[FF7PC-98] The Reunion (OLD THREAD, SAVED FOR POSTERITY)

  • Thread starter Thread starter DLPB_
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
Love the idea behind this project, and I really like what I've seen, but you asked for constructive criticism, so here's mine: I have to wonder if you're sometimes making changes for the sake of making them?

For example:

“I see you finally understand.”

To:

“I see you understand.”

Sometimes you change the meaning, too. For example:

“{TIFA} was in a coma
   for seven days.”

To:

‘{TIFA} was out cold
  for 7 days.’

(Incidentally, numbers less then 10 are usually written out, so "seven" is preferable to "7" according to typical English guidelines.)

Or

“We all thought she wouldn't make it.”

To:

‘I didn't think
 she'd make it.’

Are these changes based on your understanding of the original Japanese script, or just your own understanding of what's going on?

Congrats on such an awesome Mod! I look forward to using the final version.
 
Last edited:
The changes are made based on a very fluent Japanese translator who works with me.  As for numbers, I have tried to maintain consistency throughout the game by using numbers instead of the words that represent them when talking about times or ages.  There is no standard rule that everyone agrees on.  It is writers' preference from dialogue to dialogue.  I have never heard of this "lower than 10" rule before either, do you have any source for this?

I would surmise also that Cloud would use "out cold" to coma.  It is again a preference, and I think it was the translator, Luksy, who placed that phrase in.  I agree with it.  8)

I always stick to the absolute facts based on the Japanese where possible, and any deviation is either because it can't work, or sounds really odd.  These cases are few and far between. I don't change anything for the sake of it.

"Finally understand" will be brought up with Luksy, it all depends on if Sephiroth really says something similar in the Japanese.
 
Last edited:
“We all thought she wouldn't make it.”

To:

‘I didn't think
 she'd make it.’
Click to expand...
I can't say for sure, not having seen the original, but it's distinctly possible this didn't have a pronoun at all to begin with, in which case either I or we could be correct depending on context. Japanese frequently leaves out pronouns when context clues will suffice, or when it doesn't matter.

I have to wonder if you're sometimes making changes for the sake of making them?
Click to expand...
It's not really accurate to say he's "making changes". This is a new, fresh translation from the original Japanese, not a reworking of the original translation. The idea isn't simply to correct what's wrong, but to redo everything, almost as though there were never a 1997 translation to begin with. If something does end up the same as the original, that's fine and dandy, but it's not being used as a starting point.
 
Also, as you read the script you see that Cloud was a complete loner.  He got into fights, was antisocial, and had no friends.  It is extremely likely "We" is wrong.  He is also talking about himself in that passage, so "we" wouldn't make much sense anyway.  And of course, Luksy used "I".  Placing any faith into the original translation is fairly foolish because it is awash with mistakes.  :-P

Also note that Covarr is going to go through all the text and point out any errors he sees.  Grammar issues such as numbers are small fry, and not even writers all agree on what is what.  "It was five years ago, I was 16" would look silly to me.  I tried to add in consistency when talking about dates and times.  "There are four balls"  "It was 5 years ago, I was 16".  I may change that if Covarr thinks it needs doing on his run through.

I am not plucking things from thin air, basically.  I do think about all this.  :P  Consistency is most important with numbers.  I am looking at those links, and others, and there is disagreement even there as to what is accepted.  It's basically up to the writer.  I don't see anything wrong with "It was 5 years ago".  Not to mention a lot of the time, the dialogue boxes look much better for using numbers rather than spelling it out.

We'll see what transpires in the proof check!
 
Last edited:
Yeh, even those articles I linked said there's no real consensus here, and I think it differs on a case by case basis. For instance I agree that "It was 5 years ago" looks fine, perhaps because 'year' is a unit - but e.g. "There were five of them" looks more natural to me than "There were 5 of them". Either way it's pretty minor and I have a lot of confidence that you're giving this all the attention it needs :D
 
It depends on how important a number is. If you write 'five' it doesn't interrupt the flow of reading, but a '5' is much more visible and imaginable (because of connection to math you have a clearer imagine how much a 5 is) and it will interrupt the flow because your brain must interpreted the '5' into the word 'five'.
It possible to write a word up to twenty, everything above would be hard to read and is harder to imagine, which means a lose of the read flow.

"Five years, or so." is better then "5 years, or so." because the speaker isn't sure of it, so the number isn't important
While "It was 5 years ago,..." Is better then " It was five years ago,...." in the context of FF7, because the number is important for the whole story.
 
Here's a great distillation of different Manual of Styles to help explain what most novels, magazines, newspapers do:

http://www.quickanddirtytips.com/education/grammar/how-write-numbers?page=all

Again, standard practice (which you've seen throughout your entire life) is for 1-9 to be spelled out, and for 10+ to be digits -- but there are exceptions, and that article does a good job of explaining what they are, and why they exist.

I didn't realize that this was being COMPLETELY redone from the ground up? If anything, the few examples I've read seem to indicate that the original translation was largely very close! Some sentences are EXACTLY the same, which is surprising to me.
 
Last edited:
I do use the original work as well.  I use that, Luksy's translation, and my own localisation to provide what I feel is the best it can be.  So sometimes, the original was nicely done, but every map has had numerous text changed.  If you look at the other maps, the original translation made some serious mistakes.  Luksy's translation supersedes the original, and where there is a conflict, I ask him.  If that doesn't suffice, I go to other Japanese speakers and get their opinion.

Mostly though, the original suffered with awkward dialogue. Sometimes you get totally crazy and bad dialogue , see here:

https://www.ff7catalog.com/posts/136574/

For Yuffie's dialogue further down.  You should read that thread too.

Every piece of dialogue has been checked 3 times now (I am currently completing the 3rd revision walk through). The 4th time through is grammar corrections only. After that this will be considered "finished".   The non dialogue is already finished.
 
Last edited:
Just wanted to chip in that although Dan's singing my praises I do get things wrong as I'm not a native Japanese speaker.

That said, "I/We thought she wasn't going to make it." was『死んでしまうかと思った』in the original Japanese. While this could indeed technically go either way when it comes to whether Cloud is talking about himself or everyone, the feeling I got from the entire scene is he means himself as it's directly related to the text that follows.

Also, coma is 昏睡 or コーマ, the Japanese text used 意識不明 which is simply unconscious.
 
Silly English thinking it's context heavy. It's got NOTHING on Japanese. XD
 
Wow, I can only imagine the amount of time it's taken to do this translation. It's a great project, and while I agree with a lot of what I've read, and the changes, there are still that grate on me. I guess it's impossible to please everyone, though. Especially with a game so beloved.

For example:

"You aren't from Wutai, are you?"

Being changed to:

"You are not of Wutai, are you?"

Still, you should make the translation how YOU want it to be, not how everyone else thinks. It's your project and, as I said, it's impossible to please everyone, so you should focus on pleasing yourself.

On side note: I wonder how much it would be to get Alex O. Smith to re-translate the game? :)
 
The people of the pagoda talk with varying degrees of older speak.  That wasn't changed on a whim. It sounds more accurate to how it is supposed to actually sound.  In fact a lot of Wutai is supposed to be like that.  Some in the pagoda speak with really old tongues, and thus we used older English for those.

You need to stop using the original localisation as a basis of how it should sound...  A lot of these changes are made because of how it SHOULD sound, based on the original Japanese.

using "aren't" completely destroys the feel that the character is designed to portray.  Although, "are you" at the end is probably redundant.

Example:

Old
“Only those from Wutai may enter the tower!”{NEW}
“I'll have to ask for you to leave!”
------------------------------
“Hey! I can't stand liars! 
   Leave this tower at once!”


New
“Outsiders are strictly prohibited
  from entering the pagoda.”{NEW}
“I'm afraid I must ask you
  to leave.
------------------------------
“Fie!
  To deceive people of one's
  identity is an absolute affront!
  Leave the pagoda at once!”

Now, call me crazy, but which of those looks right?  They even placed "tower" in the original.  Again, though, some of the grammar issues that do exist will be ironed out by Covarr.
 
Last edited:
Wow. If you're right about the need for "older speak" then the original translation is completely off!

I appreciate what you're attempting. It's very tricky to write "ye olde" speak and have it sound natural, too.

I do wonder how much an Alex O Smith translation would cost, though!
 
Last edited:
ThunderPeel2001, I recommend you give this article by Mato a read.

Essentially, Japanese has a ton of context cues based strictly on phrasing that can tell you who is talking, their age, gender, and social class, and even to whom they're talking, based solely on the way they phrase things. Unfortunately, the original FF7 translation (and in fact most video game translations) near completely ignored this concept.

It's true that many of these things can't be translated super-precisely to English. We typically don't have numerous versions of a single verb just for varying levels of politeness. But we do have other ways of conveying the same concepts, such as by changing our sentence structure, or using more/fewer contractions, or using words that indicate a specific group where possible, etc. As an example, if someone uses the word "derriere" it's a safe bet they're a bit older than if they'd said "keister", and even moreso than "butt". "Buttocks" implies a doctor or scientist, "round" suggests a butcher, "bottom" suggests someone trying to be polite (perhaps a teacher), "ass" suggests crude or uneducated, etc.

In Wutai, these changes are going to be especially evident, as the original translation didn't even make an attempt to get this aspect of their speech correct. The hell of it is, this is nowhere near as "olde" as in the theatre in the gold saucer, which the original mislocalized into plain modern speech instead of something a bit older (we went full-on Shakespearian for this, and even had to do a fair bit of research to make sure we got it right).

edit: In regards to that link article I linked, I wanna be clear that you can absolutely trust Mato. He's one of the best in the business.
 
Last edited:
Yikes :o

Based on that article, it seems ANY translation will only contain a part of the original intent. You can tell it's a woman just by her sentence structure! Crazy.
 
That's pretty much how it is.  The better the localiser, the more personality and feel you will get out of the original character, while staying true to that character.  Thanks for that, Covarr.  A nice read.
 
Translations are definitely tricky, and the sad thing is even the best will still lose a bit in the conversion. The term 'lost in translation' is quite an accurate term. That being said, a lot more can be maintained than usually is - it's one of the things I love about this project. I'm not sure it's possible to do better than they are!

Learning new languages is hard, especially certain ones (the pictograph languages (such as most Asian tongues) and English if you're not a native speaker are among the toughest), so a highly skilled translator/localizer is the next best thing. It's not perfect, but perfect can only be accomplished by learning the language. XD
 
Well mark it in your diaries.  It's taken I dunno how long, but the localisation of Final Fantasy VII is now complete.

Of course, I still need to have a lot of questions answered by Luksy, and Prince Lex still has to complete the Scottish dialect, but the actual localisation is done.

 ;D

Huge monkey off my back.  Thank you, and good night!
 
Last edited:
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top