Translations: Dragon Quest I + II in English fully bugfixed, finally, after 20 years, how it must be!

[RodMerida]

And if you say "no" in the she says in the translation:
"Humph! What?! Not another homosexual..."
But this translation is wrong, what she really says is:
"Hmph! Gimme a break! So what if I'm an okama?! You meanie..."

It says:
ふん！ なによ！
オカマのどこが悪いのよ。
いじわる

ふん！= Fun! = "Humph!" in English

なによ！(Nani yo!) => Nani = What; yo! = Exclamation particle.
(It doesn't say "gimme a break!" Where is "gimme a break" here?!)

オカマ (okama) = travestite. A man who dresses like a woman in a way that it seems so much he is a painted man that it's even ridiculous. In a wide way it could be interpreted like gay, in a pejorative way. It'd sort of be equivalent to "queer", in a pejorative sense.

の (no) = 's / of. Possessive particle.
どこ (doko) = where.
が (ga) = subject particle.

悪い (warui) = bad, wrong.
の (no) = possessive.
よ (yo) = exclamation
。 = dot.

That is: "where's wrong to be a travestite?"
"What's wrong to be a travestite?"
She is NOT intending here the puff-puff girl might be a travestite, but probably the Hero is a gay, that's why he doesn't feel like a puff-puff, and she is intending "what's wrong with that, you ask?"

いじわる (ijiwaru) = to have ill nature, to be prank nastiness.
Translation:
It's nasty,
or
It's very nasty.


So the correct translation would be:
ふん！ なによ！
Humph! What?!
オカマのどこが悪いのよ。
What's wrong with being queer?
いじわる
It's nasty.


---
RPGOne wrote
"Humph! What?!
Not another homosexual!"

That transmits the same sense of refusing gays or queers, and intending probably the Hero is one.

So nothing to fix here.

If I was the English translator I'd have problably added that "It's nasty" sentence, but I'm just the bugfixer here.

[Malu866]

Dude, did you just ignored what I wrote?
I just pointed out that the translation is wrong because a PROFESSIONAL TRANSLATOR said it's a wrong.
Did you checked the link for his article? Because he claims that is a mistranslation.
https://legendsoflocalization.com/okama-in-game-translation/
"In the fan translation, we can see that okama was translated as *homosexual*"
"The full line itself, though, was mistranslated."
"As a result, the character now appears to insult you, the player, by calling you a homosexual."

"On a side note, this mistake in the fan translation also led to incorrect information being spread via authoritative resources"
"For similar instances of this blind trust phenomenon in popular fan translations, see my detailed write-ups"


It will be fun watching you argue with the word of a professional translator.

[RedDogs]

Malu, it is of no use to argue with Rod. He will say he is sticking with RPGone's original translation, despite changing a few of their lines cuz he likes his own lines better, and despite other translation issues that people have argued with him the past (King Dragon vs. the dragonlord, you can read up on that in other topics here), blah blah blah etc...  He just doesn't care about the issues with the translation, plain and simple. He did fix numerous bugs and glitches though, he did good on that.

A user by the name of ChickenKnife is working on a translation for DQ1+2, and if you're familiar with the work they've done with the NES DW/DQ "delocalized" projects, it'll be polished like a AAA retail game. It's probably best just to wait for their's instead of using this...

[RodMerida]

Did you checked the link for his article? Because he claims that is a mistranslation.

Yes. I've been checking it and I don't agree the way he translated this (whose translation by him I have quoted).
And no, it's not mistranslated.

the translation is wrong because a PROFESSIONAL TRANSLATOR said it's a wrong.

That's called falacia ad auctoritas.
It doesn't matter how profesional he is when I'm seeing, reading and understanding the Japanese, and I'm seeing his translation is not accurate.

Hims is an opinion. There are others.


July 26, 2021, 05:03:48 PM - (Auto Merged - Double Posts are not allowed before 7 days.)

despite changing a few of their lines cuz he likes his own lines better,

I have changed no line of RPGOne's script.

He will say he is sticking with RPGone's original translation

I've reasoned why in this case.

[sharksnack]

As a translator, I can confirm that the legend of localization article has the right idea - it's definitely not insinuating that the player is gay, and it's not being said as an insult.

The NPC assumes you declined because they're an okama (which the player had no knowledge of prior to declining - it's just DQ humor), and gets offended/defensive, followed by calling the player a meanie.

Isolating words and translating them individually works to a degree, but like in this case, you sometimes miss out on nuance and end up with mistranslated dialogue.

[Bonesy]

As a translator, I can confirm that the legend of localization article has the right idea - it's definitely not insinuating that the player is gay, and it's not being said as an insult.

The NPC assumes you declined because they're an okama (which the player had no knowledge of prior to declining - it's just DQ humor), and gets offended/defensive, followed by calling the player a meanie.

Isolating words and translating them individually works to a degree, but like in this case, you sometimes miss out on nuance and end up with mistranslated dialogue.

while i agree with you and certainly others do, there is no point arguing about it with rod because he is full of excuses and circular reasoning

[tc]

I have changed no line of RPGOne's script.

Then you should. Please drop the loyalty to an obsolete project.

[RodMerida]

drop the loyalty to an obsolete project.

It's not.

he is full of excuses and circular reasoning

There are no excuses nor circular reasoning from my part.
I am at every moment honestly seeking for intellectual truth.
That's my only purpose. Believe me.

[tc]

It's not.

There are no excuses nor circular reasoning from my part.
I am at every moment honestly seeking for intellectual truth.
That's my only purpose. Believe me.

In that case, read the Japanese script. There is no other truth to be found.

[RodMerida]

In that case, read the Japanese script. There is no other truth to be found.

I did, and it says:

ふん！ なによ！
Humph! What?!
オカマのどこが悪いのよ。
What's wrong with being queer/travestite?
いじわる
It's nasty.

It doesn't say anything else.
This is what there is.

[Rosiero]

This is precisely why context is incredibly important when translating from Japanese--not to mention a good grasp of the languages you're translating from and to. Why would the character ask "What's wrong with being an okama?" if they immediately give you the answer? The thing that's being called "いじわる" is the player's response, not being an okama.

[sharksnack]

Your understanding of Japanese is far more limited than you think if you truly believe your interpretation of that NPC's dialogue is correct. For context, I was born and raised in Japan and have worked on game scripts / magazine articles and such for years.

So if you're not just trolling, you should take a moment to reflect and think about the possibility that your Japanese needs work instead of assuming everyone else is wrong because it doesn't match the result of your attempt at translating it.

But of course, at the end of the day, it's your patch so you can do whatever you want. If you don't want accuracy and just want to inject your personal beliefs or whatever other reason may be causing you to stick to your interpretation, you do you.

Take it or leave it, I clarified meaning, and I have no intention of getting into pointless arguments.

[Recca]

I'm not fluent in Japanese, but I know how to read Katakana and Hiragana, as well as a few Kanji characters. Here's what my translation of these lines would be:

ふん！ なによ！
オカマのどこが悪いのよ。
いじわる。

Fun! Nani yo! Okama no doko ga warui no yo. Ijiwaru.

Huh?! What's wrong?! So what if I'm an okama? How rude!

Note: The word "okama" in this context can either mean a homosexual, transvestite or drag queen.
No offense of any kind is intended, I'm merely trying to translate this NPC dialogue as best as I can.

[RodMerida]

You are telling me なによ！(Nani yo!) really means "Give me a break!"??

[sharksnack]

I'll try to explain it to the best of my ability.

Translation isn't like math where there's one clear answer, and while "Give me a break!" doesn't literally translate to "なによ！" every time, it captures the meaning of what's being said in this dialogue.

Side note: Example from a different game to illustrate that literal isn't always correct:

こんなところで油を売ってないで
はやく風の宿にわたしを連れていっておくれ。

"油を売る" would have a literal translation of "Sell oil" (and that's indeed what DeepL outputs), but in this context, the meaning is actually along the lines of "Waste time" / "Slack off" / "To dawdle".

So anyway, the JP dialogue broken down into concepts instead of exact words:

Hmph! (offended response)
(defensive response)
(calling the player/their actions mean)

Some example translations that retain the above with varying levels of liberties taken:

Hmph! Give me a break!
So what if I'm an okama!
You meanie.

Hmph! Figures!
Yeah I'm an okama, so what! Why is that wrong!?
You're mean.

Humph! Of course you'd say no!
No one ever wants it from an okama! What's so bad about an okama, anyway!?
How mean.

Hmph! Now I wonder why that is!
It's because I'm an okama, right? What's wrong with being an okama!
You're so mean.

Hmph! What's with your expression!?
So I'm an okama, big deal! We're not gross!
You're just like the rest. All of you are so mean.

...and so on.

The translation you go with depends on things like how much width you have to work with inside the dialogue window, what type of voice you want to give the character, your tolerance for deviating from dictionary matches for the sake of flow/flavor (you can see how arguments about translation vs. localization come up so often), etc.

Lastly, I'd like to say my bad that my previous reply was a bit thorny. Your approach with Japanese (seeing how you broke the dialogue down in one of your earlier replies) is a good start, and you have a lot of potential I think - keep it up, and be open to feedback/corrections. I don't mean to sound condescending with that either. I still occasionally make mistakes despite my experience, and run things by others if I want to double check things.

[Mario86]

Got through DQ1 with no issues.

In DQ2 The man in the south monolith has what appears to be garbage text after the word "friend" there is a ",,fe".

Otherwise smooth sailing so far.

[dudejo]

Whether or not the translation is correct, it seems like the hard part was done so it should now be much easier for people to modify the base into a translation of their own.

[RodMerida]

Whether or not the translation is correct, it seems like the hard part was done so it should now be much easier for people to modify the base into a translation of their own.

That's the point.
I'm not going to retranslate anything to English.
It's not my native language, and that's not my task.
I just translate to my own native language: Spanish. Not to a language where I may sound like a robot at times. And less, when there's already an English translation that is good.

But for translating to my own language I need to fix the bugs, since I'm not going to release a non-professional, faulty, gamebreaking work.
After this, I have had the courtesy to port those bugfixes to the English counterpart of this game, in order to do a favour to the English-speaking community, and that's what's been done. Of did you, people, prefere not to have this at all?

[lilpuddy31]

That's the point.
I'm not going to retranslate anything to English.
It's not my native language, and that's not my task.
I just translate to my own native language: Spanish. Not to a language where I may sound like a robot at times. And less, when there's already an English translation that is good.

But for translating to my own language I need to fix the bugs, since I'm not going to release a non-professional, faulty, gamebreaking work.
After this, I have had the courtesy to port those bugfixes to the English counterpart of this game, in order to do a favour to the English-speaking community, and that's what's been done. Of did you prefere not to have this at all?

Uhm, Rod... I think you are misunderstanding what Dude was saying... Relax

[RodMerida]

Uhm, Rod... I think you are misunderstanding what Dude was saying... Relax

I'm not refering to Dudejo, but to the previous answerer and others that complain because I don't want to retranslate certain sentences.
That's not my task. The translation is what it is, I only fixed bugs.