Dawntrail Names are a Mess

[Ronivan]

I do consider your points valid. Moreover, I still think they should have provided a simple description of the place instead of using a dialect 1% of player base grasp. I took the Japanese version, and I know the translation I did was the one provided by a translator, because it does provide a simplified version of the names. Sheshene Blue Phosphrous Spring is much more easy to relate to. Mewahei Zone is much easy to relate than Mehwahhetsoan. Also my complain is not related to cultural places. I would complain the same if names were in German, like Grüner Hügel or Schwarzwald, for most people these name means close to nothing.

Also another point I would like to point out, during Stormblood we had contact with a place inspired by Japanese culture and it was properly localized as no one would ever get confused with the name of the places. It has a lot of Japanese names, but it was reasonable placed in a way westerners would grasp in the conditions which they were presented. That was a flawless work.

[Iscah]

I do consider your points valid. Moreover, I still think they should have provided a simple description of the place instead of using a dialect 1% of player base grasp. I took the Japanese version, and I know the translation I did was the one provided by a translator, because it does provide a simplified version of the names. Sheshene Blue Phosphrous Spring is much more easy to relate to. Mewahei Zone is much easy to relate than Mehwahhetsoan.

There's nothing "more relatable" about the other spellings you're suggesting. More pronounceable at first glance, maybe, but it's not hard to get over that.

"Sheshene Blue Phosphorus" is far more cumbersome to say and write than "Sheshenewezi" – really, phosphorus is just as long and awkward as anything you're complaining about, besides that it's more familiar. (Also, for the record, blue phosphorus would localise in this case as "ceruleum".)

"Mewahei Zone" makes no sense – it would have me asking what a mewahei is and what defines its zone – and in any case, if you're paying any attention to the dialogue then there are plenty of references to the significance of the "hhetso" and you can see that word in the middle of the longer place-name and pick it apart as Mehwa-hhetso-an, even if you miss talking to the local information guide Tseppi who will explain that it means "the land where the hhetso graze". You can then further correlate this with some other place-names having the -an suffix and also connecting dots to the Mehwapyarra (capybara) mount, whose real-world name means "grass-eater" (or so Wikipedia tells me).

"Hhusatahwi Outpost" would be fine as an additional prompt for remembering the different towns, but I see no reason to compromise on the spelling itself.

Also my complain is not related to cultural places. I would complain the same if names were in German, like Grüner Hügel or Schwarzwald, for most people these name means close to nothing.

Firstly, it's a "you problem" that you don't care what the words mean and don't want to hear things that fit the local language. The names add flavour to the setting and tell you what sort of real-world parallel cultures to expect.

But aside of that, your initial complaint isn't that they're using Schwarzwald instead of Black Forest, but the equivalent of complaining that they didn't call it "Shwartz World" instead just because part of the foreign name happens to sound like an unrelated English word.

[LibitIncarne]

"Sheshene Blue Phosphorus" is far more cumbersome to say and write than "Sheshenewezi" – really, phosphorus is just as long and awkward as anything you're complaining about, besides that it's more familiar. (Also, for the record, blue phosphorus would localise in this case as "ceruleum".)

Just call it "Ceruleum Springs".
It's now the most descriptive and easiest to mentally parse of all of the Shaaloani zones.