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SMWCP2 Spanish translation?

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Well that escalated quickly.#fim{:X}

Some levels name will requite direct word translation or none at all. Looking at you world three and erephs eht raef. Others it's quite manageable to translate with same context.
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Some levels name will requite direct word translation or none at all. Looking at you world three and erephs eht raef. Others it's quite manageable to translate with same context.


I wonder how you would translate basically "fear the sphere", what also rhymes :/


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Well that escalated quickly


I agree.
Okay, first off, could we please try to be civil about this? Seriously.

So here's the thing: Preserving puns, wordplay, nuances, etc., when possible, is important. Like, really important. You wouldn't go and translate the entire game but just leave off the ending because you didn't feel like it, would you? Then, for the same reason, you don't just go and translate the entire game and not convert (or at least attempt to convert) the meanings behind the words as well. If you don't, then the English audience and the German / Spanish / French / whatever audience are essentially reading entirely different scripts that mean entirely different things. This is, like, Translation 101 here.

Plus, at least with the level names, 99% of the time it's not the specific pun that people care about, it's the fact that a pun exists at all. For example, Volcanic Panic could've just as easily been called Molten Mayhem or something, and it wouldn't really matter. What matters is that there's a lava-themed pun as the title.

Originally posted by Shog
Example "Volcanic Panic", literally "Vulkanische Panik". So english people which are never going to play the translation anyway would be pissed because the rhyme "nic" would be lost?


No, but the German audience would be mad because they didn't get the same treatment as the English audience. We got puns in every title, they just got a random assortment of words that don't really mean anything.
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Originally posted by Shog
Again, i don't see the big deal in "shoddy" translations. If it gets translated it gets translated. It's a hobby of some game, not the most important thing. If that would be the case, it would have already been finished and much more people could/would participate. It is like you make a big fuss out of translating, while much more important things have to been done, you know...finishing the actual game?

This so called translation is for when the hack's FINISHED.

Originally posted by Shog
Finally Translation can happens after the game is finished, so yeah, it isn't even important for the game and what if i translate it now "fast" and "shoddy", atleast people from that language could enjoy these directly if they want.

I doubt a "fast and shoddy" translation would be enjoyable.

Originally posted by Shog
Example "Volcanic Panic", literally "Vulkanische Panik". So english people which are never going to play the translation anyway would be pissed because the rhyme "nic" would be lost?

You don't need to translate it literally. That's what we've been trying to say; you can change the name accordingly to maintain the alliterations and rhymes.


Also it doesn't matter if it's just a hack (it actually is the biggest hack that's ever going to be done), that's not a reason to go and do whatever sloppily because "oh it's just a game". You always have to stay professional, it doesn't matter in what. Imagine if this site's rules and texts were written in chatspeak or with typos everywhere. That would be ridiculous and absolutely unprofessional. But this site is just a site not many people know of/care about, so what's the big deal?!...

Same with anything else. The hack has puns that english-speaking people can enjoy, why not different language-speaking people? If you just go and translate something literally (like google translator) then you're a terrible, terrible translator. If the literal translation rhymes/alliterates, great; if not, then make it do.
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If you seriously can't bother to translate something well then you'd be better off not translating anything at all.

The way I personally see it is that, since this collab is being presented as a quality game that has been polished through loads of testing, feedback, and communication, non-English audiences deserve that same level of quality. Speaking about translation with such nonchalance is like saying non-English audiences don't really matter. I don't ever want to give that impression with this project.

Don't get me wrong- DIY translations are fine, but if they don't match the level of quality we've striven to put into everything else, they shouldn't be listed as official translations.
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Originally posted by Shog
I wonder how you would translate basically "fear the sphere", what also rhymes :/

I'd play through the level and look for other characteristics that could make for a punny name. Worst case, I'd just call it "Kugel-Katastrophe" or something (backwards of course).

Whatever I'd do, I wouldn't go the literal way and call it "Fürchte die Kugel". Like Kipernal said, what matters is usually not the exact pun, but the fact that one exists at all, as opposed to a title with no alliteration or other kinds of word play whatsoever.

Sure, It'd be great to find a title that rhymes - however, if that doesnt't work, the next best thing isn't to use a literal translation, but to go with another kind of pun instead (alliteration in this case). Alliterations or rhymes were the level naming premise anyway.


 
Well, alliterations aren't really puns, but yeah. See here. I would probably even look through the other-language versions myself (at least, the ones in a language I could actually read at all) just to see what people came up with. I'd be willing to help with input as well. I'm not fluent in any language other than English, but I've made puns in other languages before anyway, and alliteration isn't too hard. There's also the matter of cultural translation. I don't think there's much in this game that it would apply to, but it's still something to consider. Also, what other languages would be worth doing besides Spanish and German? Portuguese, maybe? Japanese? (And no, I can't immediately think of a good Spanish version of "Volcanic Panic" or German version of "Fear the Sphere" either...)

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Wait a minute... the last time I looked into this thread was on Wednesday? 0_o
DAMN! Time sure flies by when you are addicted to a video game...

Anyways, my opinion on translations:
A good translation is very, very, very important because the quality of a translation has an impact on the quality of the product itself. In fact: Not translating something at all is better than translating something badly. A good example for this would be the German translation of Final Fantasy VII. GOD, that translation is horrible! As in: It's the definition of "bad". The second you start playing it you understand that the people who translated it had no interest in video games, whatsoever. All dialogs were just literal word by word translations that often didn't make any sense or weren't understandable at all; the translation had no consistency (like items and characters having two ore three different names throughout the game); translated terms didn't sound like they'd belong to a game at all ("Ebene" instead of "Stufe" or "Level", "deaktiviert" instead of "tot" or "besiegt"...); many texts didn't make sense gramatically and sometimes they even just left dialogs or parts of dialogs completely untranslated (popular example: "It's all in there. Read it sorgfältig durch und unterschreibe ihn dann." Another example I laugh at: The different names of the "Weapon" monsters in the German translation. The most common translation is the English name "Weapon", but sometimes they're also called "Waffe" or (and this is really funny because it doesn't make ANY sense) "Waféé".

So that was my general opinion on translations. Now for the "how to translate": How to translate something depends largely on the context. For example: Song lyrics or a game's title can't be translated in the same way as regular dialogs. In song lyrics the sound, beat and rhyme are very important. In game titles the catchiness and other aspects are important. This, I guess, also goes for the level names. The aliterations are a gimmick with the main goal of making the names get stuck in your head and they definitely accomplish that goal better than just random level names. Therefore I'd say maintaining the gimmick in the translation would be more important than a literal translation or even a non-literal translation with a similar meaning, but without the gimmick.

This is just my opinion and I know there are a lot of people who'd actually disagree. Some people just hate it when translations aren't literal (you see a lot of German people complaining about this in German dubs of English TV shows) and other people, like me, hate it when translations are so literal that they don't have any unique charme to them. Personally, I think, I'd go all Nintendo over a translation and change everything neccessary if it would make for an overall better experience of the translated product and if it would create some unique charme. Yeah, if you ask me, Nintendo are pretty much the grandmasters of game translations nowadays. At least for German translations.
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Oh my god, Can't believe we started an arguement just because of a translation...

YOU GUYS MUST CALM DOWN!

Originally posted by Akireyano
Oh my god, Can't believe we started an arguement just because of a translation...


Why not? Translations are important!
Feel free to visit my website/blog - it's updated rarely, but it looks pretty cool!
Err, as someone who translates professionally... Here's the thing. Both sides here are correct.

Translation exists on a SPECTRUM. Which means that there is a range of area in-between the word-literal translation and what we call in the Japanese community the 「意味」 or "meaning" literal translation.

First, before we go any forward, we should discuss what these two terms mean.

Word-literal does not mean dictionary-literal. Dictionaries are context free and, while useful resources, do ultimately represent translation decisions themselves and are thus equally valid (if not less) to a skilled interpreter of the language. Word-literal means that every word is represented in some fashion. This does not mean that every word is represent on a per-word basis, but is represented IN SOME WAY. For example, two possible word-literal translations of the level 「びっくりするほどいやらしい」are "Nasty to the point of Surprise" and "Horribly Surprising." Both are equally valid and both represent each word used in the source and are thus word-literal. This is what most translators do for their job, including myself. I translate patents and engineering documentation, so... word-literal is more important for me than most, but even professional translators for Atlus, XSeed, and others do word-literal. It is then the script-editor (who ideally doesn't speak the source language) and the translation-editor's job to catch dumb mistakes and pretty up the language for production, should it need prettying up (or should it be appropriate for the project).

Now translating meaning, or what people called earlier, intent, is a much more exciting prospect. Intent is often better recognised as localisation, rather than 'translation.' The goal is not to simply bring the language over, it is to bring the source's language to language similar to the target language in such a way as it sounds natural coming from the target.

If that was difficult to understand - think of it this way. Meaning or intent translation represents itself in many ways. It can range from changing names from "Yamada" to "Smith," to changing the names of pop star references (Perhaps the protagonist buys a ticket to a "Destiny's Child" rather than "AKB48," particularly if the concert itself is never shown), to ignoring some scenes entirely to adapt them for a more western (or wherever) audience. Some famous examples of this range from the well-executed (FFVI) to the extremely-ridiculed ("Jelly Doughnuts" in Pokemon). It is a difficult end of the spectrum to pull off and, as a translator, it is simultaneously liberating, horrifying, and incredible fun to exist in it.


Each product is, of course, different, however. One must specify where they are on the spectrum with care each time. In fact, no one really wants you to be all the way one way or another. For translating games, it is often useful to be more on the side of the 「意味」 or thoughts/intent, rather than the word-literal. However, word-literal can also be appropriate depending on the game and the audience. If you're translating for a bunch of annoying fanboys who'll complain about "OMG U SAID IT WAZ YOLO WHEN THE ORIGINAL CLEARLY SAYS DO SOMETHING PASSIONATELY TILL YOU DIE. GEEZ," you may want to protect yourself by being more word-literal. That is totally valid. I initially predicted this for my VIP Mario 1 translation, but the community was much more accepting of less word-literal translations and I have made many changes to it since. VIP 3, and the current versions of VIP 1 and 2, show a nice evolution that of my change in perspective from the more word-literal mindset to leaning more heavily into the 「意味」end of the spectrum.



So no, there is no right answer - and anyone who tells you there is does not know what they're talking about because they likely haven't translated in any sort of a serious context. Pick how you want to translate on that spectrum with respect to the medium of what you're translating and the audience you are translating it for. Personally, I would try to keep word-play and rhymes in there by ignoring the exact meaning of the words used and going for the fun wordplay (while getting near the word-literal), but ultimately it is your project and your decision. Just take the audience and the fact that it is a game into consideration.


Just as another random example... So there's a level in DKC2 that is called "Hot Dome Appetizer" in the original Japanese. However, the version released in the west called the level "Fiery Furnace." The reason for this is that it just makes more sense in English and it gets the same basic gist. It loses both word-literal and meaning, but it localises it and gets in the same ballpark, while sounding nice and interesting in English. My suggestion would be to aim for localisations like this. Get the gist of the original and use that as an inspiration, rather than focusing on the exact language used.
Originally posted by RPG Hacker
Translations are important!


You're right, Nobody wants a game with half-assed foreign language edits i mean, it's just completely wrong!
In regards to Shog wanting my opinion, I may as well humour him.

It's important to me because I care about quality. It's kind of like how I'd rather watch a dubbed anime over a subbed anime.

Pretty much what everyone else has said. Why shouldn't we give the other audiences the same treatment?
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^Pretty much this. We've been giving this hack a high quality standard since the beginning, and I would like to keep it that way if we can.
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@Horikawa Otane:
That was a pretty interesting and in-depth post. Thanks for that! #ab{^^;;;}
I've always admired translators for their work. I've done a few miserable hobby translations myself before and know how difficult it can be. Back then I really tried to translate everything literally, nowadays I wouldn't do it that way.
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Originally posted by Horikawa Otane
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Yep, an interesting read indeed. Thanks for the insight.


 
I, myself, wouldn't mind if the level names were slightly different in a translated language. After all, the whole alliteration/rhyme aspect is more important (the context) rather than the literal translation itself.

After all, keeping the spirit of SMWCP is more important than simply churning out a spanish/german/pig latin or what-have-you translation.
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