Do you prefer more literal translations or more poetic ones?

[fcgamer | 4,723]

So when games are translated from Japanese to English, do you prefer translations that are more literal, or ones that are more poetic yet capture the spirit of the original? 

Let's discuss.

[Tanooki | 4,934]

I'd take the poetic with a little bit of creative license so that you get a strong well done mix of keeping to the spirit of the material so that the intent and story remain intact as much as possible.

Something literal can get dry, cryptic, downright confusing, and often if it lingers into society based quirks or trends(memes, social styles/sayings, etc) of the moment or of some cultural root of the past it gets lost hard in translation.  Sometimes not just destroyed but just incapable of being translated which would in a literal job leave a confusing mess or a gap in the script to erase and work around.

[Ankos | 441]

I would have to go with more poetic. I don't need games to be localized for me or anything, but to me a game translation should above all else preserve the experience of the game, so if some liberties need to be made to do that then I am willing to accept that. Ultra literal translations can still feel very off even when technically correct. Reading something that prioritizes dictionary definitions over feel can make a story feel more something to be studied rather than enjoyed. I also get a kick out of reading up on how games are translated differently in different parts of the world, so I am a bit more willing to accept liberties

[Brickman | 3,986]

Good question.

I prefer a more poetic translation. Literal translations can feel stiff at times because they don't always translate well.

Also with some languages, such as Japanese, a literal translation will miss the original emotion and meaning.

 

[ZeldaFreak | 3,600]

I would say more poetic. Not necessarily in terms of... well, actually being more poetic per se, but more so in terms of taking more creative liberties. Sometimes, translating something to English literally (Not just with Japanese, but with many languages) can cause things to come across as a bit strange, or sometimes even bordering on confusing or nonsensical, and I imagine the same goes for translating something from English to other languages too. A lot of the time, I find that translations which take a bit more creative liberties with the exact words that are being said, whilst still conveying the same meaning as the original, come across far better in English and work much better as a translation, as opposed to literally translating everything. Languages are very different from one another, so a lot of the time it just doesn't work right if you translate everything from Language A to Language B exactly as it was originally written in Language A, since they're two fundamentally different languages. You almost always have to make some changes in-between for it to come across completely naturally in Language B.

[Tulpa | 3,501]

Literal often gets you stuff like "All your base are belong to us."

While often hilarious, it pretty much destroys any immersiveness a game would otherwise have.

[phart010 | 1,707]

This discussion touches upon the difference between a translation and a localization. A translation is a literal word for word conversion from original language to new language. A localization is so much more. 

Localizations at their core are translations. But sometimes as others had mentioned here, culture specific references from the old language would alienate the new language audience (this could include things that are simply unfamiliar or could even be things that are taboo). So those have to be replaced with more familiar/acceptable cultural references.

Sometimes things don’t make sense from one culture to another. Like humor. The types of things that people view as humorous varies greatly from one culture to another. Like in the USA we use sarcasm as a form of humor. If we use this in other countries, they simply don’t get it. In Asian countries, they have their own types of humor and word play that they find funny. Even if they translated and explained it to us, we would often find it more confusing than funny (maybe we’d think the fact that we don’t understand it funny )

Then sometimes the localization  team just takes liberties to change things on the final pass of editing in order to make everything seamlessly flow together.

Edited October 27, 2022 by phart010

[fcgamer | 4,723]

I know sometimes purists don't like when liberties are taken, and I think I'd feel the same if I knew quite a bit about the culture of the original game's language; however, I think probably a localisation with liberties taken is the best suited way in most instances. 

So if some Taiwanense games were redone for a western audience, I might personally be disappointed if some cultural aspects were tweaked, but just talking on here or to my family back home, some points would have to be changed for a western audience to understand it. 

[phart010 | 1,707]

One way that localizations can fall short: only the developers know the true story line. The translation/localization team doesn’t know the true story line.

When I say true story line, I mean the story that the people making the game have in their head. When they make the game, the may word things in a very specific way to set things up for the story to continue in next game in the series.

Since the translators do not know the full story, they are only focused on the one episode that is in front of them. They may unknowingly take some liberties in rephrasing something that was very important to the overall story. They can ruin parts of the story or even state something in the current episode that will contradict a detail that is planned for the next episode in the series. It happened a lot back in the day

Edited October 27, 2022 by phart010

[Tanooki | 4,934]

Liking where this topic is going.  It's why I said what I did initially as I didn't want to make some huge post detailing it all but those last 4 posts really capture it all perfectly.  There are issues, then issues under the issues, or issues caused by making issues that shouldn't have happened.  It depends how the translation is done, and how deep one doing the work digs before working on taking the job through to completion.  A good bit can foul up something later in the story of a movie, or X episodes down the line in a series.  Same can be said with games, a one off or series of titles from a franchise can get wrecked.  Yet you have cultural issues where X Y Z is normal in Japan or Taiwan as said up there that have no equal or would make no sense at all being literal to an english speaking country.  So you either are left with confusing the hell out of the audience, leaving it out entirely which is really bad, or you have to inject something cute/amusing replacing one cultural pun for anothers to keep the flow going without killing things.  It's dicey but better over the decades.

When my Japanese was more up to par decades ago I used to translate old emulators for americans to use, a few game manuals or minimally menus, or I'd rough cut stuff I had for myself personally to make sense of some junk going on in a Japanese SFC or Gameboy title.  I'd hit points where it was so weird you'd have to elude to Americanized material or just story book/high level capture intent.  In the 90s I did a FAQ for like 5-6 Sailor Moon SFC/GB games and I had to get descriptive among other things so it would make sense navigating all the unreadable banter for fans to play the games.  It's still out there.

[fcgamer | 4,723]

I saw this on my twitter one day, it's another translation issue regarding which variant of English to use

 

[Gloves | 11,779]

1 hour ago, fcgamer said:

I saw this on my twitter one day, it's another translation issue regarding which variant of English to use

 

Too right, mate.

[MagusSmurf | 577]

I tend to associate demands for a particularly literal translation with teenage weebs who have absolutely no idea what they're talking about so outside of very specific cases I find it hard to even consider that a serious position.

[Ankos | 441]

Ok, so we have translations that preserve dictionary definitions, and we have translations that preserve the feeling of the original, is anyone here a fan of translations that are plain bad? I think sometimes they can be a little funny, but a lot of the time they aren't that humorous, just harder to understand

Depicted: a screenshot of Megaman Battle Network 4 (released December 2003) that I nabbed off the internet