The bizarre, true story behind the English translation of Metal Gear Solid

[hanselthecaretaker]

Pretty good read [https://www.polygon.com/platform/amp/2019/7/18/20696081/metal-gear-solid-translation-japanese-english-jeremy-blaustein], especially for fans.

Also got a kick out of the bit about Castlevania: SotN. Classic.

 

[Hades]

Its interesting that he seems to have been kinda punished for doing his job.

 

[CaitSeith]

tl;dr?

 

[Casual Shinji]

tl;dr?

One guy had to translate MGS1 while being dirt poor. He read up on loads of military books to make it feel more authentic, tweeked some of the characters lines to not make it sound as stiff as it would have had he directly translated it. Kojima initially loved it till he heard his script had been slightly altered, and he was never allowed to translate any of Konima's other games.

 

[stroopwafel]

Kojima is a harsh mistress. It only makes me look forward to his next pretentious wankfest that much more! Hurt me Snake! Hurt me mooooorreeeee!!

 

[CaitSeith]

tl;dr?

One guy had to translate MGS1 while being dirt poor. He read up on loads of military books to make it feel more authentic, tweeked some of the characters lines to not make it sound as stiff as it would have had he directly translated it. Kojima initially loved it till he heard his script had been slightly altered, and he was never allowed to translate any of Konima's other games.

I kinda see where both sides come from. Thank you.

 

[meiam]

Interesting, it seems like he did a good job when it came to term and military jargon (he introduced codex and on site procurement ) but he tried to hard to change the character personality, with his version possibly but not surely being closer to what was intended. It's hard to decide without myself being able to read Japanese.

For example, an example he gives:

And one more, from Psycho Mantis:

A) ?This is the first time ? I?ve ever used my power to help someone. It?s strange ? such a ? nostalgic feeling.?
B) ?This is the first time ? I?ve ever used my power to help someone. It?s strange ? it feels ? kind of ? nice.?

A is literal translation and B is his translation

He says that people don't interpret there feeling as nostalgic, which is why he changed it to "kind of nice" but I think some meaning is lost here, the idea that psycho mantis used to be a good guy that helped people but he stopped after getting his power, whereas his version make it sounds like mantis was never a good person and is just discovering what being nice is like.

Between this and David Hayter not doing Snake voice in 5, it seems like Kojima like to make call for the English version of game without necessarily being familiar with the game from a western point of view.

 

[CaitSeith]

Interesting, it seems like he did a good job when it came to term and military jargon (he introduced codex and on site procurement ) but he tried to hard to change the character personality, with his version possibly but not surely being closer to what was intended. It's hard to decide without myself being able to read Japanese.

For example, an example he gives:

And one more, from Psycho Mantis:

A) ?This is the first time ? I?ve ever used my power to help someone. It?s strange ? such a ? nostalgic feeling.?
B) ?This is the first time ? I?ve ever used my power to help someone. It?s strange ? it feels ? kind of ? nice.?

A is literal translation and B is his translation

He says that people don't interpret there feeling as nostalgic, which is why he changed it to "kind of nice" but I think some meaning is lost here, the idea that psycho mantis used to be a good guy that helped people but he stopped after getting his power, whereas his version make it sounds like mantis was never a good person and is just discovering what being nice is like.

Between this and David Hayter not doing Snake voice in 5, it seems like Kojima like to make call for the English version of game without necessarily being familiar with the game from a western point of view.

Pretty much. He says that translating is art; but he shouldn't forget he was also representing someone else's art, and it should had been made clear how much of the original artist's intent he should had respected.

 

[WindKnight]

Pretty much. He says that translating is art; but he shouldn't forget he was also representing someone else's art, and it should had been made clear how much of the original artist's intent he should had respected.

The problem when translating from Japanese is saying what is literally being said word for word, can often leave out context or lead to unnatural and/or stilted phrases that will just sound wrong in english. Or it may reference something that will mean nothing to the audience outside of japan, and need to be replaced with something that will give the target audience will get. And it honestly sounds like all his alterations fall under keeping the meaning and feeling 'right' even if that means tweaking the wording.

And lets be blunt here, there's a history of western fandoms (and some japanese pervarors) of Japanese media looking at a thoughtful translations that took a lot of time and effort, and intuiting what was really said or meant, and throwing a wobbly because it wasn't exactly literally what it said, or did not match what some poorly literate fansubber put into a non professional release. (lets not get into Oh/Ah My Goddess)

 

[bluegate]

Pretty much. He says that translating is art; but he shouldn't forget he was also representing someone else's art, and it should had been made clear how much of the original artist's intent he should had respected.

The problem when translating from Japanese is saying what is literally being said word for word, can often leave out context or lead to unnatural and/or stilted phrases that will just sound wrong in english. Or it may reference something that will mean nothing to the audience outside of japan, and need to be replaced with something that will give the target audience will get. And it honestly sounds like all his alterations fall under keeping the meaning and feeling 'right' even if that means tweaking the wording.

That's a common thing when translating any language to another language, really. Language is more than literal words, it has a whole culture and history behind it that needs to be taken into account when translating.

 

[Dalisclock]

Pretty much. He says that translating is art; but he shouldn't forget he was also representing someone else's art, and it should had been made clear how much of the original artist's intent he should had respected.

The problem when translating from Japanese is saying what is literally being said word for word, can often leave out context or lead to unnatural and/or stilted phrases that will just sound wrong in english. Or it may reference something that will mean nothing to the audience outside of japan, and need to be replaced with something that will give the target audience will get. And it honestly sounds like all his alterations fall under keeping the meaning and feeling 'right' even if that means tweaking the wording.

And lets be blunt here, there's a history of western fandoms (and some japanese pervarors) of Japanese media looking at a thoughtful translations that took a lot of time and effort, and intuiting what was really said or meant, and throwing a wobbly because it wasn't exactly literally what it said, or did not match what some poorly literate fansubber put into a non professional release. (lets not get into Oh/Ah My Goddess)

As much as I empathize with not messing with the original intent/working of a work, like you said, sometimes there's no choice. For example, in MGS2, the "la li lu le lo" thing is the way it is because in Japanese it's literally supposed to be a set of sounds that doesn't really exist in Japanese, notably the lack of a Distinct "L" sound(to my understanding), and there's no real English equivalent, so what you just get is a set of gibberish words.

As an aside, I do have to question Kojimas use of English Grammer(Half the names he comes up with) and the fact the man desperately needs an editor in regards to content(cutscenes that go on and on, yet say nothing of substance), I honestly can't say I'm sad to see someone trying to check his more eccentric impulses a bit.

 

[Casual Shinji]

As an aside, I do have to question Kojimas use of English Grammer(Half the names he comes up with) and the fact the man desperately needs an editor in regards to content(cutscenes that go on and on, yet say nothing of substance), I honestly can't say I'm sad to see someone trying to check his more eccentric impulses a bit.

Looks like that's not happening with Death Stranding. I'm sure I wasn't the only one hearing 'homo demons' in the last trailer and raising an eyebrow. It's obvious what they were going for, but man does it come across really awkward.

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

Interesting read, I think Kojima getting upset at the translation sounded more like a misunderstanding than anything. The article reminded me of something I read or watched (can't remember) about translating JRPGs and how Japanese uses less characters for a sentence and how to translate it to English would be more characters and there wasn't even memory/space and the translator had to take more liberties than usual in translating the games.

 

[Dalisclock]

As an aside, I do have to question Kojimas use of English Grammer(Half the names he comes up with) and the fact the man desperately needs an editor in regards to content(cutscenes that go on and on, yet say nothing of substance), I honestly can't say I'm sad to see someone trying to check his more eccentric impulses a bit.

Looks like that's not happening with Death Stranding. I'm sure I wasn't the only one hearing 'homo demons' in the last trailer and raising an eyebrow. It's obvious what they were going for, but man does it come across really awkward.

Considering there's a female character named Fragile, I can only imagine she's gonna have some bizarre medical condition to justify her name, and it'll no doubt be as cringworthy as Quiet's "She breathes through her skin, which is why she has to dress like a stripper" thing.

Anyway, I fully expect a glorius trainwreck. I have no idea if it'll be a good game, but no doubt it'll provide plenty of interesting youtube fodder for years to come.