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Kyuuketsuki no Libra TL quality


Dergonu

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EDIT: Right now there is a new pass being made to the translation, so there is hope after all.

For more details, check out the game's kickstarter page.

 

I know there are already several posts talking about the translation of this game on the forum, but some people might have missed them, as the bulk of the posts were made some time ago, so I figured a new thread might be in order, now that the game is out for everyone.

 

I have been reading the game for about 2 hours now, comparing the JP lines to the English translations as I read. This translation is very literal, to the point where the English sentences often make little to no sense. The biggest issue seems to be that the translator transliterated everything. It seems like he/she just looked at the Japanese line, and word by word, translated everything directly into an English sentence as is, without any re-wording, giving no thought to how the line would flow in English. And the result is... terrible. From what I can tell, the translator has not made any rookie JP mistakes, like mistaking particles etc, (though keep in mind I could only go by the voiced lines and not the narrated ones, as I do not have the Japanese script in front of me.) That being said, an "accurate" translation doesn't really mean much when the English is barely comprehensible as a result.

A few examples of what you will see in the translation: (Decay also posted some examples last month, which you can see here.)

Screenshots:

Spoiler

 

rwody5q.png

This is an extremely literal TL, which makes no sense in English. The sun exploded? Phew, well then, we're all doomed, I suppose. But don't worry, it's not dangerous. (Apparently.)

nu2OTdR.png

>He is my root.

U wut m8?

(This is refering to the main character's father being his "roots" I suppose. As in, where the MC came from. (You know, the birds and the bees.) But just saying "he is my root" sounds absolutely idiotic.)

VFTyN0J.png

A stomach bam.

A... stomach... bam...

Why... why do you do this?

6Ie5dkj.png

:michiru: Well okay then. 

 

You also have things like this:
 

Spoiler

 

IPHEHHY.png

KI184Ts.png

 

This is an official localization, and yet it reads like a bad fan TL. We should not be okay with this. Many of us paid money for this.
From what I can tell, the translation's accuracy is not the issue, but the translator's lack of English knowledge is. A proper editing pass and some QCing could fix 90% of the issues in this translation. We should all, (in a calm manner, of course,) ask Mikandi to do something about this. Whether they will actually listen to us or not is hard to say, but I'd like to think they will. Their PR has been on point through the entire campaign, (they were logged into this forum just last night, showing that they are checking the threads about their game frequently) and if enough people voice their complaints about the translation, I hope they will look into doing something about it.
Tweet them, comment on their kickstarter page if you are a backer or post on their website. Make your stance on the TL known. If one person complains, nothing will happen, but if everyone does, it's going to be hard for Mikandi to ignore us. With their prevoiusly open attitude towards the community, I'd like to think they will listen.

So, for the moment, my recommendation is that you do not buy this game. Wait and see if they will do something about our concerns first. Hopefully they will listen and do something about the TL. If you buy the game now in its current state, just be warned: it's not very good, and you might come to regret your decision.

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If the TL is improved I will consider getting the game, even if it will cost me a fortune because of the extra 18+ patch sold separately. The game definitely seems worth it.

For the moment I'll leave sleeping dogs lie. There are lots of other games that deserve more to be supported.

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Been reading it a little bit, yeah, the translation is too much literal and sometimes makes no sense at all ... Also, bad grammar at times, wrong tense usage, etc. ... I mean, I can enjoy this but I don't think many will find it fun the way it is translated currently xD ... This is exactly how I imagine a Japanese person who isn't fluent in English to translate from Japanese to English ... It has all the signs of it, this VN could have used some heavy editing by a native English editor and it would look much better then.

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34 minutes ago, wyldstrykr said:

so that means, this game is superior to chronoclock in terms of translation quality?

No, absolutely not. The Chrono Clock translation is God tier compared to this. The translation for Libra is quite poor, sadly.

34 minutes ago, wyldstrykr said:

also can anyone compare that to the translation quality of edelweiss and konosora?

I have not played edelweiss, but I can compare it to konosora.

I'd say Libra is just a tiny bit better than konosora's TL, mainly because konosora also edited the script, making lines straight up wrong. In Libra's case we have pretty poor TLs, that are definitely too literal, but they are still technically correct, at least. So, not a good TL by any means, but at the very least it's a tiny bit better than konosora's TL.

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I made it about 2 hours before I had to stop. It's like they forgot to edit the translation and released it as is or something. I thought I was losing my mind with weird phrases such as "A stomach bam" but it just keeps getting weirder until I found myself actually angry at how confused this was making me. With a fixed script this game could be great but as it is, yeah don't buy it for sure.

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I believe I know why this game has a poor translation and the reason being that they lowered their initial base goal due to the feedback that they got.  When they first announced they were going to crowdfund Libra they said it would be 170K but they got a lot of people saying that it was too high for new game released an unknown company and it might not make the goal.  Mikandi Japan actually listened to this and lowered the goal to 125K but they said that because of that they were going to reduce the number of translation passes to one.  Anyone who doesn't believe me can look at their prefundia page and see all the comments two years asking them to lower the goal and their announcement of their changed base goal.

http://prefundia.com/projects/view/libra-of-the-vampire-princess-bishoujo-game-english-version/6962/

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image.png?width=400&height=184

off topic: can anyone explain this?

1 hour ago, Crusher said:

I believe I know why this game has a poor translation and the reason being that they lowered their initial base goal due to the feedback that they got.  When they first announced they were going to crowdfund Libra they said it would be 170K but they got a lot of people saying that it was too high for new game released an unknown company and it might not make the goal.  Mikandi Japan actually listened to this and lowered the goal to 125K but they said that because of that they were going to reduce the number of translation passes to one.  Anyone who doesn't believe me can look at their prefundia page and see all the comments two years asking them to lower the goal and their announcement of their changed base goal.

http://prefundia.com/projects/view/libra-of-the-vampire-princess-bishoujo-game-english-version/6962/

image.png?width=400&height=131

WTF!!!! knowing that they reduce the number of translation passes, why did they even fund that? does people only care about the art and not the text itself? 

Edited by wyldstrykr
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Just now, wyldstrykr said:

image.png?width=400&height=184

off topic: can anyone explain this?

image.png?width=400&height=131

WTF!!!! knowing that they reduce the number of translation passes, why did they even fund that? does people only care about the art and not the text itself? 

Prolly sex toy. 

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They need to define "translation passes," because most professional VN translations have only one translation pass. Did that mean no editing, either? It doesn't matter, though, because here's the deal: No good translation has ever looked like how this translation looks like at ANY stage. This isn't a case of it being unfinished, this is a case of the people involved having no idea what they're doing. They should never have been allowed to translate this to begin with. If the extra passes were to be performed by these guys, then I highly doubt it would turn out much better anyway.

Either way, it seems like 7 Happy Creations, the translation firm they hired for this project, borderline scammed Mikandi Japan. They charged an excessive premium for their services (WAY more than any other VN TL company), while having little to no experience and absolutely no talent for this.

edit: I'd also like to point out that "Yakkety yak yak" is an acceptable alternative to "bla bla bla" and such.

Edited by Decay
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To be honest I'm not all to familiar with the way official translations work so when I heard they were reducing the amount of translation passes I thought that it meant that the English script would go through less reviews which is probably what they thought too.  This is something that has been bugging me about this project for a long time and I'm not trying to say that every else is stupid for not remember a 2 year old update on prefundia but  people could have seen the outcome a mile away.

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1 hour ago, Crusher said:

To be honest I'm not all to familiar with the way official translations work so when I heard they were reducing the amount of translation passes I thought that it meant that the English script would go through less reviews which is probably what they thought too.  This is something that has been bugging me about this project for a long time and I'm not trying to say that every else is stupid for not remember a 2 year old update on prefundia but  people could have seen the outcome a mile away.

Well, like I said, this is uncharacteristic even for a VN with "only" one pass. This should not be blamed on the lack of additional passes, because that would imply that it would be okay with those passes. This is a fundamentally bad translation, and not something you'd want to build off of. It showcases a lack of ability on the part of the translators. And the whole reason Mikandi couldn't afford additional passes in the first place is because the translators grossly overcharged them.

The way a professional VN translation usually works is:

Step 1: Translation. Simple enough. They translate the text and that's it. There is usually only one translator but occasionally there are multiple, working on different parts of the script. Most professional VN companies trust the translators they hire and do not extensively check their work the way many fan translation projects do.
Step 2: Editing. The role of editor varies company to company, script to script. In some places, they are primarily proofreaders, and in other places they work the prose more extensively. And some scripts absolutely require extensive reworking (though ideally, VN companies avoid hiring translators who would write translations that require that). Editors tend to get paid a good deal less than translators.
Step 3: Testing. Again, this varies company to company. Some use testers as proofreaders, others just want them to make sure the program runs bug-free. Testers tend to get paid peanuts. Almost literally.

That's about it. You don't have translators making multiple passes, improving the translation with every step, that just doesn't happen in most cases. In most professional VN translations, the finished script will look very similar to the raw translation, unless something went horribly wrong in the translation phase. If the raw translation reads horribly, then you have a bad translator. I'd say that the only cases where there are multiple real translation passes are cases like Flowers, where the company realizes the translation is fucked and scrambles to fix it.

The translation budget laid out by MIkandi Japan suggests a 9.5 yen per Japanese character total cost for the translation (before it was cut down to one pass). This is maybe two to three times what some of the highest-paying VN companies might pay for translation/editing/etc. That itself isn't all that bad, since VN translation pays a pittance compared to the rest of professional game translation, but when you offer quality that is dramatically lower than the competition while charging multiple times more for your work, there's a big fucking problem.

(also, for the record, around 10 yen per Japanese character translated is what a company like Square Enix or Nintendo might pay a translator for their raw translation.)

(also also, for the record, what 7 Happy Creations was charging for their third pass just might be more than what MangaGamer pays a translator for their raw translation, to give you an idea of how outside the norm these guys were charging.)

tl;dr: This translation blows. Raw translation is not supposed to look like this. 7 Happy Creations are scammers. Mikandi Japan are saps for falling for it.

Edited by Decay
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I appreciate the insightful breakdown Decay and for the most part, I agree with your sentiments.

I'm about 3 hours into the game and its mind boggling how a 'professional' translation like this is being released as is. Quite frankly, it's unacceptable for the quality to be so poor with extremely literal translations that barely make sense in English. Sentences are constructed awkwardly and many don't read like a native English speaker would expect. Mikandi should have hired more competent translators that are actually well versed and fluent in English. To be honest, I don't have many hopes for them to salvage this translation with an editing pass, but it would be a wise choice if they want to uphold a good reputation.

It is really quite a shame since this is their first step into the English VN market. I was really looking forward to Libra since the art style and girls are cute and the story seems fun. However, a bad translation like this really dampens the enjoyment.

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7 minutes ago, Mr Poltroon said:

Could be people with a less than stellar grasp on the English language that don't really notice much of anything wrong.

That's possible, unfortunately if no one is saying anything about it, then mikandi won't talk about it either. They wouldn't purposely shine light to an issue that the large majority aren't noticing, or simply not caring about.

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2 hours ago, DharmaFreedom said:

The translation quality seems to be a pretty big issue, yet how come people aren't commenting on their kickstarter and steam page about it?

Steam - most people who value translation quality know to stay away, which is why you're left with a mere 7ish reviews on the Steam page. 

Kickstarter - I loaded up the page and was confronted with complaints about technical issues. My guess would be 'one thing at a time' :P 

[sarcasm] I love the practice of keeping romanised Japanese words in the script and putting the translation in brackets, that's just genius. They should have done it all like that [/sarcasm]

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Just now, Darklord Rooke said:

Steam - most people who value translation quality know to stay away, which is why you're left with a mere 7ish reviews on the Steam page. 

I'm not sure why you equate "liking good translations" with "doesn't like using Steam." 

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Just now, Decay said:

I'm not sure why you equate "liking good translations" with "doesn't like using Steam." 

I meant that most people who value translation quality have had plenty of warning about this product and are probably staying away and can't be bothered. Those (few) who buy a digital copy are probably those who don't care so much about how it reads in English and therefore the reviews are mostly positive. 

I mean, I think we've had a good month or two warning about the game now, and to be honest I didn't even know it was released (that's how little interest I have in it :P )

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