please God just call it port

[Khyra]

If it says left and right, then it says left and right. How is that wrong?

左舷 is "sagen" / port
右舷 is "ugen" / starboard
左 is "hidari" / left
右 is "migi" / right

So port/starboard is read as sagen/ugen.
Left/right is read as hidari/migi.

But the kanji for sagen/ugen gives you a hint, because it includes the character for left/right as the first character.

If you're hearing it, there's no clue, its just as opaque as English. If you're reading it, you can get a hint.

[Iscah]

左舷 is "sagen" / port
右舷 is "ugen" / starboard
左 is "hidari" / left
右 is "migi" / right

I just had a thought regarding this, and the arguments that "it's easier to read in Japanese" and "larboard/starboard look too similar"...

Ignore the meaning of the words, and look at what is visually written.

左舷
右舷

The only visual difference in the Japanese words is the small "square" or "sideways H" element of the first symbol.

In terms of having to quickly identify which word is written, I think it's actually more fair (and possibly even a deliberate choice) to use English terms that have a similar proportion of identical letters.

[Astrus]

[...]
In terms of having to quickly identify which word is written, I think it's actually more fair (and possibly even a deliberate choice) to use English terms that have a similar proportion of identical letters.

That argument only works for the English localization, though.
German and French just use the standard nautical terms that are in use nowadays, as far as I can tell. The odd one out is English using an antiquated word instead of port.