Happy Translation "errors"

Visual Novel Community Archive, 2000-2009
#1

I just picked up Family Project and came upon a happy discovery - the line of text Mr. Payne had mentioned that was written in as a joke but not commented out - that made it into the game. Not to spoil the scene for anyone who hasn’t played it yet, the main character shouts “it’s OVER 9000” for a certain reason; but memes aside it’s a hillarious nod that fits the scene perfectly! :stuck_out_tongue:

Since it’s a known fact that alot of games have dialogue changed when it can’t be translated directly (like a joke or a custom that westerners wouldn’t understand) it’s nice to see some little shout outs fill the voids, even if it is only appreciated by a small group of people. If the game recieves a text patch in the future, I hope the line stays in. And as I already mentioned it’s nice to see some artistic interpretation once in a while!

Edit: Aweee… the updated text patch removed it. :frowning:

#2

Regardless of whether you like it or not…it’s only one line. One line. Looking at the game as a whole, it just doesn’t matter. Why anyone would be upset about it is beyond me.

#3

Well, I dont think 1 line matters at all.Artistic interpretations aside, I think what matters more is the quality of translation, both Grammetically and how much sense it makes, stuff like that.So I dont think its much cause for concern

#4

I LOL’d at that line :lol:

#5

Here’s a wonderful article that’s somewhat related:

http://hardcoregaming101.net/localizati … zation.htm

It’s about console RPG translation localization.

#6

I’m in the middle of reading it, and I completely agree with this quote.

That’s why I think a lot of fan translations are utter crap. They’re done on wiki sites with many (and often random) people. The quality and style of writing varies so much because of that. The best fan translations I’ve seen are always done with only one translator. Jast and MG use multiple translators (some games for Jast anyway, I don’t think all of them use multiple translators), and I can usually easily tell. It’s can be pretty annoying.

When I worked for MG, I tried to convince them to only use one translator to keep a consistent style of writing, but they didn’t want to since they wanted to release games quickly. They should put more effort into quality over quick releases…

#7

You could potentially get the best of both worlds by having several games in translation simultaneously, with each being translated by 1 person.

#8

In fact, Mirror Mooon tried this translation method, and found it just plain does not work. When I was a proofreader for Tsukihime, I found a few files “translated” so poorly I had to go grab another translator and say “hey, translate this again” … and having hordes of translators and hordes of editors just makes organization a nightmare and quality very spotty.

They ended up essentially scrapping most of what had been done, and going back almost to square one. Coincidentally, they’re one of the only groups still around.

#9

While I can see titles being translated by multiple people with one good editor fitting it together working, in general I would have to say that having more than one person translate is asking for trouble.

#10