Translation quality

[Walfan]

Yo,

I was wondering : how good and faithful is the english translation of the game ?
I'm playing with french text and english voices right now and they are often vastly different from one another. For example, one of the french lines is "..." while the character actually says something in english. The french translators translated the game directly from japanese too so I'm not sure which one is right.
I heard the english translation added lots of extra fluff and actually even altered some personnalities, how true is that statement ?

While I'd rather play in french, I have no issues with english and it'd give me an easier time understanding the names of locations, items, spells and such most of the other players talk about. Besides, english spells have better continuity from past FF games.

Thanks!

[Khyra]

Translations are good (as in they sound good, are interesting, etc). But they are not "faithful" exactly. Often those two are not mutually achievable.

Even things like quest names, etc are sometimes changed for the English one. Basically they have a whole team doing English localization that wants the game to feel like it was designed for / written in English for those players.

So really there are two, very similar but not the same, versions of the game being written: English and Japanese. And sounds like French and maybe German are just translations off the Japanese and they don't have huge localization teams like they do for English.

I play with Japanese voices and English text and often notice differences (I can speak/understand Japanese passably well, but I'm not fluent). Not like "completely different plot" level, but they definitely change things to either sound much better or be more culturally understandable.

[Natsuno]

Fernehalwes explanation on localization with regards to English and Japanese versions.

Mostly to do with titles, but the 1st paragraph explains the process behind why japanese and english versions differ to an extent.

[Vespar]

I recall on reddit somewhere that someone had translated the Japanese text during the encounter with Midgardsormr, and compared it to the English text we received. It was VASTLY different. The english translation appeared heavily edited with much less dialogue that the Japanese text seemed to suggest.
By comparison, I assume that the French translation was much the same. This was likely done to save time and money on voice acting and localization.

Edit: Found the reddit post
http://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/commen...ersus_english/

[Voltron_HD]

I recall on reddit somewhere that someone had translated the Japanese text during the encounter with Midgardsormr, and compared it to the English text we received. It was VASTLY different. The english translation appeared heavily edited with much less dialogue that the Japanese text seemed to suggest.
By comparison, I assume that the French translation was much the same. This was likely done to save time and money on voice acting and localization.

Edit: Found the reddit post
http://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/commen...ersus_english/

wow! thank you for this post. This cleared up MANY questions I had about that encounter. This however makes me wonder how much of the story im actually missing from the weak translations we where given. Im kinda depressed now lol

[Kazumac]

I like the dialogue in the English version but the dialog and some personalities are different. Wife plays the game completely in Japanese and I in English since they are respectively our native languages. It is fun to discuss differences but I feel overall tone and story are the same. As in we both feel like we are playing the same game and same story despite minor differences and nuances.

[Gamer3427]

Edit: Found the reddit post
http://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/commen...ersus_english/

Honestly, by looking at the translations side by side, I think we would have been better suited to have a combination of the two. The current translation does well to make it mysterious enough that we are left guessing as to what Midgardsomr's words mean, while still explaining enough that we get the sense that there is more going on than what we've been led to believe. That being said, a few of the lines would have done better with the more direct translation, for example some of the parts where the more direct translation explains that Midgardsomr is testing you.....

EDIT: In the end though, I prefer what we have now, with this encounter in particular, over the more direct translation. Mainly because the direct translation makes Midgardsomr sound more friendly to you, rather than leaving his stance towards you as more of a mystery. You still think he's helping you with the current translation, you just don't know how, and are left wondering what his motivations are.....

[Shougun]

The translations are pretty good, imo, and at least if what has been dev said is true we often get quite a bit more flavor for non-important items too. There was the case where Midgardsormr spoke less and in a different way than the Japanese version, but imo it was better that way. I dislike bad/good guy monologues - and that's what it really seemed to be on the other side. Besides, made him feel more powerful by the fact he was like "-yoink-, thats mine, and yeah I suppose I'll answer some of thi - but I hope you remembered the last few quests and did not expect me to do "LAST TIME ON ARR"".

wow! thank you for this post. This cleared up MANY questions I had about that encounter. This however makes me wonder how much of the story im actually missing from the weak translations we where given. Im kinda depressed now lol

I wouldn't be depressed besides their job is actually localization (to bring a foreign item and change it for the market), technically they don't have to verbatim translate and not doing that does not make it bad, but imo all the information missed was there (in dialog or by previous information given) or would have been confirmed naturally through progression if unsure.

[Walfan]

Thanks for your answers everyone.
I'm still torn, it looks like the english translation is pretty good but that Midgardsormr thing is a bit worriying. Although, I don't know if the french translation is any better to be honest, I just know it's more literally translated.

Fernehalwes explanation on localization with regards to English and Japanese versions.

Mostly to do with titles, but the 1st paragraph explains the process behind why japanese and english versions differ to an extent.

Interesting, although I'm still wondering why the Curtana title is called "The True" in english while it's called "Fearless Knight" in french.

[Terrini]

About the Midgardsormr encounter, there is much contention over it since Fernehalwes (Koji Fox) is in charge of a lot of content, like the specific in-game languages of Sylphic and Draconic. So Koji made the Dragon language and his localization stayed true to the grammar and a more direct translation of someone who normally spoke using Draconic and is speaking in another language (so when he speaks to you he is speaking in your tongue so the echo isn't helping)

Some people may dislike this approach but to others it's a good experience. The English Lore team has a HUGE amount of input in the game Lore, so they have this kind of power.