“Make It Biblical” – How Vagrant Story Changed Video Game Localization
usgamer.net
usgamer.net
Overall nice post, though. Translation is hard, and especially getting the feel of a particular place in time.
It was neat to see their examples of turning plain Japanese into a quasi-Elizabethan English in order to match the vaguely medieval setting of the game. That's something that's really hard to do (because it's more than translation, now you're reinterpreting the original text)...
As a semi-related concept, I stumbled across an entry on Haragei [1] (non-verbal, implied meaning?) in Japanese culture yesterday.
The myriad of ways that necessary communication is accomplished in different cultures is fascinating.
Japanese does have many forms of imagery though. For a prime example of cheeky imagery in wordplay like the one in the sodliers' dialogue you can probably look no further than Rakugo - which employs wordplay so much that it's notoriously hard to translate.
Alexander Smith's translation took some care in making it a thorough--I even spotted a few instances where he used an implied verb of motion. In earlier forms of English, verbs of motion like "to go" could be implied rather than explicitly stated (cf. Taming of the Shrew: "Come, Kate, we'll to bed."). It still exists in languages like German but has long since fallen out of favor in English .
Can you give an example where this happens in German? I am a native German speaker, but not aware of such an example.
What I can imagine what you might have had in mind when you wrote your post is something like "Willst du nach Hause?" or "Ich will nach Hause", where indeed that verb of movement is missing.
In my opinion (but I am not a linguist or teacher of German) is that in German these verbs "können" (as in your example) or "wollen" are used somewaht differently in German than in English:
If one asks "Willst du nach Hause?", one only asks whether the person would prefer to (with which method is undefined) to get home. If you ask "Willst du nach Hause gehen?", it asks the question with a concrete way to get to home ("gehen").
Similar things (though more subtile) hold for your "kannst du Deutsch?" example. Formulated this way it does not specify in which way the other person is capable of German (speaking, understanding, writing etc.). The answer will to this question will often give a hint in which way the answerer is capable of German (speaking, understanding, writing etc.). If you want to ask specifically whether the person is capable of German in a specific way, you add this to your question, such as "Kannst du Deutsch sprechen" (though it would be more idiomatic to formulate this as "Sprechen Sie (auch) Deutsch?").
> I can't rely on intuition to say whether something like, "werden wir ins Bett", sounds right without gehen.
This is clearly not correct German. I think you perhaps meant "Wollen wir ins Bett?", which is nevertheless still rather colloquial (better use "Wollen wir ins Bett gehen?"),
And that's an interesting note about the specific ambiguity about how something is done. I think the difference in English is that a verb like "to go" is already extremely general. That is, "to go" encompasses pretty much any method of "going", and one would use a more specific verb to relay a more specific method, like "to walk" or "to drive" or "to take the train". But there's not always a general verb to fit the situation.
This is usually called internationalization (i18n).
For people deeply interested in video game translation, particularly with some knowledge of Japanese, I highly recommend the “Legends of Localization” books, where the author goes into extreme details about how Zelda (first book) and Earthbound (second book) were translated. There’s also a website with similar information (but not as deep) for a whole plethora of games, and a third book (for Super Mario Bros.) is in the works.
For a more emblematic example of the script quirks these games employ, The Final Fantasy Tactics remake (War of the Lions) goes much more Shakespearean, for good and ill (you lose some of the most classic lines in the original, like Don't blame us. Blame yourself or God., but the entire thing is more cohesive and vivid)
Here's a good side-by-side: https://dekaja.dreamwidth.org/1675.html
Why can't we have some respect for the original work?
This is a bad trend in game translations, and sadly does extend further than that. I do hope it comes to pass.
A literal translation of many sentences from Japanese to English (and vice-versa) reorders words to the point of gibberish.
Almost every idiom is broken without reinterpretation -- well except for the really good crude ones.
"It is better to be vaguely right than exactly wrong." -Carveth Read
With humility for one's own skills and respect for the author, there are many times a literal translation would not accomplish the author's intent (in the target language).
To be clear, by not taking liberties what I meant is preserving both meaning and intent. So called localization does often screw with one or the other.
Here's a line:
> そんなに簡単に使えるものなのか、"魔法"ってヤツは？
> Is this "magic" stuff really that easy to use?
That is a literal translation, to a point, but it is a lossy translation. You've substantially lost the characterization of the solider, who is obviously lowborn/uneducated/crude/etc in the original (to a degree that "stuff" does not capture -- the giveaway is ってヤツは？, which is content-free and hence murderously difficult to translate). The shipped translation makes a nod in the direction of that characterization, and (correctly) captures that Solider B is the sophisticated one of the two, by a fair but not impossible margin.
Also, to the extent you believe authorial intent is a function of authors rather than of texts, this translation (like many!) is a joint creative endeavor of the author and the translator, and (again, if you believe authorial intent matters) the author's direction trumps your aesthetic preferences.
(Disclaimer: comment informed by professional experience as a J->E translator/interpreter.)
People would be pretty pissed if someone did that to a book wouldn't they?
But at least they aimed for accuracy. Not too much American culture and memes. And actual respect for the product and creators! Unheard of in some contemporary videogame localization circles.
Alexander Smith was based in Japan and got Matsuno's blessing for the changes.