Suggestion: More translated AGS games and category for translated games

Started by SimSaw, Wed 14/05/2003 16:27:23

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LucasFan

QuoteI thought there was an entirely German speaking AGS forum...

Yes, there is one. We use it to discuss our secret world conquest plans.  ;)

GarageGothic

Living in Denmark, I've never really played any adventure games in my native language (except a few games by a Danish company, but they came pretty late, sometime in the mid-nineties). The market just isn't big enough for translations to be profitable. But growing up playing Sierra games, I learned more English from adventure games than I did at school. Sure, sometimes you had to use a dictionary, especially in the text-input games (to this day I think of PQ1 every time I hear the word "sobriety test" :)), but it was a great way of learning the basics of a foreign language: verbs (action commands) and nouns (inventory items).

It's sad that Germans and the French never get a chance to learn English the way most other Europeans do, from american movies, television shows and other english-language media. I see your point, that a lot of non-English speakers would never play the game unless it was translated. But are we doing them a favor?
Much can get lost in the translation, anyone who's seen a subtitled movie or tv show knows that. As someone else mentioned, many jokes don't translate well, because they are word plays, or because they refer to things specific to american culture. And often, whole sentences would have to be completely rewritten to make any sense at all. Translating fiction is more of an adaptation of the work than it is a word-by-word translation. Which is why some of the best translations are made by people who are authors themselves.

I wouldn't let anyone translate a game I'd written into a language I didn't read myself (I WOULD however have someone else proof-read anything I wrote in English :)). After encountering all the weird English translations of French games (Coktel Vision and Delphine had some rather memorable translation errors in their games), I can only imagine what would happen the other way around. Unless you're making kids' games, I think you should expect your audience to understand English, maybe they'd even learn something. Otherwise nothing will change.

Now, if you could only teach yourself Japanese by playing Hentai games :^)


n3tgraph

cool translation error:

"All your base are belong to us" :P hehehe
how old ;)
* N3TGraph airguitars!

SimSaw

There's  really a German forum. But I don't know if they don't want to translate a game or if they can't translate them, because no one wants his or her game beeing translated.

Quote from: Squinky on Fri 16/05/2003 11:26:07
I wouldn't mind my games being translated...But I'm not sure how hard that would be....

If you don't mind if somebody translates your game then post in my main topic. It would be nice if a lot of game authors would do that.

Some things are a bit difficult with translations e. g. GUIs. I made the option GUI from the demo game (with the music volume, game speed and so one controls) so that it works into German (and I hope for a lot of other languages). But sometimes you have to write your word with a space and a -, because it does not fit to one line.

I hope I can upload my results soon. I hope that until then a lot of translations will be started.

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