This frequency of English localization issues is unacceptable

[Deveryn]

That doesn't really account for the European region being full of players who may discuss the game with friends from different countries only to easily find through casual conversation that the story is saying one thing in French or German and then something completely different in English.

Honestly though, English is an awful language to begin with.

[Lyth]

It's always strange seeing people's misconceptions about what 'localization' entails. There seems to be this mindset that you pop text into a magical translation box and out pops the work in a new language, and that accuracy is simply a matter of preserving a one-to-one mapping between words.

There's a reason why localization teams have moved away from the term 'translation', which literally means 'to copy'. A literal translation works best in technical manuscripts without emotional content, like instruction manuals. It also tends to be the preferred approach when you're completely unfamiliar with the work and have no way of communicating with the original author about the message that they're trying to convey. An outsourced localization team is much more likely to adopt a more literal approach, which also takes less effort.

Terms like 'localization' and 'transcreation' apply more to creative works, where you're trying to preserve the cultural and emotional impact of the work despite not being a native speaker of the language. If you localize a text to multiple languages, they're all going to be different! If you know that it's ridiculous to 'translate a translation' (i.e. convert a subtitle from japanese to icelandic to english instead of directly from japanese to english), then it makes even less sense to localize a localization.

This has been discussed in a number of interviews ranging from 2013 to 2021 (some of which you can find on the website itself), but FFXIV uses in-house localization teams in order to have two-way communication with the story writers. So if the intent of a particular message is unclear, they can literally just ask the quest writer directly and have a conversation about the character's emotions in that scene. And if there's a unique term or reference that NA/EU players would expect from a homage because of a historical Woolseyism, that might end up being taken on board by the writers and find its way into other versions as well.

This used to be a recurring topic of discussion on the Lore subforum as well, where a small group of players tried to gatekeep discussions by pretending that the French language text was the 'official text'. When people came back and posted some of the original Japanese phrases and found them in agreement with the English but not the French text, it pretty much stopped. Unsurprisingly, you'll see a few familiar faces.

tl;dr People with no linguistic knowledge of the source material trying to gauge localization accuracy using Japanese -> German -> French -> Ascian -> English literal translation fansubs.

[Larirawiel]

Terms like 'localization' and 'transcreation' apply more to creative works, where you're trying to preserve the cultural and emotional impact of the work despite not being a native speaker of the language. If you localize a text to multiple languages, they're all going to be different! If you know that it's ridiculous to 'translate a translation' (i.e. convert a subtitle from japanese to icelandic to english instead of directly from japanese to english), then it makes even less sense to localize a localization.

True. But localisation does not mean, that story relevant informations should be removed. But exactly this happens in FF14. That is the reason why i watch important cutscenes twice: in english and in german. And i see many differences between them. And almost no differences have a cultural background. And that is the problem, the players have in this thread.


Cheers

[Doragan]

That doesn't really account for the European region being full of players who may discuss the game with friends from different countries only to easily find through casual conversation that the story is saying one thing in French or German and then something completely different in English.

I agree. I have been using the french voiceover with jp text, and both are pretty similar. However, when starting conversations with english players, it's like we were playing a different game text wise. ARR, especially.
Cid's tone is pretty different overall. Like, In Praetorium, when you get to the elevator after Nero, he says " You're too bloody useful to die! ", when in french and japanese, he will say " You better not die, alright? Please come back to us in one piece." in a warm tone. It's minor, for sure, but it adds up fast I feel.

I FFXIV uses in-house localization teams in order to have two-way communication with the story writers.

It's important to note that starting with Endwalker, SE outsourced part of FFXIV's localisation. Mind you, probably not all of it, but it wasn't the case before.

[EaraGrace]

It's ironic how you tend to see far more white knights ragging on people for disliking elements of the story then the opposite.

Nobody expects what was already written to change, but they can at least retroactively clarify points and add more context/details to make what did happen more satisfying. Yoshi even explicitly stated they would "adjust the narrative based on reception" so I'd like to think that goes both ways.

The Omega quest actually addressed multiple grievances I've seen echoed, such as the MSQ initially suggesting that the people who succumbed to the transformations during the Final Days were simply weak of will/heart in a very "natural selection" sort of manner, then walked back on it by going into how immensely complicated the heart/emotions are and that even those in nearly identical circumstances had survivors and victims alike for reasons that really cannot be pinned on one specific cause.

That's actually the perfect example because its not even really clarifying anything, but simply repeating a message that was already in the MSQ. Alisaie says this almost verbatim in Ultima Thule

No one is unbreakable. What pains one may weather may bring another to tears. But therein lies our strength, for when we fall, our brothers and sisters are there to raise us up. Again and again. Without end.

That isn't to say that the Omega quests haven't given new info, they have. But I think we should be aware that sometimes a criticism is due to missing the context rather than a lack of context.

this is what happens when you take koji fox and put him on FF16

*Looks at Nael and the Moenbryda minion*

Yeah nah I don't think that's fair to say.

[Xerkrosis]

I agree. I have been using the french voiceover with jp text, and both are pretty similar. However, when starting conversations with english players, it's like we were playing a different game text wise. ARR, especially.
Cid's tone is pretty different overall. Like, In Praetorium, when you get to the elevator after Nero, he says " You're too bloody useful to die! ", when in french and japanese, he will say " You better not die, alright? Please come back to us in one piece." in a warm tone. It's minor, for sure, but it adds up fast I feel.
[...]

It's something I noticed with many other characters, when checking the english language. Even the twins behaviour with eachother is different, where it's in english much harsher sort of love-hate relationship, where in french, japanese, and german they're more friendly with another.

Another moment was, when I was comparing the escape from castrum centri-cutscene in ARR. The differences of english to the other 3 languages are like day & night. Though in that cutscene I also noticed a few differences in japanese. 1. they're counting down 2. Papalymo's childlike voice, which made me laugh when I first heard it.

Localization all good and well, but it doesn't mean to change character traits or other characteristics the character designer had thought of. Imagine your carefully designed character would sound like a 90-year old in another language...

[Tsukino]

[...]Imagine your carefully designed character would sound like a 90-year old in another language...

Have you heard Feo Ul in English?

[hagare]

Not good eating popcorn but i will join you if there is a room on the couch

well. Steak's too expensive

[Minali]

The English version brought us "Froth and Foam!" instead of the rather boring options in the other languages, so I'm good.

[aveyond-dreams]

The English version brought us "Froth and Foam!" instead of the rather boring options in the other languages, so I'm good.

For a scene that was so far removed from the original overall vision the director had for the character that he called it out as an example of going too far in a recent interview.