Overly formal language is overly formal...

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Re: Overly formal language is overly formal...

Post by Silver Phoenix »

Jessica Chavez just posted a news topic today that includes interviews and discussion on the translation process on Facebook. They worked more closely with Game Arts during the localization process to convey the feel of the Japanese game but translate it into English along with culture references.

There are several interviews and discussions listed in that topic that may give you some of the answers you're looking for. Don't expect specific answers for every single bit of text in the game.

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Re: Overly formal language is overly formal...

Post by Alunissage »

Some information on the localization process and decisions made is found in the interviews in this post, especially the first one:
http://www.lunarthreads.com/viewtopic.php?f=32&t=4626

We'll eventually get together a list of differences between the WD and XSEED scripts to put up here, though of course it won't cover every single dialogue alteration.

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Re: Overly formal language is overly formal...

Post by Kizyr »

Lunar3coming wrote:Does the Xseed lyricist use these boards? I'd like to hear their take on how they translated the songs because I tried to do that like Kizyr and a number of people back when the game released on the PSX but yeah, my efforts sure didn't come out be anything like that nor have any of the other translations I've seen before these.
Alun's translations, as well as WD's and XSeed's, got at the same character of the original songs. The only real exception was the first Lunar: TSS, where the translated lyrics were vastly different. My translations were meant to be literal, and I had the flexibility not to have to fit within a song's structure; the need to fit within a song's structure is one of the reasons for why all the official versions have looked so different. KF
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Re: Overly formal language is overly formal...

Post by Lunar3coming »

Kizyr wrote:
Lunar3coming wrote:Does the Xseed lyricist use these boards? I'd like to hear their take on how they translated the songs because I tried to do that like Kizyr and a number of people back when the game released on the PSX but yeah, my efforts sure didn't come out be anything like that nor have any of the other translations I've seen before these.
Alun's translations, as well as WD's and XSeed's, got at the same character of the original songs. The only real exception was the first Lunar: TSS, where the translated lyrics were vastly different. My translations were meant to be literal, and I had the flexibility not to have to fit within a song's structure; the need to fit within a song's structure is one of the reasons for why all the official versions have looked so different. KF
Agreed. I think that's the biggest challenge when it comes to translating songs. Making the lyrics of a different language fit and convey the same emotion as the original language. That is why I've been so impressed with these new songs. WD didn't even try and tossed a garbage translation in the manual and gave us excuses why they couldn't do it. Boy were they wrong because Xseed managed to do it. I wish a lot more game companies would try hard like that.

Alunissage,
Thanks for those links. So what it looks like is:
1) the translator does their job
2) Jessica takes a knife to the translation
3) game testers get to play it and note any thing that needs to be corrected
4) we get our game

So that means that what the translator translated doesn't necessarily always go into the game? I'd sure like to read the original translation and see how different they really are.

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Re: Overly formal language is overly formal...

Post by Kizyr »

Lunar3coming wrote:Agreed. I think that's the biggest challenge when it comes to translating songs. Making the lyrics of a different language fit and convey the same emotion as the original language. That is why I've been so impressed with these new songs. WD didn't even try and tossed a garbage translation in the manual and gave us excuses why they couldn't do it. Boy were they wrong because Xseed managed to do it. I wish a lot more game companies would try hard like that.
I still disagree. The only "garbage" translation WD put in a manual was the one for the first Lunar: TSS. All other versions' songs (SSS, EB), the translations in the manual were more-or-less on point.
Lunar3coming wrote:So that means that what the translator translated doesn't necessarily always go into the game? I'd sure like to read the original translation and see how different they really are.
The translator's original translation should never go into the game directly. There should always be an editing process. Even I ask Alunissage for editing help when I need to, because while I can translate okay, she's a better writer in English. It also helps to have someone not directly doing the translating edit, because they can take a step back and look at the whole picture as your audience will eventually, while the translator is too involved in the precise meanings of things that they'll sometimes lose sight of the bigger picture. KF
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Re: Overly formal language is overly formal...

Post by Lunar3coming »

Kizyr wrote:
Lunar3coming wrote:Agreed. I think that's the biggest challenge when it comes to translating songs. Making the lyrics of a different language fit and convey the same emotion as the original language. That is why I've been so impressed with these new songs. WD didn't even try and tossed a garbage translation in the manual and gave us excuses why they couldn't do it. Boy were they wrong because Xseed managed to do it. I wish a lot more game companies would try hard like that.
I still disagree. The only "garbage" translation WD put in a manual was the one for the first Lunar: TSS. All other versions' songs (SSS, EB), the translations in the manual were more-or-less on point.
Lunar3coming wrote:So that means that what the translator translated doesn't necessarily always go into the game? I'd sure like to read the original translation and see how different they really are.
The translator's original translation should never go into the game directly. There should always be an editing process. Even I ask Alunissage for editing help when I need to, because while I can translate okay, she's a better writer in English. It also helps to have someone not directly doing the translating edit, because they can take a step back and look at the whole picture as your audience will eventually, while the translator is too involved in the precise meanings of things that they'll sometimes lose sight of the bigger picture. KF
I don't know about that. "On-point" doesn't exactly mean that the meaning flows well together. The previous translations of the songs did not flow well together at all. And with the editor thing, I'm going to have to say that you are basing that on the assumption that all editors are good which that is not always the case. I think it would be easier to make that argument if we had both copies of the same text to compare with. I understand that there are limitations and such with space according to the interviews but basically, shouldn't the original text be much bigger and flow together much better before being edited for a game as well? It seems like the limitations and editing are where the text we get in a game come from, not necessarily that a translator is good or bad at their job.

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Re: Overly formal language is overly formal...

Post by Alunissage »

Lunar3coming wrote:I understand that there are limitations and such with space according to the interviews but basically, shouldn't the original text be much bigger and flow together much better before being edited for a game as well? It seems like the limitations and editing are where the text we get in a game come from, not necessarily that a translator is good or bad at their job.
It sounds like you think that "edit" is synonymous with "cut down". It isn't; if anything, it's the reverse, in this case. I don't speak or read Japanese, but look at the translations for any of the songs and notice how short they read in English. The words just aren't there. Maybe this is where you get the idea that there are "garbage" translations in the WD manuals and on the site. The original text of the songs is usally (always?) smaller than the final in-game English, not larger, and I suspect that's the case with the in-game text as well, at least somewhat.

Translation is never an exact science, and with these two very different languages especially there is no one-to-one correspondence. English has a lot of auxiliary words that many languages do not, and an incredible amount of flexibility in word order, etc. Consider also punctuation and, in this case, capitalization -- you won't see as much use of either in the Japanese text (especially the latter, although I gather that katakana sometimes serves a similar purpose of emphasis). There is a lot of scope for nuance and individual interpretation in rendering a Japanese phrase into English; reading multiple translations of anything will show you that. As Kizyr mentioned, I edited his translations of the Vheen manga, and that included reading his translation side-by-side with the earlier one by Rebecca Capowski. The two are distinct but not so different, if that makes sense; similar concepts rendered in different ways. One line I remember off the top of my head was "I got an A in teleportation" vs. "I'm an ace in teleportation magic". Shiva Indis or Temzin, two other posters here who have done translations on the site, might each render it differently, yet the basic meaning of being A-rate (yes, the letter A is in there) would remain the same.

Let's look at the example that's been under discussion: three renditions of the Winds song.
SSSC's manual (Garrett McGowan??) wrote:Far, far into
the distant horizon
let's ride forgotten
on wings in the wind

Sometime we will surely meet -
as the charming future
beckons us on.

Let's start the journey
to a new world!
Open the door
to a memorable legend!
Kizyr wrote:Far, far away,
To the other side of the horizon,
Let's ride on wings
Which take no heed of the wind.

Someday, we will surely meet.
For the future, you see,
It smiles and beckons us on!

Now, let's set off on a journey!
Towards a new world
Open the door,
to the legend of our memories!
XSEED wrote:Far away, far away,
beyond the bounds
where light fades from day,
Bestride white wings forgotten
by the winds of time.

Surely our paths
shall cross one day soon,
As the future beckons
to us with cheerful tidings
and open arms.

So now our journey begins,
bound for a new world
filled with magic.
Deep within our memories lies
the door of legends open to us.
Notice that XSEED's, the only one of those three intended to be sung, has a lot more words and a few additional or repeated concepts, e.g. "[winds] of time", "filled with magic" and "and open arms". That's also why, in my rewrite, I had room to work in the game's title and a reference to songs being key to the story (whether well-sung or not).

For your reference, here's the romanized Japanese text, broken into the same lines as in the XSEED translation, so you can see the syllables:
romanized Japanese text wrote:Tooku, tooku e,
Chiheisen no
kanata made,
Kaze ga wasureta
Tsubasa ni norou.

Itsuka wa
kitto deau.
Mirai ga hora,
hohoeminagara,
Temaneki o suru kara!

Saa, tabidatou!
Atarashii
sekai e
Kioku no naka no
densetsu, tobira o hiraku!

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Re: Overly formal language is overly formal...

Post by Lunar3coming »

When you compare the song translations, Xseed's are vastly superior in the fact that they tell a story and add to the experience where WD's versions subtract from the experience. Luna's new boat song trumps the other translations in every aspect. For me, SSH is by far the definitive version of this game.

Take a look at this. What is this supposed to mean in the WD translation? "let's ride forgotten"
That is complete nonsense.

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Re: Overly formal language is overly formal...

Post by Lunar Eclipse »

For "let's ride forgotten", you have to read it in context with the rest of the stanza. It means that they'll be forgotten by the passing of time as they venture into the faraway horizon, I imagine.

As for which version is "better", I suppose it mostly comes down to personal preference. However, I would argue that I really don't see the logic in Working Designs' policy of ditching a more accurate localization in favor of something completely different when they were just going to fall back on free verse anyway. I mean, I could see the rationale if the songs were some masterwork in rhyming couplets of dactylic trimeter, but as it stands, that's not the case, and the WD lyrics are awkwardly worded in many places to boot (as I've exhaustively stated in other threads, so I won't bore you all with it again). Plus, it's not like the WD version doesn't have its own share of vowel stretching (WD Wings: ho~ope, a~as; WD Nocturne: I~I, I~I wi~ish) and syllable crunching (for instance, WD's "I wish then for a chance to see / now all I need" sounds really busy when compared to XSEED's "Could it be that fate is playing me / teasing me" because the latter left out the extra syllable associated with the "now" compacted between "see" and "all" in the WD version). As for rhyming, it's pretty equivalent in both versions as it's done very selectively and not at all regularly. Looking at Wings, both only give it consideration in the first stanza and disregard it afterward anyway (thoughts/not/plot; away/away/day). There's obviously consonance and assonance to look at beyond that, but I can't really say that I find one to be overwhelmingly better than the other in that respect.

So, in short, Vic Ireland's indictment of the XSEED version as being "a hardcore fansub set to music, flow and musicality be damned" seems pretty far from the truth. While I know Vic was careful with his diction, I'm sure XSEED considered it thoughtfully as well. Again, I know we're all used to the old lyrics and as such may prefer them, but I just don't see how the new ones can be labeled as definitively worse when neither set is particularly more musical than the other. And in my opinion, if we're not sacrificing much of anything in the way of musicality, why not focus of producing something with a pretty accurately mirrored meaning?
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Re: Overly formal language is overly formal...

Post by Lunar3coming »

Lunar Eclipse wrote:For "let's ride forgotten", you have to read it in context with the rest of the stanza. It means that they'll be forgotten by the passing of time as they venture into the faraway horizon, I imagine.

As for which version is "better", I suppose it mostly comes down to personal preference. However, I would argue that I really don't see the logic in Working Designs' policy of ditching a more accurate localization in favor of something completely different when they were just going to fall back on free verse anyway. I mean, I could see the rationale if the songs were some masterwork in rhyming couplets of dactylic trimeter, but as it stands, that's not the case, and the WD lyrics are awkwardly worded in many places to boot (as I've exhaustively stated in other threads, so I won't bore you all with it again). Plus, it's not like the WD version doesn't have its own share of vowel stretching (WD Wings: ho~ope, a~as; WD Nocturne: I~I, I~I wi~ish) and syllable crunching (for instance, WD's "I wish then for a chance to see / now all I need" sounds really busy when compared to XSEED's "Could it be that fate is playing me / teasing me" because the latter left out the extra syllable associated with the "now" compacted between "see" and "all" in the WD version). As for rhyming, it's pretty equivalent in both versions as it's done very selectively and not at all regularly. Looking at Wings, both only give it consideration in the first stanza and disregard it afterward anyway (thoughts/not/plot; away/away/day). There's obviously consonance and assonance to look at beyond that, but I can't really say that I find one to be overwhelmingly better than the other in that respect.

So, in short, Vic Ireland's indictment of the XSEED version as being "a hardcore fansub set to music, flow and musicality be damned" seems pretty far from the truth. While I know Vic was careful with his diction, I'm sure XSEED considered it thoughtfully as well. Again, I know we're all used to the old lyrics and as such may prefer them, but I just don't see how the new ones can be labeled as definitively worse when neither set is particularly more musical than the other. And in my opinion, if we're not sacrificing much of anything in the way of musicality, why not focus of producing something with a pretty accurately mirrored meaning?
Thanks for taking the time to write this. This was an extremely interesting read.

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Re: Overly formal language is overly formal...

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Far away, far away,
beyond the bounds
where light fades from day,
Bestride white wings forgotten
by the winds of time.

Surely our paths
shall cross one day soon,
As the future beckons
to us with cheerful tidings
and open arms.

So now our journey begins,
bound for a new world
filled with magic.
Deep within our memories lies
the door of legends open to us.
It makes sense to me, but then again, it might disturb some that the way it makes sense to me is not the way it seems to make sense in other versions. I'm not going to look at the other translations while I do this, but just post my interpretation of XSEED's.

The first stanza is the classic storytelling gimmick. Long ago, once upon a time... in this case, being on the Silver Star, there's also a lot of distance involved. "Far away, far away," the first line reads. The second and third line refer to something beyond day, that is, beyond daytime and beyond even "the bound where light fades from day," dusk. This is night, the time that is in excess of day, the dreamtime, the time of mystery and storytelling. Then the last two lines give us an image of white wings (the white dragon? white as an association with the fey? I doubt the second, but it's possible) that have been forgotten by the winds of time. What does forgotten mean? Time has set it aside. The white wings are timeless. Or, put another way, the white wings are outside of normal constraint. So we have a story set far away, beyond the bounds of daytime, and beyond even the control of time or the wind. It is mythical, a romance in the medieval sense, a fairy tale.

This would agree with the rest of the song. The legends open to us deep within our memories evokes the same thing. And it is hopeful, hence the entire middle of the song.

And now, looking over the translations, my explanation fits well with Kizyr's version, except he doesn't see fit to mention time in the first stanza. Neither does WD's translation, where the word "forgotten" is actually different from the other two versions - the forgotten there seems to refer to the subject "us" rather than the wings. Yet even then, I'm going to guess that the meaning isn't that different in the Japanese, and that the concept of the original is somewhere between each of these, and roughly meaning what I described above.

So, summarily, they all make sense, assuming you parse the words properly.
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Re: Overly formal language is overly formal...

Post by Temzin »

What's "forgotten" in the original lyrics are the wings. Let's ride on wings forgotten by the wind/ride on the wings that time forgot etc. It's worth noting that the direct translations WD put in their manuals for comparison's sake were never polished the way the in-game text was because...they were never meant to be used in game. Criticizing the direct translation in the manuals make little sense since these are obviously untouched by the very text editors that have been talked about earlier in the thread. And of course, for the songs, they rewrote the lyrics anyway.
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Re: Overly formal language is overly formal...

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Temzin wrote:What's "forgotten" in the original lyrics are the wings.
Ah, you're right.
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"Than seyde Merlion, "Whethir lyke ye bettir the swerde othir the scawberde?" "I lyke bettir the swerde," seyde Arthure. "Ye ar the more unwyse, for the scawberde ys worth ten of the swerde; for whyles ye have the scawberde uppon you, ye shall lose no blood, be ye never so sore wounded. Therefore kepe well the scawberde allweyes with you." --- Le Morte Darthur, Sir Thomas Malory

"Just as you touch the energy of every life form you meet, so, too, will will their energy strengthen you. Fail to live up to your potential, and you will never win. " --- The Old Man at the End of Time

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Re: Overly formal language is overly formal...

Post by Shiva Indis »

I think any good discussion of this song should discuss the 'forgotten wings' line extensively. ^_^ I've been thinking lately that 'wings that the wind forgot' might connect to the game's theme of the new generation succeeding the old.
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Re: Overly formal language is overly formal...

Post by Werefrog »

Last weekend when I came home from the local pizzeria, I realized I had forgotten my chicken wings. I assume that this is what the song is talking about.

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Re: Overly formal language is overly formal...

Post by Silver Phoenix »

Stop lying! It's about the lack of toilet paper in the restroom.

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Re: Overly formal language is overly formal...

Post by Temzin »

Werefrog wrote:Last weekend when I came home from the local pizzeria, I realized I had forgotten my chicken wings. I assume that this is what the song is talking about.
Heheh. Ye gods, we'd all been blustering over this nonsense, and yet here Werefrog had the correct answer all along!
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Re: Overly formal language is overly formal...

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Don't thank me, thank Pizza Hut!

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Re: Overly formal language is overly formal...

Post by Kizyr »

Lunar3coming wrote:I don't know about that. "On-point" doesn't exactly mean that the meaning flows well together. The previous translations of the songs did not flow well together at all.
Was your criticism that the meaning wasn't carried across, or that the songs (in English) didn't flow correctly? I was referring to the meaning--which, as I said, was carried across in all versions of the songs with the exception of the first Lunar: TSS song. If it's a criticism of the flow of the lyrics with the melody, that's an entirely different issue.
Lunar3coming wrote:And with the editor thing, I'm going to have to say that you are basing that on the assumption that all editors are good which that is not always the case. I think it would be easier to make that argument if we had both copies of the same text to compare with.
Assuming that the editor is good and can do his/her job is only as far-fetched as assuming that the translator is competent and can do his/her job as well.

What do you mean both copies of the same text? As in the text before and after editing, or the text in the Japanese and English versions?
Lunar3coming wrote:I understand that there are limitations and such with space according to the interviews but basically, shouldn't the original text be much bigger and flow together much better before being edited for a game as well? It seems like the limitations and editing are where the text we get in a game come from, not necessarily that a translator is good or bad at their job.
Limitations in older games were more due to space restrictions. Now, most games can get around that restriction.

The original text won't necessarily be bigger, and the first draft of translation certainly won't flow together better before the final editing process. That's just the nature of linguistic differences and the translation process itself. KF
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Re: Overly formal language is overly formal...

Post by Sonic# »

The original text won't necessarily be bigger, and the first draft of translation certainly won't flow together better before the final editing process. That's just the nature of linguistic differences and the translation process itself. KF
Seconded. I've been translating medieval Latin a lot lately, and even where I feel reasonably good about a translation, my first, second, even final drafts are not good about flow. My classmates, and even my professor, have similar problems. We're not all terrible at it. It's just that, linguistically, translation involves a different process than composing fluid English: we tend to emphasize different details in one compared to the other. Close to the Latin, I will maintain a syntax compatible with Latin, will conservatively translate idioms and cognate words, will in short produce the most literal translation I can. Once I step back to edit my text, I try not to look at the Latin text at all, and pay attention instead to choosing better words, parallel structuring, substituting better-fitting idioms, making sure each paragraph fits with every other paragraph. Then I look once more at the original and make sure that it maintains the sense of the original. I can't imagine that Japanese translation would be much different, except perhaps in its particular problems. The text never flows better while the translator is translating.
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"Than seyde Merlion, "Whethir lyke ye bettir the swerde othir the scawberde?" "I lyke bettir the swerde," seyde Arthure. "Ye ar the more unwyse, for the scawberde ys worth ten of the swerde; for whyles ye have the scawberde uppon you, ye shall lose no blood, be ye never so sore wounded. Therefore kepe well the scawberde allweyes with you." --- Le Morte Darthur, Sir Thomas Malory

"Just as you touch the energy of every life form you meet, so, too, will will their energy strengthen you. Fail to live up to your potential, and you will never win. " --- The Old Man at the End of Time

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