Issue with the Japanese to English translation

[JaydeDancer]

I have a question for Michael Koji-Fox (or for someone else who does the translation from the Japanese version to English).

Why is the script that appears in our text boxes within the main story-line quest not accurately representing what the voice actors are saying in Japanese?

I have the Japanese voices turned on in my game and I have noticed that a lot of the words that the Japanese voice actors are saying do not appear anywhere within the text box that comes up on my screen for that bit of audio.

Why is there such a difference? Is the story-line still the same or are we getting a completely different version?

It concerns me that the Japanese audio doesn't appear to be more closely translated.

(Just FYI, I took two years of Japanese in HS, but I don't remember a lot of the words. So I don't understand everything that they are saying but I can understand enough to know that something isn't right.)

Please help me understand this better. Thanks!

[Lukha]

I'm curious about this as well. As wonderful a job as the localization crew are doing at making the dialogue in the game snappy and engaging, I wish they could make it snappy, engaging, and also accurate? We already have the ability to swap all game text into a variety of other languages, so maybe it could be possible to add a more literal translation to those options someday?

There have definitely been times when I've been tempted to break out my Japanese dictionary and replay a scene with Japanese text because the localized line is awesome, but makes me wonder what the actual Japanese line was...For instance, there's an NPC in Highbridge who quotes Alice in Wonderland at you, which made me happy, but leaves me dead curious whether he does that in Japanese too, which makes me sad because my kanji is definitely not good enough to tell yet.

[Agrotc]

More than anything else it's probably because an exact line for line translation can be incredibly awkward to read, so lines in a given scene will be "shuffled" to make everything flow better in English.

[LunaHoshino]

While I fully understand the need for changes in a localization having done translation on both an amateur and professional level myself, what I can't understand is why some lines that are actually important were simply left out of the English version.

Case in point: in the Lancer story quests, in either the first or second meeting with Foulques (I forget which one it was), he talks about how the Lancers' guild is full of cowards and how no one there has the courage to challenge him. However, in the Japanese, he also says "Things haven't changed at all since back then," making it very clear that he was in fact once a member of the guild himself. That line was completely omitted from the English version, leaving those who play it in English unaware of his connection to the guild until the final level 30 quest. What was the purpose of that? Why leave that out?

That's the kind of change I don't understand as a translator.

[Rufalus]

I think the english version goes a bit overboard with trying to make almost every fate/quest title be some kind of pun or reference to western movies and songs. Just doesn't seem very final fantasy to me.

[Dotsusama]

There is a very detailed breakdown of the way some of the exchanges between Haurchefant, associates, and the player go. I feel like I would have liked THAT Haurchefant more (and can understand, perhaps, more why the Japanese side of the fandom seems to like him a great deal).

On that note, I don't think I know a single person who likes the way the 2.4 quests handled Ala Mhigan characters and their stories, but I think that might be a deeper issue than just localization.

[Vilhem]

It's not meant to be a "translation" of the JP audio. This isn't anime where the "original" source is JP audio. The storylines are cooked up and then written out in English and JP. The four different voice acting languages are recorded more or less at the same time.

In other words, it's not supposed to match up. There's a difference between translation and localization. The essence is there as far as the storylines go (in all four languages) but each version has its own distinct way of telling it, for its own intended audience.

[Trashy]

A few reasons.

The first is that English and Japanese are extremely different languages. Some things simply don't translate, and that problem gets worse with languages that are distant. Take the phrase "a tangerine on an aluminum can." In English, it's just a phrase, but anyone who knows the Japanese would recognize it as a (extremely lame) pun. Not puns get lost in the translation. Take the Swahili phrase "tuko pamoja." It literally means "we're together," but to a native speaker, it conveys a much deeper meaning of shared purpose. A good translator would have to render it differently. It's why machine translations suck: Google translate is great at the actual meaning of words, terrible at putting them in proper context and getting the meaning of the entire text.

The second reason is that culture doesn't translate. My character's name, "Taylor Swiftcast" is humorless to people who don't know who Taylor Swift is. Even among people who do, it's considerably less funny to some people who don't like her music.

The big reason is that localization is not quite translation, and it shouldn't be. Go play FFVII (make sure to remove nostalgia goggles.) Even ignoring the errors, it's translation is flat. Characters don't talk like actual people. They don't have speech patterns or any sort of flow to their speech. Then play Vagrant Story and Final Fantasy XII, both incidentally, translated by the excellent Alexander O. Smith. Both have characters talking in a believable way. Sydney speaks in a roundabout way, with lots of metaphors, whereas Ashley is direct and blunt. Larsa and Ashe speak with lots of carefully chosen words and a high-class diction. Penelo and Vaan speak much more colloquially.

XIV is localized extremely well. Everything is understandable, and artful. Yes, some things are lost in translation, but the writing can stand on its own as good video game writing, not some dry academic translation of the original Japanese.

[LunaHoshino]

-snip-

I agree, the writing is masterful and the translation is, for the most part (at least from what I've seen in both languages) rather faithful. The changes like those between the JP and EN Haurchefant are completely understandable, as I can't see his JP self going over nearly as well with English-speaking audiences ("This weirdo pervert is a lord of one of the four High Houses?"). The EN version keeps his quirky personality and flirtatious nature, just toned down to a level that's more acceptable to the average English speaker. I think it works quite well.

My own issues are more with things like the example I gave, where things were left out when there was no good reason to leave them out. There's a difference between localizing a character to make them more acceptable/appealing to the target audience and just plain omitting lines that add to the overall understanding of a situation.

[MilesSaintboroguh]

I just want the puns for the English text to be dialed back a notch. I get immersed in the world and then yanked back out when I see an NPC make a Family Guy reference.