[1.0.2.0508] German Translation is a mess

[Kordanor]

Not sure if the beta forum is the right place, but apparently there isnt a bug forum for the release version yet.

 

I played the first part of the prologue now and have to say that the german translation is a mess.

 

Now there are some weird translations, like "25 haut Schaden".

I found several typos and spaces where no space should be or missing spaces.

"Hello! I am John."

could be:

"Hello!I am John."

or

"Hello! I am John ."

 

I also found texts, mostly in the interface, probably added by the release patch, which were not translated at all. Like "enchantment".

 

But while thats bad its not a game stopper. What is a game stopper are the weapon descriptions. and the paladin order descriptions.

 

Paladin Orders show the favorite alignment, but do not show the disfavored alignment.

 

Weapons do NOT show the weapon type.

 

Weapons have names which do not make any sense. Like a spear called "intellekt +2"

 

Now if I want to play the german version I constantly have to switch between German and English and back to German, to read the German text and get the english information.

 

I attached a screenshot. But seriously you just have to start the game and errors in the translation are all over the place.

[WintermuteX]

Yes the german translation is absolutely crap, I will play in english.

Obsidian isn't either aware how terrible and embarrassing the german translation is or if they just don't care how the german community will react ... well they will learn soon enough.

[graf wasili]

So, I'm definetly not one of theese "Hey I payed for this, you better make me comfortable or I burn down your studio" guys, but German translation really is all over the place. Many English expressions are simply translated word by word lacking any sense...

 

Yeah and missmatched strings, like weapon names displaying stat modifications, as mentioned by op. I'm glad my English is okay, but still.... 6 GB re-download and those people who dont know any English.

[Kordanor]

You don't need to redownload though. You can even change the language ingame without restarting it.

[graf wasili]

crap, 1.5 hours pillars time lost for tonight. thx, tough

[echolot]

So, I'm definetly not one of theese "Hey I payed for this, you better make me comfortable or I burn down your studio" guys, but German translation really is all over the place. Many English expressions are simply translated word by word lacking any sense...

 

Yeah and missmatched strings, like weapon names displaying stat modifications, as mentioned by op. I'm glad my English is okay, but still.... 6 GB re-download and those people who dont know any English.

IMO it's definitely not that bad. Overall the translation is ok, even above stadard overage. However what needs to be fixed asap is the wrong translation of some weapons. Otherwise corrections of German translation are not the highest priority.

[Kordanor]

It's definitely not above average. There are several translation errors I encounter each hour.

But yeah, as I mentioned before - what needs to be fixed asap is the messed up strings in some of the item names and descriptions, as well as the paladin descriptions.

[echolot]

It's definitely not above average. There are several translation errors I encounter each hour.

But yeah, as I mentioned before - what needs to be fixed asap is the messed up strings in some of the item names and descriptions, as well as the paladin descriptions.

Matter of opinion. IMO the translation is better than of many games released recently. Not saying that its a very good or a good translation, but above the average. Exatly this is confirmed by Gamestar testers. Just as example Wasteland 2 had a much worse translation when released.

 

As about strings of some items names, fully agree with you. This has to be fixed asap.

[Zwiebelchen]

I think the dialogues or anything that was translated by a real human being is decent. However, everything game-system related is an utter mess and looks like google-translate was in the works.

 

Also, the flavour texts are hit-or-miss. At least half of them have a faulty color coding or wrong quotation marks.

I made a post about this here:

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/72163-the-german-localization-is-a-mess/

 

 

Come on, germany is one of the biggest gaming markets in the world. This is just embarassing! Even BG: EE did a better job on their localization and this one was done by fans, not by paid translators.

Edited March 27, 2015 by Zwiebelchen

[Jansen]

Come on, germany is one of the biggest gaming markets in the world. This is just embarassing! Even BG: EE did a better job on their localization and this one was done by fans, not by paid translators.

We can all be happy that PoE ain't a text-based game, so all these slight errors can be ignored with an easy conscience. )

Edited March 27, 2015 by Jansen

[Kordanor]

Matter of opinion. IMO the translation is better than of many games released recently. Not saying that its a very good or a good translation, but above the average. Exatly this is confirmed by Gamestar testers. Just as example Wasteland 2 had a much worse translation when released.

 

As about strings of some items names, fully agree with you. This has to be fixed asap.

 

 

They can confirm what they want. A mess is a mess. And it shouldn't be hard to get a better translation than wasteland 2. Most of the games I played so far, had a better translation (or no one at all)

I just collected all the errors in manually translated texts of the last two hours. If it was a good translation I might have found one or two.

(I didn't mention the incorrect coloring every time)

 

 

[graf wasili]

I want to second Kordanor. Even if it were average for a game translation it's definetly not for text heavy games, which simply need a good translation to be enjoyable.

 

I mean, it's not about spellin or commata, even the grammar errors are not so bad (I got like 5 in the first hour)

 

It's

(1) about fixed expressions and colloquial language (had to look up this one....)

and

(2) about the whole language just feeling stiff, without live.

 

The translation is just too exact most of the time, llike translated by people who do manuals but not novels or rpgs..

 

So to give an example I will start the game, switch back to German and give you the first thing that makes my head hurt...

 

...and I don't have to look further than the first NPC I run into. It's Wirtan in the ruins of the Eloth temple.

 

He asks how the quest is going.

 

I say

 

"This place is overrun" - "Dieser Ort wird überrannt"

 

Kommt mir schon komisch vor, hat vielleicht was mit Zeitformen zu tun. Ich hätte vielleicht gesagt "Dieser Ort quillt über vor Monstern" oder sowas. Aber egal, nciht so schlimm.

 

Dann:

 

"Ich entdecke folgendes..." - "So I've discovered..."

 

Proper translation "Das hab ich bereits bemerkt...." Complete change of meaning! It's ****ing google translator!

 

This example is symptomatic. There's hardly any piece of text that doesn't feel strange. The most things, I can't nail down, since I'm no expert for language, but there's no dialouge without at least some expressions with mistakes I can clearly make out and explain what has been done wrong.

 

And that's the reason i wouldn't play it if I couldn't do it in English.

[Silvain]

I agree with graf wasili. 

The current translation would be okay for an MMO or something that does not rely heavily on dialogues and story. From a gameplay perspective the only really glaring issue would be the issues with the wrong names for weapons and other stuff. 

 

But a game like PoE needs more than that, and it has it... Just not in the German localisation. I really hope Obsidian is going to do something about it soon. It is rarely fun reading all the stuff. Kinda disappointing to be honest. 

[Xaratas]

Mehr Crossreferenzen:

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/71899-translation-errors-missing-translations-german

 

Zumindest für den größten Murks hilft der Austausch der Textdateien, gegen die 1:1 Übersetzung natürlich nicht.

http://www.nexusmods.com/pillarsofeternity/mods/6