Jump to content
Eternal Lands Official Forums
Sign in to follow this  
pasmoi

Translation ... or not!

Recommended Posts

Hi,

I'll first sum up my all point: Whatever the langage you want to translate eternal lands to, some words should stay untranslated.

 

Now, I'll explain why:

I've set up the game to french, and used it for some time like that. But then, lots of items names where translated to french, and when I wanted to buy them on the market, or to talk about them whith other players, in english, I had no more acces to their english names.

If some of them could be translated (sometime through quite some pain), the translation of some other gave synonyms that other players did not understand.

 

But more generally, irl, when you translate something, you don't translate names of people: that would have no sense. Names of companies are never translated either. Since items names in el are pretty specifics, and since when saying "pecker" or "mattock" instead of saying "pickaxe" a lot of people would not understand, and since for the others, that would just make the conversation awkward, I think items names are pretty much like people names: untranslatable!

 

So my point is, for items, or stats or other words in the game that does not accecpt synonyms anymore, let just untranslate them, and keep the original english word.

 

For exemple, in we would translate "Pickaxes cannot be manufactured" in french by "Les Pickaxes ne peuvent pas être fabriqués" (instead of using the french word "Pioche".

In spanish, we would say "Pickaxe no se puede fabricar" instead of "Piqueta no se puede fabricar" or "Piocha no se puede fabricar" or even using the word "zapapico" ...

 

Also to emphasize on this kind of translation problem I invite you use dictionary to translate pickaxe from english to spanish, and then, from spanish to french, and finally from french, back to english. That could give:

pickaxe -> Picos -> Sommet -> Summit

I don't think that in english we can replace the word "Pickaxe" by the word "Summit" ...

 

To end up my point, I've talked whith several french player: because of item names and stats names translation, everybody that set the game to french found it awfull, and switched back to english. What's the point of translating the game if we can't play whith the translated version?

 

But I'd like the opinion of other players on all this, and not only of my friend.

If everyone agree whith me "untranslating" item names, I'll help doing it in the ency, and then, I'll help finishing the french translation.

 

So, do you think that would be a good idea to un-translate the names of items and stats?

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
I'll first sum up my all point: Whatever the langage you want to translate eternal lands to, some words should stay untranslated.

I agree.

 

I've set up the game to french, and used it for some time like that. But then, lots of items names where translated to french, and when I wanted to buy them on the market, or to talk about them whith other players, in english, I had no more acces to their english names.

If some of them could be translated (sometime through quite some pain), the translation of some other gave synonyms that other players did not understand.

I'm responsible for the Polish Ency only, and I left english names in there.

As a matter of fact, there are 2 names under each item (ok, not everyone but I'm still working on it ;P): one, main name in English, then below, Polish name in brackets:

 

th_ency_prev.jpg

 

So, do you think that would be a good idea to un-translate the names of items and stats?

Yup. Since EL is based on english, ppl should learn english names.

To avoid later communication problems :icon13:

 

Some of the names I left in PL ency, untranslated or with translations added in brackets:

  • NPC names
  • Spell names
  • Item names
  • Nexus names
  • Ingredients names
  • Perks names
  • Attributes names

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I would sugest to translate and keep the original name in english aswell

 

I.E (to portuguese)

 

Essencia de Fogo (Fire essence)

Essencia de Agua (Water Essence)

 

Keeping both language you give the player the understanding of what the item represents, and also its name in game.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
Sign in to follow this  

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    No registered users viewing this page.

×