Re: translation
Posted: Mon Jan 16, 2012 9:38 am
Meh, I'm throwing in the towel, since I'm not gonna be using the translations anyway. Just don't scare any translators away
The Quest for Space continues...
http://forum.sqvsb.com/
Errr... There are no "American" or "British" characters in the game, but "Xenonian". The "Universal Translator Thingie" is the one responsible for the lines in the player's languagemjomble wrote:His voice would still be Spanish, even in the translation. And Roger's voice would be English.
The voices would match the characters' nationalities, we'd only translate the "subtitles" to different languages.
Original version: voices, nationalities and text all match each other for every character.
Translated versions: (for at least every character other than the Mex Guard) the voices would match the nationalities and the text wouldn't match either the voice or nationality.
To keep things consistent, I'd treat Mex Guard the same as every other character by having the voice match the nationality and the text not match either.
Technically, a "Tacobelian" can be either a Mexican or a Texan, but in VSB, is a Mexican.mjomble wrote:The guard isn't actually Mexican either, he's Tacobelian.
We just have an implied mapping:
Xenonian <-> English
Tacobelian <-> Mexican
Ahh, now I see what you meanNoctambulo wrote:Errr... There are no "American" or "British" characters in the game, but "Xenonian". The "Universal Translator Thingie" is the one responsible for the lines in the player's language
/--/
Xenonian <-> Player's language.
Well, I have a theory of my own: The writers of the original SQ series speak English, and their work is for English speaking people, so, they write all the story in English, they sell it in English, and ir order to do so, they just make the characters to talk in English, even when the story is literally out of this world. The same happens with Star Wars, as we hear them talking in English, in a galaxy far, far away...from the US... So, story short: Money talks in the language of the costumer. How it sounds?mjomble wrote:I think the original series left this up to debate and didn't fully confirm nor deny either of our theories.
Errr... In fact when I was talking about an "Universal Translator Thingie", it was kinda metaphore of the translation to the language of the viewer. There are a LOT of books and movies where the characters speak in diferent languages, but we read/hear the dialogues in our language in order to understand it, but that doesn't mean they actually speak in our language. i.e: Does anyone believe that the warriors of "300" were Americans, or that the Spartans AND Persians spoke English?mjomble wrote:There was a universal translator in SQ2, but it was a separate inventory item that Roger needed to use in order to understand the Pinkunz, rather than something like HHGttG's BabelFish which pretty much everyone used all the time.
By "speak", do you mean the voice acting or the text on the screen?Noctambulo wrote:Said all that, the point is: The guard with a mustache (wherever he is from) does not speak the same language as the rest of the characters, so, to make him speak in Spanish in the Spanish version is like "stealing" a little from the overall story, as the pun is "lost in traslation" (literally).And that's very easy to "fix", IMO.
Text. I'm not assuming a Spanish talkie version, yet. Are you making such version? (I would like that )mjomble wrote:By "speak", do you mean the voice acting or the text on the screen?
If you're thinking of the text - I agree completely That's why I keep saying that in the translated versions, his text would be in "not Spanish". And in every version of the game, his language would be different from the other characters.
In the Spanish text/ English talkie version, you can simply put olzen voice acting with something in Danish, and it's all set. Just the Spanish-German or Spanish-Danish speakers would notice the differencemjomble wrote:If you're thinking of voice acting, I doubt we'll change any of that in the translated versions. Roger's voice will remain English even though his text will be translated. And the Tacobelian guard's voice will remain Spanish, but his text will always be something different from Spanish.
I'm guessing the issue you have is that the word "Tacobelian" has a strong connection with Mexico or Texas and it would be too weird to have a Tacobelian character whose text is shown in, say, German. So the solution is to rewrite him as a more German character.Noctambulo wrote:By the way (I HAVE to ask) Why are you so reluctant to make a simple change, like writing "Bismarkian" ("Bismarckiano") instead of "Tacobelian" (or "Tacobeliano", "Taquero" or "Tacobe?o") in the Spanish version?. I'm really curious.
In fact, you are who gave such strong connection: Taco Bell is a well know chain of tex-mex food, the mustache, the Spanish text and at last, but not least, you even called him the "Mexican apeman" (ok, ok, from Mexico, somewhere-in-outerspace, not Mexico, Earth).mjomble wrote:I'm guessing the issue you have is that the word "Tacobelian" has a strong connection with Mexico or Texas and it would be too weird to have a Tacobelian character whose text is shown in, say, German. So the solution is to rewrite him as a more German character.
That's not the case: Roger Wilco is the hero, not a casual character, and if you change his homeworld from Xenon to, say, YUPI98, Sexyplanet69, Gurttrejhiob or Leyngdsianaplaf, it doesn't really matter, does it? But a Mexican talking in German or Danish, well, it's another thing (here and in outerspace too).mjomble wrote:If that's the case, how about an analogy - a character named Roger Wilco whose text is shown in Russian (for the Russian translation of VSB). The name Roger has a strong connection with English and it would be weird to have his text shown in Russian. The solution is to rewrite him as a more Russian character, Rodzerovsky Vilkovich. ....or is it?
Are you implying that you are going to give ALL the character the same number of lines than Roger?mjomble wrote:I'd say we should treat all characters the same.
Roger is the SQ hero. The guard is just a minor character of this chapter, and his nationality IS the pun.mjomble wrote:If Roger keeps his nationality, so does the guard.
By the way, what's the name of the guard? (I only know that it's NOT López)mjomble wrote:If Roger's name doesn't match the language of his speech text, neither should the guard's.
Maybe you should keep in mind that Roger is from Xenon, not the US (as he speaks "American")mjomble wrote:If Roger's voice matches his nationality, so should the guard's.
If the guard speaks Spanish in all the non-Spanish versions, the joke will work. No changes needed there, but you can do it, for amusing purposes .mjomble wrote:And this still ensures that in each version of the game, the guard's language will be different from every other character, so the joke about him being a foreigner will work.
As I keep saying, this is the part we agree on!Noctambulo wrote:The issue is that this character is NOT speaking the same language than all the others (English), but if you translate to Spanish the lines of all the other characters, then such character will be speaking the SAME language... So, the solution is to rewrite his lines in a language that is not Spanish (in order to keep the joke)