The glossary translated some words for me and I noticed some names which would need proofreading. I corrected the ones in my document but I am assuming there are other files out there with these terms. For example, I found a lot of the following (I used an imaginary name just for the example) *Evil* Knight ——– Chevalier *mal©fique* *Evil* General ——- G©n©ral *mauvais* *Evil* Commander— Commandant *Evil* I noticed the same thing with the area names, the weapon names and so on. I just thought I’d let you know, this is a very important issue.
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X.
a) I’ve used “Bonhomme de neige” throughtout my translation, using for consistancy “Bonhomme de neige” as well as “Grognement A Bonhomme de neige”, which was auto-translated as “Grognement de l’homme des neiges A”. This needs to be looked at during the proofreading. b) As explained in one of my previous email, I would not translate “Elysium” by “Elys©e”, which for me as a too strong reference to the French President. So it might be some conflict between the two, some automatically translated, some not. c) In automated translation, “Aeon” has been translated “A©on”, which is fine by me, but “Aeonblaze” is kept as “Aeonblaze”, which for me is not consistant. d) The terms “Fortune” can be translated as “Chance” or “Fortune” in French, so this will have to be looked at as well. e) “Spirit Stone” and “Stone Spirit” are both translated as “Esprit de la pierre”. To be validated, as they might have two different meanings. f) Segments and : “Glace de tortue” is an automated translation, so I kept the same pattern and translated “Glace de tigre”, but I’m not happy with this translation. To be validated. g) “Any” in Segments onwards, has been left as “Any” in the automated translation, however, it doesn’t exist in French. Probably a word having slipped through… h) Please also look at “Chili” apparently being translated as “Chili” and “Piment” in French (lack of consistancy) 6. Very strange string in Segment , please check out. Please confirm you can read the file and you’re happy with the way it’s done. I’ll get going with the 3c now…
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I came across sentences like the following:
Global variable reached requisite level$1
Global variable$1
Global variable increasing, man!
Global variable 2 reached 30.
Are there any instructions regarding a proper and consistent translation of these terms? I assume they will occur regularly in the text as some kind of status information or update and a consistent translation seems vital. Have other translators come across them? Let me know please.
Thanks
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It is Project manager of KENAX company.
Please check and give me your thoughts on these:
And I think according to clients advise and according to new issues arising, you can change if it is necessary your guidelines:
Clients comments
It™s better to keep things more formal in general. That way there won™t be the cases where the informal is used when it should be the formal.Three letters for abbreviations like Health Points and Spirit Points.
W. If we agree to translate whatever is possible to translate even if it sound a bit queer, I can do so, but at least we need some coherence in this. – I recognized that when I got to lines further down the file all of a sudden there happened strange things with the formatting/alignment. I didn’t want to touch the format and destroy the whole thing, so I just went on translating and thought you could probably fix this better than me, when realizing this. – Then the hyphen problem. I spent hours with hyphens. I put hyphens and saved the file, when opening it again many of these hyphens were not there any more. So when proofreading the text I put new hyphens and maybe this was not a good idea. Just tell me what to do with these hyphens. – The translation of the word “armor”. Ok, whatever we choose is ok. “Panzer” seems good to me, if other translators prefer “R¼stung”, this is also ok, but who decides which one to use? “Harnisch” is for me even better than the other two. But discussing like this we can go on for months and not deciding anything. – Then, we can not always be aware of which words the other translators used.
D. Are those enough? You needn’t worry. Although Velonus is wise, I am not stupid. He wants to make use of me, so I’m in a difficult situation…. Ihr braucht Euch keine Sorgen zu machen. Obwohl Velonus weise ist, ich bin nicht dumm. Er m¶chte mich in Anspruch nehmen, also bin ich in einer schwierigen Situation. It has been three years since Danon reentered the Kunlun region. No one has heard from him since. As far as I know, Anan has never been as calm as she looks. She’s been trying her best to find Danon. Es ist drei Jahre her, seit Danon die Kunlun Region wiederbetreten hat. Niemand hat seitdem von ihm geh¶rt. Soweit ich weiŸ, war Anan nie so gelassen wie sie aussieht. Sie hat Ihr bestes versucht um Danon zu finden.
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This are guidelines that forwarded to me, please if it is again necessary change or add information for other translators.
German
I want to experiment with these high repetitions, so tell me how it goes. Ideally you should proofread each segment once completed, so that you do not end up proofreading the existing pretranslations/repetitions if starting from the beginning later.
Another possibility is to not ALT INS a segment that you just translated but rather jump to the next Untranslated segment with the ctrl+plus (keypad) shortcut, or make a macro for that (Options Record Macro). Once in the new Untranslated segment you press ALT ENTER to show any fuzzies, if they exist. Then, once completed your document, you can ALT INS your way through the document, proofreading your own translation and skipping over the 100% matches.
When I assign you your file(s) the first/far left number is Pretranslated words and the last/far right yellow number is the file’s total, to give you an idea of the percentage of fuzzy matches. Make sure this is working so that you do not translate segments unnecessarily.
Any red marked terms just ignore as I’ll have those automatically translated later.
Once you begin copy/paste some samples into an email and send it to me so that I can forward it to the proofreader to make sure you are following the guidelines properly.
Also, it is taxing my computer too much and soon I hope to buy a stronger one, but in the meantime, tell me if you are able to Edit Insert All Terms from Dictionary (when your language pair file is open). This should help you, especially once I import all the Proper Names translations into the glossary.
Make sure to write in medieval formal (more info below). I believe it called for neutral gender in German, or lean towards male when not sure? Please send some samples (copy/paste into an email) so that I can forward to the proofreader and make sure you are correctly on track.
You can also go to View Display/Hide Attributes and choose either Short or Full tags as sometimes there may be a sex symbol for a tool or weapon and it may help you with language gender issues. We are just starting the sentences so it is important that you all translate according to the same style. Any suggestions concerning this would be appreciated.
More info concerning medieval German:
I am no linguist, but what I know from other games in this setting and also fantasy books/stories/movies is the usage of “older” formal address. It is “Ihr” instead of “Sie” and “Euch” instead of “Ihnen”. In my opinion, the “normal” formal address “Sie/Ihnen” should be avoided. That leaves informal (du/dich), which is sort of okay and easy, and older formal (Ihr/Euch, pluralis majestatis), which I think is the most appropriate form and not too tricky to do, apart from the problems in social standing and rank/ age differences. If we assume that most of the games characters will address each other formally (which I know from the German localized version of fantasy online Role playing game EverQuest II (similar to WOW)), we should be safe, I think. THerefore, my vote would be to use this older formal address throughout the game, maybe switching to informal/modern formal when speaking to the player (like: “You cannot login to the server”).
The customer also wrote:
“We (French, German, me) talked it over and did some research and came up with the following: for the in game text, where people are referring to you (the player) or when you refer to them (the characters in game), we use formal genderless verbs. This requires a little more work, but shouldn’t be too much extra work. We actually went and looked how World of Warcraft handles this in French and German, and that’s what they do. Please let me know your thoughts on this.” [So possible to apply normal formal and not medieval when the software addresses the player?]
Proofreader:
She/he is not addressing in the same style as the other translators do. It sounds very formal. If you want I can change it myself but maybe someone should still tell her/him that for future translations.
Just to make it clear what I mean:
When addressing a single person: “K¶nnen Sie sich das vorstellen?” better would be “K¶nnt Ihr Euch das vorstellen?”
Just tell her/him that we agreed on this style because it sounds more mediveal. The German “Sie” doesn’t sound so good in this case.
And if you haven’t already had enough to read!…
Guidelines for Translating Jade Dynasty “ Video Game
ENGLISH
These guidelines are far from being complete and thus, work in progress. This text is not intended to belittle or question your expertise or translation abilities. Please do not view these guidelines as criticism of your work so far, but rather as an attempt to make things easier for all translators involved. If you have any suggestions, remarks, criticism or additions, please feel free to comment.
General:
The game is a fantasy-online-role playing-game, set in a presumably medieval fantasy world with strong Chinese elements. Technology may have advanced far, there is no electricity, steam/gas-powered motors. Weapons include swords, bows, batons, maces, bills and various Chinese arms but apparently no firearms. Transportation is by foot, by horse or by magic (flying swords and teleporters). Generally, magic and sorcery, as well as magic items, powers, abilities and beings are commonplace. Many animals are intelligent and able to speak.
To match the overall style of the translation to this background, and in order to achieve an atmospherically and stylistically adequate translation, it is probably advisable to translate in formal and old-fashioned style. The language of popular fantasy films (e.g. Lord of the Rings) or that of books such as Michael Ende™s Neverending Story may act as an example. Foreign words (Latin and English) should, where possible, be avoided and old-fashioned or obsolete terms are to be considered quite appropriate. The translator™s grasp and feeling for the language is crucial here. Much can be derived from the style of the English original.
It is difficult to set up general rules for this, apart from advising an antiquated style. A œWie geht™s may be barely in order, whereas an œOkay should be avoided.
Addressing:
All characters in the game will generally address each other in old-style formal: œIhr/Euch. This goes for players, between players and towards non-player characters (NPCs).
If the player is being addressed as an individual (œby the game), modern informal will be used (Du/Dich; e.g.: You cannot login to this server=Du kannst dich nicht an diesem Server anmelden).
Distinction between these is not always easy. Specifically, it is sometimes hard to determine, if a text belongs to out-of-game or in-game text. Please try employing formal old style in these cases of doubt (to be on the safe side on style terms).
In very emotional dialog, in proverbs or mock proverbs and in cases of severe differences in social standing or age, the modern informal may be appropriate (Du). Due to the difficulty determining these cases, it is recommended to use Ihr/Euch here, too.