Guild of Writers

A number of people have mentioned the desire to re-translate content that was already translated (into either French, German, Italian, or Spanish) because the quality is deemed too low.

I don't want to step on Cyan's toes here unduly...but my position on it is: if it needs re-translated...then it should be re-translated. But, I really don't want to process with /THIS/ part of the project without Cyan's blessing.

To that end, I'd like to build a list of things. So, if you've got an example of a bad translation, let me know the Item ID (as listed in ULP), the reason why it should be re-translated (in your own words), and perhaps an example of where the translation is really bad and a corrected example.

You can reply to this thread with your suggestions...I'll compile a list and send it to Cyan when the time is right.

Ah it's not easy to compile a list, we have all the italian translations ready, but the major part of them weren't translated by me so I'd have to go and compare every single document with the new translation XD

I can say that the official translations, at least for the italian language, aren't only bad, some of them even miss parts of the text, the translator just cut them out. An example is Atrus's letter in the Cleft:

Our dearest Yeesha,

becomes just "Yeesha"

We know that some futures are not cast, by writer or Maker, but the dream tells that D'ni will grow again someday.

only the last part of the sentence can be found in the Italian translation.

In almost all the texts and speeches where there is "The Least" there is no consistency: sometimes the word is translated in the singular form, sometimes in the plural form. The same happens for "The Proud"
Then there are really basic grammar errors.

Another example is the Relto Journal with the verses from the Regeltahvokh Oorpah. Ok, those are not easy sentences, but sometimes an italian translation says the opposite of the original english!

A shallow glimpse can deceive.

becomes

A small light can reveal everything.

WHAT?!?!? you call that a translation?

There's an apochraphal story about some Russian English translation software at the UN in the early days where "Out of sight out of mind" came back as "invisible idiot"

OHB, I don't know why you bother with Cyan's translations if you have available competent volunteers. At most, you can give them Cyan's translation as an aid. Why settle for less quality? Cyan certainly doesn't care, all they can do is be grateful for your efforts.

I just signed up for ULP and found another example: the original translation for "Sweater" in Italian was "Felpa", while it should be "Maglione". This is now a problem since there's a new clothing item called "Sweatshirt", whose correct translation should be "Felpa".

In French, the translation for King Yableshan's and King Mararon's history are written without the asterisks. I noticed it when I tried to do the translation of the footnotes and looked for the context... They must have been dumped during translation...

I also noticed :
''Are you sure you want to delete this book, and lose your membership in this neighborhood? Re-insert your KI into the Marker Machine to restore your GZ link.'' was translated to :
''Êtes-vous sûr(e) de vouloir supprimer ce Livre et ainsi perdre votre inscription dans ce quartier ?'', missing the whole ''Re-insert KI for GZ'' part.

Now that the French-Canadian translation is available, I began to re-translate most journals and stuff. I can't believe how many cuts they made during translation. Whole story part seem to be skimmed off. Meaning of words and emotions of characters are changed. I must say I think that even if I'm no expert in translation, French-Canadian translation is gonna be far better than the original ''international french''.

Oh and by the way, I saw the same problem as Max'milian in french...

Something totally horrible : Age Journals / GahreesenInfo (Part #63)
''Well I guess these rooms were where the bigwigs sat down and talked about their Maintainers.'' to
''Bon je suppose que c'est ici que les huiles s'asseyaient et vantaient les mérites de leurs Conservateurs.''
''Bigwigs'' was translated as ''huiles''--->oils
Even though it's accepted in the dictionary as ''important caracter'', it is incorrect to use it in that context, because it's a familiar word.

The German translation is simply confusing in some parts. For example 'Great Zero' stays the same in the translation (even though its English), but 'Great Zero Observation' is translated as 'Großen Nullpunkt Beobachtung' wich actually is gramatically and semantically wrong. There should be a consistent and correct translation/naming for this.
Surprisingly the Cyan translations of the Journals are very good.

Once again, an error in the French translation : in DRC / SharperPart2--->part5

''Être de retours à la surface m'a finalement décidé. Je serais de retours à la surface pour Noël. En attendant , je crois que je vais couper un arbre dans mon relto & le décoré dans mon bureau ici.'' is full of basic French mistakes. The correct French format should be :
''Être de retour à la surface m'a finalement décidé. Je serais de retour à la surface (repetition) pour Noël. En attendant, je crois que je vais couper un arbre pour mon relto et le décorer dans mon bureau ici(''ici'' could be OK if we are talking about someone with only a basic vocab, but it's not French to say it that way)''

Looks like it was only the translater's notes who got to the final Uru, because those are nasty mistakes in French...

someone wrote:''En attendant, je crois que je vais couper un arbre pour mon relto et le décorer dans mon bureau ici(''ici'' could be OK if we are talking about someone with only a basic vocab, but it's not French to say it that way)''

Pas d'accord. Sharper a deux bureaux (Teledahn et Aegura), c'est pourquoi il spécifie lequel (Aegura, ce qui explique qu'on voit l'arbre en question dans son bureau).

Et ce n'est pas pour son relto, mais bien dans son relto qu'il va couper son arbre.

Dans ce cas, l'erreur provient du fait qu'il n'a pas intégré une virgule devant le ici ([...] dans mon bureau, ici). Par contre, je suis désolé pour le dans et pour, c'était mon erreur . Je n'avais pas vraiment regardé la version anglophone lors de cette retraduction. Je n'avais que regardé les erreurs de francais...

So, the final version should be :
''En attendant, je crois que je vais couper un arbre de mon relto et le décorer dans mon bureau, ici.''

With many mistakes still included in the original version

Merci Chacal pour m'avoir replacé sur le droit chemin .