Twelvemonth

[faiarrow]

All I want for them is to translate the text from Japanese to English. Is that too much to ask?

Yes, because you're talking about translation vs localisation, which are wholly different kettles of fish.
You could 100% do 1:1 translations but boy howdy would a lot of that be bland or just messy when you slap it into english.

Anyway, regarding the general topic:

Is some of the english localisation verbose when it comes to this sort of thing? Yeah, but honestly that's half the fun. Twelvemonth is an actual word. 'But they've never used it before' they have outright retconned much more important lore to the point it makes an entire zone of Endwalker outright hilarious if you have the context for an abandoned castrum in Coerthas, suddenly using a word they've not done before to denote a year (or winter, or summer, or cycle, or twelvesmoon which has been used before) isn't breaking the ~immersion~. We've had years of Heavensturn events where it was clearly showing that the far east prefer to use months in their lexicon while the Eorzeans prefer moons—you see terms used very interchangably with the scions who are considered extremely learned with regards to time.

I mean hells, the hours of time are canonically known as bells, but you see hour interchangably used as well because of the 'twelve bells of light, twelve bells of dark broken into six hour cycles of elements' thing.

So yeah. Twelvemonth. Get used to it. It'll probably never be used again anyway LOL but I digress.

[CaptainLagbeard]

Yes, because you're talking about translation vs localisation, which are wholy different kettles of fish.
You could 100% do 1:1 translations but boy howdy would a lot of that be bland or just messy when you slap it into english.

Yes, you can't just translate it word by word, because sentences are structured differently...
That much changes can be made that you can turn it into a proper sentence. But they shouldn't change or add words. It stops being a translation when they start rewriting the story.

[faiarrow]

Yes, you can't just translate it word by word, because sentences are structured differently...
That much changes can be made that you can turn it into a proper sentence. But they shouldn't change or add words. It stops being a translation when they start rewriting the story.

Hence... why it's localisation.
Listen you are preaching to someone who has done translation work to deal with genuinely terrible localisations (not FF stuff, バイオハザード/Resident Evil stuff) which created decades of misinformation in canon. I am VERY aware of how much localisation can really flubb things. The localisation in XIV can be very hit or miss especially during Koji's major lead of it—they've even rewritten stuff like Moenbryda's minion description which was pretty vile originally, but you can't really fault a team for sticking to the established trend of archaic words for terms like this topic is (even with them confirming they've pulled back on how far they could go with it in the last few years.)

Even if it did lead to Larboard back in the day...

Direct translations with ZERO flourish or attempt-to-carry-subtext-intent genuinely only go so far though for a massive game with a ridiculous amount of dialogue amassed over 13 years.

[Sacae]

Hence... why it's localisation.
Listen you are preaching to someone who has done translation work to deal with genuinely terrible localisations (not FF stuff, バイオハザード/Resident Evil stuff) which created decades of misinformation in canon. I am VERY aware of how much localisation can really flubb things. The localisation in XIV can be very hit or miss especially during Koji's major lead of it—they've even rewritten stuff like Moenbryda's minion description which was pretty vile originally, but you can't really fault a team for sticking to the established trend of archaic words for terms like this topic is (even with them confirming they've pulled back on how far they could go with it in the last few years.)

Even if it did lead to Larboard back in the day...

Direct translations with ZERO flourish or attempt-to-carry-subtext-intent genuinely only go so far though for a massive game with a ridiculous amount of dialogue amassed over 13 years.

Oldschool FF had a ton of this too. Look at anything done by the much-loved/hated Ted Woosley in the 90s.

Gonna piss off the Final Fantasy "III" fans with this one.

[Bonoki]

It's not a mistranslation if it's done intentionally. The localizers have been known to straight-up rewrite parts of the script, allegedly believing that the new script would be better suited/marketed for the Western audience.

[FuwafuwaMii]

It's called a year. Everyone in the entirety of Etheirys calls it a year. It has never been called a "Twelvemonth", that word has literally never appeared, even once, in the entirety of Final Fantasy XIV- I CHECKED.

So we not only have a writing team that don't know the story they're writing on, but the new translation team is just making things up.

This bodes well.

Some people really use a microscope to find literally anything to whine about.

[Arzalis]

It is kinda silly. They're mixing archaic English terms without paying attention to what time period those words are from or if it makes sense they are being used together.

It's hardly the end of the world, but it is very lazy on the writing team's part.

[LilimoLimomo]

Oh no, a word I haven't seen before. Someone call the cops and get the manager.

[ZephyrMenodora]

The fact that OP got 16 people to care about this amuses me. That or they just like any complaint no matter what it is.

[Zelda206]

Hope you all enjoyed the Rising event, at least.