This reminds me of anime subtitles from the 1980s. Most of those I’ve seen are simplistic, boring, and sometimes misleading.
Bad translations still exist today, of course, but I don’t run into them as often. I’m guessing that the growth of anime popularity in the west, along with increased translation budgets, have something to do with that. Better translators are probably doing some of this work now.
Losing a game’s flavour in translation might be a challenge to overcome, but I don’t think it’s inevitable. Suggestion: Don’t make translations an afterthought when producing a game. Instead, recognize that the words used to tell your story and illustrate your world effectively are your story and world, and seek out translators who are especially talented at conveying nuance and feeling. Accept that they are probably better than you are at communicating in their language. Give them room to be creative. Pay them well. You will probably get better results.
Reminds me of an infamous videom from the late 2000so about the quality of fansubs at the time. The guy made the case that the issues Horii describes can be overcome, but require careful word choices.
For example, consider “Just who the hell do you think I am!?” vs “May I enquire as to who you think I might be?” In Japanese, the difference is in which word they use for “I”, which the English translation gets across with word choices.
This reminds me of anime subtitles from the 1980s. Most of those I’ve seen are simplistic, boring, and sometimes misleading.
Bad translations still exist today, of course, but I don’t run into them as often. I’m guessing that the growth of anime popularity in the west, along with increased translation budgets, have something to do with that. Better translators are probably doing some of this work now.
Losing a game’s flavour in translation might be a challenge to overcome, but I don’t think it’s inevitable. Suggestion: Don’t make translations an afterthought when producing a game. Instead, recognize that the words used to tell your story and illustrate your world effectively are your story and world, and seek out translators who are especially talented at conveying nuance and feeling. Accept that they are probably better than you are at communicating in their language. Give them room to be creative. Pay them well. You will probably get better results.
Reminds me of an infamous videom from the late 2000so about the quality of fansubs at the time. The guy made the case that the issues Horii describes can be overcome, but require careful word choices.
For example, consider “Just who the hell do you think I am!?” vs “May I enquire as to who you think I might be?” In Japanese, the difference is in which word they use for “I”, which the English translation gets across with word choices.