better localization ... please

[Lord_Mord]

 

Lore = Cyclopdia?

 

Cyclopedia, Item Descriptions, Magnifying glass descriptions. That kind of stuff. Everything that gives the game flavor.

 

 

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

 

No wonder. I think fixing the whole thing is impossible for modders. That is why I started this thread. It should be done right in the first place. PoE2 is a new start. We should demand that this time translation is done by professionals.

Edited March 9, 2017 by Lord_Mord

[Regggler]

These are measurable things and have nothing to do with the beholder, no matter how many eyes it has.

 

Bonus points for the beholder joke

 

I'm not sure we use the word "measurable" in the same way. For me, it means that you can assign something a value, deterministically, without possibility of interpretation, and without ambiguity. By this definition, none of your examples are measurable. How would you rigorously measure how educated someone sounds? Or how "translated" something sounds? If it were possible to measure that, then near-perfect automatic translation would actually be feasible.

 

Don't get me wrong, though, I wholeheartedly agree that shortcomings in those categories are very, very noticeable. They are very good examples of what a translation should strive to avoid in my opinion. I get the rhythm thing, and it especially screws with my immersion if NPCs suddenly "switch personalities" due to translation issues.

[Aurelio]

 

- 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.

 

Do you have an example? Or game area where that happend?

[Lord_Mord]

 

How would you rigorously measure how educated someone sounds?

 

For example if he uses a foreign word or fold expression the wrong way. You might not notice if you're not familiar with what he said, but it is measurable wrong. Sometimes i get the impression that the translators themselves are not familiar with it. More examples (Pillars related ones, if I can find something good) later, I dont have time at the moment.

Edited March 10, 2017 by Lord_Mord

[Marsi84]

I wonder if translation teams/agencies have already been confirmed and if they're the same from PoE I.

[Aleh1811]

I think the perpetual problem of localization is that fantasy related things always sound less stupid in a foreign language, because we tend to relate our own language and accent with day to day life and the common people we know. Whereas a foreign language(even if we are completely fluent in it) always has a greater sense of mystery and difference,

 

I tend you enjoy a lot fantasy and science fiction in the languages I have learned by studying. But if you put the same dialogue and content in my native language and accent I usually cringe, and feel it sounds utterly idiotic.

[Wormerine]

OK, forget that Trutzbucht-Thing. I can already smell those guys, that will soon come here and tell me that this is a great translation. They are wrong, but this is not they point. As I said, those games, fantasy books and stuff were translated way, way better in the past.

 

All that considerations that you are talking about. Those people either don't even make them anymore, or they are totally incompetent. This game is crippled in german. My wife plays it in german and I can't bear looking on her screen. It really makes me sad and angry. I saw people on the internet defending that translation. I just can't imagine how worse game translations must have become (Last game I played was BG2), if people are defending that crap.

 

I remember there was a great controversity about BG being to creatively translated (Voiceovers had funny Austrian Accents That kind of stuff. I liked it, but it depended on taste). That  was a great deal at that times. Nowadays people seem to be happy, if they are somehow able to understand whats going on and there are some medieval-ish words in the text to add some "flavour".

Oh, it is such a tough topic. Since I became fluent with english I have trouble dealing even with good translations. I am sorry to hear that the translations of PoE aren't great. My mother tongue is polish and I tried playing through recent Tides of Numenera in polish but switched back to english quite quickly. It wasn't bad, but it felt wrong somehow. Translation is a tricky thing, especially for such text heavy games. Literal translation is simply a wrong approach, but I feel with PoE it is especially hard. It is very language focused game (flavour of the names) and it is tough to translate it to different language.

 

It is possible. Lord of the Rings has two translatins in Polish. I feel the first one is somewhat more accurate but sounds really stupid. The second one took much more liberty with the source material. Some of the names where completely changed to convey their original meaning better. The same word might draw different connections in different languages. I do hope the translators weren't lazy, but with such amount of text, I imagine the time constrains were an issue.

[Messier-31]

Lord of the Rings has two translatins in Polish.

 

1. Maria Skibniewska (1963) - considered the best
2. Jerzy Łoziński (1997) - considered the worst
3. Maria i Cezary Frącowie, with some help (2001) - considered the meh'est

 

Sorry for this offtopic. Back to you, Tom!

[Lord_Mord]

 

It is possible. Lord of the Rings has two translatins in Polish. I feel the first one is somewhat more accurate but sounds really stupid. The second one took much more liberty with the source material. Some of the names where completely changed to convey their original meaning better.

 

Same thing in Germany. But here the first is the better one (There is also a "modern" one. In my opinion it is silly). Tolkien himself helped working on the first. Luckily he had this thing going on with germanic languages. He also published these guidelines on how to translate things. Maybe Obsidian should do the same. In my opinion Tolkiens guidelines would apply to Pillars in many ways. I notice that he probably would have translated Defiance Bay or Gilded Vale. On the other hand: Dyrwood is not The Shire. The german hobbit names work pretty well. Trutzbucht does not. It has a totally different feel.

 

I almost forgot about this thread. I still owe you more examples.

 

And I remembered where I got this idea about gilded vale from. I once stumbled upon a forum discussion about Dr. John's "I walk on guilded splinters". The name of the song is spelled differently on different versions of the album. So they talked about if this was a mistake or on purpose. Different theories came up and when I remember correctly the conclusion was that Dr. John meant gilded, no double meaning or anything, but used some kind of regional spelling. In my head all of that was confused to that strange theory of mine.

[Durgarnkuld]

I really couldn't stand the amount of grammar, comma and das / dass errors that occured in the German translation, even modded. I guess commas are a bitch for most people, but German and English don't use quite the same ruleset.

[Aurelio]

I really couldn't stand the amount of grammar, comma and das / dass errors that occured in the German translation, even modded. I guess commas are a bitch for most people, but German and English don't use quite the same ruleset.

 

If you have examples of the german PoE mod, please let us know.