Mighty Cast (Podcast) has Begun!

[Swan Dive]

Those "ums" made it really frustrating to read, but thanks a lot for the transcript.

[icannotdomyjob]

Those "ums" made it really frustrating to read, but thanks a lot for the transcript.

Imagine how tedious it was just making the first draft. I think I spent 9 hours on it, with lots of breaks.



Mark's questions were poorly constructed, as if they were interpreting the question on the fly. Some weren't even questions. God, I hope I do not have to interview them, even if that was done already:

<!-- m --><a href='' rel='nofollow' target='_blank'></a><!-- m -->



My favorite part start at 6:50.

Spoiler

And yes, a very popular character in one of their most recent games

[13445]

Those "ums" made it really frustrating to read, but thanks a lot for the transcript.

Imagine how tedious it was just making the first draft. I think I spent 9 hours on it, with lots of breaks.



Mark's questions were poorly constructed, as if they were interpreting the question on the fly. Some weren't even questions. God, I hope I do not have to interview them, even if that was done already:

<!-- m --><a href='' rel='nofollow' target='_blank'></a><!-- m -->



My favorite part start at 6:50.

Spoiler

And yes, a very popular character in one of their most recent games

Remember these are the super qualified translators they hired to talk to us. Dina doesn't even have English as her native language its like her third language and she is not the only one like that on the staff.

[icannotdomyjob]

Dina doesn't even have English as her native language its like her third language and she is not the only one like that on the staff.

Let me humor you. It isn't mines either. And damn, even I could scan a paragraph of a question and summarize it into 1 or 2 sentences.

[13445]

Dina doesn't even have English as her native language its like her third language and she is not the only one like that on the staff.

Let me humor you. It isn't mines either. And damn, even I could scan a paragraph of a question and summarize it into 1 or 2 sentences.

Then you can see the red flags I have. Why is it so hard to get basic translation work done. I now wonder just how FLUENT the 8-4 staff is in Japanese.  The podcast seemed sloppy.

[icannotdomyjob]

Then you can see the red flags I have. Why is it so hard to get basic translation work done. I now wonder just how FLUENT the 8-4 staff is in Japanese.  The podcast seemed sloppy.

I did, 6~ weeks ago. Then out of a challenge, I looked up 8-4's history, and comparisons of their work. I've been appalled ever since:

<!-- m --><a href='https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/8-4#Gameography' rel='nofollow' target='_blank'>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/8-4#Gameography</a><!-- m -->



What's worse, the most recent title, Fire Emblem Awakening, has sooo much mistranslations and made up stuff, it makes you puke. Others' knew better than I did when they saw 8-4 was going to handle translation and PR for MN9. I gave them a chance, and so far they are proving themselves to still be awful.

[13445]

Then you can see the red flags I have. Why is it so hard to get basic translation work done. I now wonder just how FLUENT the 8-4 staff is in Japanese.  The podcast seemed sloppy.

I did, 6~ weeks ago. Then out of a challenge, I looked up 8-4's history, and comparisons of their work. I've been appalled ever since:

<!-- m --><a href='https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/8-4#Gameography' rel='nofollow' target='_blank'>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/8-4#Gameography</a><!-- m -->



What's worse, the most recent title, Fire Emblem Awakening, has sooo much mistranslations and made up stuff, it makes you puke. Others' knew better than I did when they saw 8-4 was going to handle translation and PR for MN9. I gave them a chance, and so far they are proving themselves to still be awful.

Yeah the really pissed me off, if you look over their gameography they do that shit to a lot of games.

[Swan Dive]

Fire Emblem Awakening had a lot of mistranslations?  First time hearing about this.  Do you have any source about exactly what was mistranslated?  Google came up rather dry.

[13445]

Fire Emblem Awakening had a lot of mistranslations?  First time hearing about this.  Do you have any source about exactly what was mistranslated?  Google came up rather dry.

Go to /v/ or /vg/ fire emblem threads on 4chan and ask about it and you should get a bunch of info graphs and comparisons dropped on you.

[icannotdomyjob]

Fire Emblem Awakening had a lot of mistranslations?  First time hearing about this.  Do you have any source about exactly what was mistranslated?  Google came up rather dry.

Here are some examples:

<!-- m --><a href=' ' rel='nofollow' target='_blank'> ... DeuujI39DN</a><!-- m -->

<!-- m --><a href='http://jrpgeu.wordpress.com/2013/04/30/dialogue-in-european-version-of-fire-emblem-awakening-is-censored/' rel='nofollow' target='_blank'>http://jrpgeu.wordpress.com/2013/04/30/ ... -censored/</a><!-- m -->

<!-- m --><a href='http://www.nintendolife.com/news/2013/04/weirdness_nintendo_of_europe_didnt_want_boingy_bits_in_fire_emblem_awakening' rel='nofollow' target='_blank'>http://www.nintendolife.com/news/2013/0 ... _awakening</a><!-- m -->

<!-- m --><a href='http://serenesforest.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=40099&page=14&hl=translation#entry2803367' rel='nofollow' target='_blank'>http://serenesforest.net/forums/index.p ... try2803367</a><!-- m -->

<!-- m --><a href='http://serenesforest.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=43458&page=4&hl=translation#entry2664988' rel='nofollow' target='_blank'>http://serenesforest.net/forums/index.p ... try2664988</a><!-- m -->

<!-- m --><a href='http://serenesforest.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=43017&page=11&hl=translation#entry2632788' rel='nofollow' target='_blank'>http://serenesforest.net/forums/index.p ... try2632788</a><!-- m -->



EDIT:

Here a website dedicated to translating FE, because of all the mess ups:

<!-- m --><a href='http://www.heroesofshadow.net/' rel='nofollow' target='_blank'>http://www.heroesofshadow.net/</a><!-- m -->

[MechaGS]

Fire Emblem Awakening had a lot of mistranslations?  First time hearing about this.  Do you have any source about exactly what was mistranslated?  Google came up rather dry.

There are issues with the way that 8-4 go about translating games. There's a video that shows how they do it and it's basically an excel spreadsheet with the most literal translations ever.



They've also had issues with sequels to games where they claim a character who is male as being female and vice-versa. Not exactly top quality in my book.



I love the Fire Emblem series and enjoyed Awakening but it is a shame that there are errors in it's translation. I hope that other translation companies don't use the same methods as 8-4.

[Swan Dive]

Gender mistranslations?  WOW, that's a pretty big deal.  From the reads though, it sounds like the mistranslations in FEA were infrequent (though still problematic).  From what my translator friends tell me though, the translator has to interpret the way they think it's supposed to be written and can never be 100% correct (unless the original author him/herself translates it anyway).  I heard even the Japanese themselves have issues interpreting Kanji.  Even the legendary Bible is notorious for supposed mistranslations.  



Heck, even I can't fully understand some ENGLISH written stories (rare, but still happens, take Shakespeare for example) if they use a different way of writing or use vocabulary that I'm not familiar with.  My point is that I can usually excuse translations as long as they are pretty accurate, I don't want a complete mess though, (like gender mistranslations).  At least in MN9 it's mostly all gameplay so we don't have to really worry about that.  :mrgreen:

[Ryusei]

It could be worse. It could be

Spoiler

Ignition Entertainment.

[icannotdomyjob]

From what my translator friends tell me though, the translator has to interpret the way they think it's supposed to be written and can never be 100% correct (unless the original author him/herself translates it anyway).  I heard even the Japanese themselves have issues interpreting Kanji. 

That's what they teach most college translators, input some interpretation into text when it makes little to no sense for the targeted language. I like my translations literary raw. But there two other ways, translation with context interpretation, and translation to simple English. Most use a combination of simple English and improvisation, which I dislike. I rather translate with context interpretation, and maybe even place an asterisk to explain.

My point is that I can usually excuse translations as long as they are pretty accurate, I don't want a complete mess though, (like gender mistranslations).  At least in MN9 it's mostly all gameplay so we don't have to really worry about that.  :mrgreen:

Same here. But most of these days, these cheap companies improvise text that have cultural context to the targeted audience, which is awful when the game relies in its own context. And a big example of that is FE:A. However, MN9 will have a deep story, if you read/heard Imaeda's Q&A. It even looks like there will be lots of NPC interaction like in Rockman ZX, because there is no good or bad guy in the story. So we will see how that plays out in Beta release.

[Swan Dive]

I suppose if I knew more Japanese, I'd appreciate raws more as well.  Which is why I am studying it at the moment. Even during my practice translating games, I notice huge amounts of context being lost (or gained), depending on who translates it.



Yeah, I wasn't to read/remember it all clearly with all the "ums", but knowing there is a good story behind it all is actually quite exciting!