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Saku Saku Weird Translation?


Akshay

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On 18/10/2017 at 11:10 AM, ShinRaikdou said:

Just to reference.

"-bat" used 29 times in all game.

" bat " 3 times. Though it is "right off the bat"

"bats" 1 time.

 

If you want, you can simply auto-replace it on anything. Or if you can't I can make simple patch (already did with -baka for myself :P )

Btw, first translation patch was with -baka, before Sekai lay a hand on it.

Can you please post it or send it to me?

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On 10/19/2017 at 8:33 PM, Nandemonai said:

And I've also seen a better job from Sekai Project - Chrono Clock.  Being that I am still in the beginning, I'd probably give this game a B in translation so far.  The translator has clearly tried to do this the right way, but also clearly isn't quite there.

Chrono Clock is a mess.  I am done arguing tho. People just suck up this media no matter how poorly it is translated it seems.

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2 hours ago, Erogamer said:

Chrono Clock is a mess.  I am done arguing tho. People just suck up this media no matter how poorly it is translated it seems.

To me it seems like you just have very different ideas of what a good translation is, no real need to bite people.

Though maybe I'm even on your side, I didn't play SakuSaku or ChCl but I did get annoyed at times when Himawari's translation straight up added literal wordy interpretations of the simple japanese phrases that I didn't even agree with when I looked at the immediate context.

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2 hours ago, Erogamer said:

Chrono Clock is a mess.  I am done arguing tho. People just suck up this media no matter how poorly it is translated it seems.

Or people have different definitions of poor than you do (I swear novurdim's post wasn't there when I wrote this), or value different aspects of translation than you do (of course both me and nandemonai know some Japanese beyond honorifics and simple words, so we're probably not the intended audience to begin with). I won't argue that chrono clock is a mess, but I have a feeling what bothers me most about it is probably not what bothered you. Not really going to make a general comment on sakusaku though because I've seen way too little of the tl and none of the japanese.

@novurdim I only read up to somewhat into the 2048 chapter before infinistalling it, but I think part of that was caused by the translators working with the unvoiced doujin as their basis. You have a lot more wiggle room in line length when things aren't voiced (or you get a dub). Himawari was definitely rougher round the edges than Tokyo Babel.

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2 hours ago, Erogamer said:

Chrono Clock is a mess.  I am done arguing tho. People just suck up this media no matter how poorly it is translated it seems.

A lot of people such as myself don't know japanese at all. So as long as it makes sense we assume the translation is done well. Unless something is obviously removed or added we tend to not even notice and if we find it lacking, possibly thinking the game itself is bad rather than the translation. That could be a reason that many people don't find it as bad as you do.

Edited by Akshay
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I'm really tolerant if it comes to translations and barely complain about them, but even I think the translation of Chrono Clock was a mess, or at least certain parts of it.

The top offender is D.D's translation. She's a supposedly British girl who constantly throws English words in when she speaks Japanese. The translator therefore thought it would be a great idea to give the English readers the same 'feeling' by inverting the whole language and let her constantly throw in Japanese words when she speaks English. Too bad that an English speaking girl that constantly uses Japanese words will appear JAPANESE and not British!!! And since its clear from the whole context that she's British her whole dialog doesn't make sense anymore. It's beyond me how a translator could loose his complete common sense in such a way and come up with such a dumb idea.

Besides that, I disliked the crude translation of the protagonists narrative. He used the F-word so often that you could almost got the idea that the protagonist did grow up in the slums. Granted, I can't prove that the original Japanese text wasn't that way either, and I'm too lazy to look it up, but I highly doubt it since he was more of a spoiled rich-kid.

The rest was okay though, it's just the protagonist and D.D. that really got on my nerves.

Edited by ChaosRaven
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53 minutes ago, ChaosRaven said:

The top offender is D.D's translation. She's a supposedly British girl who constantly throws English words in when she speaks Japanese. The translator therefore thought it would be a great idea to give the English readers the same 'feeling' by inverting the whole language and let her constantly throw in Japanese words when she speaks English. Too bad that an English speaking girl that constantly uses Japanese words will appear JAPANESE and not British!!! And since its clear from the whole context that she's British her whole dialog doesn't make sense anymore. It's beyond me how a translator could loose his complete common sense in such a way and come up with such a dumb idea.

So I haven't read Chrono Clock yet but wouldn't the whole point of having a British girl normally speaking English and then throwing in Japanese here and there be to accentuate the fact that she's bilingual? Why would the intent be to make her seem like she's literally Japanese? If a British girl goes to Japan, she's going to speak Japanese and any English she says will accentuate her British-ness. If she goes back to Britain, she'll speak English and any Japanese she says will accentuate the fact that she also knows Japanese (and as someone else said earlier in this thread, it'll also accentuate her weebness). I feel like that's pretty cut and dry.

Now, of course, the execution could've been done poorly but the idea behind that translation decision makes total sense to me.

Edited by RikiSanic
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47 minutes ago, RikiSanic said:

If she goes back to Britain, she'll speak English and any Japanese she says will accentuate the fact that she also knows Japanese (and as someone else said earlier in this thread, it'll also accentuate her weebness). I feel like that's pretty cut and dry.

But they are in Japan not in Britain and she's talking to Japanese and not Brits. The words she throws in in the original are supposed to emphasize her heritage - Britain. But in the translation that turns to Japanese for some reason. That means the supposedly British girl now speaks 'broken English' - what's the meaning of that? Sure the English is supposed to be Japanese, but that doesn't mean that original English words can suddenly be turned to Japanese.

Imagine she would have been a french girl and added merci and au revoir to everything. Those would have certainly stayed the same in an English translation since it wouldn't have been a problem. The only reason to turn it into any other language was because her English fancy words wouldn't have stood out in an English sentence anymore.

Or consider the VN would have been translated to Spanish, I think it's clear that the English words would have also stayed here since they wouldn't have drowned in the Spanish language.

The better solution would have been to try to use the differences between Amercian and British English for that.

Furthermore, it the solution in Chrono Clock would be perfect, then that would automatically mean that the Dies Irae translation would be crap because all the fancy German words were left and were not translated to Japanese or any other language.

Edited by ChaosRaven
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4 minutes ago, ChaosRaven said:

The better solution would have been to try to use the differences between Amercian and British English for that.

Furthermore, it the solution in Chrono Clock would be perfect, then that would automatically mean that the Dies Irae translation would be crap because all the fancy German words were left and were not translated to Japanese or any other language.

It was there, as well. You will notice that she had a tendency to pull out some... interesting expressions some Americans wouldn't even get.

Your counter-example doesn't work. For it to work, the situation must be analogous -- the guys in Dies Irae should speak the language the VN would be translated to for the example to be analogous. As German isn't English, this isn't the case.

 

We're asking for a solution for an impossible problem. If people speak English in Japan, as is the case in the translation (even if they're technically speaking Japanese), there is no way to differentiate it from the actual English language English people speak. What, then, is Japanese language in this strange world? Still Japanese? The actual English? Did English and Japanese swap in this universe?

Let's tackle this from another perspective: What if we tried to replicate the experience the Japanese had? Many believe this is the best way to localise a work.
The Japanese were face with a character who constantly used words in a language they didn't speak, yet were familiar with (English is an international language, and plenty of English words have been... incorporated into a Japanese person's vocabulary, even if with a skewed meaning). This situation is analogous to most of Chrono Clock's player-base. If you're playing a translation, it is likely you do not speak the Japanese language well, or at all. But if you're playing a Visual Novel, there's also a high chance you're familiar with Japanese media (maybe even know the occasional word). With all this in mind, the idea isn't bad.

Now let's look at D.D's character. Would it make sense for her to spew these random Japanese words? Considering she's a Japanese obsessed otaku, yes. Considering they're actually speaking Japanese written in English, no, since we don't know what Japanese written in Japanese represents. Too many questions to make sense of. Let's tackle it case by case.

1st - The UK speaks English, written in English, and the Japanese speak Japanese, written in English.

  • This may be the most natural assumption, but that completely removes Japanese from the script, and also creates the conflict: What happens when a Japanese character meets an English character -- which is the exact problem we're facing.
  • If there is no way to discern Japanese from English, half of D.D's quirks are thrown out the window. As we want to avoid the experience being different between versions (English and Japanese), something else but similar must take its place, like overplaying the British side (and if she were American, then RIP translator).
  • And this being the case... What IS the Japanese in the script?

2nd - The UK speaks English, written in Japanese, and the Japanese speak Japanese, written in English.

  • This would be the second most natural assumption, and D.D's use of Japanese may lead one to conclude this. Generally removes the problems, so long as the English reader accepts the English in this universe is not for them to understand.
  • I'm not, however, sure if the script mentions whether she's speaking another language when stuff is written in Japanese or not. If it is, then the deal is sealed. If it isn't, then ambiguity remains.

3rd - The UK speaks Japanese, written in Japanese, and the Japanese speak English, written in English.

  • This could also be the case, though it would be virtually indiscernible from the previous one, and the script might contradict it.

 

Given all this, had I been put in the position they were... I'd have likely done the same thing or try to make her use obscure British slang as often as possible -- though I'm not sure how feasible this is, because not only would it have to exist, I'd have to know it or be able to research it.

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...see here is the thing, DD didn't speak random English to emphasize her british heritage. She was copying a kancolle character with a habit of throwing engrish into her speech (it's alluded to in a fairly early scene). DD can speak perfectly proper Japanese. She's actually meant to be annoying. Like weebs are. So making her throw in weebisms kind of makes sense?

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1 hour ago, Mr Poltroon said:

Given all this, had I been put in the position they were... I'd have likely done the same thing or try to make her use obscure British slang as often as possible -- though I'm not sure how feasible this is, because not only would it have to exist, I'd have to know it or be able to research it.

I really like your analysis. I do get the idea of the translator, but it completely failed on me and confused me like hell. One reason for that is that the translator did what a Japanese translator usually does - he did 'eliminate' the Japanese language and replaced it with English. So reintroducing Japanese words through a British girl while the real Japanese stick to perfect English didn't really make sense to me. It would have been easier to accept for me, if it would have been the other way round, and the actual Japanese were left with their native titles and some Japanese culture words. Because they actually ARE Japanese.

Anyway, I think it wouldn't have hurt to just accept the loss in the writing and stick to pure English. The voices are still there and it was easy to hear how D.D. ticks, so it was unnecessary to pull such tricks.

1 hour ago, Zakamutt said:

...see here is the thing, DD didn't speak random English to emphasize her british heritage. She was copying a kancolle character with a habit of throwing engrish into her speech (it's alluded to in a fairly early scene). DD can speak perfectly proper Japanese. She's actually meant to be annoying. Like weebs are. So making her throw in weebisms kind of makes sense?

That would make it even worse. A weeb throws in words of the culture he or she's obsessed to. So if she throws in English words in Japanese, that would mean she's obsessed with Britain. But in the translation she throws in Japanese words which would mean she's obsessed with Japan. So while the 'weeb' quirk might have been kept in the translation, the country she's obsessed with has changed. That's a clear misinformation and pretty much the worst thing a translator can do.

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You can call it misinformation, but you can also call it adaptation. Some people have even mentioned making her speak french words instead, how would that not be misinformation according to your view?

If we assume a theory of wanting to have the same emotional effect on the reader, and the translation makes her annoying in a language-related way, I think chrono clock didn't pick that horrible of an approach fundamentally. While there are several theories of translation the idea of going for equivalent response is quite well known. Honestly the way I see it, the problem was mostly that the selected words to keep in Japanese were too obscure for weebs to know and, to a lesser extent, the british stuff was a bit too hard to understand sometimes.

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3 hours ago, ChaosRaven said:

But they are in Japan not in Britain and she's talking to Japanese and not Brits. The words she throws in in the original are supposed to emphasize her heritage - Britain.

The better solution would have been to try to use the differences between Amercian and British English for that.

Assuming what I've heard about it being a Kancolle reference is correct, no, she's not.  She's being a weeaboo.  The random engrish in her original dialog is supposed to emphasize that she's a dork who's bilingual in Japanese and English.

If that's the case, then what Sekai did is probably the only real way to translate this into English.  No, American and British English don't diverge enough for that to work.  I went and found some footage of the Japanese version for DD on YouTube, just to see if maybe they did that thing with furigana and translated the English words.  They did not.  She just throws in random English and the Japanese player is expected to follow along without help.  In fact I hear that Japanese players found DD just as annoying as it seems Western players do.

First, this tells me the differences between American and British English won't work.  It's not incomprehensible enough to be a faithful recreation of the original.

Second, it tells me that the translation actually worked.  People are getting pissed off that they can't understand DD in the English version?  That's great, it means the translator took one of the problematic aspects of the original game and faithfully recreated the experience for an English speaking audience.

Which is nice: For a change, we have a translation that works so well people are getting annoyed at the game. Except that the issue was present in the original, instead of having been added by inept localization.  Imagine how NIS America would have "localized" DD.  The quirk would simply be entirely gone from her dialogue.  People might notice because they'd hear her JP VA using tons of English, but that would be it.  It would have just been lost in translation.

Edited by Nandemonai
remove redundant word choices
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49 minutes ago, Zakamutt said:

You can call it misinformation, but you can also call it adaptation. Some people have even mentioned making her speak french words instead, how would that not be misinformation according to your view?

Eh, what? I said 'imagine if she would be a french girl'. I never said anything about that she should speak french.

Anyway, I think everything relevant about that topic was already said now and we're just starting to talk it to death.

So from that point on let's just agree to disagree on it. It clearly didn't work for me, but if it worked for others then that's perfectly fine. 8)

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16 hours ago, Erogamer said:

Chrono Clock is a mess.  I am done arguing tho. People just suck up this media no matter how poorly it is translated it seems.

I'd point out you never argued in the first place.
You simply threw out unsubstantiated claims and tried to discredit anyone who would even suggest you might be wrong.

On the Kancolle impersonation matter, I don't see how you can not keep it in the original Engrish to keep the effect if it is in fact an impersonation.
Fans of Kancolle would likely appreciate the reference (though I would not as I know nothing whatsoever about Kancolle).
Unless there is a well-established in-world counterpart you can show the reader using the modified 'Engrish', I don't see how turning the Engrish into Japanese could possibly be the right choice.

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On 10/22/2017 at 5:06 AM, Beichuuka said:

I'd point out you never argued in the first place.
You simply threw out unsubstantiated claims and tried to discredit anyone who would even suggest you might be wrong.

On the Kancolle impersonation matter, I don't see how you can not keep it in the original Engrish to keep the effect if it is in fact an impersonation.
Fans of Kancolle would likely appreciate the reference (though I would not as I know nothing whatsoever about Kancolle).
Unless there is a well-established in-world counterpart you can show the reader using the modified 'Engrish', I don't see how turning the Engrish into Japanese could possibly be the right choice.

I think ChaosRaven made my point for me. Also, there were British slang and words used for non British characters which just threw the TL off for me. As far as SakuSaku goes, anyone that reads it can notice the mistakes and additions even if they know a little Japanese. So far, the only good TL I have seen from SP is Grisaia.

Edited by Erogamer
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