Do you prefer localizations, literal translations, or joke t

A mix between local and literal translations, same philosophy I'm applying for my fan-translation project.

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Literal translations are awful, QED Wild Arms 2, a very literal translation which resulted in nearly-incomprehensible gibberish.

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I like Schwartzeneggar jokes and shit about fuckin'

>>2922498
I have a feeling you were being sarcastic, but just as I was about to agree with you that it was bad, I had a wave of nostalgia, laughed, and remembered how much I loved those things back when I was the age demographic that it targeted. Shit's hilarious.

>>2922498
>let's turn those two brothers into gay lovers
>everyone will find all these gay jokes totally hilarious!
>better make some pro wrestling references too

>>2922469
In games with some story mystique to them bad translation adds to the charm for me

>>2922469
Localization if it's heavily based on Western culture (eg. Vagrant Story, Metal Gear Solid), otherwise literal translation.

>>2922506
>attack enemy unit
>DO YOU SMELLLLLLLLLLL WHAT BARLOW IS COOOOOOOKINNNN?!?!?!?

Shit is not hilarious.

I prefer the original language.

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>>2922534

>>2922498
>>2922506

Neither of you faggots were actually alive when it was a choice between this and Square-engrish, were you?

>>2922508

Because shit like "I thank you for arousing me!" from the likes of Enix was so much better, amirite?

>>2922540
This is hardly restricted to Japanese. I grew up with crappy German translations of English games and was glad when I could get them in their original form.

>>2922545
The fuck you talking about, woolsey was an excellent translator. The only one they totally botched up was FF2.

>>2922553

Working designs was around well before Woolsey. I know this may be difficult for you to imagine, but there was an industry before Final Fantasy VI.

"Final Fantasy 2" was how they did 95% of shit back then for RPGs, and it was goddamn terrible.

>>2922570
>"Final Fantasy 2" was how they did 95% of shit back then for RPGs, and it was goddamn terrible.
For Example?

>>2922570
Now, bro, don't be a shitter, WD started in 91 with Cadash and Woolsey in 92 with Mystic Quest.

>>2922579

Go play the first SaGa, the first (or second) Zelda, or the latter two of the Quintet "Soul" trilogy. Then get back to me on how wonderfully written they were.

>>2922570
Mind you, WD completely botched their first big project on the PC Engine in 1992, Exile. If you've played it you know what I'm talking about.

>>2922585
>first Zelda
>Quintet
>Squaresoft
What the fuck are you even on about? FF Legend had an acceptable translation for a gB game.

>>2922582

The point being both helped pull the industry out of some pretty shoddy translation standards.

In the same way that a movie adaptation can be better than the original book, a localization can be better than the original version. And like movie adaptations, that almost never happens.

>>2922594
Fine, you're absolutely right.

I'm a translator-turned-professor. Most of the stuff I used to do was in document work. The few times I've done entertainment, I went with what I'd think is smart localisation with direct translation secondary to it. I believe this is the best way to do entertainment translation because unless the audience is at least partially versed in the culture from which the source material hails as well as said culture's turns of phrase, going for direct translation as your default wouldn't be good. It would yield at best only pallid story-telling lacking subtext or, on average, a bit of confusion here or there and a feeling of emptiness and questions at the end or, at worst, a jumbled mess of barely interconnected imagery and word salad.

Pretty sure most people would prefer something that makes sense and is multilayered over something filled with honourifics and references to things you don't understand, thereby missing the subtext.

>>2922592

You're full of shit and so is your standard for "acceptable translation", then.

>>2922587

Definitely. Exile is one of the earliest showcases of WD's most glaring weakness; fucking with difficulty and game mechanics.

>>2922610

While I don't entirely agree with you, anyone who leaves honorifics littered about there work definitely doesn't know what the fuck they're doing.

>>2922619

*their pardon

>>2922619
What bit do you agree with? What parts don't you?

>>2922469
A localization that's faithful to the Japanese script.

WD was scum.

>>2922548
Much better than having one character call another one Vuckoff and turning the princess' tutor into a horny old woman who talked like Yoda. Or suggesting one of those aforementioned "gay" guys go work as a fudgepacker while screaming CUZ STONE COLD BARLOW SAID SO.

A little bit of Engrish is preferable to retranslating the theme song to be about farts and diarrhea.

Literal translations, always.

Not one to throw a fit over Square Engrish or broken any other laguages, really. Part and parcel of actually dealing with various languages for simple business (less than literature) is that you'll learn to read "incomprehensible gibberish".
And no need for "cultural appropriation" either, let foreign games be foreign.

>>2924502
Why translate them at all? Teach people more languages instead.

Learn Japanese and you'll realize how incredibly silly arguments about literal vs. liberal are.

>>2925369
Care to expound upon that?

>>2925747
I'm pretty sure what he's getting at is that an actual "literal" translation of Japanese would sound stupid as all hell in English, and that people who know nothing about translation simply use the term because it sounds sort of authoritative in their completely garbage essentialist paradigm of language (which tends to be how anyone who knows fuck all about language and translation thinks language works).

People who throw around "literal" and "localization" are basically just saying, "I know nothing but this one group arbitrarily consists of things I like, and the other of things I don't."

>>2925747
Not him but it's the problem of any translation ever, there will always be something lost in translation, the very process of translating is essentially trying to keep as much of the original message intact and trasmit it to the recipient.
Problem is, language and cultural barriers are a thing, you're always bound to lose something as it either refers to concepts or nuances that don't exist in a language or even worse, refers to a certain kind of cultural schemata that goes beyond linguistic straight into culture that ranges from historical to philosophical to popular.

To make a practical example, a character in SaGa Frontier, Metal Black, is a robot that gains some kind of sense of self and is found philosophizing in a certain region.
One of his lines about robots gaining sense of self and a "soul" of some kind quotes a classical Koan about "having the mind of a rock" iirc, which doesn't make much sense unless you know about zen philosophy, thus they completely scrapped that line in the localized version and went straight to the next one which is more literal and straightforward even in the source material. That wasn't a good move in all possible ways, it's unprofessional and all that, but on the other hand it wouldn't have made much sense for the average player, the cultural barrier is a big obstacle for translation.

TL;DR: Learn Japanese, actually learn as many foreign languages as possible.

>>2922582
mystic quest isn't even a japanese game faggot

>>2922619
>honorifics
They do this all the time in anime fansubs, even today. I never see it in games though.

Which is odd considering most retro translations are pretty literal, at least from what I've played

>>2922570
>>2922570
I might have actually been too old for WD. I was 18 when they brought Lunar SS over and though I liked the game, I never liked their jokes. Then Lunar 2 was even worse for it.

I don't love the Woolsey translations like some people do, but I think they're competent. Not having Bill Clinton and Austin Powers jokes if nothing else makes them better.

I do give them props for the new Star Dragon Tower music that is shockingly both good and sounds like it fits with the rest of the soundtrack though.

>>2922486
This, I'm not above joke translations if there's a legit one as well though.

Be as literal as you can, but make exceptions based on audience. Don't translate a joke that makes no sense to non-Japanese unless you're targeting weebs or something.

>>2922616
Exile is unchanged

Working Designs fucked up the sequel

>>2925805
>I never see it in games though.
Persona 3 and 4 do it, then again it makes sense as they're set in Japan.

>>2925856
Is that a port of the DOS RPG?

>>2922469
As long as you keep it close to the original; not cutting out content due to localization, you can change some words or use a similar analogy if a reference is lost, as long as the general message is conveyed and can be understood by both audiences.

>>2925747
>>2925763 and >>2925790 pretty much covered it.

Japanese and English are far too different for a truly "literal" translation to be possible. If it were, Google Translate would actually, like, work to some extent. As a translator, you're constantly making judgement calls about how to render a line in English in a way that isn't complete nonsense. Extreme Phoenix Wright type situations aside, your choices aren't "literal" vs. "liberal"; they're "stilted, awkward liberal" vs. "smooth, natural liberal" translations. The awkward translations aren't necessarily more accurate to the Japanese text, either - usually quite the opposite, in fact (the Chrono Trigger fan retranslation being a hilarious /vr/-related example). They're typically the product of the translator not fully comprehending what they're translating.

>>2922534
>>2922550
yes, indeed,
don't pay attention to that monolingual muricano.

no reason is too shallow motivation to start a new language, not that you even need one.

it just sucks that for us speakers of euro langs you just cant read an introduction to jap and play with a dictionary at hand

so anyways, in general translation is the only way, nevermind this sidetracking

>>2922610
>>2926549
same anon?
anyways

in more authoritative translations, where you need to convey all ideas while not accidentally inserting any new ones, is it acceptable or commom to restate a phrase more than once to clear ambiguities?

(that is ofc when there is no culture reference non-existant in the target language.)

ive never seen this in entertainment translation, i guess it would kill the movie dialog, but i dont understand why this or any other translation scheme i might not know isn't used in non-real time gaming, specially since its usually games where the text is much more important than in realtime games.

>>2926867
No, we're not the same person. I've dabbled in translation (mainly incidental work-related stuff, but I've done a few random h-manga chapters and part of a VN which I'll probably never actually finish unless someone decides to pay me for it) but I'm not a professional in any real sense.

Anyway, I'd need to see an example to know precisely what you mean, but in a general sense, I find that the best approach for fiction is to completely throw the structure of the Japanese text out the window and focus on ideas and feel instead of words and phrases (this is much easier said than done!). This often means splitting ideas contained in a single Japanese line into multiple English lines, combining multiple Japanese lines into a single English one, rearranging lines, and so forth. It also sometimes means ommitting unimportant details and possibly introducing new ones - basically unavoidable regardless, and particularly so if you want your text to read like natural English. It's also not a big deal as long as you check your work against the original text afterward.

The bottom line is that translation is hard, and if it's something you feel strongly about, you should really just learn Japanese. Learn Japanese anyway! It's fun and opens up a whole new world of entertainment.

>>2924969
because it's easier?
because i'm not the developer/translator?
just stating my opinion as per thread topic.

>>2926549
>>2926982
while i get your point, and i appreciated it. i still prefer ff7's original translation compared to woolsey's ff6, for instance. sentences aren't grammatically correct, but i get what they're going for, thinking as they do. it's the same way i find creoles interesting.

>>2927031
Yes, FF7 is another great example of a translation that is both awkward and horribly inaccurate.

Too bad it never got officially redone like Chrono Trigger did, but I guess the remake will finally fix that. Fortunately, S-E's translations are really good these days.

>>2926867
>is it acceptable or commom to restate a phrase more than once to clear ambiguities?

>>2925790 here.
It's kind of hard to say.
Mostly because there is no definite approach to translation that is accepted by the community of scholars, the most basic rule is again, keep as much of the original meaning intact and convey it to the recipient, how you do that is up to you, as long as you minimize the losses in terms of meaning and possibly semantics as well it's all good.

The problem is that translations, especially in different kind of media requires almost always a different practical approach, I don't translate a book in the same way I would do with movie subs of course, the environment is too different, while I have all the time and attention in the world for books I'll have to be concise for movie subs in order for the viewer to read them quickly and easily enough(especially for those who learn a language or are not well versed in it), it's really a hairy business.

You also have to consider that sometimes the meaning you see in a phrase or statement is not always the same other people see, you can notice this when you try to translate general narrative, sometimes you might see some emphasis in meaning in certain parts of a phrase that particularly strike YOUR attention and translate in that order, even if it wasn't the writer's original purpose, that is a big problem in what you might call "translation neutrality" which is a big cause of mistranslations especially in videogames since even today the process of localization is still extremely messy, unprofessional and unorganized compared to most other environments.

To answer to your question, I would personally not add anything to the source material besides footnotes if I think it really is that necessary or obscure, mostly because I trust the reader to get off his/her ass and do some research, but unless you're dealing with cultural differences it's very hard to need something like that.

>>2927075
>Fortunately, S-E's translations are really good these days.

They aren't, at all.
Have you seen the mess they did for the PSP Tactics Ogre remake?

They arbitrarily added a lot of text, liberally changed names, completely messed up characters' tone and general personality, it was a bloody mess, made for the sake of a sdumb translator who wanted the game to sound like a shakespearean tragedy, not to mention typos and general errors too.

>>2926848
>you just cant read an introduction to jap and play with a dictionary at hand
You can, you just need some determination.

Neither.

I know Japanese. I would honestly recommend you aspire for the same. Yes, I know your schedule might be tight, but hey, even with 2 hours of learning a day you can do it. What's important is to persevere.

>>2927535
That's no way to enjoy a game.

>>2927550
Have you tried?

>>2927552
No. I learned Japanese well enough and only afterwards started playing games and eroge. I'm pretty happy with how it worked out. I couldn't imagine having to stop all the time to look up something.

>>2927554
You hardly have to look up stuff all the time, particularly if you play things with repetitions like RPGs and not wall of text adventures.
Looking up stuff has also become a lot more convenient so it's not much of a chore.

>>2927562
I guess it depends on what you play, fair enough.

Nonetheless, I don't think using works you want to enjoy as textbooks is a good idea. Things to enjoy and things to learn from should be separated. Otherwise you can't accomplish either very well.

>>2927563
I think it's the complete opposite. If you want to learn a language you need to deal with that language as much as possible. Skills will waste when not used.
The wealth of material available is one of the biggest strengths of Japanese.
You'll always have to look up words, it's practically impossible to memorize every single thing in advance.

A translation that keeps the same meaning but is concise and not distracting while doing it.

So, a properly done professional translation.

>>2927572
Yes friend, but that's not what you said here >>2927535

It's retarded to learn some basic grammar and immediately jump into some hard work you want to enjoy thoroughly. Start with some easy GameBoy games where you won't have to look up every third or second word.

>>2927576
Also forgot to add, you can also use various texts in textbooks. Those should be properly adjusted to whatever level of knowledge you're currently at.

>>2927576
GB tends to be kana only so I would avoid them.
I recommend something like the SFC DQ games with simple Kanji

>>2927589
Some people start kana only. But yeah, it's not something you should dwell on for a long time.

(as always shit gets confusing on who is writing what, and how many anons are you replying too)

earlier I meant that for japanese its specially hard, because jap kanji is
1 - not an alphabet, but +-4000 complex symbols (even if internally they are apparantly compost of some 300 base symbols)

2 - you dont immediately know how to romanize an unkown kanji so you can even look it up, or even if you skip romanization and use some sort of virtual kana keyboard

but i reckon i probably dont know what im talking about, i dont even know if in games its kanji or katakana or hiragana that is most used, and all i did was read a small booklet about the japanese language

while knowing an european language, or better yet one latin language for instance, i can grab any text in french-portuguese-spanish and even italian, if i memorize some 200 base pronoums, verbs, and conjunctions, and true/false cognates aside, i can easily look up words as they appear and the further i get into the paper the less i have to consult the dictionary.

>>2927528
>You also have to consider that sometimes the meaning you see in a phrase or statement is not always the same other people see, you can notice this when you try to translate general narrative, sometimes you might see some emphasis in meaning in certain parts of a phrase that particularly strike YOUR attention and translate in that order, even if it wasn't the writer's original purpose, that is a big problem in what you might call "translation neutrality" which is a big cause of mistranslations especially in videogames since even today the process of localization is still extremely messy, unprofessional and unorganized compared to most other environments.

WHOA you managed to put it very clearly now, i recall reading something about tolkien writting translations guides to his works, probably related...

>>2927619
That's exactly the case, yes.

I'm sure the professor anon might give you some further insight on that, I mainly studied foreign languages but I wasn't in a translation course so my knowledge is admittedly very limited when it comes to advanced translation ethics and philosophy.

>>2927604
> i dont even know if in games its kanji or katakana or hiragana that is most used,
Proper Japanese uses Kanji with Hiragana. Loanwords will use Katakana for most part.
In retro games technical limitations like storage space or resolution resulted in games omitting Kanji and being only in Hiragana and Katakana or even purely Katakana. In some cases the Latin alphabet (Romaji) was used instead.

There are different ways you can look up an unknown Kanji:
-OCR
-Context. If it's part of a compound word and you recognize the other compounds you can deduct it from there.
-Breaking it down into the radicals

The number of Kanji may sound scary but even many of the common use ones aren't that common.

>>2927634
You can also draw it in google translate and it will give you a list of things that look like what you drew

>>2929916
That's a type of OCR.

>>2925793
It IS a Japanese game, you bundle of sticks

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Final_Fantasy_Mystic_Quest

It was developed for the West as a sort of "My First RPG" Easy Mode RPG Tutorial, but it's 100% a Japanese game.

Between you and the moron claiming that Wrecking Delays was around "long before Woosley", I think we have determined the vast majority of you were either barely semen in your poppa's nutsack, let alone a coherent young adult when these games came out.

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>>2922616
WD's penchant for trying to rebalance games almost always ended in disaster. Silhouette Mirage.

Probably the only time ever a game was improved by rebalancing prior to release in the West was Beyond the Beyond, by Sony. The Japanese version had an INSANE amount of random encounters, to the point where it was very close to unplayable.

>>2922619
this. thank you.

>>2925805
This is because fansubs are translated by fucking weeaboos who think that honorifics have no equivalent in other languages.

>>2925859
That doesn't make it any less stupid.

If you're translating a Mexican RPG from Spanish to English, would you constantly refer to the main character as "Señor Frijoles" instead of "Mr. Frijoles" in the English translation?

>>2927573
wow, look, a sane person

>>2927528
footnotes are for books, not for animu, mango or vidya.

pic related

>>2930110
>If you're translating a Mexican RPG from Spanish to English, would you constantly refer to the main character as "Señor Frijoles" instead of "Mr. Frijoles" in the English translation?
Correctness aside, "Señor Frijoles" would likely be more interesting to see than "Mr. Beans".

>>2930101
>Wrecking Delays

Opinion discarded. I don't know what Working Designs did to piss you off as a little boy, and frankly I don't care. But I've got paint that I can watch dry that will at the very least be more entertaining and enlightening than sitting with you while you grind your axe.

>>2930127
in what way does my childish jab at WD discredit the factual statement that Mystic Quest is a Japanese game?

>>2930150

Who said anything about that? As you've indicated, factual statement is factual. I was referring to your obvious bias against one of the early pioneers of modern game localization.

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>>2930156
>against one of the early pioneers of modern game localization.
You don't know much about localization, do you?

Or are you one of those WD apologists who say "but we would have never got those games anyway!"?

WD were charlatans, anybody with a bit of a brain would see that.

>>2930110
>honorifics have equivalent in other languages.
>footnotes are for books, not for animu, mango or vidya.

Kill yourself retard.

>>2930169

I'm not going to sit and listen to you grind your axe some more.

>>2930194
I wish I had an axe to grind actually, axes are cool.

Guess I'll go replay Golden Axe this evening.

Not even the anon you replied to in your other post by the way, but WD's localizations are garbage, they were basically the proto Xseed but worse.
Like really, the only good thing they did in all those years was making a song in Arc the Lad III better than the original JP one, which I admit it's quite a feat.

>>2930205

Post a translation you find more to your standards then. It must be from the 16-bit era.

>>2930215
There's no translation that fits my standard because my standard is learning the language to begin with.

But you see, there's a big difference in what WD did, adding lines and bad jokes for the sake of entertainment, changing plotlines because you find them lame and "rebalancing" a game because you think it's bad, and a standard bad or inaccurate translation.

I mean Vagrant Story got littered with faux old English lingo for the sake of atmosphere, that's pretty bad, but at the very least they didn't liberally altered lines, changed features or added fart jokes because "the audience would receive it better that way".

BoFIV had a few scenes removed because apparently americans can't handle implied nudity or a beheading and altered a character's speech pattern because drunken samurai dogs are bad in a game for children, that's pretty bad too, but at least they didn't change the gameplay because "it was too easy".

Just because all the other localizations are bad doesn't justify what WD did, and even if they were just as bad as others that still wouldn't be an excuse, you can't say that you steal stuff because a lot of people do that everyday and get a free pass, you justify yourself to your boss if he finds you slacking off because all your other coworkers do.

>>2930238

>There's no translation that fits my standard because my standard is learning the language to begin with.

Oh sweet pig-fucking Christ, stop right there. You're one of _those_ faggots. Nevermind.

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>>2930259
I might be one of _those_ faggots but at the very least I'm not the one who has to wait for bad translations or censored and butchered localizations in order to play games though, if your standards are so low you don't have any right to defend anyone when they get called out, much less in the case of WD.

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>>2922469
>for some reason, diagonals in the Japanese version walked SLOWER than up, down, left, right movements!
>for some reason

What idiots

As a professional translator, I've always strived for accurate translations.

I guess I was lucky I never had a project in my hand that would require to specifically decide if a localization would have been more suited, though.

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>>2930215
Not him, but I think almost every 16 bit translation is better than Lunar's. And that's coming from someone who Lunar 2 is definitely my favorite RPG of the era and one of my tops of all time.

Not everything is bad about it, the general lighthearted tone is what Lunar was going for originally. But the addition of pop culture references and extended, overplayed fart jokes is where they lost me. That they fuck up the gameplay on top of that just made it worse.

All that said, the new Star Dragon Tower theme they did was indeed great. So not everything was bad.

I like Working Designs for having brought some games over that otherwise probably wouldn't have, but I still hated a lot of what they did to them (Silhouette Mirage says hi) and am very glad they're not around anymore.

I'm a subtitler who works for Netflix, so I'll just throw out my two cents.

Literal translations only really works in languages like Dutch-German, who're so close you might as well run a script who'll change words with the dictionary of the other language.
In case of Japanese/Korean-English, the languages are so different literal translations will sound unnatural (I'M LOOKING AT YOU, PERSONA 4).

I personally think that, while the core must be accurate, localising isn't bad once you still keep the accuracy.
For example, insults and swearing should be translated with those of equal value, don't translate the insult or cuss itself.
It's a per-sentence and per-story basis, really.

>>2930526
All that makes sense and goes into a good translation. What doesn't go into a good translation is,

>hey why is this old guy up in a tower all by himself?
>hmmm what if he farts a lot?
>yeah! so people wouldn't want to be near him cause he smells, that's a great idea.
>cool I'll go record a big long fart track we can play over top all his dialogue.
>our fans are going to LOVE this! wow we're hilarious!

>>2930110
>If you're translating a Mexican RPG from Spanish to English, would you constantly refer to the main character as "Señor Frijoles" instead of "Mr. Frijoles" in the English translation?

If the story clearly takes place in Mexico then there are going to be Señors and Señoritas all up in my translation. Are you telling me that foreign honorifics are never used in native english works to emphasise setting or something?

Likewise, if the story is about samurai and ninja and shit, you bet your ass I'm leaving the donos in. But if the story doesn't take place in japanese or have clearly japanese protagonists who are clearly speaking japanese, then it's best to drop them or use the honorifics of what ever language they're supposed to be speaking.

In any case, bitching about honorifics is the domain of those who know shit all about the pain of killing a nice turn of phrase because the nearest words in english don't have the same connotation. Technical translation sometimes forces you to learn how an electric motor works, but you don't have to feel like a butcher.

>>2930592
This guy has the right attitude.

>>2930592
What this guy said.

>As literal as possible, but without Japanese syntax, honorifics or other shit that doesn't exist in English, or would just sound awkward as fuck.
>Don't censor anything, you cunts. Fuck the ESRB. I don't care if they slap your game with a T or M rating. You may as well not bother to localize the game if you're going to ship an inferior product. I haven't invested in a Nintendo product in ages for this very reason.
>I don't necessarily mind names or concepts that reference Japanese mythology or culture being swapped to some Western or European equivalent, as long as the game isn't being whitewashed. e.g. If the game takes place in feudal Japan, then obviously the characters and culture should consistently reflect that. It wouldn't make sense for the English version of Nobunaga's Ambition to be cast with Europeans fighting with long swords and pistols.
>Make sure the translation's grammar and spelling are actually consistent with whatever dialect is most widely spoken in the region the game is localized to. Nothing pisses me off more than someone rewriting the original script because they think giving characters certain dialects looks more flowery or some shit. At that point you're not translating, you're making shit up as you go along. Stick with simple English, and be as consistent as possible with the region's established dialect.

>>2930526
Translating between Dutch and German isn't as easy as it may seem. The two languages are obviously closely related and mutually intelligible to a degree but there are structures and phrases that won't make much sense.
Even inside a language you can find strong regional variations, e.g. British English vs American English.

>>2930685
>Translating between Dutch and German isn't as easy as it may seem. The two languages are obviously closely related and mutually intelligible to a degree but there are structures and phrases that won't make much sense
Thank you for explaining my native languages to me.

>Even inside a language you can find strong regional variations, e.g. British English vs American English.
They're called dialects. Yes, I know they exist.

>>2930663
nice opinions there
your level of mad was pretty funny though

>>2930706
I was more explaining it to foreigners.
Personally I think subtitles are fine since the original language is still there. I've long hated dubs and have grown to dislike text translations.

>>2930734
I feel the same way. Can't stand watching dubbed movies.

>>2930706
>dialects
lolno
That's not the point of localising for particular national markets. At all.
Here's an example I gave here before, verbatim:

>The problem with localisation is that, as the name implies, not only must one translate the story into X-language but also alter these references for Y-culture/country who also happens to speak X-language but isn't the same culture/country as the one for which X-language is named. For example, to an American, the very fact that I typed 'localisation' with an S rather than a Z is a simple localisation problem.

That can be seen as a problem with dialect and not necessarily a problem of localisation. To continue that old post:

>However, more in-depth issues can occur, as well.
>Imagine a game translated from Japanese that makes a reference to Doraemon or Kaibutsu-kun. Translating the game into some languages, such as French, a language into which these cartoons were officially translated and aired, wouldn't need to have the reference localised. A direct translation works fine.
>However, translating into English, a language into which these cartoons have never been given an official translation, the reference needs to be localised, perhaps to reference Carebears or something instead. See? This is a problem.

Now, what I didn't say in that old post was that while those cartoons were translated into French, they never aired in Francophone countries outside of Europe. If a show or game were redone for Quebec, Algeria or French Guyana, for example, the reference would have to be swapped to something from local pop culture as well as translated into French. See?

Another example I gave back then was Me, Myself & Irene which, to this day, I've still not seen in English. Saw it in Italian. Jokes in it referenced cartoons airing in Italy in the 70s/80s that I know never aired in the US. The translation team must've dealt with USican pop cultural references by swapping them for Italian ones in localisation.

>>2930205
haha, yep, you and I are different anons. pretty clear that >>2930156 is a victor ireland dickrider.

just because he is (was?) one of the more prolific idiots^H^H^H^H^Hlocalizers in the early days doesn't mean we should overlook his penchant for inappropriate or completely out-of-element "jokes" and compulsive, autistic need to fuck with game balance.

And don't even get me started on re-writing parts of game stories/scenarios. What the fuck is his problem?

if the person doing localization overshadows the game itself, you have a problem. Often, WD's "work" was never without a barrage of criticism, often with the liberties and flat-out dumb shit they would do when localizing games.

Doing it once or twice in the early days, I could understand... still doing it in the mid 00's and you're clearly a fucking idiot.

At least he was smart enough not to have a bunch of -san, -chan, -tan, -sama and -chinpo everywhere.

>>2930526
so far, besides the other guy who clearly doesn't like WD, this guy is the only non-idiot in this entire fucking thread. Congratulations.

oh, and this guy. >>2930453

>>2930592
>implying there is no english equivalent of "-dono"

if you translated Tale of Genji & Heike for a professional publisher and left fucking -dono and -sama and -san all over it, they would fucking laugh you off the face of the Earth.

fuck outta here.

English is the best language there is, it should be pure and free from any kind of influence from imperfect lesser languages.
Everything must be easy and simple to understand for the common American.
If things becomes too dull, just add submarines.

File: rhapsody_literal.png (1MB, 678x1563px) Image search: [Google]

1MB, 678x1563px

pic related.

>>2932471
>English is the best language there is
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
It serves it's purpose as a world language and lingua franca for it's simple-to-understand basis and large media presence, but that's it.

>it should be pure and free from any kind of influence from imperfect lesser languages.
I wouldn't use English then, considering it's 90% Germanified French.

>>2932495 I'm >>2930526
I wouldn't translate the name and just use the name Shiroyuki for it Or translate it as Snow Town or White Town..

I don't know the Japanese text, but as it's a direct translation and probably literal, I'd change it to this;
"This is Snow Town. It's a town filled with snow! Enjoy it and be merry/Let the white snow bring you joy!"

Depending on the tone. I'm guessing the "Enjoy the world of snow." in Japanese actually means "have fun with the snow".


For those wondering, I only do English to Dutch subtitles.

>>2933150
>please help me my sarcasm detector is broken

Ok, anon, it's ok. Plenty of people go through life without a sense of humour.

>>2933164
>I wouldn't translate the name and just use the name Shiroyuki for it Or translate it as Snow Town or White Town..

The anime fags would have a fit if you did that.

>>2933209
I don't know the game, so I can't say if everybody has a Japanese name.
If everyone does have one, Shiroyuki.
If everyone has a fantasy/western name like Golden Sun,Snow Town.

I am one of those anime fags, actually.