165 responses to “Say Hello to Sieg”

  1. Foxy

    Wha? Translation professor, a person that teaches you how to translate? Like, wha?

  2. X

    Hey guy, your “A Progress Bar” stopped for a long time.
    Do your pj still alive?

  3. Y

    Are your brain cells still alive?

  4. Freeman

    The Freeman collective….has returned….
    all your….brain cells…are ours….
    we own all….X and Y….make a human….male….
    we have an infinite….number of chromosomes…..
    we are all…..and all are we…..

  5. Sahgo

    @Foxy: Translation Theory. I don’t know about North America, but it’s an actual class in some Brazilian colleges.

    Boring as heck, but still.

  6. Linnet

    I don’t mind the honorifics or the translation notes, but… why would you put them in the middle of a battle? They appear to be covering the health gauges and I think that would be kind of problematic.

    I really like TL notes that cover trivia stuff, but their placement during an actual battle is kind of distracting and again, covers up parts of the screen that I might want to look at. Especially if the note would pop up every time I used that Arte. On top of that, the information given isn’t really necessary for the battle. I think the Arte translation stuff would be better placed in the status menu or something, not during an actual battle. It really only bugs me cuz it could seriously detract from gameplay and make ToH not as fun to play through, haha.

  7. Nivea

    Haha 😀
    That’s why this post is tagged J/K, haha.

  8. Linnet

    LMFAO that’s what I get for not reading the tags! XD Good, my fears are put to rest.

    (Hey, you’d be surprised how many people actually would do this…)

  9. Gabriel F.

    Seriously, guys, what the heck? This isn’t a tranlation. This is a silly excuse for translation. But since that’s a FAN-translation, I’m not gonna say more than that.

  10. Nivea

    Seriously, Gabriel, that’s because it’s not finished yet. Ergo you couldn’t know if it’s awesome or not. I’m not gonna say more than that.

  11. Xavier

    @Gabriel
    I’m going to have to agree with Nivea. It’s not finished so therefore you cannot know the quality of translation. Also you’re saying that fans cannot be valid translators without any evidence to back up your claim, therefore it can be dismissed.

  12. Light

    Maybe its just me, but I always cringe when I see romanized Japanese. I know its helpful in combination with TL notes but sometimes I feel like it’s totally unnecessary.

    Since you’re part of the team, it’s more of in your hands, but I personally would rather stick to more of an localized “English” role. Kind of like how all the Tales games came out in their respective areas. You don’t have to twist their names around entirely, just keep most of it close to the way they sound in dialogues. With the speaking that the characters do, some people who vaguely understand Japanese or certain phrases will really be turned off at the translation in some cases.

  13. Hakuromatsu

    (Nothing I say here is meant to offend…I’m just interested in discussing translation theory, as you are, and am very, *very* appreciative of the effort you are putting into this. =)

    I personally draw a line between games that take place in Japan (or feature Japanese characters) and games that don’t. A fan translation of, say, a Megaten game, or a visual novel, should leave cultural references intact and even include honorifics, cultural terms, etc. in romaji — simply because they take place in Japan. But games that don’t, like every Tales game to date (not counting Mizuho and Ashihara, and a handful of Japanese characters/weapons/items), shouldn’t have a word of Japanese. Period.

    Of course, by saying that, I’ve implicitly stated that I don’t believe the residents of Celland speak Japanese, as you believe — however, that is not to suggest that they speak English, either. Simply put, there is *nothing* to confirm that they speak any given language spoken here on Earth; therefore, there is no reason to remain pure to the original Japanese (as stated above, many individual names in the Tales series are Japanese, but even more are non-Japanese, just as you’ve recognized in this post; moreover, the three translated names you’ve revealed here originate from German, Hebrew, and Italian — a cultural melting pot).

    I think that translating a script from one culture to another conveys a unique opportunity to test your mastery of both cultures, in addition to your mastery of both languages — no matter how delicate or intricate a conversation in Japanese may be, it can always be reworked in English. Where the original *meaning* is less important than the original *intent*, as in video game scripts, dynamic equivalence is preferable to formal equivalence (you even say that you translated Anna and Lucio in non-Japanese form “just as the developers were intending”). Your way of preserving intent is by featuring translation notes, which is (and again, please understand that I mean no offense) a backdoor method and is hampering your own creativity as a translator.

    But why am I even talking about this? You’re very skillfully translating the best DS Tales game and I’m certainly looking forward to it. =)

  14. Ololo

    What the hell is that? Good thing I dropped waiting for this LONG ago and learned japanese.
    Won’t see crappy wannabe localization sh!t.
    If it’s a fan translation, it should preserve everything the original has, and not add anything. Just do it like Phantasia PSX translation, with original arte names and all, and everyone will be happy.

  15. Rewritten

    @Ololo youre rite

    kaji was obvs super srs in this post so

    it obvs deserves a super srs respons such as yours

    super srs

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