Language - Question for Firaxis...

Earthling7 · September 20, 2001, 12:20

I am honoured to be living in the Kingdom of the Netherlands, which is fine... but... What about language options? Excuse my lamguage, but I HATE Dutch language games.

Will I be able to go to my local shop and buy Civ3, safe in the knowledge that I understand what my fellow great leaders of the world are saying, or do I need to order a decent languaged version online?

Tjoepie · September 20, 2001, 12:24

I fully agree !
Net als jij haat ik slecht vertaalde spelletjes die de sfeer breken.

Earthling7 · September 20, 2001, 12:53

It's so annoying. I bought Jagged Alliance 2. Excellent game, but all the international commandos communicated in Dutch. Hallo?

Wittlich · September 20, 2001, 12:59

You are right Dutch is NOT a pretty language!

Tventano · September 20, 2001, 13:04

It would be fine if they would translate it well.
Het zou prima zijn als ze het goed zouden vertalen.

Unfortunately translations are normally done too cheap by people who do not know their job.

Dauphin · September 20, 2001, 13:24

Net als jij haat ik slecht vertaalde spelletjes die de sfeer breken.

Het zou prima zijn als ze het goed zouden vertalen.

Hehe, the phrase "double Dutch" springs to mind.

Earthling7 · September 20, 2001, 13:26

Quote:

Originally posted by Tventano
It would be fine if they would translate it well.
Het zou prima zijn als ze het goed zouden vertalen.

NO!!!

Grrrr....

That's like saying "James Bond is fine in Duch, as long as Rutger Hauer does the voiceover". Nah, I don't think so.

If someone really wants games in funny languages, there should be an option. I get very uneasy, mentally, when I buy a game and am forced to play it in a funny language.

Gramphos · September 20, 2001, 13:46

We know that we may edit all strings, but we don't know whenever there is any speech. If not the game will most likely be a European version with all shipped languages on the same disc, it is only in case or speech that they may do nation specific discs. I want to be able to play both Swedish version and English version

Sava · September 20, 2001, 20:03

Dutch girls are hot!

Remember the chick in Lethal Weapon 2? AWWWW SHHHIYAT.... that was my first true *pause* *rewind* experience! I almost *ejected* in my pants LOL.

Seriously, I think there should be different language versions.

Rince · September 20, 2001, 23:27

Oh yeah, english version please.

I don't care to play games in german for example but the translations are so bad sometimes. And what is even more frustrating is when the translated text doesn't fit into the buttons, labels etc. SO ugly and stupid (CTP 1 for example). They'd just have to start the game once after the translation and look if everything is ok.
IN CTP 2 the civilopedia (or whatever it is called in CTP) is still sorted alphabetically, but not by the german terms! So when i want to find out something about the 'Schlachtschiff' for example, i have to think what it might be called in english (Battleship) and then look at the top of the list where i will find the Schlachtschiff.
Annoying!

I don't know why game companies don't hire normal game players to translate games. They often know better how to correctly translate the texts than do professional translaters.

Same with movies, just watch a DVD in english with german subtitles and compare.

Rince

Red Khan · September 21, 2001, 01:37

And I thought that only games translated by pirates have this flaws, and officially translated games in the Western Europe don't.

BTW, a Russian translation of civ2 made by game fans is still much better than any new game translation. Except probably official translation of Europa Universalis. They made a really good job translating it to Russian, they deserve the credit. So I think this is just a matter of translators' willingless. Does anybody complain about bad English in Settlers? Although the English version is translated one, the original is in German.

And yes, I would prefer the English version, anyway.

Adagio · September 21, 2001, 02:20

FIRAXIS, do not even think about making the release be like my favorite RTS (before you all bann me I'd better say TBS is ofcause the best one

) game "The Settlers IV". What they did to destroy the game, here it is:

- There's NO language option in the game, danish is the only language on the CD's avaliable to buy here in Denmark
- They promised they would ship both an english version and an danish version to Denmark at the same time, it's now 6 months since release and I haven't seen anything of the english version
- As everybody here also say, the translations are mostly bad, in this game it was extremely bad, e.g. in the game you can build both a blacksmith and a weaponsmith, in the translation they where both called the same...and as far as I remember that word didn't even cover one of those english words.

I did NOT buy the game

And what it seems like, the sales dropped way much in Scandinavia, not many Scandinavians like to play a game in their own country in a (I believe) largeer scale than other countries

Asmodean · September 21, 2001, 02:26

In Denmark, at least, if you want the English version, you will have to buy quickly after the game is released. Translated versions normally appear a few weeks after release date. That was the case with Europa Universalis. Sadly, once the translated version becomes available, it is next to impossible to obtain the English version.

Asmodean

Roman · September 21, 2001, 03:25

Definitely an English version for Europe!

Firaxis, why not save yourself the expense of translations and at the same time increasing customer satisfaction and sales by shipping an English language version of the game to Europe?

Locutus · September 21, 2001, 04:00

Quote:

Originally posted by Earthling7
I HATE Dutch language games.

I couldn't agree more, it's just plain stupid! I want my games either in English or in Twents

Earthling7 · September 21, 2001, 04:49

Quote:

Originally posted by Locutus

I couldn't agree more, it's just plain stupid! I want my games either in English or in Twents

Talk to me in Twents, pleeze...

Vrank Prins · September 21, 2001, 04:57

I've once encountered a Dutch civsite who invited other dutch to come up with translations of texts concerning CIV-II.

Maybe it's an idea for FIRAXIS to open the possibility to add other (than the "official" ones*) language patches to the game. (* when I bought CIV-II I could choose between an anglo, french and german "spoken" game, why not be able to add other languages).

I would love it if I could play the game dutch- (my fathertongue) or frisian- (my mothertongue) or plattdütsch- (lower german, a beautiful "unofficial" language from the northwest of Germany) "spoken". (German and Dutch are close related to oneanother, as are Frisian and English).

Vrank Prins · September 21, 2001, 05:00

Quote:

Originally posted by Earthling7
Talk to me in Twents, pleeze...

allinnig as ieje met goat brommers kiek'n

Adagio · September 21, 2001, 05:13

Just a plain simple question:

What can a game company gain from releasing the game in different languages, but only take ONE language on each game copy?

I just can't see that any company (except when they are making childrens games) could gain anything from doing that, the minimum there could be is 2 languages on a CD, the original and the translatet!!!

Vrank Prins · September 21, 2001, 05:30

Quote:

Originally posted by ADG
What can a game company gain from releasing the game in different languages, but only take ONE language on each game copy?

What about marketing reasons. In Europa there are more people speaking german (germany, belgium, luxemburg, switzerland, austria, poland, about 108 million) than english (UK + Ireland, about 70 million) and french (france, belgium, luxemburg and zwitserland about 65 million).

Quote:

Originally posted by ADG I just can't see that any company (except when they are making childrens games) could gain anything from doing that, the minimum there could be is 2 languages on a CD, the original and the translatet!!!

What if you could help to make a good translation of the game you love and be able to add a your native languagepatch to the game ?? I would go for that !! When I started playing CIV-II years ago, I sometimes needed the german text to understand what the english text was about. Besides, I deleted all the french textfiles from the game once I had the game installed on my harddisk.

Earthling7 · September 21, 2001, 05:36

Quote:

Originally posted by ADG
the minimum there could be is 2 languages on a CD, the original and the translatet!!!

second that

Earthling7 · September 21, 2001, 05:39

Oh, and another thing. I am not a native English speaker, but as no games are ever released in Icelandic, I had no choice. What happened? I learned a lot from playing. When I got CivI, I didn't even know what a Granary was, but I do now

English is the language of the world, and if you don't speak it, you should learn.

Vrank Prins · September 21, 2001, 05:46

Quote:

Originally posted by Earthling7
English is the language of the world, and if you don't speak it, you should learn.

And you think that's obvious, you take that for granted. I don't !!!.

XarXo · September 21, 2001, 06:26

Well, the language theme is always a disaccording point

, for example, Catalan is spoken by 10/11 milions and SwedISH by 5/6, but surely you'll find tons of more stuff in SwedISH than in Catalan

. What we can make? PRAY!!!

Gramphos · September 21, 2001, 06:36

Quote:

Originally posted by XarXo
Well, the language theme is always a disaccording point

, for example, Catalan is spoken by 10/11 milions and Sweden by 5/6, but surely you'll find tons of more stuff in Sweden than in Catalan

. What we can make? PRAY!!!

It is Swedish.

And 9 million people live in Sweden, but some don't speak Swedish, but some Finns do, so more then 6 million speak Swedish.
And Sweden has most computers per person (I think)

Also many Swedes play games, anyway I like games in English if they aren't originally made in Swedish, as all games are badly translated.

XarXo · September 21, 2001, 06:40

Quote:

Originally posted by Gramphos

It is Swedish.

And 9 million people live in Sweden, but some don't speak Swedish, but some Finns do, so more then 6 million speak Swedish.
And Sweden has most computers per person (I think)

Also many Swedes play games, anyway I like games in English if they aren't originally made in Swedish, as all games are badly translated.

Sorry!! I forgot the -ISH

About the computers... Well, I believe that in the catalan-zone speaker about a 30% of the houses have one, in Sweden surely is bigger

...

Adm.Naismith · September 21, 2001, 08:07

Quote:

Originally posted by Asmodean
In Denmark, at least, if you want the English version, you will have to buy quickly after the game is released. Translated versions normally appear a few weeks after release date. That was the case with Europa Universalis. Sadly, once the translated version becomes available, it is next to impossible to obtain the English version.

The same happens in Italy, usually. After two/three weeks you will end with:
a) the game is not enough selled - no translation will appear, you can find english copies as long as the shop rebate and sales them all

b) the game sell quite well, but not enough to cover translation of voice - you can have a translation of the manual only or, if the game make it easy, of the game text and subtitle. Sometime the mix is deadly (you can't understand how the words used in manual match with in game text left english

c) the game sell well enough, or original distibution contract state you have a full translation task assigned, so you'll have a full translated (sometimes very roughly - i.e. Civ II italian version) game, but often you'll left out on the cold with patches (see SMAC patches 4.0 in italian).

That's the only reason to hurry in buying Civ III here in Italy, IMHO... get an english copy to have all the patches as soon as possible

Earthling7 · September 21, 2001, 08:12

Iceland has more computers than Sweden, per capita of course. It's the most computerised country in the world.

I've seen Windows98 in Icelandic. That was a drama...

Gramphos · September 21, 2001, 08:22

Quote:

Originally posted by Earthling7
Iceland has more computers than Sweden, per capita of course. It's the most computerised country in the world.

I've seen Windows98 in Icelandic. That was a drama...

Aha, but they aren't that many. Swedish is a bigger Computer language.

Vrank Prins · September 21, 2001, 08:33

A few posts higher up here I've talked about a dutch CIV-site which invited people to come up with dutch translations for a dutch language patch. And yes, some of the translations I've read were dramatic, pretty poor dutch in style (grammar, semantics, linguistical things etc.) and appeal.

The german translations I know from CIV-II was really good eloquent german. My guess is that it was a german who did that job, one who's good at understanding anglo and writing in her/his own language.

The translation of textfiles of the game could be done in somesort of "project-organisation-way", where a group of, say, apolytonions who speak the same language tackle the job with eachother. You ought to appoint one who does the coordination when you embark on such an affair. There should also be one who does the final editing. The language needs to be streamlined, appealing, and the terminology being used must be univocal.