253: Pardon My French

[Azhrarn-101]

Being technically trilingual (Dutch (native), German and English) I can see exactly what you meant in the Article.

Dutch localisations is as far as I've experienced, universally terrible.
Utterly soulless and generally badly done.
German localisation tends to be the opposite, thorough, complete and if possible carrying the feeling of the original along with it (and sometimes with some of the original voice actors. Knight Rider (Hasselhoff) and all Terminator movies (Arnie) are a good example).

The end result, if I have to watch something in a localised version, I'd prefer a German one, since then I know it'll be atleast decent, and sometimes even better than the original, although that is rather rare.

A nice example of this is the introduction to Disney's Darkwing Duck, the German version has far more panache than the English version and feels more alive and involved, and compared to the Dutch version it might as well be the best quality Shakespeare.

Now if I can help it, I'll get English version of any form of media, be it games, books or TV shows.
German localisation efforts however prove to me that it can work, and despite it not being my native tongue, I have fond memories of iconic 80s and 90s TV shows in their German localisations.

 

[icaritos]

I see a lot of people here that dont have english as their native tongue.
I have to say, the first time playing Zelda while being able to understand what was being said was a wonderful experience to me. Brazil never really got any translations, so i only learned english when i moved to a different country and had to study in an american international school.

 

[Skarlette]

I'm an anglophone who speaks French after years of immersion schooling, and I understand French (Quebec French, not the Parisian) when it's being spoken to me. But 9 times out of 10, I just stare at someone who speaks French to me because I wasn't expecting to hear it at the time, and it takes a moment to first realize that they're speaking another language, and then second to switch to the French half of my brain.

I think it boils down to what you're expecting to hear, no matter what you're doing. If the majority of what you game has been experienced in English, then you'd expect all games to follow that trend. Do people who only speak one language, who have only experienced gaming in that translated language, do they hear as we do, having listened to different languages and understood what's gone wrong in translation, that anything is amiss? Perhaps it's something we'll have to see about, as gaming grows and is translated. (Hopefully more accurately )

 

[Tonimata]

Ooooooooooh, oooooooooooh yes THE VERBS! THE GODDAMNED VERBS!

It's been 4 years since I did any French...
AND STILL HAVEN'T FORGOTTEN IT!!

 

[wysiwyg]

Props to people who have made themselves bi (or tri) lingual just using media like video games and movies. I live in England and I like to change the language on my favourite games to French or read the French versions of books which I already know well, but I'm certainly not fluent.

I also get frustrated when we have to wait ages for the European release of games (so they can be translated presumably), yet we still get the American version! American English and British English are not the same thing, so why don't we get a translation as well? Although from what people on here have been saying, it sounds like the translations aren't that good anyway.

The worst case I can remember is for Animal Crossing on the Gamecube. I had to wait bloody ages for the UK version (my brother imported the US one) only to find they hadn't bothered changing it for the British audience at all. Complete with celebrations for Thanksgiving and Independence Day. I always thought Europe got somewhat ignored by the games industry. I'd never even thought of Canadians getting shoddy translations too, cheers for the article.

 

[neminem]

Funny. I'm very monolingual, sadly - I was lucky enough for that language to be English, there isn't all that much from elsewhere that doesn't get translated to English, but still. The funny thing is, the first part of this still brings back all kinds of memories. Memories of being a small child who couldn't read yet. I only recall this vaguely, of course, but my understanding is I was constantly bothering my mom to read me stuff on the screen, until eventually she got annoyed and said she wasn't going to anymore that day, because she wanted to encourage me to get off the computer. And that's when I learned to read. (I was like 4 or 5.)

Ah well... back to work... fixing localization bugs . Not in games, though.

 

[rofltehcat]

Games helped me learn english, too.
Although it was a slightly different approach.
In germany nearly every game is/was available in localized versions with OKish to good translations and most of the time with own voice acting, which sometimes was a real problem because they took the cheapest possible actors sometimes. When looking at movies and series there was/is absolutely no english content, the translations and voice actors are pretty good for them.

So I wasn't really that exposed to the english language before 5th grade except for some old DOS games with barely any text in them.
However, I started playing a MUD game (Multiple User Dungeon, today that would be an MMORPG) and it was completely in english although it had a large german community. Not only was the game itself in english but guild diplomacy was pretty important and so the swedes learned some german, the germans learned some swedish and everyone learned a lot english so diplomacy wasn't a complete mess. But that was also a slight problem because there formed some huge hispanic guilds that would stick together like family (even if their members completely fucked up) and only had very few people able to communicate with non-hispanics. Somewhen they got pretty much annihilated and switched servers I think.
Ah... good old Tibia times...

 

[-Dragmire-]

I'm on the on the other side of the river in Ontario, similar story though. FF1 helped me learn to read at a quick pace(thankfully in my own language) but your experience hits home for me with the translation(and americanization) from the original language in games.

I couldn't learn French(my head's not wired right for that language) and I stopped taking french classes way back after grade 9 when it stopped being mandatory.

...damn French verbs.

 

[Taunta]

That's so cool that you were able to learn English through gaming. As a US native Ich wuensche, dass ich deutschen Videospielen kaufen koennte. Ich glaube mein Deutsch nicht so furchtbar waere.

Oh god that was probably a train wreck.

And I feel you on the localization thing. Seeing things that you're used to being in English being in other languages is...odd. Also, woe be unto you if someone has a regional accent. I can remember the day I watched Finding Nemo in German Class and being horrified at what they apparently thought was a "surfer dude" accent.

 

[Darkeagle6]

I, too, have had similar experiences as the author and others in this topic. I grew up in Montreal. However, I had the odd (and seemingly rare) luck of learning both French and English separately and at a very young age (I'm francophone, but my baby-sitter until I went to Kindergarten was anglophone, and while she spoke French, her children only knew English). English became the language of video games and (most) cartoons while French was everything else.There's no doubt that I learned a lot of my English with video games (along with talking to anglophone friends at school).

Videogames in French have always felt extremely unnatural to me. Part of it was the localisation, which was indeed generally poor, but it's also the close associations that certain words in English have with the medium, and these things are lost in translation. The author's description of his experience with ALLTP resonates quite strongly with me.

I think these associations I developped are the main reason why even today, I choose to play videogames in English, regardless of their origin (with a couple of exceptions regarding certain Frensh games, but not necessarily all of them). In that sense, I think it's a good thing that localizations are getting better. I see my younger brothers and sister playing their games in French, and it's natural to them. It both lowers some barriers that many (such as the article's author) had to overcome and, I hope, encourages a wider variety of people and cultures to participate in the world of video games.

Somewhat related: I almost always choose to hear acting in its original language with subtitles if offered. Languages have colors and tones which are expressive in and of themselves, and that's also something that's lost in translation (not to mention that I'm really picky with dubbing). Not sure why, but I felt like this belonged in this post (it's relaly late/early).