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[01011001]

back in the day german translations were often really good actually.
there were translators that literally became semi famous in the gaming community. Boris Schneider-Johne for example became known for his Lucas Films/Arts Adventure translations.

there was literally a specific Stretch Goal on Kickstarter for Thimbleweed Park bringing him up by name as the translator for the german version

I think back in those days they often got people involved in the game industry to translate stuff like this because it was simply the best way to do it due to their knowledge of the medium.
but nowadays it seems like just any random idiot who thinks he speaks english and thinks he knows what a "Health Bar" is can get hired for that.

and in the end you get shit like the aforementioned "Vertikales Aussehen der invertierten Krypta" (eng.: The vertical appearance of the inverted Krypt) in Mortal Kombat 11, because the translator clearly didn't know what "inverted look" means in the context of a video game and just made some shit up as he went.

 

[Jibran#one]

This is cool and all bt for a game like Forza horizon 5 which has the most pointless cutscenes ever even as someone who can hear and see , I would appreciate a skip cutscene button

 

[NeoIkaruGAF]

Italian translations still have a long way to go, but examples like this are golden.

Localization is a delicate matter. Sometimes the people involved get carried away and do a good job, except a lot of names get changed for no good reason. Italian localizations of Nintendo games have had this a lot ever since the GC days. Most other publishers took a long, long time to get on the same level, though. In the days of PS1 and PS2, most translations were spectacularly bad. ISS Pro in Italian was legendary, my friend and I still quote it sometimes.

 

[ProgenitorCastle]

 

[Zeroing]

The only one who does it okish localizations is Sony from my experience.

Also Portuguese from Brazil is very different from Portuguese from Portugal! Tomb in Portuguese European is túmulo but on PT from Brazil is tumba.

I think people can imagine what a mess is when devs mix up PT European with PT Brazil and add miss translation to the mix!

 

[Zeroing]

Italian translations still have a long way to go, but examples like this are golden.

“Writing in Latin to look smart is my modus operandi”

 

[Fugitive Sex]

Perhaps if people knew the difference between translation and localisation, that would be a good start.

 

[Lethal01]

Perhaps if people knew the difference between translation and localisation, that would be a good start.

We know and specifically want more translating and less localizing.

 

[Esppiral]

Italian translations still have a long way to go, but examples like this are golden.

Localization is a delicate matter. Sometimes the people involved get carried away and do a good job, except a lot of names get changed for no good reason. Italian localizations of Nintendo games have had this a lot ever since the GC days. Most other publishers took a long, long time to get on the same level, though. In the days of PS1 and PS2, most translations were spectacularly bad. ISS Pro in Italian was legendary, my friend and I still quote it sometimes.

I can't stop laughing

 

[Kataploom]

I can't stop laughing

Damn... It's a good thing I can play these in english

 

[marquimvfs]

That's why I (almost) always play games in the original language. I don't remember playing anything other than original Grim Fandango, Max Paine (the first) and Diablo 3 with Brazilian Portuguese audio. It's good to have options like in Ghost of Tsushima, when you can choose between 3 spoken languages (Brazilian Portuguese, English or Japanese) and have options to turn subtitles on or off. I ended up playing the game in Japanese with Portuguese subtitles, and the translation is very good. Just a few weird choices of word here and there that don't change the meaning in any substantial way, and looks like the mocap for the talks were only done in English.

 

[ethomaz]

IMO.

The opposite… if you look at NES, SNES, PS1, PS2, etc most if not all context was lost in bad translation.

There some cases near the ridiculous bad like SotN and FFT.

Today at least the translations are good.

 

[ethomaz]

Let’s give an example:



Can you even call that translation?

And the famous quote:

“Blame yourself or God”.

 

[ethomaz]

Another classic.

 

[Modrot]

Blasphemous with the spanish dub is incredible and everyone should play it in Spanish with subs.

Otherwise I play games in their sources language and hope to god the subs aren't a mess.

Translation is an art that does not get the recognition it deserves. In literary translation circles they've started to care about and credit the translators.

Considering how shitty the games industry is, I don't think games translators will get their due in my lifetime.

 

[Cyberpunkd]

On the translation front - I was doing some work on tech resources yesterday and I was shocked how good Deepl is with Polish language, holy fuck.

The order in the sentence is sometimes slightly weird, but other than that stuff is spot on.