I must tell you what is a game breaker.

[Jourgensen]

Hello, my post is honest, I played a bit and the games seems fine, technically its perfect, 144hz totally smooth, high res backgrounds and all, seriously I feel very good for the game. Yup, from my 2 hours of gameplay I see nothing bad, it seems a very good game.

 

So now I want to be serious a little bit, sorry for my english, I'm french.

Believe me, the french translation is gruesome, terrible, I don't even have words for this, thats simply game breaking for me. It feels its been translated by google, its very hard to understand whats happening, its a pain to follow the stories. Its a game breaker because the game is so litteral, I feel I read a playable book, there is a rich background and everything, I appreciate that because I always thought thats the destiny of the rpg, to be the edge between the litterature and the video game... now you understand why a bad translation is a game breaker ?

 

I think the next time you should find some serious translators, thats not a proper work there, if feels like its a fan work, somebody who wanted to do something good, but didnt have enough literary culture or enough qualifications to understand what it is to translate a book.

The sentences are a pain, really, its painfull to read, its not incorrect or badly translated, its just its doesnt told like this in proper french. I could take many exemples I found during the game, yeah english may be hard to translate in a proper french, the sentences mut be adapted and not translated word for word.

 

I hope you have understood what ive written, thats a sincere post and I hope it will be better the next time. Actually I don't even know if I will continue the game, many will think its not that bad, but when its in almost every dialogs you don't understand the sentence without re-reading it 3 times, plus the rich background, all feels so obscure and written by a 20 yo student, its a game breaker because its not fun.

Edited March 27, 2015 by Jourgensen

[BruceVC]

Hello, my post is honest, I played a bit and the games seems fine, technically its perfect, 144hz totally smooth, high res backgrounds and all, seriously I feel very good for the game. Yup, from my 2 hours of gameplay I see nothing bad, it seems a very good game.

 

So now I want to be serious a little bit, sorry for my english, I'm french.

Believe me, the french translation is gruesome, terrible, I don't even have words for this, thats simply game breaking for me. It feels its been translated by google, its very hard to understand whats happening, its a pain to follow the stories. Its a game breaker because the game is so litteral, I feel I read a playable book, there is a rich background and everything, I appreciate that because I always thought thats the destiny of the rpg, to be the edge between the litterature and the video game... now you understand why a bad translation is a game breaker ?

 

I think the next time you should find some serious translators, thats not a proper work there, if feels like its a fan work, somebody who wanted to do something good, but didnt have enough literary culture or enough qualifications to understand what it is to translate a book.

The sentences are a pain, really, its painfull to read, its not incorrect or badly translated, its just its doesnt told like this in proper french. I could take many exemples I found during the game, yeah english may be hard to translate in a proper french, the sentences mut be adapted and not translated word for word.

 

I hope you have understood what ive written, thats a sincere post and I hope it will be better the next time. Actually I don't even know if I will continue the game, many will think its not that bad, but when its in almost every dialogs you don't understand the sentence without re-reading it 3 times, plus the rich background, all feels so obscure and written by a 20 yo student, its a game breaker because its not fun.

 

Your post seems very reasonable to me, if a game was translated to English and it was a really bad conversion it would also destroy the narrative for me in a RPG, and the story is a big part of the reason you play a game. So I understand your criticism

[floyd ryan]

Unfortunately, the german translation has similar issues. 

[Mansen]

It's an unfortunate but common occurence with any game that involves Paradox these days - The people they hire to do these translations are downright terrible.

[Gallenger]

I'm likely guessing here - but maybe it will make our non-English speaking comrades feel better - early on in the game a lot of the characters don't speak proper English either - and perhaps attempts were made to carry this over into other languages.  Or maybe it made the work of translation, within the spirit of the character itself, much more difficult. 

[Jourgensen]

I think it wont be a pain for a vast majority of players, but for the one who know litteratures, mature players who love the words, thats incorrect. You wont write like this during a french exam

This game should have challenging to translate, this is really like translating a novel but in a bit too much written like a video game, leading to a disapointing translation. This is the first time I play to a game this close to a book, I appreciate that, thats very interesting indeed, but sadly that doesnt work so simply.

I don't even if myself I would have done much better, I know theres a big challenge to translate, so if the studio hear that critic it will be good for the future.

 

 

edit : its an issue of a lot of games, texts and voices are often terrible, 90% of the players wont even notice it indeed ! But its not a game breaking since you don't have to read the game like a book. I don't know a lot of games where the dialogs are rightly written an rightly played, I can count then in my hands.. sometimes its terrible even if its a french studio...

Edited March 27, 2015 by Jourgensen

[Hugo Rune]

Hmm, I've been hearing the same thing about the German translation. Doesn't concern me, I wouldn't have wanted to play the game in German anyway but in the past I've been playing German localizations from time to time. You're right, they are often atrocious and can be so bad that an otherwise great game is completely destroyed because it's so distracting. They often seem to be done by high school students with just the barest grasp of either language. I really can't imagine why in videogames, an industry that has now been fully established for a long time and is in part eclipsing movies in terms of the money that is being made, translations are so often utterly unprofessional. If this is the case with PoE it's really a damn shame, even more so because the game is so text heavy. I fully understand anyone who is angry about it. It's disrespectful of the fans who don't speak English well enough to play the game in the original version and it feels like a rip-off.

Edited March 27, 2015 by Hugo Rune

[strangerism]

Unfortunately even then English text, specifically the Lore books and the soul reading from npc, feels like it is written from paid scholars rather than someone who writes as profession or interests. No nuances and style in the writing, just plain boring descriptive exposition. Totally disappointed. Seeing all the praise the game it has received so far, deserved in some aspects, but no criticism around this point, looks like gamers and journalists have forgotten about the pleasures of a good read.

[Jourgensen]

I don't think there is a disrespect, the translation is not worst than the average games, maybe we are all mature players and we notice the problem because the game is very literary, thats all. Im sure 90% of the players wont notice a single problem.

This game deserved the same translation as a novel, not a standard video-game translation.

Edited March 27, 2015 by Jourgensen

[Maxoxpower]

please give some example in french for me?

J'ai le jeux en francais aussi, je comprend la difficulté de lecture, moi-même je m'y perd.
Mais je pense que c'est dans l'utilisation des mots, j'ai pas encore vue de traduction "google"
mais il est vrai que certains mots traduits ne sont pas les bons ...mais je n'ai pas trouvé cela sii mauvais?

i don't think the translation is google trasnlate, it's the same leve of baldur'sgate or icewind dale if you never played it, i can understand but
i think the traduction is "correct" , not good, not bad. I still prefere english version, but i play french before going to the english one.
 

[Calaius]

I'm likely guessing here - but maybe it will make our non-English speaking comrades feel better - early on in the game a lot of the characters don't speak proper English either - and perhaps attempts were made to carry this over into other languages.  Or maybe it made the work of translation, within the spirit of the character itself, much more difficult. 

 

I don't believe that's the issue here. Many times you realize it's poor translation because it doesn't mean anything, but if you try to translate it backwards to english, you get it. As if they had translated "it's raining cats and dogs" word by word. In french you'd be like "uh ?", but then you get it.

 

I have to admit it breaks the awesome athmosphere of the game sometimes, although I wouldn't say it's a deal breaker for me. I certainly wish the translation was a little bit better, but it's not a total mess either, and I've been waiting 15 years for Baldu's Gate 3 so I'm grateful as sh*t.

[Zwiebelchen]

Actually, the german translation is pretty good in the written dialogues. It's everything else that is poorly, poorly translated.

 

 

Worst offenders: Item and talent descriptions, item names (sometimes, there's something totally unrelated displayed instead of the item name) and combat text.

 

I don't know how it is in the french localization, but it seems that it has different issues.

 

 

The problem with this is: I can live with some bad translated dialogues; but everything that is related to frequently used game mechanics should have proper translation. This is not the case.

[floyd ryan]

 

I'm likely guessing here - but maybe it will make our non-English speaking comrades feel better - early on in the game a lot of the characters don't speak proper English either - and perhaps attempts were made to carry this over into other languages.  Or maybe it made the work of translation, within the spirit of the character itself, much more difficult. 

 

I don't believe that's the issue here. Many times you realize it's poor translation because it doesn't mean anything, but if you try to translate it backwards to english, you get it. As if they had translated "it's raining cats and dogs" word by word. In french you'd be like "uh ?", but then you get it.

 

I have to admit it breaks the awesome athmosphere of the game sometimes, although I wouldn't say it's a deal breaker for me. I certainly wish the translation was a little bit better, but it's not a total mess either, and I've been waiting 15 years for Baldu's Gate 3 so I'm grateful as sh*t.

 

 

Hmm, if you are able to translate the text back to english, then there is no real point in playing the translated version in the fist place, right?

[Zwiebelchen]

 

Hmm, if you are able to translate the text back to english, then there is no real point in playing the translated version in the fist place, right?

 

 

That's why probably most germans and french already switched to english language again.

 

But seriously, this shouldn't be the solution in a text-heavy rpg, right? These localizations are embarrassing and it would have probably been better had they only shipped the game in english language.

 

If a feature of your game is bad, cut it!

Edited March 27, 2015 by Zwiebelchen

[Vardia]

Funny enough, Baldur's Gate 1 was the game that i last tried in German, since then never ever again.

Now its the same with everything, books, movies, games .. all in english only or not at all. Such a huge improvement overall that way.

[TheChris92]

Even if I'm not Polish, I can't say I like the Witcher's English voice acting -- a dull comparison I suppose, given voice acting is a different area than the writing, although they do compliment each other in terms of localization. I can definitely understand the feeling of having to deal with a badly converted localized product.

[LuccA]

That's how I learned most of my english. Playing BG with a dictionary by my side. With google translate is even better, you'll be fluent by the end of the game 

[Aotrs Commander]

Dammit, chaps, I think the people who speak Foreign are figuring out our cunning plan to make everyone learn English because we native English-speakers are mostly too lazy to learn more than one language!

 

Quick, look natural!

 

 

 

 

They ought to have gotten the people who translate Asterix from French into English to do it, since that's how you localise right.

[YoD]

That's how I learned most of my english. Playing BG with a dictionary by my side. With google translate is even better, you'll be fluent by the end of the game 

 

Yup, that's how I learnt most of my English too.

 

Only (minor) issue is your English then heavily features idioms such as "butt-kicking for goodness" which you do not want to use in an English exam.

Mine also includes stuff such as "Yub yub commander" which does not really help either.

[Zwiebelchen]

So... THAT's why everyone is upset when I'm calling them "queer fellow"?

[JFSOCC]

Never cared much for localisation, for many reasons, but the loss of meaning and impossible to translate idioms are part of it. then there is the fact that the Dutch cannot act, and that it's not as pretty a language as English.

[Bazy]

To be fair, I can barely understand what's going on in the english version...

[Amaunator]

Ive been playing for 1 hour in french and i have to say that it is correct for me, understandable.

As every other games translated in french.

 

But i have Dior glasses and i eat a lot of fromage, maybe thats why.

[Calaius]

 

 

I'm likely guessing here - but maybe it will make our non-English speaking comrades feel better - early on in the game a lot of the characters don't speak proper English either - and perhaps attempts were made to carry this over into other languages.  Or maybe it made the work of translation, within the spirit of the character itself, much more difficult. 

 

I don't believe that's the issue here. Many times you realize it's poor translation because it doesn't mean anything, but if you try to translate it backwards to english, you get it. As if they had translated "it's raining cats and dogs" word by word. In french you'd be like "uh ?", but then you get it.

 

I have to admit it breaks the awesome athmosphere of the game sometimes, although I wouldn't say it's a deal breaker for me. I certainly wish the translation was a little bit better, but it's not a total mess either, and I've been waiting 15 years for Baldur's Gate 3 so I'm grateful as sh*t.

 

 

Hmm, if you are able to translate the text back to english, then there is no real point in playing the translated version in the fist place, right?

 

 I could, and I often do. But when a game is so heavy on story, I'd rather not miss anything because it's not it my native language. Granted, given the average translation, I still do, but you see my point.

[Cowboy28]

As far as I can see it is possible to edit the files that can be found in

 

Steam\SteamApps\common\Pillars of Eternity\PillarsOfEternity_Data\data\localized

 

Maybe it´s a solution, when there will be no official localization improvements, but it surely will be a lot of work to search and edit the texts.

Edited March 27, 2015 by Cowboy28