Localization Criticism

[Davixxa]

The core of the problem of Localizers in the modern day is 90% of them are Localizing for themselves and for their friend groups and not for the fanbase at large, When they put in their own Humor, or their own quirks, sure that might play to you and your friends, but there's a lot of the fanbase who are not you and not your friends, we dont really care about your quirky persona. Localization should always be as close as possible to the original text and nothing that's not even mentioned in the original should be there at all, so if that doesnt hit well with the fanbase, they can actually tell the writer that what they wrote was weak,

Couldn't disagree more. Yeah sure. Some humor may fall flat. But if the scene was intended to be humoristic in the original Japanese, then translating that joke word for word sure isn't gonna have the intended effect in English.


Completely unsurprising that this sentiment comes from a server where you can assume the user is monolingual and be right 9/10 times.

When a localization ruins good writing or even changes bad writing, that doesnt help the writer at all. Especially imagine if a Japanese writer heard there was criticism of a certain part of an anime or a manga in the west and they looked up some comments only to be super confused what people are bothered by cause the comments keep talking about stuff they didnt write.

Translations often fall flat if they're as close as possible to the original text.

Translate the intended meaning and feeling of the text, not the literal words, or you're gonna end up with just straight-up weird sounding sentences like: "There's no cow on the ice" (a Danish idiom, translated literally). And overall, most localizers actually tend to get this right.

I'm sorry, but you cannot take that work and compare them literally. The issue you're complaining about is solveable with more communication between author and translator, though. Something that's thankfully, from what I'm gleaning, starting to become more common.

"""localizers""" are just failed authors and resign themselves to localizing other people's works in a vain attempt to make them look like true creatives and also to own le heckin chuds

How is it that everytime I see this argument, it's made by someone I can assume doesn't speak any other language than English? Genuinely learn a second language or watch some basic ass Tom Scott language files if the Duolingo owl doesn't cut it.

[Valorak]

Couldn't disagree more. Yeah sure. Some humor may fall flat. But if the scene was intended to be humoristic in the original Japanese, then translating that joke word for word sure isn't gonna have the intended effect in English.


Completely unsurprising that this sentiment comes from a server where you can assume the user is monolingual and be right 9/10 times.




Translations often fall flat if they're as close as possible to the original text.

Translate the intended meaning and feeling of the text, not the literal words, or you're gonna end up with just straight-up weird sounding sentences like: "There's no cow on the ice" (a Danish idiom, translated literally). And overall, most localizers actually tend to get this right.

I'm sorry, but you cannot take that work and compare them literally. The issue you're complaining about is solveable with more communication between author and translator, though. Something that's thankfully, from what I'm gleaning, starting to become more common.



How is it that everytime I see this argument, it's made by someone I can assume doesn't speak any other language than English? Genuinely learn a second language or watch some basic ass Tom Scott language files if the Duolingo owl doesn't cut it.

Yeah, this.

I used to be a translator that also kind of dabbled in interpreting. There are phrases, figures of speech, jokes, words, and feelings that just do not translate well at all. Whether it's a concept that we just don't have a specific word for, a reference that relies on understanding the culture/history of the original text/speaker, or a clever play on words that doesn't line up well when it's translated. Sometimes "as close as possible" needs to be doctored up pretty heavily in order for a non-native to actually understand the entirety of what's being conveyed. Especially when it comes to things like humor and creative writing which are so often heavily colored by language, culture, and upbringing.