Translation Team: Please stop doing this...

[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".

[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.

[Viridiana]

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.

Ahem:

""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."

EDIT:

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".

You seem to have mistaken me for someone claiming that the texts are perfectly translated and meticulously maintain characterization across all four languages. At no time have I made such an outrageous claim, nor have I said that the idiosyncrasies of the EN text have been added back into JP. My only claim has been that there is no "original" text, because each of the localization teams has a hand in crafting the story.

[Gralna]

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.

I believe Koji addressed a similar issue in one of his posts

Greetings.

I wanted to pop in to clear up some confusion about how a lot of in-game terminology is conceived. It is often (understandably) believed that localization has little to do with the game beyond translating what the development team creates for the Japanese version. While translation is a large part of our job, what is not known by many is that the EN localization team plays a large role in the creation of a lot of in-game terminology and lore which is then localized back into Japanese (with liberties often taken by the Japanese team so that the text might appear more appealing to their target Japanese audience).

The case with player titles is one of many aspects of this game where the localization team is called in to create content, with the Japanese then going off the English. In this case, the dev team has taken it one step further (or maybe it's actually closer?) by not translating the titles into Japanese and using English in the the Japanese version.

BUT WAIT! Why are the player titles in the Japanese version English in the first place?

There are a couple reasons behind this--one possibly being Japan's quirky fixation with the English language. English is taught in all levels of school, signs everywhere are in English, company names/restaurant names/hemorrhoid cream names are in English, fish & chips are wrapped in English newspapers, song lyrics are peppered with grammatically questionable English. Why is this game even called Final Fantasy and not 最終幻想 (saishu genso)? Because in some cases, it seems, English is the cooler option. In my two decades here in Japan (and 12 years at SQEX) I've asked many people (including creators of the FF series) this question, and it really does often come down to simply 'English is cool.' I don't know if I can ever fully understand this, EN being my native language, but I suppose I can liken it to how when I started studying Japanese, kanji seemed like the best thing since a McDLT with a side of 7up Gold. I didn't care what it meant, as long as it was kanji, it was going on my wall/my PC/my shirts. I remember having to do some calligraphy in my high school Japanese class and ended up choosing to write 水虫 (mizumushi) because really I liked how it looked...and could care less that it meant Athlete's Foot.

Ugh, but enough about me.

The other (and probably main) reason why the Japanese version has chosen to use EN titles is because in the JP version, the player names are all in English (or at least Roman characters). Aesthetically speaking, the dev team thought that having Japanese (whether katakana, hiragana, or kanji) titles coupled with Romanized player names would not look good. The solution that the dev team came up with was to use English titles (rather than Romanized spellings of Japanese words, which I was told also did not look very cool to a Japanese person). To implement this solution, it was decided that the EN Loc team would help come up with the titles.

So the next question becomes, if the JP version is using the EN titles, why the discrepancies between the two? It turns out there are a couple of answers to this one, as well...

The first is, the level of EN vocabulary an average Japanese user has. For the EN version, the Loc team pulls words from a large portion of the massive English lexicon. The problem for the average Japanese user, however, is that their knowledge of English is mostly secondary. They know the words that their textbooks have deemed important for them to know, but a lot of times, are unaware of the rest (as is the case with any second language acquisition). This ultimately translates into a smaller pool from which to select EN words if the aim is to choose an EN title that is understandable by the JP user.

One retort to this might be, why not come up with titles that sound good in BOTH English and Japanese? For the most part, that's what we try to do. However, there are times that the small pool severely limits what we can do on the EN side.

Think of it like making a pancake. Anyone can make a pancake with merely eggs, milk, baking powder, sugar, salt, flour, and oil. It will probably be a good pancake if you are a decent cook. But what happens when you and your guests have been eating pancakes for five days straight? You start thinking about adding some blueberries, or substituting applesauce for the oil, or swapping out milk for some rich, creamy buttermilk. However, one of your guests steps up and says you are not allowed to use any of those fancy ingredients because he thinks blue is the color of evil djinns, applesauce may have cyanide from stray seeds, and the calories from buttermilk are just too much for his shapely thighs. He tells you that you can use the original ingredients in any way you want, but no fanciness, fancy-pants! And...there are you and your guests back at pancake one.

There is a reason why a lot of Japanese games have attacks like "Fire Smash" and "Power Crush" and "Brave Light." They are informative, and get the point across, and to someone who only has had limited exposure to the EN language over the course of their lives may appear to be exotic; however, I (personally) believe that without an occasional 'pummel' or 'annihilate' in there every now and again, some people might start longing for a little blueberry & buttermilk.

The second answer to the question comes down to how some terms have already been translated in each version. The Serpent/Flame/Storm vs Gridanian/Ul'dahn/Lominsan example is a good one. Way back in 1.0, localization decided (with the blessings of the JP lore team) that we were going to use the Serpent/Flame/Storm prefixes for the Grand Companies. The JP decided it wasn't. This mainly had to do with the fact that the JP names for the GCs could all be compacted into 3-kanji terms with 1-kanji abbreviations. The EN needed something that was compact as well (or we'd have "Order of the Twin Adder private second class" showing up in dialogue boxes everywhere). SO, LONG STORY SHORT(er), this meant when we suggested "Stormlord" for a title, the dev team was afraid that the JP players would not understand what 'storm' was doing in the title as the word 'storm' is not used in the Japanese version's abbreviation of the Maelstrom. Hence the change to "Lominsan." "Lominsan Lord" then became problematic for the JP version because it might imply a Lominsan noble, hence the change to "hero" (an English word common enough in Japan to be understandable by most users). Basically, the Japanese devs localized the EN term into something that they felt would be better received by their target audience. It is the same thing that happened with the 'caster' series you also mentioned. In EN, 'caster' can mean a caster of spells, as well as a 'caster' of (fishing)lines. We came up with the title Meadowcaster to represent one who cast their fishing lines in the ponds located on the meadows of La Noscea. We felt a slightly abstract title would feel more 'title-y' than simply La Noscean Angler. The dev team believed that the EN might be too abstract for the Japanese user, and instead decided to go with something more direct. They both mean the same thing (more or less), with the EN one being a bit more flashy.

In the end, this results in some of the names being slightly different across the board. That's ultimately what localization is. We aren't making direct copies, we are making versions which all have the same core, but are presented in ways that are adapted to the regions we are selling them in. It is the direction we have decided to take the game (with Yoshi-P's blessing, of course).

Is it the only direction we could have taken the game in? No. Is it a direction that all users will approve of? Probably not. Is it the direction we've decided is best for us at the current moment? Yes. We try our best make decisions that will be found cool or clever by you guys, though I realize that sometimes stuff just doesn't work for somebody, because, like everything it ultimately comes down to a matter of taste. Some decisions are accepted, some are criticized. We try to please most people, but realize that at the end of the day, pleasing everyone is impossible.

Localization is a complex field, and every decision we make has weight, which is why we try not to take the decisions we make lightly. I apologize if any of those decisions we make displease you, but know that we listen, and take everyone's comments and feedback seriously. We may not always reply by turning the ship around, but know that we are constantly making small adjustments to our overall course, hoping to someday arrive at that mysterious land known as 'everybody's happy.'

- Fernehalwes


PS:

The reason why the "of"s are capped in titles in EN was 100% my call. I felt that with the recent implementation of the on-screen display and those pointy brackets surrounding them, the titles now felt more like separate entities than continuations of the player's name.

When it's...

Roy Biv of the Glorious Brotherhood of Rainbow Kittens

...I'd definitely want that "of" lower-cased.

However, when the text over the player-character shows...

Roy Biv
≪of the Glorious Brotherhood of Rainbow Kittens≫

...I scratch my head. Japanese has really no standardized rules about English capping, so they decided to leave it uncapped. I, on the other hand, simply felt it looked better between those brackets with that "o" capped, and therefore made it:

Roy Biv
≪Of the Glorious Brotherhood of Rainbow Kittens≫

Cheers!

while this is more in line with titles, it does show that their job is to do more than just do direct translations, they have to translate in a way that not only is the content understood, but that the same or similar cultural influences are passed along.

[Mugiawara]

This, unfortunately, is what a lot of young people think of as normal english.

I agree with the OP. While English is my best subject and I've done AP classes in it, the text is incredibly annoying to read.
The way the people speak now in the forums is what I want to see in game more often.
They sure use "Mayhap" A LOT of times though I noticed...Limnsa is a whole different ballpark
and refuse to read anything coming out of their mouths. I never studied anything with their type of speak
in my classes.

I'm laughing at the fact they sat there and told us "Fire, Fira, Figara" whatever will make players confused
meanwhile the speak they use here is ye ole' 1700's.
Which one is more confusing SE? This is just my personal stance to it. I'm not an idiot or anything
just get tired of trying to use context clues and junk to a lot of the story.

[Aeyis]

Rather then trying to find your own interpretation, do you not feel it is more sensible to respond to the arguments I made via the quotes I refered to?

Well, when it comes to wording we’re given a great deal of freedom

versus

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."

Now if we look at the actually dialogue, what do we find:
Radical changes in the dialogue between characters. Story facts are intact. Characters are often portrayed differently (because they act differently, they different responses)
Important names may drop in one language but not another. (or mention of this or that)

If you look at the interview in a stoic way you will find that:
- They have a great deal of freedom
- Feedback does exist. Extend of which is unknown. (from the interview)


What it comes down to is basically they change a lot of the dialogue as they see the need to. They are not nearly working as close with other teams (in regards to story dialogue), as you imply. Not my assumption. A fact based on actual dialogue ingame.

snip

while this is more in line with titles, it does show that their job is to do more than just do direct translations, they have to translate in a way that not only is the content understood, but that the same or similar cultural influences are passed along.

Appreciate the link. Its a more interesting read then the previous one.

[Gilthas]

I never studied anything with their type of speak
in my classes.

Try reading books then.

[Gunspec]

We are really getting off track here. The purpose of the thread was basically to say that this:
http://i.imgur.com/b9J7It4.jpg
should be more like this:



While I don't mind some "flavourful language" on some of the characters INCLUDING primals, dialing it back on everyone and outright erasing it on some of the scions would be really nice. There are actually a lot of characters, guards, store owners, etc, who do NOT speak like a bad attempt at Shakespeare. When a main story scenario suddenly features a character saying something really wacky, it pulls me out of the story as I remember "oh yeah, we are doing that, aren't we".

[Mugiawara]

Try reading books then.

Would you care to recommend me some books that have these types of accents?
I'm not sure if your post was coming off rude or what, if I've been reading books
but don't recall any that has such strong accents like this.

I'm reading this games text, and I've learned new words and looked some up just to expand my vocab.
The pirate speak is too much for me, I tried it.

[Orspeth]

Try reading books then.

If the very simple language used in this game confuses any native English speaker, all I can say is put down the games and do your homework kids - there is nothing difficult used here.