Misleading English translation of a major story element in the 7.4 MSQ (Big Spoilers)

TL;DR: the withering isn't real(?)

There's been a lot of speculation over "the great withering" mentioned by Halmarut at the end of the 7.4 MSQ and what it means. Out of curiosity I looked at the Japanese version of this scene, only to find this term is nowhere to be found.

Here's the line from the English localization that I'm talking about:

EN:
Halmarut: "For soon, it begins, and every world shall tremble. The Winterers must be prepared to outlast the great withering to come."

Now here's what she actually says in Japanese, along with a rough machine translation:

JP:
"問もなく、すべての世界を揺るがす異変が起き始める私たち「ウインタラー」が超えるべき、厳しい冬の訪れです。"

Translation:
"Soon, strange events that will shake the entire world will begin to occur, and the harsh winter will arrive, something that we 'winterers' must overcome."

No mention of any "withering" here. She does however talk about a "harsh winter" (厳しい冬) that is approaching... which is probably why they're called the Winterers, and not the Witherers.
The part about strange events occurring has been cut as well, obfuscated into simply "it begins".

By inventing this term they've added a specific meaning that the Japanese did not imply, while also obfuscating the reason this organization is called Winterers. Are they trying to bring a winter to stop the world from withering in the heat? Is the world decaying? If you play in English, who knows. I wouldn't be surprised if this backfires later, as the EN "localization" team's changes often do. (see: the lifestream, originals, the echo, etc).

In case you needed more convincing, here's what the winter is called in the French and German localizations according to a user from discord:
FR: Un hiver sans précédent -> "an unprecedented winter"
DE: der eisigen Kälte -> "the icy cold"

It looks like the English team are up to their nonsense again.

There's more stuff wrong with this scene in the English version, such as Halmarut's fangirling over the Warrior of Light being greatly downplayed, Calyx's lines being wrong, or the EN saying that Halmarut can hear "nature's proclamation"... but this post is fairly long already.

I felt the need to make this post because I see a lot of lore enthusiasts fixating on the word "withering" and its implications, unaware that they're theorycrafting with bad information. English speaking players deserve to know what the characters in the story are really saying.

Thanks for sharing - and your translation of the JP version actually makes more sense.

Yeah, I made a thread about it earlier, but this entire patch is a garbled mess in terms of rhe EN translation. It's vexing..

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Originally Posted by Underscore

which is probably why they're called the Winterers, and not the Witherers.

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To winter, as a verb, is to wait out the winter in a safe place.

To wither is simply to wither, or perhaps to cause the withering of something else.

I won't dispute that there seem to be contradictions in the English script at this point, but the terms are certainly not interchangeable for the title of their organisation, even if a time of withering and a time of winter are sufficiently close for the translators to blur those lines. And they probably have a much better idea of where the story is going than we do.

This seems like a negligible change. Stuff has a tendency to wither around winter.

its not going to change the story or whatever is coming next, so why bother

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Originally Posted by Underscore

TL;DR: the withering isn't real
Now here's what she actually says in Japanese, along with a rough machine translation:

JP:
すべての世界

Translation:
the entire world

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If you're going to trust machine translation over the fact that the context talks about multiple shards modifying すべて instead of referring to a singular 世界, I don't think you should be lecturing the devs on anything.
I really hate anyone that can't even pass a JPLT N5 trying to lecture people on "misleading" when we can't even pass the hurdle of basic context grammar being used as fuel for the "anti-localizer" culture war.

I have times when I flinch because issues with the translation whenever I play on my main hearing the differences in JP voiced dialogue versus English.
I have issues for certain decisions early on in ARR (particularly Urianger's speech, but I consider that a different canon when it's EN) whenever I play with two other alts that compare each of the actual text dialogue when I switch languages fully to both EN and JP.
But this is such a nothing burger it's ridiculous what you're trying to make of it.

At least have the decency to post this using your own JP knowledge or someone else who speaks the language to back up your claim instead of trusting a knowingly faulty machine that can't grasp a context heavy language in a game with major plot specific vocabulary.

Dawntrail really is Stormblood II.
People using Google Translate to do things like this lmao

Welcome back, Stormblood.

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Originally Posted by shadowofchao725

But this is such a nothing burger it's ridiculous what you're trying to make of it.

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I mean you kinda ignored the main point of the post just to nitpick but ok.

The English is the only one to make what's coming sound like a proper noun. "The Great Withering". All the other languages just say it's gonna be extra cold. The name "Winterers" was already not super well received and now they don't even talk about whatever coming calamity as a 'winter' so the name doesn't even make good sense.

"The great withering" isn't used as a proper noun. There is no evidence at current that the circumstances that Halmarut is talking about have a proper name, and I didn't take her mention of it to be as such. Calling these circumstances "the great withering" as such, by fans, is just because it's all we have to go on right now. In all languages, she uses this phrase as a colloquialism or turn of phrase.

It serves it's purpose in the given scene, to give a certain impression of events. You must remember that the English localisation is done in-house, alongside the JP script. While the English localisation has sometimes given a slightly different impression on certain elements in the past, I trust that they are aware enough of the story that the casual use of "things will soon be withering" and "we're in for a long winter" is not impacting anything of note. I'm sure we'll get a proper noun name, akin to the Final Days, at some point!

I think it's very fun to be able to see both the JP/FR/DE and EN localisations, like cool, two cakes! I like the flavours of both, and they can be enjoyed together, rather than in opposition. Nobody eating just one cake is going to be losing out on anything in this scenario, however.

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Originally Posted by Fawkes

I mean you kinda ignored the main point of the post just to nitpick but ok.

The English is the only one to make what's coming sound like a proper noun. "The Great Withering". All the other languages just say it's gonna be extra cold. The name "Winterers" was already not super well received and now they don't even talk about whatever coming calamity as a 'winter' so the name doesn't even make good sense.

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That's the funny thing with Japanese.
The things you expect proper nouns for don't get them from time to time.

I do not have the script on hand but there have been times in the story that the English script has to specify a name to make it flow better.
Meanwhile the JP script goes like 自警団 (Vigilante/Miltary force) or some OTHER generic name when they were referring to things like Crystal Braves.
Or 災い when referring specifically to the Seventh Umbral Calamity.
第七霊災 sometimes, but only 霊災 others. Japanese is context heavy. It omits proper nouns all the time.
Another one in Heavensward that was repeatedly said was "Holy See of Ishgard" is just "the church" and "Heaven's Ward" is directly referring to "The Blue Skies of Ishgard" from Heavensward's JP title being lost.

The Crystal Exarch is "crystal government official", in the most BORING and MUNDANE "I don't want to go to the government office/DMV" kanji you could think of.
The main point: Titles for plot important things are up to the discretion of the translator. To best convey to the audience speaking in that language how important something is. And that changes with every language.

厳しい冬 (being referred to in English at THE withering), but can be seen literally translated as "a great and terrible, famine-like winter" (That is implied to cause death, which can be changed to a title that could be something that causes death like withering) being used in that manner.
What I said about this being a literal nothingburger towards the OP is what I'm sticking to.

If they're fine with "calamites" having specific names like "The Flood of Light" for specific aspected disasters, they SHOULD be fine with an implied winter calamity that causes withering. Which winter does.

"There is no evidence it's a proper noun."
Yeah, like 500 other important things in the story in JP in the whole history of this game aren't either.

I'm nitpicking a nitpick with a clickbait title thread from someone that has ARGUABLY limited knowledge of the source language material that they weren't aware this has been happening and accepted.
Machine translation to nitpick localization choices is a plague. Especially for a context heavy language like Japanese compared to something more closely able to be directly translated.

I appreciate you pointing out that I omitted defending my position in the original post.
But alas I've had enough this discourse for one lifetime.
I've pointed out the flaw in OP trusting machine translation and I've provided enough context as a speaker of both English and Japanese. That's enough for me.

The more important point in the 7.4 ending would be if the phrase about a certain apocalyptic voice is mentioned in all languages.

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Originally Posted by Glyphs

"The great withering" isn't used as a proper noun. There is no evidence at current that the circumstances that Halmarut is talking about have a proper name, and I didn't take her mention of it to be as such. Calling these circumstances "the great withering" as such, by fans, is just because it's all we have to go on right now. In all languages, she uses this phrase as a colloquialism or turn of phrase.

It serves it's purpose in the given scene, to give a certain impression of events. You must remember that the English localisation is done in-house, alongside the JP script. While the English localisation has sometimes given a slightly different impression on certain elements in the past, I trust that they are aware enough of the story that the casual use of "things will soon be withering" and "we're in for a long winter" is not impacting anything of note. I'm sure we'll get a proper noun name, akin to the Final Days, at some point!

I think it's very fun to be able to see both the JP/FR/DE and EN localisations, like cool, two cakes! I like the flavours of both, and they can be enjoyed together, rather than in opposition. Nobody eating just one cake is going to be losing out on anything in this scenario, however.

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The problem is that withering is a very specific kind of process, not the extremely nebulous bad thing that the other languages talk about. It isn't a horrible error, but it's definitely misleading.

Is withering not literally what happens in a ‘harsh winter’? Don’t they effectively mean the exact same thing semantically (‘the inevitable degradation of [old life] that gives way to the new’?) I’m confused about how the two aren’t (mostly) interchangeable outside of pedantics .

Winter is defined by the gradual cessation of growth in natural life. Which is…withering? I mean, I certainly can’t see people mistaking ‘withering’ as being a Summer phenomenon lol

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Originally Posted by ServerCollaps

its not going to change the story or whatever is coming next, so why bother

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Its about quality. Would you like and expansion full of mistranslation. Take a look over beyond the blue and orange sky between yonder elementals and beneath the skys pale moonlight <- would u want something like that over something like Look over the mountain top it should be below it. <- translations are very important they help the flow of the game story and instructions on what too do.

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Originally Posted by Connor

Is withering not literally what happens in a ‘harsh winter’? Don’t they effectively mean the exact same thing semantically (‘the inevitable degradation of [old life] that gives way to the new’?) I’m confused about how the two aren’t (mostly) interchangeable outside of pedantics .

Winter is defined by the gradual cessation of growth in natural life. Which is…withering? I mean, I certainly can’t see people mistaking ‘withering’ as being a Summer phenomenon lol

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Yes, these are my thoughts exactly lol. I don't really feel like there's enough of a difference between the idea of outlasting a coming winter and outlasting a coming withering (which is what happens to things during the winter). My interpretation was that the plant Ascian chose to use a word with plantier vibes to reference whatever process this is, but I can't think of a reason it would be misleading, especially because it's not presented as a proper noun in English

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Originally Posted by Connor

Is withering not literally what happens in a ‘harsh winter’? Don’t they effectively mean the exact same thing semantically (‘the inevitable degradation of [old life] that gives way to the new’?) I’m confused about how the two aren’t (mostly) interchangeable outside of pedantics .

Winter is defined by the gradual cessation of growth in natural life. Which is…withering? I mean, I certainly can’t see people mistaking ‘withering’ as being a Summer phenomenon lol

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Japanese is the contextual language, not English. English is a blunt instrument that you have to beat people over the head with to be properly understood.

As a native english speaker playing the game with english text and voice, after that line I thought "What's 'the withering'?" I did not think "Oh, this is the plant obsessed ascian that I may or may not have read about in some optional lore two expansions ago, she clearly must use a lot of plant metaphors when she talks, and plants wither in extreme temperatures or with lack of water or proper soil, so clearly she must just be saying it's going to get very cold".

The localizers are just making their own story instead of translating.

Machine translation of Japanese paired with a limited understanding of prose leads to these sort of bad faith arguments. The English localization is not written in a modern format which leads to some players misunderstanding certain story aspects. Narrative context is important and localization does not equate to a direct translation.

Just another person that doesn't understand that localization isn't simply translating things word for word from one language from another and that Google Translate is perfect. Japanese is structured in such a way that makes it impossible to directly translate to English. How you speak often depends on who is speaking to whom.

Not sure why people are so caught up on the worth "withering". It's not an object, this isn't Minecraft or Dragon Age. It's just a verb that means to decay and die, which is what things do when winter rolls around. Withering in this context can mean a coming harsh winter, but withering is a bit more poetic to say. English is a very flowery language, after all. We love to spice up sentences by using fancy words and unnecessary adjectives.

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Originally Posted by Iscah

they probably have a much better idea of where the story is going than we do.

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You'd hope so, but this isn't the first time the English has changed things for no reason and caused problems for itself later on. Like the time they called Elidibus an emissary, claimed the echo was a gift from Hydaelyn, called the earth veins "the lifestream" and conflated it with the aetherial sea, and removed a bunch of Ascian foreshadowing from ARR. The list unfortunately goes on.

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Originally Posted by Connor

Is withering not literally what happens in a ‘harsh winter’?

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Originally Posted by GrizzlyTank

This seems like a negligible change. Stuff has a tendency to wither around winter.

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Right, but that's not what the original script said, and the term "withering" is not exclusive to winter. Things can wither for plenty of reasons.

I've seen people theorizing that the world and its inhabitants are decaying based on this word choice. We don't actually know what this "harsh winter" entails - it might not even be that literal, or it might encompass more than that.

The point of localization is to give people an equivalent experience in the target language, so adding this specific term (which may or may not be accurate) leads people to conclusions that a Japanese player wouldn't come to.

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Originally Posted by shadowofchao725

If you're going to trust machine translation over the fact that the context talks about multiple shards modifying すべて instead of referring to a singular 世界, I don't think you should be lecturing the devs on anything.
I really hate anyone that can't even pass a JPLT N5 trying to lecture people on "misleading" when we can't even pass the hurdle of basic context grammar being used as fuel for the "anti-localizer" culture war.
~snip~

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I never claimed the machine translation was perfect, it's there to provide some context for the actual point of my post which you overlooked. I looked up the specific terms of importance to verify that my understanding of those at least was correct. You don't need to be a fluent speaker to know that "厳しい冬" doesn't mean "great withering" or that the English text is wrong.

This also isn't an anti-localizer culture war post. I'm fully aware of the necessity of localization, but many of the alterations made by this English team are straight up not that. The localization has its problems, but with stuff like this it's usually more an issue of excessive creative liberties, poor media literacy and an obsession with changing things for the sake of changing them.

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Originally Posted by CaptainLagbeard

The localizers are just making their own story instead of translating.

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This. I meander around N2 in terms of listening comprehension in JP, and while the dialogue in the English script may appeal to the average American specifically, as well as people who don't like JRPGs, several other people play the game in English as well. The localization divorces the storyline from its own messaging and makes it, at times, feel more like a WRPG rather than a JRPG, solely because it insists on localizing the stupidest nonsense. Memes in achievement names? I think they're cringe, but they don't affect the story, so whatever. Dialogue left and right getting fucked over, Urianger's speech, Haurchefant as a concept, loads of major terminology... It just sucks, and it used to be better than this. Well, in the MSQ that is, the battle TL has always been ass.

e/: And yeah, changing things for the sake of changing things. Meso Terminal?????

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Originally Posted by Espon

Just another person that doesn't understand that localization isn't simply translating things word for word from one language from another and that Google Translate is perfect. Japanese is structured in such a way that makes it impossible to directly translate to English.

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Yes, thank you. I know what localization is. Some people like to say silly things like "we want translation, not localization!" but fortunately I have never made this claim. What I want is good localization that provides an equivalent experience and doesn't make unnecessary changes that mislead the playerbase for years on end.

For example, vast swathes of English-speaking players still don't realize that the aetherial sea and "the lifestream" (actually the earth veins/currents) are totally separate concepts because the English script got them mixed up. Or for a closer parallel, the whole "Y'shtola's aether sight is killing her" debacle. Phrasing is important.

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Originally Posted by GrizzlyTank

The more important point in the 7.4 ending would be if the phrase about a certain apocalyptic voice is mentioned in all languages.

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Do you mean the "It's nature's proclamation. Can't you hear it?" part?

If so, here's a JP/EN comparison for that:

EN:
Calyx: That's your ominous prediction, is it?
Halmarut: No, it's nature's proclamation. Can't you hear it?
Halmarut: It echoes in the silence left by the will of the star.

JP:
Calyx: それはお前の見立てか?
Halmarut: いいえ。告げているんです
Halmarut: 星の意志に代わる、理が。

JP, roughly machine translated:
Calyx: Is that your opinion?
Halmarut: No. I'm telling you.
Halmarut: Reason* replaces the will of the star.

*For context; the word translated as "reason" here is 理 (kotowari) which has a number of meanings, but in this context probably means something like "the natural order".

Assuming that's correct, the EN is mostly fine if overly flowery - but the "Can't you hear it?" part is made up. There is no voice.

It doesn't really seem to change the intention much? Things wither in the winter. Something big is coming. The message is still getting through.

Localization and translation creating different dialogue and story than the source material? In My FFXIV? Its more likely than you think.

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Originally Posted by Underscore

Right, but that's not what the original script said, and the term "withering" is not exclusive to winter. Things can wither for plenty of reasons.

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Understandable. But still, due to the nature of languages and difference/nuances between them. The winterer -> wither honestly flows better without changing the context than winter winter which might sound overly repetitious.

Ultimately this is a negligible change since the context is the same. An apocalyptic event is coming that we, the hero, don't really know anything about. Fire? Ice? It's irrelevant in context of our player character.

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Originally Posted by Underscore

Right, but that's not what the original script said, and the term "withering" is not exclusive to winter. Things can wither for plenty of reasons.

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I don't think it particularly matters whether there is some ambiguity now, so long as that when the vaguely-foreshadowed bad thing happens, it fits with the term that was used to foreshadow it. Until then it doesn't entirely matter if different audiences make different guesses about what will come.

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Originally Posted by Underscore

Assuming that's correct, the EN is mostly fine if overly flowery - but the "Can't you hear it?" part is made up. There is no voice.

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I don't take the phrase "can't you hear it?" as implying there is a real voice at all. It's the second half of the same metaphor of describing a natural thing happening as "nature's proclamation". It certainly isn't attributing an actual voice to an entity.

Holy moly just play the game in one language and you won't even have to think about this.

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Originally Posted by Iscah

I don't take the phrase "can't you hear it?" as implying there is a real voice at all. It's the second half of the same metaphor of describing a natural thing happening as "nature's proclamation". It certainly isn't attributing an actual voice to an entity.

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Yeah the way I took it is as a poetic way of saying, "Look, you should be able to figure out why this is happening too, you have the same information I do."

"Can't you hear it?" = "Can't you see it?"

Ironically, the exact reason localization probably chose to use the word 'withering' instead of 'winter' is precisely because English speakers might think winter = LITERAL winter. There's a whole lot of symbolism in the Japanese 'arrival of a harsh winter' - it's symbolic. Now mind you, there could be actual cold winter weather to accompany it.

They probably asked what is this winter actually doing to the world? And the answer in the broader narrative is: it drains life, hope, vitality, worlds themselves. Hence, we get withering.

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Originally Posted by Ykitooooo

Ironically, the exact reason localization probably chose to use the word 'withering' instead of 'winter' is precisely because English speakers might think winter = LITERAL winter.

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Good point too. You only need look at how many people heard the term "Winterers" and started assuming it meant we were either going somewhere cold, or going somewhere warm to get away from the cold.

i would have been more fixated on the 'every world' and 'the entire world' difference. but i guess it depends if you count the shards to the entire world or not. no clue if jp does

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Originally Posted by Asari5

i would have been more fixated on the 'every world' and 'the entire world' difference. but i guess it depends if you count the shards to the entire world or not. no clue if jp does

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Check this post up thread: https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...=1#post6777382

Chucking that phrase into another machine translation results in "all worlds (used in the context of a multiverse or all of reality)", so Your Mileage May Vary when using a machine to translate Japanese.

English can be plenty contextual in the mouth of a grumpy hobbit bidding you 'good morning'. :p
Based on how Endwalker structured it, greater association with the winter allegory (?) itself will likely crop up later on down the line - it seemed to be a habit for them in that expansion to shift around clarifying statements when localizing the japanese text to occur later on. Not a remark on the quality thereof, whether they did a good job is debatable.

P.S. Shall this be the winter of our discontent?

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Originally Posted by Reginald_Cain

Holy moly just play the game in one language and you won't even have to think about this.

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Unfortunately, it's become bit of a fad now to complain about translations that aren't 1 to 1 due to a certain poorly translated shows that got videos made of them.

https://a.pinatafarm.com/768x894/f9b...-no-anyway.jpg

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Originally Posted by UNDEAD10000

And FFXIV English localization is really bad, so bad that for years i don't have any idea what is even happening in the main story when there is many cutscenes where English text dosen't make any sense on what actaully is happening on cutscene it self and there is simply so many main story moments where i simply don't have any idea what they are talking about which makes following the main story really hard for me.

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This sounds like a you issue. Maybe learn English?

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Originally Posted by Ajisaii

This sounds like a you issue. Maybe learn English?

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Guess they played with japanese sound and english text?

But yeah, sounds like a you issue if you never understood anything with the plot. Want a nonsensical plot? Try wow.

I dunno, I'm starting to play in French and there are a lot of wacky choices and quality differences made in the English version that are wholly unique to it that I never understood it because I never tried this experiment.

Suddenly the players that constantly harp on the English localization don't seem nuts after replaying my favorite scenes in another Western translation and it being both faithful but also way less loaded with "purple prose" on a level I was not prepared for.

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Originally Posted by UNDEAD10000

I have learned English over 20 years ago and since then i have being using English pretty much daily, so i don't need learn English when i already know English.

And sorry for making negative post about English localization, so i deleted my reply and i will never post anything about English localization again.

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settle down unc

TL;DR

> Reasonable complaints being made about the English translation wandering off into the forest to do its own thing while Japanese and the other two lolcalizations are more or less in agreement.

>> The usual suspects go on the attack to defend the lolcalization because it has never been wrong ever and certainly isn't well-known to be mistake-ridden and lousy with people letting their personal opinions get in the way of translating faithfully

>>>Clearly the only thing to do is question the intelligence and reading comprehension of anyone who dares complain about errors, because even if only one out of four scripts say the thing, obviously it must be the outlier that's right and the complainers (And the Japanese writers, and the FR and DE translators) just don't understand the lolcalization team's grand vision for the story.