Why did JRPG translators add their own jokes and references that weren't in the original script?
for fun
>>12722906Because they're bad translators, obviously.
I love a tasteful reference. I think those lines fit in and work on their own. That's ideal. Good on the localizer.
>>12722906>damn we already made a decent hardtype script for the ps1 version>whazzat? we have less space contraints porting it over to gba?>fuggit let's make fun of this absurdity while porting and expanding the text over>who's gonna care? that annoying guy who wants his perfect retranslation? yeah right like that'll be made in a years after this rerelease!
>>12722906RIP Lowtax.
>>12722906People shit on Working Designs but at least they had the excuse that translations were practically an afterthought in localizations before they came around, so the liberties they took with the scripts were acceptable as long as it wasn't low-grade Engrish.Any translator past 1997 or so had no such excuse and deserve to be shat on even more.
>>12722916I prefer the translation to be faithful to the original, otherwise everyone's always left guessing if the references were intentional or not.
>>12722906Translators actually believe they are above the original writers. That's been the overwhelming trend for decades.
>>12722972I never understood it. It's actually easier to keep the translation faithful than to spend time rewriting all the lines into something else, but I guess it gives them a sense of ownership. It's like writing Kilroy was here, but you do it on every line.
>>12722906You have to prove that's a reference to Something Awful and not a coincidence. "Something awful" has been a common phrase for a hundred years.
>>12723527The use of "goon" combined with the site name are a dead giveaway.
>>12722936After what he did?
>>12723006Narcisissm. These people are really obsessed with the idea that the reason a game got praise is specifically because of their rewritten script, so they're the ones that deserve any and all credit for it.
>>12722906Because they could. And it immortalized them.I don't like it either, but it got you talking about them even now.
>>12723545A goon is a thug you underage retard.
>>12724380A goon is what the users of the site Something Awful called themselves, and the site the translator of FFIV Advance frequented.
>>12722906Who would ever fall for this bait?
>>12722936>RIPMore like S. Fuck that spineless pill popper for letting SA turn into a shell of its former self, being a deadbeat, and taking the easy way out. May he drown in a lake of boiling mangosteen juice for eternity.
>>12722906quit gooning on my airship and making a mess of the place. kek.
>>12722906This was back when internet community subcultures were still relatively novel, sekret club type of things, so members got a kick out of referencing them in their nerdy jobs, knowing that some of their fellow nerds from those groups would see and understand the references, while 99%+ of the population would not get the references.Does it devalue the translation? Maybe a bit. Is it disrespectful to the original script? Probably. Is it seen as cheesy now? Definitely. But I can still understand the mindset of somebody who would have done something like this back in the 2000s and not be too hard on it, especially if it didn't come at the expense of an important part of the script.
>Nintendo's internal localization team calls Natsume "Sabrina" after Sabrina the Teenage Witch and nothing comes of it>Nintendo doesn't do anything to censor a reference to Stand By Me, a film that no one of the target age bracket for Pokémon would have been allowed to watch (well, if their parents were reasonable people)>Knob Oogasawara tries to call a Spearow "Britney" and is nearly fired over itLocalization as a subset of the craft of translation never makes sense and is rarely consistent.
Why can't crybabies to this day not understand the difference between localization and translation?
>>12724826I'll stick with AI.
>>12724829unironically this. ai is the future for translations. I dont want to get the trasnlators sociopolitical opinions get shoved down my throat nor do I want the jokes or references be adjusted to our current time or whatnot.
>>12724847I feel bad because game translations probably got screwed the hardest in terms of localization practices. For some reason, the industry never cracked down on loose translations, and even started acting like it was preferred.Anime translations also have a lot of mistakes, but that's the thing. Those are just mistakes. Game mistranslations often are not. I realize I'm preaching to the choir, but it frustrates me how only now, because AI is both accurate and convenient, are games *starting* to receive faithful translations. It's insane how little oversight and accountability there is with these things.
>>12724787the story is based on office politics more than policy
>>12722906Have you ever read/listened to the original JRPG dialogue? It's the blandest shit. And not just in a "there hasn't been a le epic pop culture reference in 15 minutes, I'm LOSING IT" sort of way, it really is just the most generic soulless absolutely-nothing-dialogue you've ever seen. Like listening to Oblivion NPCs talking for 20 hours straight.
>>12724829AI did better for panel 1 but human did better for panel 2. the third panel fourth wall breaking was cringe af tho
>>12724882Please give us some examples of said boring dialogue.
>>12724885Human dropped "beautiful" though.
>>12724886Literally all of FFXIV
>>12722906>>12724535The way I see it, references should only be limited to things that only existed when the game originally released. This reminds me of that official Kid Dracula NES translation that added "Shadow Moses" as one of the false Liberty answers to I guess replace some cultural reference. I mean yeah, it's a cute reference, but MGS was EIGHT YEARS LATER on DIFFERENT (COMPETING!) HARDWARE. Doing stuff like that calls into question the quality of the rest of the translation (which if I recall correctly mostly seemed better than the fan one).
>>12724895Who even created the rule that references can't be to media Western audiences are unfamiliar with?
>>12724829Who trained AI to translate incorrectly? Was the AI trained off the original translation which is also wrong (and not a direct translation).
>>12724917How is the AI wrong?
>>12724918The AI is wrong because the Japanese text has a different meaning than whats written in english. Dont cell phones have apps nowadays where you can hold your camera up to some japanese text and itll translate it for you? try it out.
>>12724926Oh, so you're just trolling. Why didn't you start by saying that lol
>>12724929copy the text from both panels and put them into google translate. Its literally 1st grader japanese and extremely easy to the point where I have no idea why AI would get it wrong.
>>12724937I'm fluent in Japanese, so I'm not sure what you're looking to achieve with this troll.
>>12724847This meme reads like it was made by a loocalizer. Are you a trannylator yourself?
>>12724945It reads like someone making fun of the chick from Sega who got banned off of Bluesky
>>12722906You wouldn't get it.
>>12724941>I'm fluent in Japanesethen you should be able to easily transcribe the japanese text into google translate and defend the honor of the AI against these false accusations.
>>12724951I was going to defend it, but you didn't really elaborate where you were taking issue with it, so I realized you were either trolling or just unfamiliar with grammar.
>>12724946Now that's even more interesting.
>>12724917>Why can't crybabies to this day not understand the difference between localization and translation?
>>12724787Nob was the guy who protested over localizing a Pokemon as "Mr. Mime" because of potential gender confusion and was ignored, then Gen2 introduces genders and sure enough the name no longer makes sense.
>>12724951You lowcow tranny piece of shit of a garbage shat by a faggot on top of a bullfrog, ur still going with these failed troll attempts.
>>12724954>>12724958I asked chat gpt to translate it and luckily it explains its reasoning because you guys cant and man you AI fans are totally fucked. No wonder people think japanese is a boring language when the AI thinks that the best thing to do when it encounters a metaphor or descriptive flowery dialogue is to literally interpret the metaphor then translate the interpretation. total prose assassin.
>>12724968baited
>>12724975But it didn't translate the metaphor literally?
this whole discussion is pointless since everyone who is against ai translations is politically motivated and almost always extremely left-leaning. this is more than just about translation.
>>12724991I didnt say it did, it should have though. The interesting thing is there were two instances in the two panels where a world of snow was mentioned. In the first panel it is explicitly said and literally a snow world. The AI decides to localize this using an english metaphor "winter wonderland". In the second panel the world of snow is expressed with a japanese metaphor "a silver world". The AI now decides to interpret the meaning of the metaphor, it its own words "a very common set phrase for a snow-covered landscape" and to translate that interpretation as "snowy landscape" aka "world of snow". The AI has no regard for prose and when pressed it caved and admitted that maintaining the original japanese metaphor because its understandable in english would have been the preferred choice in a literary context.
>>12725001The AI cleverly avoided the redundancy of saying "snow" twice, as to maintain the faithfulness of the village's name while respecting English prosody. The AI then respected the expression, 銀世界, and translated it sense-for-sense.
>>12724978You're a gaywad
>>12724995There are arguments for and against which you've clearly skimmed over if you're gonna post shit like this.
>>12722919kek
>>12725007>The AI then respected the expression, 銀世界, and translated it sense-for-sense.It introduced unnecessary localization when it wasnt needed. The original japanese had one mention of the word 雪 between both panels while the localized english added a second instance of the word snow replacing more descriptive imagery.
>>12725027That's not a localization. A "snowscape" is the textbook translation for 銀世界, so it respected that, rather than interpreting it literally as "silver world."
>>12722915They a "Localization Team" not "translators".This is like redditors complaining about AI "artists" when nobody else calls them that. As if you can invent a collective noun and pretend it's an identity. As if they could start a witchhunt against scummy con-artists, and avoid detection of their own mob for their own deceptions.
>>12722906Pure Gen X 'tude.You wouldn't understand.
>>12722936I remember a thread on My Posting Career where pictures of Lowtax's McMansion were found on some foreclosure site and the guys there were absolutely ripping his nouveau riche tastes. Most hilarious thread in my 20+ years of internet, really miss that site.
>>12725037Localization teams are effectively the translators of the game, so I'll call them what they are: bad translators.
>>12724946>>12724956Talking about Katrina Leonoudakis or some other wokey/troon?
>>12725089The big K, of course.
>>12725056Historically yes, but there's been a push over the past, say, DECADE, where failed-english-majors with delusions of grandeur attempt to carve out a niche for themselves bullying real translators out of their position, believing they should be in charge. It's in their best interest to convince Corporate that their "Localization" job is separate from "Translation" and TOTALLY needed. This coupled with A.I. paint a grim future where actual experts leave the industry.
>>12725102True, they come in with limited or no skill in the language and essentially act like rewriters. Barking orders at the actual translators while they make all the "important" translations.Even so, I still don't make a distinction because with AI, everyone can be an expert and make those same decisions. AI is essentially your translation monkey and you can edit whatever it spits you out because 9/10 it'll be accurate.
>>12725105>9/10 it'll be accurateAI output fails when it comes to humor and cultural/pop references or connections that you genuinely need humans for, so you can have the most machine-cold translation ever, maybe even disguise human-warmth to a degree, but the result will always be from a novice's crutch that held back a translation from artistic greatness.
>>12724889We don't really have a word for 美しい in English. Our usage of beautiful more matches きれい. The ending also is really lackadaisical and the exclamation point that the AI put was really inappropriate. Humans captured the tone way better. Of course it could be a prompting issue handicapping the AI
>>12725105>AI is essentially your translation monkey and you can edit whatever it spits you out because 9/10 it'll be accurate.I kind of agree with this. AI is best used as a substitute for the novice intern who is the office slave and does all the dirty work. A human should still look it over just as a sanity check. It's usually good but it can be way off the mark sometimes
>>12725125Eh, that's subjective, but I can see where you're coming from. To be fair to the AI, most humans fail at this too, or at the very least, I never find translated works funny.>>12725134Completely agree. There should always QA check by someone with a modicum of language skill.
>>12724535Yeah people here don't get that it was never meant to look professional or anything. Just nerds having fun while doing something few people would do and get a little laugh out of them.
>>12725129Uh, are you joking? We have many words for 美しい: beautiful, delightful, pretty, lovely, etc. Also, criticizing the punctuation is just nitpicking. The original claim was that the AI mistranslated the sentence and now you're trying to give a college thesis on its output of what amounts to two sentences.
>>12725143>We have many words for 美しい: beautiful, delightful, pretty, lovely, etc.Pseud take. 美しい is purely literary and used in writing only. The AI made it too personal and excited. The human won
>>12725192It is definitely not used in only writing lol are you actually serious right now?
>>12725213in literary works and song lyrics people use 美しい to be poetic, in real life everyone only uses きれい. you are a trankicel that cant speak the language
>>12725228美しい is by far one of the most common adjectives in Japanese, and something that appears in all kinds of media. By no means would anyone call it purely poetic. Is this Dunning-Kruger?
>>12725240>美しい is by far one of the most common adjectives in Japanesetopkek. tranki pseud confirmed. go up to 10 girls and call them 美しい, go on a date with a girl and say the scenery is 美しいreport back the resultsyou probably call yourself 私 when you talk, if you ever even had a conversation. kek
>>12725249You know, I was just about to say that you're probably one of those guys that thinks 私 is only used by women lolPlease quit larping, man. You're making the rest of us look bad.
>>12724380>underage>doesn't even know about something awfulyou must be 18 to post here, back you go fag.
>>12725253go outside, tranki loser. from now on if i ever see one of you lame faggits that start every sentence with 私は in real life, I'm slapping your girl on the ass and calling her 美しい right in front of you
>>12725294Yeah, and I'll bet you'll call yourself 僕 like the little baby boy you are kek
>>12725294>>12725304JUST FUCK ALREADY.
Ladies and gentlemen, the gayest poster on /vr/ >>12725317
>>12722936Thank God someone has taken his mantle, eh?
>>12724826This only goes to show that the Japanese way of writing isn't quite as colorful as English is.For instance, the Japanese lexicon might be limited to phrases like "let's get going" or "shall we go?", whereas in English you got tons of expressions such as "let's get outta here", "let's skedaddle", "let's hit the road" etc. that are casually used in conversation.
>>12725350That's debatable considering how many more ways they can express things like the first-person that we only have one word for.
>>12724826The problem is that sometimes you only get localization as an option. Sure you have fan translation patches and ai now but back then what you get is what you got and in hindsight it is infuriating that you got what is effectively the equivalent of an abridged series as an official product.
>>12725408>picrelpowerful kek
>>12725408Spirit of the law. This whole debate lies in translations that don't follow the original spirit. Words are just letters to convey ideas and concepts, as long as the spirit of the message remains intact, it shouldn't matter. Ex: He was killed ->to-> his life was taken away /or/ they took his life. Detail was added and each version is slightly different, highlighting different aspects but the spirit of the message remains.
>>12725510except for the localization which is completely different because some jackass decided to funny.
>>12725510I swear 99% of the complaints have nothing to do with wording. It's always because the translator intentionally changed the meaning.
>>12725324It's not gay to want to see bickering catty women smooch tho.
>>12722972>Translators actually believe they are above the original writers.It's not just translators. I see it pretty consistently whenever someone works on a game designed by someone else. They'll constantly find flaws to fix but really it's just because they want to take it over and claim it as their own. They'll go out of their way to find faults where none exist. A lot of them aren't happy working in a way where you can't tell anything was changed and to just have the game functioning properly even though that's often the right thing to do. >>12725037Localization makes sense when it's something that doesn't translate properly. Earthbound has some things t hat don't make sense unless you're more familiar with Japanese culture than the average person. In that case, some adjustments to things can have the same impact without causing confusion for most potential players. Adding in random references isn't localizing, it's mistranslating.
>>12724829I don't think AI is there yet for translation, every machine translation had nonsense in it that I played even new machine tls that released but maybe in 10 years or so it will be really good? At least I hope so. Its the only thing that I care about when it comes to AI everything else is slop.
>>12725642That's because no one uses the latest LLMs. I'm not even kidding, people insist on running local LLMs like Gemma that are light years behind the industry giants.
>>12725669probably cause the lastest LLMs are getting paywalled via per use so it would cost 1,000s of dollars to translate with them
>>12725408If I enjoyed it, I don't really care what it was "supposed to be".
>>12725695Nah, 20 bucks at most.
>>12725363What do you mean?
if u are a nerd in the 80's, 90's translating these games u have your own jokes
>>12725880Do you not know about Japanese pronouns?
>>12725905Oh like that.Well they can refer to themselves in different ways but typically the Japanese won't refer to themselves at all.So rather than saying "my stomach is empty" they'd sooner say "stomach is empty".
>>12725923Pay more attention the next time you watch something. They refer to themselves and others quite a bit, and the way that they speak, both the register and their overall word choice will vary wildly.
>>12724847To be entirely fair, Japan is still from the savage lands of Not-America. Slightly less savage than most, but you don't pay respects to a culture in a position of weakness. Just translate everything to make it as American as possible and the weebs can fuck off.>Inb4 tranime websiteIt is, but as containment, not to validate what you do, faggot. We allow /LGBT/ and /MLP/ here too, its not because faggots and horsefuckers are good for the site.
>>12725949Translation is not an act of dominance. It's a test of honesty. Believe me when I say that it's more disrespectful to America to have their words minced then to be told straight up what they're trying to say.
>be localizer/translator>realize you wish you were actually writing your own original works instead of just translating others' words>eventually develop resentment toward what you're translating ("this is so stupid, why do I have to be faithful to this garbage, I could write something so much better than this")>start using your "localization" as a way to shoehorn in something more akin to your own original writing, and/or stuff that "fixes" the original script to be "better," and/or even include things which mock the original script itselfI'd imagine a fair amount of translators fancy (or once fancied) themselves as creative writers, so some without restraint probably run the risk of going down the above path.
>>12725958Both arguments are wrong, especially for official translators of Japanese videogames. They aren't legal briefs, corporate memoranda, or classic literature. They are entertainment products. Hence, 'localization' (of the product) instrad of translation only.
>>12726190> classic literature. They are entertainment products. Hence, 'localization' (of the product) instrad of translation only.Classic literature is also entertainment, all the more reason to complain about butchering the story and characters with their nonsense
>>12726190They are the words, ideas and feelings of another culture. To not convey them honestly is to forget the point of translation.
>>12726246People take liberties with Mozart operas all the time, when the actual goal is entertaining a modern audience. Your point is invalid.
>>12726250The point is not translation, that's the point.
>>12726569When something gets done repeatedly then people are encouraged to put their own twist on it eventually to make it unique and keep it fresh. That's not really the same thing as someone making random changes while translating a single work.
>>12726190>Both arguments are wrong, especially for official translators of Japanese videogames. They aren't legal briefs, corporate memoranda, or classic literature. They are entertainment products. Hence, 'localization' (of the product) instrad of translation only.wait. Your logic is that only legal briefs, corporate memoranda, or classic literature are worth accurate translations?yeah, thats totally going to persuade anyone on the fence.
>>12725949>>Inb4 tranime website>It is, but as containmentWhat the fuck does that even mean? Do you even know the history of the website you use?
>>12722906>>12722936You dumb bastards, somethingawful did not exist when FFIV wa translated, not to mention the phrase "something awful" is just a common expression
>>12726897That's for the GBA port which was released in the USA in 2005.
>>12724886Tales of Arise. It was simply a lot of verbal diarrhea about nothing.>Oh here we are in this castle>Looks like a nice castle>We need to talk to the king right?>Yea we need to talk to the king>I wonder how the king is>I wonder what this castle is like
>>12726952No, I mean, give me an example of the boring Japanese that became "not boring" through localization. Obviously there is gonna be boring dialogue in RPGs.
>>12724829>>12724847>>12724885>>12724917>>12725642Both of those are human-translated you fucking AI slop gurgling retardshttps://legendsoflocalization.com/articles/rhapsody-literal-translations-snowy/The "AI" column is an example of more elegant localization by a different translator.
>>12727032Uh, what? The AI one was done with Gemini.
>>12723527this guy believes in transferring his sins to a chicken.
>>12727013Working Designs claimed they did just that with their Lunar translations. But they were pretty shit, like edgy teenager stuff nobody asked for.
>>12727086I don't know if the WD stuff even counts as localization. Feels more like a full-scale rewrite of the source material.
>>12727092>our translations are so awesome everyone loves us>oh look we inserted another penis joke!
>>12726594The point is that accuracy isn't everything. Weebs and morons like you have a lot of trouble with this simple point. Do you know that chess pieces don't have the same names in every language?The point of a videogame is to be fun. While there's no excuse for retarded in-jokes like the SA/goon reference, playability and entertainment are more important than accuracy. If a foreign game makes a foriegn cultural reference, a good localization may change the reference to something familiar to the target audience. Weebs are obsessed with japanese culture and so cannot comprehend why anyone might not care about having every single reference, idiom, and inflection preserved. (And yet they are somehow still obsessed with the translations rather than just learning Japanese, playing in the native language, and leaving everyone else alone)The other examples include text where, unlike videogames, accuracy is very important. Accuracy matters for videogames too, to a degree, but it's not theb only priority. Smart people understand this, retards don't.
>>12727131If that were true, movie and show translations wouldn't prioritize accuracy, unlike video games.
>>12727134Movies aren't always perfectly accurate either. Like opera, though to a lesser degree, movies care about the actual resilt sounds like. Translators may choose different, less "accurate" words and phrases so that a scene flows better, sounds more natural, or so that dramatic moments hit with approprately dramatic words and not something like a random preposition. And with movies, there's an eternally unresolved argument about dubs vs subs. Film makers and the actors put a lot of effort into recording an exact performance, aligning every vocalization with every subtle movement of the face and body. So there's obvious motivation for people to want to hear the original actors in the original language, with subtitles telling you what it means.When you've seen enough media with multiple translations you realize that translators have to make judgement calls all the time.
>>12727171While they aren't perfect, I've noticed a lot more consistency in accuracy of translation, whereas video games treat the translation of the original wording as optional. I think where your argument is falling apart is that "entertainment" is not an excuse for the level of inaccuracy we see in video games.
>>12727131>And yet they are somehow still obsessed with the translations rather than just learning Japanese, playing in the native language, and leaving everyone else aloneThey cant do that because they're retarded pseud larpers. They never realized that no translation is accurate. They are dependent on a few trannies or translation engines to tell them the truth about each translation. They don't even know what they're supposed to be mad about.
>>12727213I know Japanese, but it still annoys me with how loose video game scripts are.
>>12727032wrong. you are wrong.this here: >>12727073now delete your post
>>12724847Every AI translated hentai doujin I've read is bad and therefor AI translation is bad. If it was good it would be good enough to jack off to.
>>12727783I swear you've posted this exact same opinion several times now.
>>12725858This, I find that Claude's Opus models do a great job for most tasks. I do wish they were accessible on the free tier though, even if they still use more tokens.
>>12722972Fucking around with translation and localization and cultural idioms is a rush. You feel like Moses with the holy tablets doing that shit.
>>12725053The one that sticks with me to this day was a shot of some cheesy columns with the caption "Is this the home of a Roman senator or an Internet thousandaire? You be the judge."
real talk yall gotta checkout the REAL ULTIMATE POWER ninja book. it's so funny, even as an adult!
There are Something Awful in jokes littered all over the place in early 2000s games. I played AvP 2 a little while back and there's a text log in there riffing on the space robots that push people down the stairs. Most people would have no idea what a lot of that stuff is even referencing if they weren't online in a very narrow band of time from 1999-2005 or so.
