Sure, I can try. Send me a PM with whatever you need.Red Scarlet said:It's used for that item though (下町!
Thanks though. Help me w/ my guide if you can!
Sure, I can try. Send me a PM with whatever you need.Red Scarlet said:It's used for that item though (下町!
Thanks though. Help me w/ my guide if you can!
Perhaps I just enjoy debate; I'm not entirely sure how to respond to the first part of this.Steve Youngblood said:I think it's just a generally futile effort to try to win people over to your "it can be simultaneously a great localization but a poor translation" argument, as even if one is to concede the point, it seems largely irrelevant. It's difficult to ascertain the objective of what you're arguing.
Outside of examining the script as an academic analysis behind the creator's intentions, if I'm to draw the distinction between 'translating' and 'localizing', then the latter seems much more important and the former barely worth looking at.
The trouble is, how to make translations that do not need "translator notes". Those things are friggin' annoying.Reikon said:There are more sides to translation than literal and naturalized. There are shades in the middle. A translation could have perfectly acceptable English grammar but include foreign objects/concepts, such as foods, deities, traditions, etc. that have no equivalent in English, but don't break the English either if inserted in the translation. By putting them in there, the reader is learning about a foreign culture. Making people learn about foreign cultures is a good thing.
Why not use British equivallents instead of American? They almost have the same parallel equivallents. Osakan = Georgie accent.KTallguy said:- Representing characters from different regions in Japan is difficult.
EmCeeGramr said:Hmm. Bringing up One Piece and that stupid "nakama" business actually made me think of another tricky situation.
The pirates Shirohige and Kurohige are translated by official translators and fans alike into Whitebeard and Blackbeard, respectively. Makes sense, since they're pirates and that's the obvious naming scheme that it's based off of.
Then there's the navy admirals Akainu, Kizaru, and Aokiji. The official translation and fans leave these as Japanese, because the literal translations of their names ("Red Dog," "Yellow Monkey," and "Blue Pheasant") are not only a reference to the Momotaro story, but would sound laughable to Westerners (a problem since all three are supposed to be fearful and terrifying figures). The joke about their name is totally lost on Westerners and can only be rectified by explaining the Momotaro story. Do you try to find a Western analog, or do you just accept that it's going to be lost in translation?
It's not a request. "You are going to _" is more of a demand.RevenantKioku said:That's technically correct. It's a request. See, you're so particularly and wanting to be technically correct that you've gotten yourself into this mess. I remember being like that. Wasn't really good for me. Have fun with your life. I've really nothing else to tell you at this point.
Right, and that's why when the value is explicitly entertainment, localizations are fantastic to make the core entertainment more accessible to audiences that don't speak Japanese or understand any of the culture.Sciz said:But that's not the purpose of entertainment.
But the experience is the same for those who can understand. They have the potential to enjoy it in the same way and that potential is offered by a direct translation but not a localization. In fact, it may offer more enjoyment, such as the satisfaction of understanding how the foibles of other cultures relate to your own.Even for the naturally inquisitive person who's willing to put up with it, the experience is fundamentally changed. Is it still a good translation when literally no native speakers of the target audience can enjoy it in the same way as the original audience?
Fugu said:But the experience is the same for those who can understand.
And the counter argument to this is that the person would be learning, or may eventually learn over time. But I just can't buy that. Because most things aren't going to have the translator notes, because they are jarring. Mostly, because they are going for emotional effect, not for education.TwinIonEngines said:I don't think that's true. Remember the example with puns? Reading a play on words in a language you understand is a completely different experience from having a foreign language pun explained to you in a footnote. Any footnoting or annotation is necessarily a rather abrupt alteration to the experience. Also, while the reader might understand a colloquialism or cultural reference due to prior study, he still is not having the same experience as a reader who has been familiar with the referent through cultural osmosis for most of their lives.
RevenantKioku said:And the counter argument to this is that the person would be learning, or may eventually learn over time. But I just can't buy that. Because most things aren't going to have the translator notes, because they are jarring. Mostly, because they are going for emotional effect, not for education.
soco said:i can only begin to imagine how much of a bad idea translator notes in a game would be. there's not a single good way to implement them in most modern video games.
Man God said:Alternate audio or subtitle track. Why bother would be a better reason. I can't think of very many games that have been released recently or will be released recently where translation notes would be anything other than unnecessary.
sfried said:The trouble is, how to make translations that do not need "translator notes". Those things are friggin' annoying.
Why not use British equivallents instead of American? They almost have the same parallel equivallents. Osakan = Georgie accent.
soco said:i can only begin to imagine how much of a bad idea translator notes in a game would be. there's not a single good way to implement them in most modern video games.
RoryDropkick said:Here's another oddball one from Yotsuba&! Early in the series one of the neigbors asks Yotsuba what her dad does as a profession.. she replies that he is a "konyakuka" when in actuality he is a "honyakuka" 翻訳家. This leads to the same neighbor asking Yotsuba's dad about what he considers to be the best konyaku <konyaaku?>
How would one translate something like this? ADV botched it completely when they translated the manga, I haven't seen Yen Press' version... It just seems like something that could go either way.. using translator's notes to have to explain the joke away, or to find an english equivalent that wouldn't affect the meaning?
jman2050 said:I think the differences here basically boil down to whether you think the written text is itself intrinsically valuable or whether you think the written text is a means to an end, a tool used to divulge information and induce a response from your readers.
I tend to think that it's always the latter.
DavidDayton said:What I find amusing is that while I agree with the majority sentiment in this thread, which is that a proper localization isn't a pure translation, I'm puzzled that so many on GAF think that.
Why? Well, the big argument in gaming circles (and on GAF) always seems to be about how "VIDEO GAMES ARE ART." I don't want to get into that whole thing again, but it strikes me that when dealing "with art" (or, perhaps, "significant art"), you'd want a literal translation to retain the author's words and vision. If the focus isn't necessarily the artistic merit but rather on the fun and inviting gameplay, then you'd not worry about that and just localize.
I mean, no one "localizes" Dante. They translate Dante. Folks do, however, localize sitcoms and television cartoons.
(...and Shrek...)
Year|Translator|Notes
18051814...Henry Francis Cary..................An older translation, widely available online.
1867............Henry Wadsworth Longfellow....The first US translation, raising American interest in the poem. It is still widely read, including online.
19331943...Laurence Binyon......................In an English version of terza rima.
19491962...Dorothy L. Sayers....................Translated for Penguin Classics, intended for a wider audience, and completed by Barbara Reynolds.
19541970...John Ciardi..............................His Inferno was recorded and released by Folkways Records in 1954.
1981............C. H. Sisson...........................Available in Oxford World's Classics.
19801984...Allen Mandelbaum...................Available online.
19672002...Mark Musa..............................An alternative Penguin Classics version.
20002007...Robert and Jean Hollander.......Online as part of the Princeton Dante Project.
20022004...Anthony M. Esolen..................Modern Library Classics edition.
20062007...Robin Kirkpatrick...................A third Penguin Classics version, replacing Musa's.
DavidDayton said:I don't want to get into that whole thing again, but it strikes me that when dealing "with art" (or, perhaps, "significant art"), you'd want a literal translation to retain the author's words and vision.
INFERNO Line 1 in Dante original:
Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita
INFERNO Line 1 in different English translations:
In my middle of my lifetime
Midway in human life's allotted span,
Halfway through our trek in life
Midway the path of life that men pursue
Halfway along the path of this existence
In the middle of this mortal life
At midpoint of the journey of our life
Upon the journey of our life midway
When I had journeyed half of our lifes way
Midway in our lifes journey, I went astray
Halfway along the road we have to go
In the midst of my journey through this life of ours,
How fluent are you in your other languages aside from English? Because I gotta say, as a person fluent in two languages, that what you're saying is just plainly not true.Fugu said:But the experience is the same for those who can understand. They have the potential to enjoy it in the same way and that potential is offered by a direct translation but not a localization.
Cyan said:But you don't do a goddamn literal translation of Dante. You'd have to be insane to suggest such a thing; it'd completely ruin him.
Mael said:What the hell are you talking about?
The very best translations are NEVER literal translations.
charlequin said:You have no idea what you're talking about here. :lol The sheer range of translation styles people apply to the classics -- and the amount of controversy about these decisions -- put video games (where, for the most part, it's fairly rare to have multiple good but philosophically distinct translations of any work available for comparison) to shame.
NichM said:It occurs to me that my every post in this thread addressing fugu and Squidi should have just been directing them to read Le Ton Beau de Marot.
Squidi?NichM said:It occurs to me that my every post in this thread addressing fugu and Squidi should have just been directing them to read Le Ton Beau de Marot.
Localization has never been a bad thing.
That's true. In that case, let me rephrase what I said:It is when the story gets changed, or they decide to push their political beliefs.
I grew up playing rpgs like FFVI and Chrono Trigger. I knew that some parts of the writing of said games sounded kind of off, but only found out later that there was numerous unneeded translation changes.
Up until now I have always seen Woolseyism described as an inherently bad thing.
So why does this tvtropes article seem to make it seem that it's positive thing?
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Woolseyism
Does anyone see this as positive thing?
Was his changes worse than Victor Irelands?
Why is there not a "WorkDesignism" trope where they bump the difficulty up significantly and add American Pop Culture references?
I played the original SNES version of Final Fantasy IV on the Virtual Console after playing the GBA version and honestly, it wasn't as bad as I thought, the text had to fit within the games scope and the difficulty was not changed (unlike the GBA version which was tough as nails).
It's half and half for me, it can be a good thing if a Japanese joke doesn't work for the RoW but can be done in a negative way if done terribly.
Since the last presidential campaign.Since when was incoherent awkwardness a good thing?
It's been 9 years.