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[Jiri Petru]

Hi,

I know these forums have a large international community, and I'd like to use the fact to ask you bit about how games get translated in your country. I've been translating games professionally to Czech for a couple of years, and right now I'm writing a diploma thesis on Czech game localisation scene. I was thinking it would be nice to have a chapter on "how things look like elsewhere around the world" - nothing fancy, basically just a bonus chapter at the end, because I can't really make a proper research (nor is it in the scope of my thesis). So that's where you come in!

Could you briefly describe how do games get translated into your language? (Globally, most games are translated from either English or Japanese). When I say "briefly", I want to say even a single short paragraph would be very helpful.

1. Professional translations from the publishing companies - what percentage of games get them? Do they have the same release date as the original game?

2. Is there an amateur scene of fans who translate for free? If yes, how big or lively is it? Can you provide a link for a central community hub or something?

(Kudos to Deon who already helped me in PM)

Of course, thanks for your help and time!

[Darvi]

Translations into my language?


BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!

No.

[Cajoes]

Ugh... No.. Nonono. Sure we have translators. They're just so bad at it.

I've reason to believe they're just given the lines, one by one, with no context to work out their correct meaning, which are then fed to one of the five and ONLY FIVE voice-actors we have in this country.

[Jiri Petru]

And what language does it happen to be, Darvi? 

[Darvi]

And what language does it happen to be, Darvi? 

Well apparently a bunch of Corsicans speak it.

[alexwazer]

I live in Quebec, but as far as games go, I might as well say I live in North America. As every American knows (the ones to the south anyway), America is a stricly english speaking continent country. Thus, very few games are translated here and we, the few millions french speaking weirdos, have to rely on the European market to get translations. I hate translations coming from France; even more so with voice acting, so I usually stick with english products when it comes to computers and especially games.

[Sowelu]

Generally, English dubs by major game studios are pretty decent since we're a pretty big market.  I would guess that they are mostly dubbed in a primarily English-speaking country.  The voice acting in native English can be pretty bad though, because professional VA's are sometimes treated like assembly lines regardless.

Now, games from Russia are a different matter.  Translations of Russian games seem to happen in Russia by people who speak English as a second language.  The results are...unpleasant.  And yeah, it feels like they have only five English-speaking VAs in their whole country.

So, if translations happen in your own country by someone who speaks the target language as their first language, then you're lucky...and if the VA is given a chance to A) play the game, B) see the whole script in order instead of arbitrary lines at a time, or C) even sit in the same room as the other VAs they are in scenes with, you are even luckier.

[Deon]

Translations of Russian games seem to happen in Russia by people who speak English as a second language.  The results are...unpleasant.  And yeah, it feels like they have only five English-speaking VAs in their whole country.

1C makes good translations, in most cases accurate. Akella and Softclub are quite nice too, although in all cases sometimes translators like to change the real sentence into something similar (to look smart?) and it sometimes changes the theme or context . But it's rare.

I was playing Mass Effect 2, and with tons of dialogue (and brick faces of Shephard) I've only spotted around a dozen or two (dozen) of wrongly translated sentences (because the game cannot be voiced, so it's subtitles + english voice).

[EDIT] P.S. Apparently Mass Effect 2 was localized by EA, softclub is only a publisher... Oh well, I still know quite a lot of nice 1C translations. Morrowind for example.

[Sirian]

In France, a vast majority of games are translated properly, with voice acting and all, but it is never as good as the original, so i tend to play games in english version.
Well, when i say that its not as good as the original, it's not by much, just small stuff, like sometimes the tone is wrong, or the voice doesnt always fit the character, or in rare occasions there will be a mistranslation, but i'm a perfectionnist so most people probably don't even notice. In our country, translation and voice acting are systematic for everything, from movies to series, games, anime, cartoons, books, etc..., probably because most of the population is so bad at english, so its made very professionally.

[Qinetix]

FFS , they never even bother translating games in Romanian

[Deon]

In France, a vast majority of games are translated properly, with voice acting and all

Yeah, they do it here when they could, but many AAA game publishers nowadays disallow voice acting translation (I guess to avoid bad voice acting which could cripple the sales/also lip synch issues), and I like it more this way. I have no problems understanding original language and reading subtitles to get everything, also it helps when translators make up some shit which is not in the dialogue so I get the original story .

[ChairmanPoo]

They used to be horrid, but they have improved in the last few years.

[pr1mus]

There are some good Translators in Germany. But most of the games have a horrible Translation in Voice and Text.
The most games got translated by the Publisher Companies, i think, maybe 2% were translated by the Community. And then only games, which have a really really bad translation.

The problem here is, that english jokes arenīt that good in german language. So the most people still try to get the english version of games

[Cajoes]

In France, a vast majority of games are translated properly, with voice acting and all

Yeah, they do it here when they could, but many AAA game publishers nowadays disallow voice acting translation (I guess to avoid bad voice acting which could cripple the sales/also lip synch issues), and I like it more this way. I have no problems understanding original language and reading subtitles to get everything, also it helps when translators make up some shit which is not in the dialogue so I get the original story .

And this in a age where lipsynch technology is more or less spot-on, seriously, even WINAMP has this one figured out.

[Deon]

I bet they don't bother, mainly because most phrases would be 1,5-2 times longer in russian so they would have to change TONS of movies (Mass Effect 1/2 are basically action + movie games, most of content came from "epic" music (quite good actually) and dramatic cutscenes) and probably it has something to do with copyright and various licenses too.