Translation Team: Please stop doing this...

[Aeyis]

I get that they're attempting to add "color" to the dialogue, but wordy dialogue that reads like bad Game of Thrones fanfic interspersed with memes obfuscates the original meaning more than it enhances it.

Adding color to the dialogue changes much of the original meaning. Regardless of actual translation skill it makes for a terrible translation.
But that is unfortunately often what localization is about.

If I'm honest a fair few of the complaints here simply amount to people with a lacking vocabulary being upset at having to learn a new word...

I feel that the issue is not the words used. It is that the dialogue is greatly altered from the original (japanese) dialogue. For what purpose the localization team feels that every other character needs to speak in archaic or olden tongue, I have no idea.

I'm pretty sure the head of translating team is Japanese, so it's not like the original intent is getting greatly lost or anything... Get mad at the Japanese writers, not the translators. That's likely how the lore team WANTS those characters to sound.

Speaking from someone that has Japanese voice enabled with English text:
It is not a case of translation skill. A lot of the dialogue is altered (localized). Because of that, a good portion of the original intent actually is lost.
Many characters sound very different between japanese and english dialogue. (I cannot speak for french or german, as ive not read/heard those)

[Viridiana]

Speaking from someone that has Japanese voice enabled with English text:
It is not a case of translation skill. A lot of the dialogue is altered (localized). Because of that, a good portion of the original intent actually is lost.
Many characters sound very different between japanese and english dialogue. (I cannot speak for french or german, as ive not read/heard those)

Except that, as we keep having to point out to people, there is no true "original" in FFXIV, because each team has input that then gets worked into the other languages.

[Aeyis]

Except that, as we keep having to point out to people, there is no true "original" in FFXIV, because each team has input that then gets worked into the other languages.

The only team to develope content is the japanese team. This would be the first time that I hear of a localization team having input in the development of the story or plot.
Correct me if I'm wrong.


Especially considering the rather large differences in the dialogue of different languages, you seem to be mistaken with your assumption.
If the teams worked together, should they not have similar dialogue?

Done and done.

I appreciate the link, and how it quotes or specifies the relevant part of the interview. I will go through that later.

[Viridiana]

The only team to develope content is the japanese team. This would be the first time that I hear of a localization team having input in the development of the story or plot.
Correct me if I'm wrong.

Done and done.

[Aeyis]

Done and done.

I also spend a lot of time working with the other guys in our team: the English team as well as the French and German teams. We talk a lot about what we’re going to do with the characterizations, certain stylistic issues, everything down to how we’re going to spell certain words… If we’re going to go with English spelling or British spelling… How certain races are going to talk, what kind of words they’re gonna use, the overall styles for cities… things like that.

The interview you linked only mentions working together with other localization teams.

The following part indicates how its largely up to the localization teams judgement:

We talk about adjustments… how we’re going to go in and tweak the text, and if those tweaks are big enough to warrant going over to the devs and getting their permission

This is precisely the point I was making before. Localization often changes dialogue from the intent with which it was originally written.
Personally I consider this the worst kind of 'translation'. Because it's pretty arrogant to change a different writers text into something you feel is more fitting.
Translation should be all about accurately conveying the originals intent.


Localization teams can get away with a lot. That should already be obvious considering the phrasing of certain quest (names) and the usage of certain words.
I just wish they would use that creativity to accurately translate the dialogue.


Again I should stress that I do not question the translation teams ability. Merely their overlocalization.

So does removing color from dialog, but that's unavoidable because different languages have different ways of adding "color" and it's not the sort of thing that can generally cross from one language to another, especially if they're unrelated languages like Japanese and English. Removing color and then adding a rather different color back in is slightly closer to preserving the intent than removing color and leaving just the bare literal meaning to stand alone.

That is quite true. However for example American English phrases many things differently then UK English. And there are variants of those as well.
This is why I feel that the best localization should focus on translating, rather then phrasing. Make use of words with exact meaning, instead of expressions.


Currently I feel that a lot of color is added where originally there was none.Or as they put it:

And then, again, a lot of the quests, when we do our translations, we will some times add things — Japanese can be a very vague language — a lot of important information is either cut completely or it’s implied heavily. It can be kind of confusing for western players and readers, so we’ll go in and tweak things to make it a little easier to understand and a little bit clearer.

I don't know, personally I would much rather enjoy the original writing rather then someone else's take on what the writing should have been like.

I DO think that the English devs greatly over value their contribution though. When a scene is COMPLETELY different in Japanese and English, I don't care if the teams worked together, it is STILL an extremely shoddy end-result. I'm from a generation where Japanese scripts were often changed at a whim by lazy and unprofessional English translators, so my knee jerk reaction is to hate it, even IF the Japanese team approves of the change. I'm waiting for Yugiri to pull out a rice ball and loudly declare in English how she LOVES jelly donuts.

And that summs up my own reaction pretty nicely.

How can anyone with a straight face say that the teams are closely working together when the dialogue is so different between languages? I do not understand.


I hold no love for localization, I admit. But this only because of the results I see.

Having Lady Iceheart swear to me in english, calling me a fool and more...while in japanese her only words are a subdued (in a slight pleading voice) ''warrior of light''
How do these 2 very different characters carry the same intent?

[Viridiana]

The interview you linked only mentions working together with other localization teams.

With reading comprehension like that, it's no wonder you don't like the dialogue in the game:

"One of the things that they do is instead of making things solely Japanese and then ask us to translate those, they’ll talk with the localization team and collaborate with us to get more western ideas in the game itself. This comes down to things like monster names, monster attacks, place names, item names… these are all conceived by myself and the other members of the English team and we work directly with the world lore planners to come up with these, and then help them translate them back into Japanese."

"For example, the hyur and miqo’te names for NPCs are all done by the English team, the Elzen names are all conceived by the French team, the Lalafell names come from the Japanese team, and the Roegadyn names are a joint effort between the German and English teams and so, again, you have all these aspects of the game that are being created by not just the Japanese side, but also by the localization side as well."

"And then, again, a lot of the quests, when we do our translations, we will some times add things — Japanese can be a very vague language — a lot of important information is either cut completely or it’s implied heavily. It can be kind of confusing for western players and readers, so we’ll go in and tweak things to make it a little easier to understand and a little bit clearer. A lot of times the Japanese team will then go back and look at the English translations or the French translations and get ideas on how they can change the Japanese text in turn."

[Gunspec]

How can anyone with a straight face say that the teams are closely working together when the dialogue is so different between languages? I do not understand.

Well, because there ARE some decent examples of where they are clearly working together, such as some of the scenes with Louisoix and various quests that are written by the English staff and translated into Japanese. But I wouldn't be surprised if some of the changes that are particularly jarring for us were simply handwaved by the Japanese staff without much thought.

I still can't believe how different our first interaction with Yda was in 2.0, depending on language. In Japanese she warns us that suspicious people have been spotted nearby and that we should find safety. In English, she accuses us of BEING the suspicious person. The first makes her look clueless in a gentle way, the second is clueless in a hostile way. For a first impression of a character, that is a pretty sloppy way to translate.

With reading comprehension like that, it's no wonder you don't like the dialogue in the game

Read it again and you'll notice they are mostly talking about the NAMES OF CREATURES and CHARACTER TITLES. There is a big difference in the naming conventions of the Mi'qote, and what we are talking about here. And yes, they interact with each other occasionally concerning "vague language" in quests. There is nothing vague about Yda telling us to go to safety, and changing her text to an accusation of wrong doing doesn't clarify anything. And the Japanese team certainly didn't look at that translation and "change the Japanese text in turn".

And I REALLY doubt Yoshi-P is looking at all of the "doth, must needs, thou, and escapeths" and saying "Yes please, more of those, let's have people speak like this in Japanese as well".

[Gunspec]

Correct me if I'm wrong.

The localization team has stated numerous times that they work together, I think the Dev Fernehalwes has a lot of posts on the matter. Certain things like player titles are actually made by the English team and then translated INTO Japanese, and they have worked together on specific characters and quests.

I DO think that the English devs greatly over value their contribution though. When a scene is COMPLETELY different in Japanese and English, I don't care if the teams worked together, it is STILL an extremely shoddy end-result. I'm from a generation where Japanese scripts were often changed at a whim by lazy and unprofessional English translators, so my knee jerk reaction is to hate it, even IF the Japanese team approves of the change. I'm waiting for Yugiri to pull out a rice ball and loudly declare in English how she LOVES jelly donuts.

[Gralna]

Correct me if I'm wrong.

Koji also revealed in a lore panel, how leve quests backstory was really bare, but that the english localization team wanted to add some flavour to it so they created these elaborate over the top backstories for why you are killing such and such enemies, or trying to find the hidden enemies. It got such positive results, that he was asked to translate them into the japanese version.

[Aeyis]

Koji also revealed in a lore panel, how leve quests backstory was really bare, but that the english localization team wanted to add some flavour to it so they created these elaborate over the top backstories for why you are killing such and such enemies, or trying to find the hidden enemies. It got such positive results, that he was asked to translate them into the japanese version.

I can relate to decision to that. However, my point is in regards to the main scenario or story quests. It's very important for the story that the characters are portrayed the same across languages, is it not?


I value any time that was spend making side quests or leves (or time put into names, etc)..even if its not important to me personally.
But for the main scenario an accurate translation is really important. 'Spicing things up' only detracts from the original value in that case.

I think its the case of nice creativity ability, used in the wrong place.
I agree with your point tho, in areas like side quests, or item descriptions its very nice to have that extra fluff.

Read it again and you'll notice they are mostly talking about the NAMES OF CREATURES and CHARACTER TITLES. There is a big difference in the naming conventions of the Mi'qote, and what we are talking about here. And yes, they interact with each other occasionally concerning "vague language" in quests. There is nothing vague about Yda telling us to go to safety, and changing her text to an accusation of wrong doing doesn't clarify anything. And the Japanese team certainly didn't look at that translation and "change the Japanese text in turn".

Altho not specifically mentioned, I know they also added a lot of the tooltip descriptions. Japanese scripts typically dont have those 'extended and funny' comments on items.

With reading comprehension like that, it's no wonder you don't like the dialogue in the game:

snip

As the poster above me mentioned, they were talking about very specific things. I did went to the trouble of quoting the relevant areas for you earlier, please respond to those.