better localization ... please

[JerekKruger]

It's not all bad, the Italian translation seems to get a lot of good press from Italian players.

 

Unfortunately, Obsidian are somewhat at the mercy of what translators are available to them. In many cases they won't have native speakers on their staff to read over the translations to see if they are any good; even if they do those people are unlikely to have the time to do so; and even if they did it's likely to cost additional money to have the translators make changes.

[Yellow Rabbit]

Edit: What's the name of Gilded Vale in russian?

Позолоченная Долина.

That's very literal. And gives really strong "Silicon Valley" vibe. And has a lot of potential flavorey counterparts along the lines of "Златой Дол" which are common to fantasy texts, don't know why they didn't roll with something like that.

 

BTW, I thought localization was dealt with mostly by Paradox last time around. Was it?

[Lord_Mord]

 

Unfortunately, Obsidian are somewhat at the mercy of what translators are available to them. In many cases they won't have native speakers on their staff to read over the translations to see if they are any good; even if they do those people are unlikely to have the time to do so; and even if they did it's likely to cost additional money to have the translators make changes.

 

And Black Isle were not? Apart from some minor weird things, the BG translations were totally OK. Everybody complained about it, I never understood why. And now... This is 50 times as bad and everybody plays it down.

[mumbogumshoe]

 

 

Look I agree that names translated to German don't sound ideal but unless you can come up with better ones you should understand that these are just the hazards of translation. Any translation of names will sound more or less bad, the only thing you often can do to avoid this is to make up completely new ones. Only then it isn't a translation anymore and others will complain about that. To your specific examples...

 

Dyrwald, ok I honestly don't see what you think is so wrong about that. Dyr is a made up word in English as well so they decided to just leave it and only translate the 'wood' part. It loses the connection to 'deer' but since it's supposed to be in a fantasy language anyway, that doesn't trouble me too much. What would you have liked better? Rehwald?

 

Goldtal doesn't sound ideal to me, but again, have a better idea that still might pass as a translation? Gilded would translate to vergoldet, so does Vergoldetes Tal sound better to you? Or maybe Güldental? Both seem much worse to me. Or is it the 'Tal' bit that you're objecting to? Well, a vale is type of valley, a wide one with a river running through. There is no directly equivalent word for that particular type in German. So what would you suggest? In any case there are several real world examples of "Goldtal", so why do you think it sounds so incredibly stupid?

 

Weißmark, this is just the most literal translation of White March possible and I don't see at all what's wrong with it. It is a Mark, or a march, a borderland, and if you think the white/weiß part is maybe a bit unoriginal, an argument that can be made imo, then it's still not the fault of the translators, who, you know, just translate it. edit: actually thinking about it again, "die Weiße Mark" would have been better than Weißmark, I feel. Anyway, that's a totally subjective judgement, there's nothing wrong with Weißmark.

 

In general I agree with you, translations, localizations almost never sound quite right but that's hardly, or not necessarily, the fault of the translators. That's just the obvious tension that something that sounds elegant in one language may sound quite clumsy in another but change it too much you're losing the original meaning. So there often has to be a compromise. Translators who can avoid that, convey the full meaning of the original while still making it sound good are few and far between, it's an art in itself. Only way out is to read, watch, play things in the original wherever possible.

 

"Die weiße Mark" would be better for example. But as I said: I wouldn't have translated it anyway. The language of the Dyrwood is very specific and it's partly fantasy. You just can't do it right without loosing something. Take Gilded Vale for example. It has that settler vibe to it (I even think it has a double meaning, like guilded). Somehow the name itself sounds a bit ironic. Goldtal, or any other translation with gold in it sounds like a name from a fairy tale or medieval high fantasy bull****. I expect to find elves there.

 

And I'm not talking about the names only. Or about the fact, that they didn't even bother trying to get the accents right. Almost every sentence sounded idiotic, out of context and straight from the translator.

 

How come that my stupid adventure books for children had better translations?

 

 

It seems you're insisting on a totally subjective aesthetic preference as something that's objectively better. You would just leave the names in English? Fine, I guess, but that would seem to be quite out of place to me if the rest is in German. About the connection you're making there with guilds (guilded isn't a word), I think it only exists in your head. There are no guilds in Gilded Vale, nothing that might point to guilds and any translation that hinted at such a connection would be a genuinely bad translation in my opinion because it would seem to just be based on a misunderstanding of the word 'gilded'. That said, I agreed that Goldtal isn't ideal because it does lose nuance in the translation as you can understand 'gilded' metaphorically as something that keeps up appearances, looks more beautiful and valuable than it really is. A really good translation would have kept that bit of nuance but I can't come up with a good one myself.

 

Can't say anything about the rest of the translation, I never played the game in German. I'd expect it to be bad though, because good translation is hard. As to why the translation in your childhood books was better, it wasn't. I read a lot of that too and the translations generally were atrocious. You don't notice it that much as a kid, though.

Edited February 23, 2017 by mumbogumshoe

[JerekKruger]

And Black Isle were not? Apart from some minor weird things, the BG translations were totally OK. Everybody complained about it, I never understood why. And now... This is 50 times as bad and everybody plays it down.

 

Well, things have changed in the past seventeen years. One thing is that translation work has dried up due to machine translations and cheap translations done by teams in places like China and India. It's quite possible that Black Isle had more options, and those options were better. I don't know for certain, I'm just guessing here, although what I say about translation work having dried up is true (my dad used to do translations of technical manuals as an extra source of income, but eventually the company he got his work from closed down for the very reasons stated about).

[Lord_Mord]

 

It seems you're insisting on a totally subjective aesthetic preference as something that's objectively better. You would just leave the names in English? Fine, I guess, but that would seem to be quite out of place to me if the rest is in German.

 

 

I dont know why you insist that it is all about the names. **** the names. I you thinnk Trutzburg is a good name... Maybe you have no taste, what do I know? That doesn't change the fact, that the translation of dialogues is bad. And that's no matter of taste. That's obvious. That is what I meant with the childrens books. They were translated way better. And i canÄt imagine, that a lot of money want into them. And why should it be out of place? Do you say Silicin Valley or Silikontal? Are names of places in western movies translated?

 

 

About the connection you're making there with guilds (guided isn't a word), I think it only exists in your head. There are no guilds in Gilded Vale, nothing that might point to guilds and any translation that hinted at such a connection would be a genuinely bad translation in my opinion because it would seem to just be based on a misunderstanding of the word 'gilded'.

 

As I said I think. Never claimed that tu be true. I looked it up: The word doesn't exist. What has that to do with the discussion?

 

 

That said, I agreed that Goldtal isn't ideal because it does lose nuance in the translation as you can understand 'gilded' metaphorically as something that keeps up appearances, looks more beautiful and valuable than it really is. A really good translation would have kept that bit of nuance but I can't couldn't come up with a good one myself.

 

So why try?

 

 

Can't say anything about the rest of the translation, I never played the game in German. I'd expect it to be bad though, because good translation is hard. As to why the translation in your childhood books was better, it wasn't. I read a lot of that too and the translations generally were atrocious. You don't notice it that much as a kid, though.

 

I still have them inside a shelf behind me. Ever read "Das Labyrinth des Todes" or "Der Sumpf der Skorpione"? They are no great work of literature, but there is nothing to complain about. If you compare it with the PoE translation, than german PoE not even failed to be as good as the english version, they even managed to make it worse than those books. Far worse.

 

Edit: There was that one book where you started in a caravan lead by a guy named Big Sun Jim or something. Pillars reminded me of that.

Edited February 23, 2017 by Lord_Mord

[mumbogumshoe]

I talked about the names because you brought them up as particularly bad examples of what you mean. I thought that they really weren't that bad, so I just pointed that out. I don't talk about the rest of the translation because I don't know it. It might be every bit as horrible as you say. 

 

Same thing about the bit with guilds and guilded. You brought it up, I tried to make sense of it, told you that I think it's wrong. Now you looked it up and you agree. That's fine. This is how discussions are supposed to go. I don't understand what you mean by "what has that to do with it"?

 

Also, what do you mean by "why try"? Stop being disingenuous. I never suggested people shouldn't try, I just pointed out that it's really quite hard and implied that one shouldn't assume that one could do a better job. Why don't you try to come up with a name for that town that both sounds good in your estimation and keeps the metaphorical nuance?

 

Lastly, I remember those adventure books. They were extremely simplistic. I also didn't feel that there was anything wrong with how they were translated when I was a kid but in terms of complexity, quality and the sheer amount of the writing, you really can't compare it to PoE. I don't think this makes a very good point.

Edited February 23, 2017 by mumbogumshoe

[Lord_Mord]

Some random examples (I'm playing at the moment):

 

 

 

Icanta: Und ich wette mein eigenes konserviertes Leben, dass es nicht Aldhelm oder sein bezaubender Assistent waren.

 

konserviert is meant to mean preserved, I think. I dont know for shure if preserved is the right word. Anyway that translation sounds more like canned, as in canned foot. Also I'm not shure if Alhelms charming assistent is a woman, but in Germany he's definitely a man.

 

The following examples come from ONE dialogue. The initial dialogue with Sagani:

 

Diese Kluft macht ja nicht schmeichelhaft, aber ich bin definitiv nicht er

 

That chasm does not make flattering, but I'm definitely not 'he'. I don't even know, what that's supposed to mean.

 

Also Saganis friend seems to have the habit of wearing other peoples skin.

 

Ich kann dich sagen

 

Grammatically wrong. Sounds like something a cliché turk comedian an television would say.
 

 

Solltest du aber weglaugen wollen, so erinnere dich, dass...

 

so erinnere dich. Sounds like something Goethe, not Sagani would say. Warte nur balde...

 

du nimmst den Geruch von Biestern war.

 

You smell beasts. The correct translation into German would be wild animals or something. The word beast in German means either a terrible monster or a very terrible woman.

 

There is so much more. I can't retranslate many of these sentences into English, because I can't make it clear, why they are strange in German. But they are. Almost every one.

 

Then there are a lot of real stupid translation and typing errors, like überlegt (thinked) instead of überlebt (survived), word repetitions (with a knife with walrus handle), crappy google translations (In Germany you don't say, that the fox stands at your heels), grammar errors (Lots and lots of them), clunky formulations and unintuitive use of conjugations. Oftentimes it's obvious that off all possible translations the word the first popped up on google was chosen. You can even test that, by typing that word into google and look at the first hit. Stealth is translated with Heimlichkeit, which means secrecy (And I don't even know if secrecy is the proper word to show you how wrong Heimlichkeit is). Now type stealth into Google Translator and see what happens. and guess what shows first, if you type in defiance.

 

All in all it's just plain bad. If you don't notice that, you're not very firm with your language or you just got used to that kind of crap.
 

Edited February 23, 2017 by Lord_Mord

[Lord_Mord]

 

I never suggested people shouldn't try, I just pointed out that it's really quite hard and implied that one shouldn't assume that one could do a better job. Why don't you try to come up with a name for that town that both sounds good in your estimation and keeps the metaphorical nuance?

 

I wouldn't try. It's impossible. That's what I meant with: Why try? "English" is fine here. This is a made up language consisting of english and fantasy. If Josh Saywer made up a slavic fantasy language you wouldn't translate it either.

 

stop being disingenuous

 

I wasn't. I'm just not good in talking english and making myself clear in general.

 

 

Lastly, I remember those adventure books. They were extremely simplistic. I also didn't feel that there was anything wrong with how they were translated when I was a kid but in terms of complexity, quality and the sheer amount of the writing, you really can't compare it to PoE. I don't think this makes a very good point.

 

If you read my above examples, you will know why it does. Yes they were simplistic, but the errors and bad translations in PoE have nothing to do with it's complexity. Besides: Just because of it's complexity, translation should get more attention than it does. This is not WoW.

 

If you find those books not a good example, let's take BG2 for an example. It was simpler than PoE, but complex enough and everybody here knows it. The translation was not perfect but still way way beyond what we have here. This clearly is ten steps back.

Edited February 23, 2017 by Lord_Mord

[Lord_Mord]

 

You don't notice it that much as a kid, though.

 

I still read them from time to time. And I'm used to real literature too. Oh, and if you wondered: I don't count Game of Thrones or Harry Potter as literatur. I don't even read it. As mumbogamshoe said: Those adventure books are simplistic. But most of the adventure books I owned as a child were not badly written. Just very simple. If you can't do it good, at least don't do it bad.

Edited February 23, 2017 by Lord_Mord

[Xaratas]

Ok, Lord_Mord, über 2 Seiten bringst du mich glatt zum verzweifeln, und ja, ich schreib das mit voller Absicht in Deutsch

 

1. Den Community Mod und dessen 50 Seitigen Thread hast du schon gesehen oder? http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/81258-translation-errors-missing-translations-german

2. Spielst du mit den Originaltexten? Ich hoffe doch nicht, dann wären dir viele der Grausamkeiten erspart geblieben.

3. Ich sehe du hast eine Hohe Wertschätzung gegenüber der Sprache, warum habe ich dich dann nicht regelmäßig im Thread gesehen?

Und ja, ich nehme auch jetzt noch Verbesserungen auf. Meinetwegen auch ein komplettes Neusetzen ganzer Sektionen.

 

 

And to answer on your initial questions (its also written somewhere in the linked 52 pages). The offcial translation team has not played the game, which is sad, and they have mostly translated the stuff literally, which is also not ideal. They got excel files which does not contain the proper structure of the conversation (as that is a bit complex with the branching). And they used most likely apples. The amount and kind of wrong words can only happen with the stupid apple autocorrect.

 

But let me add one thing. Did you find any error in the backer content stories? I have not, it almost look as if they got extra scrutiny.

 

 

For the examples

 

"This outfit may not be flattering, but I am definitely not 'him.'"

„Diese Kluft macht ja nicht schmeichelhaft, aber ich bin definitiv nicht ‚er‘.“

 

Ich kann dich sagen -> Fixed with the commit just now.

 

 

"Fine. But if you try to run, just remember that my arrows are faster."

„Gut. Solltest du aber weglaufen wollen, so erinnere dich, dass meine Pfeile schneller sind als du.“

changed to: „Gut. Solltest du aber weglaufen wollen – denk daran, dass meine Pfeile schneller sind.“

 

Typografische Anführungszeichen, nur echt mit dem Mod.

Edited February 24, 2017 by Xaratas

[injurai]

Obsidian should make a repository on github that holds translated text, that the communities can support. Fill in pull requests to fix typos or improve the translation. Maybe the could release a tool that will side-patch the text with the most recent version in the repo.

[Xaratas]

Obsidian should make a repository on github that holds translated text, that the communities can support. Fill in pull requests to fix typos or improve the translation. Maybe the could release a tool that will side-patch the text with the most recent version in the repo.

You mean like these? http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/83241-translations-mods/

[injurai]

 

Obsidian should make a repository on github that holds translated text, that the communities can support. Fill in pull requests to fix typos or improve the translation. Maybe the could release a tool that will side-patch the text with the most recent version in the repo.

You mean like these? http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/83241-translations-mods/

 

 

Ah, lovely. Glad this already exists.

[Lord_Mord]

 

Ich sehe du hast eine Hohe Wertschätzung gegenüber der Sprache, warum habe ich dich dann nicht regelmäßig im Thread gesehen?

 

Because I'm a grown up person and don't have time for this anymore. This is not just a phrase. I barely have time for the more important things in my life. And why should I? Translations with acceptable quality used to be the norm and I want companies to care for that again. The PoE team seems to care about language too, so I just wanted to point out the incredibly bad quality of the translations. Maybe if people here would stop to play those problems down, they would notice that this is a serious problem. Why should it be the task of the players to take care of that?

 

So why is everybody angry at me? All the time, people in this forum whine and complain about incredibly stupid things, like not being able to personalize this or that, like how boring certain things are but if somebody comes and tries to point out, that the most important part of the game – storytelling – is broken for many players he is treated like a whiny kid.

 

Edit: And yes, I play with the original texts. The days, when I crawled the internet for mods are also over. I just expect that if I buy a game, it will at least be readable.

Edited February 24, 2017 by Lord_Mord

[Heijoushin]

 

 

Ich sehe du hast eine Hohe Wertschätzung gegenüber der Sprache, warum habe ich dich dann nicht regelmäßig im Thread gesehen?

 

Because I'm a grown up person and don't have time for this anymore. This is not just a phrase. I barely have time for the more important things in my life. And why should I? Translations with acceptable quality used to be the norm and I want companies to care for that again. I just wanted to point out the incredibly bad quality of the translations. The PoE team seems to care about language too. Maybe if people here would stop to play those problems down, they would notice that this is a serious problem. Why should it be the task of the players to take care of that?

 

So why is everybody angry at me? All the time, people in this forum whine and complain about incredibly stupid things, like not being able to personalize this or that, like how boring certain things are but if somebody comes and tries to point out, that the most important part of the game – storytelling – is broken for many players he is treated like a whiny kid.

 

 

We're not angry with you Mordy, we love you! But we secretly suspect that you're viewing the translations of the games of your youth with nostalgia goggles

Edited February 24, 2017 by Heijoushin

[Lord_Mord]

 

But we secretly suspect that you're viewing the translations of the games of your youth with nostalgia goggles

 

Playing Baldurs Gate never made me think: "WTF is that supposed to mean?" or moaning in agony about some real cruel translation of a particular sentence. And I was always picky when it came to language.

Edited February 24, 2017 by Lord_Mord

[injurai]

Well, BG was also the hot thing back then. Now crpgs are a bit more niche, there budgets lessened. The frontier is elsewhere. Different standards, different budgets. A combination of a lot of things.

[Lord_Mord]

I'm currently reading through that 52 pages. That's a whole lot of great work. Maybe that could somehow used to build up the translation for PoE2? Of course it wouldn't help for story and dialogue, but at least the core system would make more sense from the beginning. I could imagine that Obsidian would tell the translation company to use your vocabulary... ?

[Xaratas]

I am not angry against you.

. The days, when I crawled the internet for mods are also over. I just expect that if I buy a game, it will at least be readable.

 

We made this because we only got this mediocre translation and wanted something readable. We asked Obsidian time and time again to include our corrections in the game updates for the benefit of all players, but this never happened. I hope this will get better. With our nexus mod we could help around 5k players, but reaching all would have been so much better.

 

 

@Lord_Mord Hopefully that 52 pages of history are not a huge dull waste of time. But yeah, we have some searches for specific words in there too. Also somewhere why the „Wächter“ is not a „Seher“.

[Madscientist]

my last comments about this:

 

- Yes, the official tranlation of PoE1 was terrible.

 

- Lord Mord, you say you have little time. Downloading and installing the mod takes less than 5 minutes. This is much less time than complaining all day long in the forums.

If you find any errors in the mod, report them in the thread and they will be fixed.

 

- PoE2 will have over 1.2 mio words (not sure where I have that number from, I might mistake it with TToN) and there will be some errors and players will find them. I hope obsidian will fix them this time.

 

- Several people reported errors in the english version for PoE1 and Tyranny. Did Obsidian fix at least this? I can understand if non of the obsidian staff speaks german very well, but they should know what they have written themselves.

[Aurelio]

@Lord_Mord: Wenn Du noch aktiv Poe spielst, würde ich den Mod installieren. Für weitere Verbesserungsvorschläge sind wir dankbar.

 

 

About translating names. It's always a matter of taste. Some prefer to have the "original" name, some like to have everything translated as close as possible, some like to have things translated so it sounds better even if you are not close to the original anymore.

 

The translated names were not really a big issue with translated version of Poe. Biggest issue are: lots of spelling and grammar errors, missing text and untranslated text, wrong translations and bad translations.

 

I doubt Poe translators played the game or had information about the context of the text . Good translations need good preparation. Also it seems there was no QA done on translations.

[Lord_Mord]

 

Hopefully that 52 pages of history are not a huge dull waste of time.

 

 Actually it's quite fun. And it is very reassuring, that indeed people noticed that it's not OK. I thought, apart from some item and stats names, noone would care.

 

 

Lord Mord, you say you have little time. Downloading and installing the mod takes less than 5 minutes. This is much less time than complaining all day long in the forums.

If you find any errors in the mod, report them in the thread and they will be fixed.

 

What I meant was: I have no time for doing translations. My problem with installing the mod is: I think this should not be neccessary. Obsidian could at least put your corrections into the official game. But I can't understand why translations were done wrong in the first place. It's a shame. This is what I'm complaining about. Maybe complaining is the wrong word. I want to see it done better for PoE2. But I think Obsidian either is not aware, how bad the problem is or they don't care, which would be very sad, because it would mean they quietly accept the crippling of their creation in other countries.

 

Edit: And as I said: Personally I play the game in English. But maybe in the future I'll switch to German from time to time and let you know, if I find something

Edited February 24, 2017 by Lord_Mord

[Lord_Mord]

 

Gut. Solltest du aber weglaufen wollen

 

Was hältst du von: Solltest du aber vorhaben, wegzulaufen

[teenparty]

In smaller countries, we played the games in English and learned a second language. 

 

Bah! No fun!