Important feedback about italian translation

[Mazisky]

I did read a lot of dialogues and i must say they did a really good job, everything is professional.

 

My only complain is about location names: they should not be translated cause they feel weird and out of place.

 

It's ok to translate words like "village" or "stronghold" but it makes no sense to translate "Dyford" or specific location names.

 

"Guado di Dyr" (actual translation) feels fake, much better "Villaggio di Dyford", it sounds more natural

 

I hope they will consider this

Edited March 2, 2015 by Mazisky

[ryukenden]

Interesting that you bought this up. I always wonder about that, even I speak only english. But yeah, I total agree and I think there should be a option where names are just names, don't translate them. Skills and spells too.  Also tooltip can give you the description if you don't understand the name of a spell.  

[Mazisky]

I'm fine with spells, they can be easily translated without any loss, expecially if they're composed by simple words like "fireball" or "magic missile" and so on; they did a good job with them.

 

 

The problem is with specific names, like cities or people ones, they can't be translated like they did, it makes no sense.

 

For example, they translated literally the entire "Stormwall Gorge" with "Gola di muro tempesta" and it sounds really bad, they should translate only generic names and leave original proper noums.

 

So that the proper form would be  "Gola di Stormwall", only "Gorge" translated, cause it's a "geographic\environment word" like "Village" and it has a correct equivalent on other languages

Edited March 2, 2015 by Mazisky

[White Phoenix]

I have the same but with Polish translation. Specific location names are not in original, which sounds bad and unnatural (no Dyrwood or Dyrford). I haven't looked for other languages so much, but if there is the same thing, I think that translations aren't made by country distributor. I don't know how in Italian, but in my language names of places are often literally translated what sounds not so good I would like to. Stormwall Gorge is for example better without 'wall' translated in Polish (Storm Gorge). I looked once at German translation and I remember Dyrwood translated to Dyrwald (it is not so bad yet). But yeah, who had an idea to translate specific names? It always looks funny and idiotic at worst.

Edited March 2, 2015 by White Phoenix

[Sensuki]

I recall them mentioning something of the sort in the development meeting video but it sounded as if Obsidian wanted them to translate the names but they didn't want to? (I'm not sure).

Either way, if they translate the area names etc it is possible to edit the strings yourself.

Edited March 2, 2015 by Sensuki

[Mazisky]

Sensuki, how can i edit text files?

 

And another question, even if i find the string (for example "Dyford village") and change it, does it applies even on dialogues? (for example a guy talking about that place) 

[Sensuki]

I think so.

 

Look for the specific language folder in here

 

F:\Steam\steamapps\common\Pillars of Eternity - Public Beta\PillarsOfEternity_Data\data\localized

then the string tables are all in there, you can just open them in a text editor, search for the phrase you want to change, edit it, save it and then load the game.

[Mazisky]

Thank you mate.

[crius]

I'm fine with spells, they can be easily translated without any loss, expecially if they're composed by simple words like "fireball" or "magic missile" and so on; they did a good job with them.

 

 

The problem is with specific names, like cities or people ones, they can't be translated like they did, it makes no sense.

 

For example, they translated literally the entire "Stormwall Gorge" with "Gola di muro tempesta" and it sounds really bad, they should translate only generic names and leave original proper noums.

 

So that the proper form would be  "Gola di Stormwall", only "Gorge" translated, cause it's a "geographic\environment word" like "Village" and it has a correct equivalent on other languages

I absolutely agree with you. One of the first things taught me when I was studying english was that the proper name never translates.

Plus, in our case, it will make really much more difficult to discuss or find help in the community if the italian player will have completely different names.

Edited March 3, 2015 by crius

[DuskDweller78]

Translating people's names and location names is really idiotic, this is something that often happens in localized games (mostly fantasy games) and it's one (of the 1000s) reasons I never play games in my native language.

Eg. did you ever listen to someone talking about the city Liverpool in a foreign language and calling it: "Piscina di fegato" "piscina de higado" "piscine du foie" or whatever pool of liver translates in your language?

Edited March 3, 2015 by DuskDweller78

[Mazisky]

I must say that PoE translation is pretty decent in every aspect, so it's just on location names that it fails.

 

This evening (i'm at work now) i will try editing text files to see if area names can be easily addressed

[Bazy]

Translating people's names and location names is really idiotic, this is something that often happens in localized games (mostly fantasy games) and it's one (of the 1000s) reasons I never play games in my native language.

Eg. did you ever listen to someone talking about the city Liverpool in a foreign language and calling it: "Piscina di fegato" "piscina de higado" "piscine du foie" or whatever pool of liver translates in your language?

While translating proper nouns can be a bit odd it's also very common in the real world. 

[Dr. Hieronymous Alloy]

Heh, it's funny, in Tolkien's letters he talks about how he didn't want his translators translating any of the proper nouns  and place names either.

[Mazisky]

 

Translating people's names and location names is really idiotic, this is something that often happens in localized games (mostly fantasy games) and it's one (of the 1000s) reasons I never play games in my native language.

Eg. did you ever listen to someone talking about the city Liverpool in a foreign language and calling it: "Piscina di fegato" "piscina de higado" "piscine du foie" or whatever pool of liver translates in your language?

While translating proper nouns can be a bit odd it's also very common in the real world. 

 

 

This is not exact, at least, not at all

In real world city names are just little modified in a way to "feel" smoother for such languages ( examples: Roma=Rome; Munchen=Munich);

that's really different from a literal translation.

 

Nobody calls Los Angeles "The angels" or  Casablanca "Whitehouse"

 

That's why in my language i had still "Baldur's Gate" and "Candlekeep" and not "Cancello di Baldur" or "Roccacandela", that would've been odd

Edited March 4, 2015 by Mazisky

[SkySlam]

This is really a valid point and I hope they will consider making this easy fix before release: use the original names for towns and places, please!!

 

I'm from Italy too, and those names could potentially break my immersion during the game!