better localization ... please

[NegativeEdge]

i dunno about translations but seeing people shift from writing articulately in one language to another is the coolest goddam thing ever

[Varana]

"Kluft" isn't "chasm" here, it's a colloquialism for "clothing". May be regional. (I've heard it from various regions across Germany, though.)

 

Translating names: The question about those is - did they create a world with names that are supposed to sound English, or ones that are supposed to sound familiar?

The example is probably overused, but that's what Tolkien was getting at with his specific instructions that Hobbit (and other) names should be translated: They're "your language". For Tolkien, that happened to be English; in translations, that should be the respective language. Now, that works reasonably well for European languages; translating Baggins into Chinese, Yoruba or Arabic probably doesn't really evoke the same feeling of "home" because of the cultural differences. Between English and German, that's usually not an issue.

As for PoE, both views can be justified, I think.

 

Oh, and translations in the 90s: I switched to playing games in English because of Civilization II. God, that German translation was awful. And yes, worse than the examples you cited above, completely without Google Translate. :D

Edited February 24, 2017 by Varana

[compleCCity]

@ Xaratas: I remember that some German modder for Morrowind or Oblivion, with a large translation bugs fix mod, made it into the offical translation team for the game's sequel, so either Oblivion or Skyrim.

 

So, there may be chances …

[Madscientist]

@ Xaratas: I remember that some German modder for Morrowind or Oblivion, with a large translation bugs fix mod, made it into the offical translation team for the game's sequel, so either Oblivion or Skyrim.

 

So, there may be chances …

It was most likely not oblivion. I played in in german, and the translation was terrible. Lots of text was still in english (and this was the better part because the translated stuff was junk).

some examples:

- The minor healing potion was called "TrdschwH" (supposed to be the short version of "Trank der schwachen Heilung")

- The basic healing spell was called "fireball"

 

This and the terrible level scaling (epic battles with goblins after killing tons of demons) makes me think that oblivion is one of the worst RPG ever.

 

Maybe it was Skyrim. I finished the main story and lots of sidequests and I do not remember that the translation was very terrible.

[teenparty]

"Kluft" isn't "chasm" here, it's a colloquialism for "clothing". May be regional. (I've heard it from various regions across Germany, though.)

 

Translating names: The question about those is - did they create a world with names that are supposed to sound English, or ones that are supposed to sound familiar?

The example is probably overused, but that's what Tolkien was getting at with his specific instructions that Hobbit (and other) names should be translated: They're "your language". For Tolkien, that happened to be English; in translations, that should be the respective language. Now, that works reasonably well for European languages; translating Baggins into Chinese, Yoruba or Arabic probably doesn't really evoke the same feeling of "home" because of the cultural differences. Between English and German, that's usually not an issue.

As for PoE, both views can be justified, I think.

 

Oh, and translations in the 90s: I switched to playing games in English because of Civilization II. God, that German translation was awful. And yes, worse than the examples you cited above, completely without Google Translate. :D

That did not really work in my language. The hobbit names sounded really odd.

[hilfazer]

Hopefully Polish translation will be done by CD Projekt this time, not Cenega.

 

Cenega has translated 'lockpick' as 'lock picking'. For the whole game i was wondering how can i raise my lockpicking skill and haven't opened a number of chests because of that.

Sure, there's also my fault for not using my brain to its fullest and not trying to do something with lockpicks i had in my stash. But without Cenega's f**kup it just would not have happend at all.

 

Another problem was with Bloody Slaughter description. It led me to believe it always work, no matter how much HP target has. Obviously i've picked this feat with all of my dudes.

 

Or "Minor Ring of Protection" translated as "Small Ring of Protection" but that's a minor (pun intended) problem.

[Lord_Mord]

Just in case anyone is interested in the comparison: My wife played the game in Russian for a while now. She says it's way better. Not only that she now understands game mechanics, spells and abilities that she didn't understand before. She actually says the dialogues and texts are written very good compared to German.

 

The only minor complaint she has is that the accents and that kind of stuff were pretty much left out. For example Iselmyr talks the same way Aloth does, which is kind of confusing. Not that Russian wouldn't have the necessary tools to create an appropriate language for Iselmyr.

 

Edit: Maybe I should mention that as she came here as a child she speaks German far better then Russian. I think if someone is not able to understand in her primary language what a certain spell or ability does but is able to understand it in the language she normally only uses to talk about family things with her mother (her mother is not a necromancer as far as I know) there is something wrong.

Edited March 6, 2017 by Lord_Mord

[Pinsalinj]

Lord_Mord seems a bit lonely here so I'll add my two cents. I played the game in French at first. After, like, five minutes, I was APPALLED by the translation. I just couldn't understand what the character was trying to say. The sentences didn't make the slightest bit of sense sometimes.

 

It had nothing to do with "names that didn't sound as right as in English/didn't suit my personal taste", it had nothing to do with "The translations from my childhood were better" (I have played other translated games recently, and I didn't have this problem with them), it was not even a question of "They didn't get the feeling of this particular moment in the game right".

It was just horrendous, and didn't look like correct French language from any angle.

 

Let me quote TV Tropes here:

 

""Blind Idiot" Translation: Much ink has been spilled over the issue of the French translation of the game. There are multiples cases of sentences which are oddly translated and overly literal, prompting players to wonder if the translator gave up at some point and just Google translated parts of the script, not to mention that some texts aren't translated or are in another langage altogether (Italian◊, for example)."

 

So, that's just not my opinion.

 

Honestly, I don't even get how the translators had the nerve to give that to Obsidian, because no one in their right mind could call that a proper translation. Even Google translate would have done a better job at it in my opinion. I just fail to understand how that could happen.

 

I thought it was just a problem with the French translation but I just learned that's it the same in German, so it really, really makes me wonder what could possibly happen. It's not like there's a shortage of translators, pretty much the opposite from what I've heard.

[Heijoushin]

Just in case anyone is interested in the comparison: My wife played the game in Russian for a while now. She says it's way better. Not only that she now understands game mechanics, spells and abilities that she didn't understand before. She actually says the dialogues and texts are written very good compared to German.

 

The only minor complaint she has is that the accents and that kind of stuff were pretty much left out. For example Iselmyr talks the same way Aloth does, which is kind of confusing. Not that Russian wouldn't have the necessary tools to create an appropriate language for Iselmyr.

 

Edit: Maybe I should mention that as she came here as a child she speaks German far better then Russian. I think if someone is not able to understand in her primary language what a certain spell or ability does but is able to understand it in the language she normally only uses to talk about family things with her mother (her mother is not a necromancer as far as I know) there is something wrong.

 

Well, perhaps you were right after all. Perhaps the German translation was a bit sub-standard.

 

At this point, all I can say is: Please remember that bad translations have been providing good humour since 1989:

 

For Great Justice!!

Edited March 6, 2017 by Heijoushin

[Lord_Mord]

Well, Zero Wing isnt exactly what you would call a great piece of literature, so no harm done here. If it wasnt for the terrible translation no one would know this game anymore.

[JerekKruger]

So it sounds like Obsidian need to change their German and French translators, whilst keeping their Russian and Italian ones (I've heard several people specifically say the Italian localisation was very good).

[Aurelio]

I read that the german translation of Tyranny was better but I can not judge it because I do not own it.

 

@Lord_Mord

 

Maybe your wife can try our german translation mod. Would like to hear feedback.

[molotov.]

So it sounds like Obsidian need to change their German and French translators, whilst keeping their Russian and Italian ones (I've heard several people specifically say the Italian localisation was very good).

It might be because of their use of italian culture, The Vailian Republics already uses a lot of words in intalian so I think that the team was more well prepared for the job.

 

I can't give a solid opinion about this because it will be the FIRST time that a CRPG is translated to brazilian portuguese, but... maybe the team that Obsidian hired was a new team or it was their first job with RPG, that counts a LOT, 2 years ago I tried to translate a part of the manual of the engine PW-4168, it was a nightmare, but after 6 months, after having some classes about the combustion system, I had an easy time translating the whole chapter of the fuel system. 

[Xaratas]

Lord_Mord seems a bit lonely here so I'll add my two cents. I played the game in French at first. After, like, five minutes, I was APPALLED by the translation. I just couldn't understand what the character was trying to say. The sentences didn't make the slightest bit of sense sometimes.

 

You are not alone, the french have a patch too. It has not as many changes as the german one, but how would you even compare them?

https://github.com/r-e-d/poe-fr

[Khagmas]

I hope for full Russian localization ... Text and sound!

[BeatriceD]

The Spanish translation was perfect so I can't complain about that.

 

I just hope they don't follow the same route as InXile did with Torment and the localizations, they were AWFUL, really AWFUL because nothing made sense. 

[Regggler]

The more I read/think about localizations in general, the happier I become my English is good enough to play the original. Thank you, every English teacher I've ever had.

[Lord_Mord]

 

The more I read/think about localizations in general, the happier I become my English is good enough to play the original. Thank you, every English teacher I've ever had.

 

True. But if everybody would be satisfied with that solution, that would mean less high quality content in your language (wherever you are from).

 

The reality these days is: Most of the content comes from America. If you are educated you can play games / watch TV in english and if you care for the game/film, you will do so. If you are not, you'll have to live with translations that become worse and worse, so your own use of language becomes worse and worse. You'll not even notice.

Edited March 7, 2017 by Lord_Mord

[Regggler]

@Lord_Mord Less content in my language? Sure, that's true, but if everyone were fine with the original language, why would that be a problem? I feel that in principle, a work's original language always is to be preferred, and I'm simply thankful that I speak one foreign language well enough to be able to enjoy the originals.

 

Now for people who struggle with English (or just can't be bothered), I'm in favour of localizations of course, since this opens up the medium to a larger audience. I'm part of this group for every language on earth except two, after all. And crappy localization is a significant annoyance. However: Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, or in the ear of the listener in this case. What sounds crappy to one person may be fine for another.

Edited March 7, 2017 by Regggler

[Xaratas]

The Spanish translation was perfect so I can't complain about that.

 

It is? So someone did review this thread and fixed the stuff?

https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/72775-translation-errors-missing-translations-spanish/

Edited March 8, 2017 by Xaratas

[Lord_Mord]

 

Maybe your wife can try our german translation mod. Would like to hear feedback.

 

She played with the mod for a while now. She said that everything regarding stats, spells and game mechanics is very understandable now. She would compare the quality of the German mod with that of the Russian translation.

 

But the dialogue and lore stuff is still better in Russian. As far as I know she switched completely to Russian now.

[Lord_Mord]

 

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, or in the ear of the listener in this case. What sounds crappy to one person may be fine for another.

 

You are right with almost everything but not regarding that point.

 

It is the same with design: The question is not, if you like it. The question is: Does it fulfill it's purpose. If there are people that do not notice that it doesn't, that does not mean it does. It just means that those people are not able to judge it.

Edited March 9, 2017 by Lord_Mord

[Regggler]

The problem is that there is no hard measure of how certain expressions are received. While there are translations that are just non-negotiably wrong, what association or feeling a word may invoke cannot be measured. In this case, it very much depends on the receiver. That is what I mean by "beauty is in the eye of the beholder".

[Aurelio]

 

 

Maybe your wife can try our german translation mod. Would like to hear feedback.

 

She played with the mod for a while now. She said that everything regarding stats, spells and game mechanics is very understandable now. She would compare the quality of the German mod with that of the Russian translation.

 

But the dialogue and lore stuff is still better in Russian. As far as I know she switched completely to Russian now.

 

 

Ah, geat. Lore = Cyclopdia?

 

We fixed spelling, grammar and translation errors but did not spend that much time on rewording sentences.

[Lord_Mord]

True, but I noticed that people tend to ignore that a bad sentence is just plain bad. I'm not talking about feelings here. A sentence can for example:

 

- Not be appropriate for the person who speaks it. If you have an educated guy like Aloth and he suddenly sounds not that educated anymore, there's something wrong. Even if not all people will notice.

 

- Sound counterintuitive (Not the way you use language natively). Again, people may not notice. But that's just because they are not sensitive enough.

- Have a wrong rythm. I dont know how to put it. I'm no professional so I dont know the correct words, especially in english. Do you know that when sentences have a certain rythm in their original language and loose that in translation. You can avoid that by finding a new rythm fitting to the language you are translating in. I hope I managed to make myself clear.

 

- Sound translated in general. Every language has it's little particularities. You know some language uses a lot of nouns, another language doesn't. The way you separate sentences. If they are comma separated or split into several sentences. That can vary between languages.

 

And so on and so on, as Zizek would say. These are measurable things and have nothing to do with the beholder, no matter how many eyes it has.

I often argue with people that claim that a certain translation is OK in their eyes. They even defend it and claim that it is good and all comes down to taste. That's mostly not true.