammatically correct version of a language these differences are much less pronounced. As an American, I can understand the formal use of English from just about anywhere -- even India. You certainty would not want to see the bastard child of Latin Spanish and English as used on the US Border with Mexico as your translation base.

[Ausir]

Yeah, it's not really a translation issue, and I'm unsure whether the Spanish/Americas issue is a translation issue or like the American/British issue. It's pretty off putting for me to listen to a game like Dragon Age: Origins where some of the stuff looks Medieval but they're speaking with American accents. It's even worse with something like How to Train Your Dragon where they have Scottish accents (a bit strange for Vikings but then not that strange considering there were Vikings in Scotland) but the teenagers had American accents. Yet it's hard for me to argue they should do a different version of that movie, it's made in the United States.

 

Funny because modern American accents are actually closer to Medieval English in pronunciation than modern British accents.

 

Anyway, most of the text in Project Eternity will not be voiced, and most translations are likely to be just text translations, without dubbing. By the way, Spanish Wikipedia is doing fine without having separate Latin America and Spain Wikipedias.

Edited October 15, 2012 by Ausir

[AwesomeOcelot]

Yeah, it's not really a translation issue, and I'm unsure whether the Spanish/Americas issue is a translation issue or like the American/British issue. It's pretty off putting for me to listen to a game like Dragon Age: Origins where some of the stuff looks Medieval but they're speaking with American accents. It's even worse with something like How to Train Your Dragon where they have Scottish accents (a bit strange for Vikings but then not that strange considering there were Vikings in Scotland) but the teenagers had American accents. Yet it's hard for me to argue they should do a different version of that movie, it's made in the United States.

 

Funny because modern American accents are actually closer to Medieval English in pronunciation than modern British accents.

 

I doubt it. Modern American spelling is closer to medieval majority spelling.

[Ausir]

By the way, maybe this could actually be used to mark different ethnicities within the setting? E.g. have Aedyr characters use Spain Spanish and Vailian characters use Latin American Spanish?

 

I doubt it. Modern American spelling is closer to medieval majority spelling.

 

That too, but e.g. Medieval English was always rhotic, while r is silent in most British accents, same with the /æ/ sound being changed into /a:/ in many words in most British accents but retained as /æ/ in American ones (yeah, I'm a linguist).

Edited October 15, 2012 by Ausir

[AwesomeOcelot]

By the way, maybe this could actually be used to mark different ethnicities within the setting? E.g. have Aedyr characters use Spain Spanish and Vailian characters use Latin American Spanish?

 

I doubt it. Modern American spelling is closer to medieval majority spelling.

 

That too, but e.g. Medieval English was always rhotic, while r is silent in most British accents, same with the /æ/ sound being changed into /a:/ in many words in most British accents but retained as /æ/ in American ones (yeah, I'm a linguist).

 

That's some cherry picking, there are many things that have changed with both accents, and quite a bit of variation inside each as well. Also where would you even get the statistics for medieval accents to make this claim? Didn't many more people speak than write back then?

Edited October 15, 2012 by AwesomeOcelot

[Vaesark]

By the way, maybe this could actually be used to mark different ethnicities within the setting? E.g. have Aedyr characters use Spain Spanish and Vailian characters use Latin American Spanish?

That's an interesting concept, I remember that most Antivans (like Zevran) on "Dragon Age" speak with a strong Spanish accent, and even use some Spanish words.

[Ausir]

That's some cherry picking, there are many things that have changed with both accents, and quite a bit of variation inside each as well.

 

Sure, my point is, though, that it's not as if modern British English inherently fits medieval settings any more than modern American English. Both are, in most aspects, equally distant from it.

 

 

Anyway, I think having different varieties of Spanish used by different ethnicities in-universe in the Spanish translation would actually be a good compromise for the players from different countries. Maybe future translators of the game into Spanish should consider it.

[AwesomeOcelot]

That's some cherry picking, there are many things that have changed with both accents, and quite a bit of variation inside each as well.

 

Sure, my point is, though, that it's not as if modern British English inherently fits medieval settings any more than modern American English. Both are, in most aspects, equally distant from it.

 

To be fair, you rarely get representative modern British English in medieval settings, you get a hell of a lot more West Country pirates and farmers for instance.

[Ausir]

See the relevant TV Tropes:

 

http://tvtropes.org/.../TheQueensLatin

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/YeOldeButcheredeEnglishe

Edited October 15, 2012 by Ausir

[Jesugandalf]

Anyway, I think having different varieties of Spanish used by different ethnicities in-universe in the Spanish translation would actually be a good compromise for the players from different countries. Maybe future translators of the game into Spanish should consider it.

I'm telling you why this concept would not work most of the times: imagine two cultures, one brilliant, advanced, full of thinkers and warriors unmatched, while the other one of those cultures is less advanced, has less or low morality and is more reprobable in all the ways. Or, say, you've got elves and orcs. Which variety would you use for each civilization, Spanish from Spain or Spanish from, say, Chile?

[Squallido]

Hi guys,

 

I think you are wrong. This is not a discussion about the differences between European and American Spanish, that website is not professionally translated. I’m a linguist myself and I can tell you that the translation is not accurate neither for the europeans or the americans. It’s simply wrong. I asked the guys about this issue and they told me that they have a native Spanish speaker (not the same that a linguist) in their offices who did the translation and the proofreading of the text.

 

As I told them, I think it is good to had have that translation during the Kickstarter campaign to reach all possible audiences, but now it’s time to go professional and hire linguists to do that job.

 

Btw, the differences between the spanish versions are being somekind discussed in this thread: http://forums.obsidi...tion-why-spain/

Edited October 18, 2012 by Squallido

[Carlitus]

By the way, maybe this could actually be used to mark different ethnicities within the setting? E.g. have Aedyr characters use Spain Spanish and Vailian characters use Latin American Spanish?

 

...

 

It's a nice idea.

 

It reminds me Lord of the Rings (the books). I'm able to naturally understand 2 languages (i mean understand a language without thinking about translations); spanish and catalan. I first read the Tolkien's book in spanish.

 

Whitout knowing the original english version, i think the spanish version is appropiate. Many yers after, i read the books translated to catalan. This version uses the dialects to differentiate the Middle Earth people (south catalan to Gondor, western to Rohan, "academic catalan" to elves). At first, my feeling about the translation was negative. When i finished reading the books, i think it was one of the best experiences.

[Ruka]

Yeah American English to British English isn't really as hard to Mexican Spanish to Spain's Spanish. For English it's a matter of changing "or" to "our" and "er" to "re" in some cases. Also some words differ like chips/crisp/fries, telly/tv. Spanish is more about sentence structure/syntax correct?

[Carlitus]

Yeah American English to British English isn't really as hard to Mexican Spanish to Spain's Spanish. For English it's a matter of changing "or" to "our" and "er" to "re" in some cases. Also some words differ like chips/crisp/fries, telly/tv. Spanish is more about sentence structure/syntax correct?

 

Really, at least for me, is more about lexicon. I can perfectly understand any spanish speaker around the world. It really isn't that different as some people posted in that thread.

 

Some words are diferent, or have different meanings. For me, the most significative difference, is the use of "you" (in spainsh there's many words to represent it), and slang used. The structore/syntax changes when the use of "you" is different, but it can be understood perfectly. I think many people from Spain dislike latin spanish due to the use of "you".

 

The differences are higher in spoken spanish than written one. Listening a person, you can easily differenciate if it's from Mexico, Argentina, Spain or Cuba. Reading, except some words and the use of "you" there's no differences.

[Elthosian]

But wasn't the game supposed to have a wide range of slangs? I recall reading Sawyer saying that he was going to base one of them on medieval english, some others in modern and so on, so using only Spain's spanish would hurt the setting, but the same would happen if they used only our version of the language. Look at what happened with Little King's Story, it made a lot of references from a lot of cultures in the english version, while the spanish one only drew from Chiquito de la Calzada (a comedian from Spain), with DISASTROUS results.

 

In the end, the translation team WILL have to implement not only Spain's and Latin America's, but as many other dialects as needed to cover every style of talking Obsidian uses for the original english version, so... yeah, we should focus our efforts on ensuring they do so.

Edited October 18, 2012 by Elthosian

[cealicu_ca]

For my part, i really don't understand what's the whole "I WANTA MY TRANZLATION!" thing. I hate dubbed movies, i really HATE them. There are two (opposing) ways of translation:

a) the stupid way (kinda sorta like google translate)

b) the intelligent way (when you would much rather preserve the idea instead of the structure)

Seen as how a lot of times translations tend to be more of the "a)" part i prefer the original. Plus, most of the times (like for example jokes) might lose their meaning when translated (like jokes made using homonyms).

 

But really... i mean really. You do understand that there are even movies (not so good, but still) - comedies - that are based on the differences between, let's say, BrE, AuE, AmE and so on? How about Welsh or Scots coming in here and asking for a "localized" English translation? What about the Aussies? They really must be pissed...

 

Nevertheless, if i AM wrong, and the difference between "Latin" Spanish and "European" Spanish is really the bothersome, and OE agrees than by all means. But i will always be one of those that think that any translation is just a waste of cash. (and yes, i do understand the need to reach other markets as well).

 

On a final note: I see that you're reading, you're writing and most probably you can also speak English. Are you telling me that the game wouldn't have a lot more flavor in English rather than Spanish? So why do you even want a translation? Help me here... since you can post in this forum in >ENGLISH<.

 

P.S. I do hope i haven't offended anyone with this, but really, i do hate translations especially when i know the original language. And in this case, at least the OP, seems to be perfectly capable of playing PE in ENGLISH.

 

P.P.S. I am neither Britt nor Yank.

Edited October 18, 2012 by cealicu_ca

[Calmar]

Anyway, I think having different varieties of Spanish used by different ethnicities in-universe in the Spanish translation would actually be a good compromise for the players from different countries. Maybe future translators of the game into Spanish should consider it.

I'm telling you why this concept would not work most of the times: imagine two cultures, one brilliant, advanced, full of thinkers and warriors unmatched, while the other one of those cultures is less advanced, has less or low morality and is more reprobable in all the ways. Or, say, you've got elves and orcs. Which variety would you use for each civilization, Spanish from Spain or Spanish from, say, Chile?

 

I don't think it would be such a heavy issue. Dwarves with Scottish accents, or Barbarians with Eastern European accents (like Minsc from BG II) don't seem to be much of an offense to anyone.

Edited October 18, 2012 by Calmar

[Jesugandalf]

Anyway, I think having different varieties of Spanish used by different ethnicities in-universe in the Spanish translation would actually be a good compromise for the players from different countries. Maybe future translators of the game into Spanish should consider it.

I'm telling you why this concept would not work most of the times: imagine two cultures, one brilliant, advanced, full of thinkers and warriors unmatched, while the other one of those cultures is less advanced, has less or low morality and is more reprobable in all the ways. Or, say, you've got elves and orcs. Which variety would you use for each civilization, Spanish from Spain or Spanish from, say, Chile?

 

I don't think it would be such a heavy issue. Dwarves with Scottish accents, or Barbarians with Eastern European accents (like Minsc from BG II) don't seem to be much of an offense to anyone.

 

Believe me, I'm a translator myself and I know what I say. There have been lots of cases in which certain varieties of a language have been used to remark lowly origins of some people, or lowly professions, and they have been quite controversial among the people affected. Nobody likes his culture being associated with low or bad-mannered people.

[iceferret]

There is a marked difference between European and American Spanish. Not only in word usage, but sentence syntax and verb usage. (Argentina doesn't even or very rarely use perfect past, which is rampantly used in Spain).

 

My main concern though, having played a decent amount of games in Spanish is the quality of the translation, and the voice actors. I recently played NWN2 and the Spanish was so very sad. The actors clearly thought they were doing translation for a children's game and it was very jarring. I quite like the translation done for Skyrim, though opinions vary.

 

I have a similar thread going, and someone brought up a good point. Though the population of Latinos to Spaniards is almost 10 to 1. Piracy is so rampant in South/Central America to the point that it really limits the market.

 

Even worse... Argentina now has ludicrous importation embargoes on foreign products.

[ReyVagabond]

but the piracy also comes with, how much money it cost buy the product over how, how easy is to acces games, etc.

 

For example, for PC games, i mostly use Steam and some other download sites because its hard to find PC games in the stores the ones you find are Blizzard games. But lets say PS3 games, considering the shiping the taxes, etc a 60 bucks game cost avare 80, and with the exchange rates, the real value is around 10% of the salary of well payed office worker. plus how hard is to find the item you want.

now lets say you have acces to piracy dowload producs its tempting to not spend a dime on something you get for free!

 

here in latin america most gamers that buy games is because we suport the game, and developers.

[Goldry]

Just a note, in the Latin translation of Batman "the Joker" renamed "el Guason". In castilian this sounds ridiculous.

[Nonek]

Erm if I may ask what exactly is British English, as an Englishman from England i've never heard of it, is it perhaps a group terminology for dialects of English being used in the British Isles like Scots?

[cdx]

Nonek, yes, it's something like that. British English is what *you* speak (as an Englishman from England) for a person who is not native English speaker but is ok enough with it to notice differences between your speech and that of an American.

 

People whose first language is not English see UK and US speak British English and American English, rather than "English" and American English.

 

That's a tad too much of "English" for two sentences, sorry about that:)