Castle Paradox

[Komera]

Well, ever since the argument about translations (or rather… perceived American stealing of foreign works through translation changes), I’ve been contemplating writing this. So I whole-heartedly dedicate this to anyone who has ever wondered why things in various works get changed from one nation to the next. I, myself, have wondered this in the past, which led me to checking it out. The results, I share here.

1. SPELLING MISTAKES
These crop up every once in a while. The cause is usually a rushed eye and a pressing deadline. They’re easier to pick out in earlier works, especially pre-spell check era works. When they do appear in later works (after spell check became easily available), spelling mistakes usually appear as a correctly spelled word (but not the correct word).

Celes:
Come one Terra…

I presume that was supposed to be “on” instead of “one”. This particular mistake is in the SNES version only, it was corrected for the PSX version. However, Gradius is still Gradius in both versions. Though FF9 does have a Gladius. My spell check is telling me both versions (Gradius and Gladius) are not in its dictionary, so my best guess is neither is in Square (pre-Enix merger)’s. But luckily for everyone reading this, I just happen to know that Gladius is the correct spelling, and is the word that Gladiator is taken from.

2. LETHARGY
When the translator couldn’t care less, the translation sometimes just doesn’t make much sense. This is the key factor in most of the translation errors in the Final Fantasy games since Ted Woolsey left.

Cloud:
So that’s how you’ll fool them.
Aeris:
So that’s how you fooled them.

Say what? Is this a literal translation? I hope not because this sounds stupid. One of the reasons I don’t care for FF7… PC or PSX version. But as a side note, the PC version was retranslated, and the above two lines read:

Cloud:
I guess I’ll have to go in to complete my disguise.
Aeris:
What a convenient excuse.

But anyway, to me this is the worst of them all. Translation errors resulting from someone’s lack of concern. I’m pretty sure that the shoddy original translations of 2000 Leagues Under the Sea and From the Earth to the Moon were the cause of the poor 19th Century sales figures.

3. ASTHETICS
Sometimes a word just looks better one way than another. Sometimes it just sounds better. And sometimes to leave it unchanged would cause mass laughter. Would anyone here have ever taken Tellah seriously if he had introduced himself as Terra? Or would anyone have put as much emotional interest in Edward’s brother, Mash, without thinking “Me bodybuilder, Mash! Me mash bad guys!” Didn’t Edgar and Sabin sound much better? (Or at least just Sabin, since I know people who don’t like the name Edgar.)

Let’s not forget Cain… er… I mean… Kain. Well, this one should be somewhat obvious. Kain looks better than Cain… and plus Cain is a Biblical name. The guy who killed Abel. First murder. Likewise, Kafei just looks better than Coffee (I kid you not, they were actually contemplating that spelling in Majora’s Mask). Best one of all… BUTZ! Okay, who here can correctly pronounce this? If your pronunciation sounds like a lesson in anatomy, you need to reconsider. The correct pronunciation is “boots”. In the PSX version, the guy’s name is Bartz… to avoid pronunciation problems and people laughing their… ahem… butz off.

Here we go, yet another FF7 example. Remember Cloud’s Organics sword? That used to be the Ogre Nix.

And it’s not just the English/American English speakers doing this. I once read that the name for Goht in the German version of Majora’s Mask was changed because the original sounded like their word for the sound a tree makes when it falls. Oh no! Run! It’s the dreaded monster, timberrrrrrrrr! Nope, doesn’t sound scary to me, either.

4. IGNORANCE
And sometimes the correct translation just doesn’t seem to be in the translator’s knowledge. Oh, here’s my favorite… PSX FF5’s Y Burn. This is a pure phonetic spelling. Keeping in mind that just like r and l, b and v are interchangeable (Why? I don’t know! They don’t remotely sound the same to me! I’m guessing it has more to do with their proximity on the keyboard), isn’t it funny how they chose y-burn over y-vern… or WYVERN!

Just like the above example, this usually crops up in Japanese to English phonetic translations as changing a letter or leaving it alone when they should have done otherwise. A bit rarer is when the accompanying vowel is included when it should have been dropped.

Salah = Sarah (Arcana)
Efleet = Ifrit (Arcana)
Iflit = Ifrit (FF:MQ)*
Gradius = Gladius (FF6)
Rydia = Lydia (FF4)**
Cockatoris = Cockatris (FF8)
Etc…

* However, Ifrit is also one of the enemies, so I think this is probably desperation on the translator’s part to find another word for “Genie” since the game also uses Jinn and Genie as well.

** While Lydia is not all that common of a name (anymore), I do feel that this may actually be an aesthetic choice.

When dealing with translations between two Roman family languages (for the layman, that would be pretty much any language active in Europe), this usually does not crop up, as the need for phonetic spelling is greatly decreased.

5. CENSORSHIP
As great as it would be to leave certain things alone, there are times when national laws forbid this. And sometimes there’s a different criteria to meet to get the same rating. In the 80’s and 90’s, Nintendo was infamous about forcing companies to exclude blood and nudity (when you could actually make things out, the stripper and sun bather in FF4 didn’t count apparently). But this is a weird category, and censorship sometimes takes strange forms. The blade that hung over Rosa’s head was a giant metal ball in the SNES version. What? So you can’t cut somebody in half but crushing them to death is okay? Sheesh. Censorship also can happen for the oddest of reasons. I have heard of movies, bands, and books that have been banned for being too radical. Elvis corrupted the minds of young, innocent, youth by gyrating his hips on stage. The Twist (dance) was too risqué and lurid (the counter argument is that in this dance, you’re not actually touching).

To all those who still believe Americans tried to steal Harry Potter by attempting to set the movie in America… Did you guys know that the books are still banned from libraries in parts of the U.S.? Some very concerned parents decided they didn’t want their children reading these books and learning black magic and witchcraft. I didn’t even know people actually thought there was workable magic to learn from these books until I read last year that one of the Southeastern states had un-banned the book (I would guess somebody bothered to READ it).

6. CULTURAL ASSOCIATION
And sometimes the lack thereof. This is the biggest reason why translations take so long to do. And apparently also the least understood reason, judging by all the complaining I’ve seen over the years.

What most people don’t seem to understand is that the same word (or word equivalent) does not always bring the same image to mind on both sides of the ocean. Someone in Japan who hears “magician” thinks of an evil, dark, scary person who delves in unnatural powers. An American thinks of Sigfried and Roy, Penn and Teller, someone who does slight of hand tricks for the amusement of others. This is why in America, it’s “Majora’s Mask” and not “Magician’s Mask” and why Edea was a sorceress and not a witch. I can’t remember the number of people I’ve heard laugh/moan/vow they’d never play when they heard the ‘first boss of FF8 is a witch’, but if I had to guess, I’d say in excess of 23. Sorcery sounds more impressive and mysterious to an American than Witchcraft.

And speaking of sorcery, this is why The Philosopher’s Stone was translated as The Sorcerer’s Stone. Philosophy sounds like some guy locked in a room with too much time on his hands, completely out of touch with reality and thinking up absurd notions about what people think and why.

The word “ninja” doesn’t have a very good connotation in Europe. Thus why what we’ve seen as Teenaged Mutant Ninja Turtles suddenly turned into Teenaged Mutant Hero Turtles there. In some places “a rubber” is an eraser, while in other places it’s a method of birth control. A car’s hood in America is a car’s bonnet in England.

But anyway, the point is that somewhere between sometimes and frequently, the same word can bring up the wrong idea. In the cases where a word or an idea is meaningful in one culture and meaningless in another, a good translator will usually try and insert a word or idea of equal weight. To hear “May the fleas of a thousand camels infest your bed” is seriously offensive to an Arabic, while the offense factor is somewhat lacking to the rest of us. Mexicans (some, at least) don’t like to hear “Shave and a Hair Cut” (I know a guy who was shot because he tapped it out on his car horn in a traffic jam, and I’d still like to know what’s so offensive about a tune that’s become so cutely cliché in American culture.)

In the French version of the movie Jurassic Park, the dinosaurs didn’t eat the people. They stole the people’s souls. Sure, souls are important, too… but I personally would be more concerned with the bit about sliding down a dino’s throat into its stomach.

Most extreme example I can think of for an ender:
The Navajo have this concept about time that is currently unmatched by anything I’ve heard from anywhere else. (Anyone who doubts this, please keep in mind that I’m the one living in Navajo county.) Roughly translated to “later” or “whenever”, it encompasses the amount of time between now and the end of time. Often jokingly called “Navajo Time” (sometimes in the same breath along with Mountain Time and Pacific Time), any promise of return within this time is sure to be kept. You’re just not sure of when that is. If you’re holding onto an item for someone who’s to return whenever… could be next week, could be next decade. If you think I exaggerate… you haven’t seen it in action. I’ve seen a sweet old Navajo lady who was disgruntled and couldn’t understand why the person who was keeping a rug for her had given the rug away to someone else… I mean, she held on to the rug for fourteen years, why couldn’t she manage to keep it for the remainder eight? And likewise… they don’t seem to have much of a concept for “forgetfulness”. Unless intoxicated (don’t actually see many… I do however see plenty of intoxicated Apache…), they don’t seem to ever forget anything, and don’t expect others to either.

***

Just in case anyone wonders why W:P1 uses translations… for aesthetic purposes.

***

And now, with that out of the way… I had better not see anyone posting an argument to this. Corrective information is welcome, but not arguments. We need no flame wars, and I just posted this because I thought some of you might just want to know why there are changes between one country and another on the same work. I’m not saying that the reasons listed in the explanations were valid (PLEASE NOTE THIS SENTANCE BECAUSE IF SOMEONE ACCUSES ME OF THIS, I WILL LAUGH THEM DOWN TO WOODMONGER!!!), I am only saying that that is the reason that was used. Once again… NO ARGUMENTS. Some of the listed examples are intentionally ‘extreme’ified’ to get my point across. You guys should be smart enough to figure out which ones are accurate and which ones are simple point makers. If you’re not smart enough… you should be in Kindergarten, not Castle Paradox.
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LJ.Art

SD - Ten creatures remaining.

[Iblis]

[Camdog]

[fyrewulff]

Because I'm sure you can perfectly translate a game to another language and culture flawlessly.

It's barely possible.

One, spelling mistakes. They happen. The amount of text RPGs have is almost impossible to proofread perfectly, and being tired and/or not fluent at a language will make your brain automatically fix typos.

Two, pronounciations. We are in America, primary language is English. Therefore, Butz is Butts, And Escaflowne is Es ka flow nay. Not Boots and Es ka far row nay. We do not pronounce things like the Japanese do.

Three, Majora's Mask only former name was Mujula. In fact I think that IS the Japanese name, Mask of Mujula. It was never Magician's Mask, as that would make no sense.

Philo Stone -> Sorcer Stone makes sense to me because Americans can say that more easily. It also has that common S going on. Also, there's like 50 different pronounciations of Philosopher I've heard, while Sorcerer only has like 2.


Oh, and NINTENDO NEVER CENSORED GAMES. All percieved "censoring" by Nintendo was only done by Square, or whoever made X game. Nintendo has never censored games, and will continue not to. If you want a recent example, how about Conker's Bad Fur Day? or BMX XXX? The GameCube version of that was the only one completely uncensored. Yamauchi is an artist himself and always respected a company's art.


Keeping this in mind though, in German Dogero is no longer Dogero, but Hounder (roughly), and in the French version I believe his name will roughly translate as Dog Person.

[Me]

Most of what everyone's been saying here about translations I agree with. The culture gaps between the US, Europe, and Asia are so huge that we cannot hope to translate anything completely correctly. In fact, there usually is no "correct" translation.
Also, another little factoid - In Germany, games can't show any killing of huimans. Every enemy has to be essentially zombified, and blood has to be green or purple or just not there.
And Fyre - Dogero could be something like "Chienant" in French, I think, which would translate to something like "Dogger."
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[Komera]

[fyrewulff]

Also, I do believe Gradius is supposed to be a hat-tip to the game of the same name.

[fyrewulff]

[Me]

Well, if you've got a fluent speaker doing the translation, then great. It should work out pretty well. The best, of course, would be someone who grew up in a household speaking both French and English - i.e., a Canadian.
Also:
EDIT BUTTON

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[Chaos Nyte]

The Japanese L/R thing is relatively simple. Since the the language is divided into hiragana spellings that are mostly two letters long, (with the exceptions of the vowels and the letter N) you end up with the difference between Rydia and Lydia being very unimportant to Japanese ears. Indeed, I have found it nearly impossible to get my host families little brother to pronouce words correctly that start with L or R. He simply doesn't get it, and only the older members of the family, who spent two years in Hawaii learning English can grasp the difference. I know it's pretty strange, but the Japanese have very few words that start with "L" anyways, so mweh.

[Me]

Japanese has no specific L or R sound, as I learned it. There's just one sound that's sorta in between the two. Thus, Rydia would be pronounced the same as Lydia. It would be, in the syllabary (sp?), RI-DI-A, and "RI" is pronounced like "RI" and "LI" at the same time.
Interesting other factoid: The Hawaiian language doesn't differentiate between L and R, B and V, or T and K.
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[Komera]

yes, true. but japanese phonetics hardly matter if the english translators are on the ball. *evil grin*
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LJ.Art

SD - Ten creatures remaining.

[Me]

Japanese has no specific L or R sound, as I learned it. There's just one sound that's sorta in between the two. Thus, Rydia would be pronounced the same as Lydia. It would be, in the syllabary (sp?), RI-DI-A, and "RI" is pronounced like "RI" and "LI" at the same time.
Interesting other factoid: The Hawaiian language doesn't differentiate between L and R, B and V, or T and K.
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[fyrewulff]

I wonder if it would even be possible to translate Jade into Japanese. I don't think the humor would be translatable. Also, parts of Jade from the German version have already been cut, so as to meet German law requirements.

[Camdog]

I find that humor rarely translates well. (It certainly didn't in FFX-2. Christ, I want to slap Brother in the face.)