Translation Errors (And Typos) In Games...

[neko-chan]

On 2003-01-07 13:53, rena-ko wrote:
german translation of pso is full of typos, false translations and even passages that dont do any sense, like an '.... um' right in the first screen you get before the vmu-menu pops up at dreamcast where the text should sound a bit more official, imho.

I don't know German and I've never played PSO in your language but it seems that German is one of the most difficult languages when it comes to localizating a videogame.

Some say the problem is that the same sentence, translated into German tends to become longer than the original (can you cofirm this? I don't have a personal experience). So, this should be a problem, expecially if localizators have to insert that sentence into a text box (limited space, limited amount of charatcers).

This is why, for example, Xbox user interface was first designed by the German branch of Microsoft.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: neko-chan on 2003-01-07 16:33 ]</font>

[DirewolfX]

On the flip-side, it's really easy to write things rather compactly in Japanese thanks to Kanji and certain grammatical structures that don't exist in English. For example, most Japanese names consist of three or four characters, which when transliterated could possibly become nearly 20 English letters. And certain common Japanese sayings are difficult to translate. The 'konna' series (konna, sonna, anna, donna) which mean roughly "something like X" are very common in Japanese. 'Sonna hito', which is four characters long (Japanese has no spaces), would be translated to something like, "a person like that."

[Siegfried]

Found something. After I beat ep. 2 today, I watched the credits (Cause I wanted to make sure my file saves, just a precaution) in Special Thanks To: (At the very end) it gives thanks to "Every Hunters of PSO" Minor, yet Every Hunters play it with their hearts.

[Ayame]

Dance Dance Revolution has the best one. During the background videos of songs in DDR MAX (MAX2 and DDR Extreme as well, but I'm just stating), text scrolls by saying:

"Are you enjoy?"

This phrase can also be seen on various DDR toys that were sold in Japan and even in the intro to DDR 3rd Mix. (For those of you that own US home versions, the one labeled Dance Dance Revolution has the 3rd Mix intro)

And trust me, if you visit any DDR message boards (Like me), you'll soon find out that this phrase is very popular amongst DDR players...

[Alielle]

When I was a young'un, I never understood what the guards in Metal Gear meant when they said, "I feel asleep!" It took a moment of intuition years later (probably on the toilet, hehe) to realize that it was a typo. "Uh-oh! The truck have started to move!" always cracks me up.

Another notable quote is when you hit the old lady in Goonies II: "Ouch! What do you do?!"

I'm racking my brain for more (I know I've seen more), but I can't think of any right now.

[IceBlink]

Whenever you use a PB, a circle pattern appears, yes?

In the most inner ring of words...

"PLEASE PROTECT US BY VIRTUE OF YOUR THE GREAT LIGHT POWER"

o_O

[eRUPT]

On 2003-01-07 22:46, Alielle wrote:
Another notable quote is when you hit the old lady in Goonies II: "Ouch! What do you do?!"

Heh one of my favorite all time NES games.

[BlackCanaryOfDeath]

I haven't seen the word Hunter in the game at all. Maybe it's just that I only saw Hunters when it wasn't supposed to be there:
"Every Hunters of PSO"
"Welcome Hunters" -Gallon's Quest
"Are you a Hunters?" -Offline Quest
"I want to be a Hunters just like you" -Another offline quest


Yep.

[CajunSamurai]

FF7 had some BAD ones. I think at one point, Aeris says, "This guy are sick."


FF Tactics had some HORRIBLE ones... There was a skill that lowered enemy Faith that was strangely called "Face Down". This is obviously a STUPID error from transliteration, as the "TH" sound can also be translated as an "S" sound, but jeez, this is just too damn obvious.

And DDR has some downright BIZARRE voice clips as well as Engrish backgrounds. The MAX announcer says some really weird stuff such as what sounds like, "God's come to YOU!" What does that MEAN? And "U M A" still puzzles me. Please, tell me what that means. And what's "It's a UFO!" supposed to mean, in the middle of a song? Puzzling, just puzzling.
I wish I could remember some of the bizarre-o stuff the older announcer said, but it's been a while since I've played those...

PSO is filled with 'em. I've had HOURS of fun with those crazy universal messages. A few times, me and some friends were trading nonsensical messages with a few Japanese players, it was hilarious... "I have been besieged by Rag Rappy!" Most of them aren't translated bad, but just come out... strange.
"Good to see you" must mean something perfectly intelligible in Japanese, but for us it doesn't sound right. And what does "Hang on!" mean, a message that's along with the likes of "Ole ---!!!!" and "Cool!!"...? Seems like some kind of victory shout if it's along with those. I dunno. I just don't know.

[rena-ko]

On 2003-01-07 16:24, neko-chan wrote:
I don't know German and I've never played PSO in your language but it seems that German is one of the most difficult languages when it comes to localizating a videogame.

Some say the problem is that the same sentence, translated into German tends to become longer than the original (can you cofirm this? I don't have a personal experience). So, this should be a problem, expecially if localizators have to insert that sentence into a text box (limited space, limited amount of charatcers).

This is why, for example, Xbox user interface was first designed by the German branch of Microsoft.

yes, but all these typos could have been prevented if they've had let a spell checker run over the whole thing. maybe this is an annoying task to do but sometimes the game just gets ridiculus...

well, this 'short english - long german' is kinda true - we dont have very popular slang (using slang would need the character to fall into one particular german dialect) and some very short english phrases would need way more lettes in german.
an average german text is around 133% in size compared to an english translation (depends on the texts length). but i guess if you take much of work into it you can have a translation in similar length. so its just a matter of time and money.

then again, french is also a very letterconsuming language. ^_^

about the x-box-interface - i didnt knew that before, its an interesting story - yes, seems plausible.

about the "um ..." i mentioned: it seems the translator left this out to work on it later and then simply forgot about it...
but 'Spiekler' instead of 'Spieler' (player) is a simple and lazy typo imho...


i'm not even complaining about that i get named 'Mr. Hannya' in one of the quests ^_^;