haha

[guitar_dudester91]

Ok ok ok sorry. But I just had to comment on that video.

[Qhimm]

Also I don't think anyone was questioning that if the Japanese version used an existing concept and the original translators were too daft to realize the reference (instead outputting a nonsense name that doesn't convey anything), then it is naturally an improvement to fix it.

However, even here there is normally a balance to strike; Japanese people often choose foreign names only for the "cool" feeling they evoke, and directly translating that into something that sounds dull or just weird in English means the feeling is lost. This is often just as important as the literal meaning of the original word, and it is the translators job to try to strike a balance when there is no translation that is both literally, connotationally and emotionally accurate (i.e. most of the time).

In my opinion, a perfect example is the translation of Chrono Trigger's Schala and Janus -- the original Japanese had them as "Sarah" and "Jack". The names sounded cool to them and enhanced the foreign and out-of-place feel of the ancient Zeal kingdom, but had those names been used as-is in the English version, they would have accomplished the complete opposite and detracted from the experience. To us, Sarah and Jack are completely normal names and would have made Zeal feel less of an advanced magical kingdom and more of a kid's show on TV (aired after Barney the Dinosaur). Instead, the translator invented new names (though based the originals) that evoked roughly similar feelings in English audience as the original names did to Japanese people, and credit should go to him for that.

The other point to consider is that when Japanese people put in references to Japanese culture in their writing, it is meant to be easily recognizable (like references to English culture are to us). Retaining it as-is may be more accurate and can sometimes make the text more interesting (primarily to people interested in Japan though), but the translator should always be aware that by doing so, the nature and focus of the sentences shifts as well. For example, turning a trivial cultural reference (the Japanese reference as seen by Japanese people) to an intricate one (the Japanese reference as seen by non-Japanese people) can make the speaker sound more intellectual or alter the intended feel of the sentence altogether.

This retranslation project clearly aims for a very literal translation, and this should be kept in mind when viewing it. Since no changes are being made to accommodate the target audience, it thus remains Japanese. Playing it will not give you the original Japanese experience unless you are well-versed enough to play it in an fully Japanese mindset -- and if you can do that, you might just want to play the Japanese original in order to avoid any confusion.

[Colonel Ramsay]

Well to be honest Qhimm, I think you are being a bit unfair and over the top when it comes to which names we have chosen and what we have actually done.,  I don’t quite know what you mean when you say too literal, as the changes we have made are better than the original, more accurate and very often more intelligent because they conform to the whole meaning behind them and not some mistake and that is what tons of these are, let’s not be in ANY doubt about that.  A lot of these mistakes have been corrected in FF’s after VII including Midgardsormr.  

Also I don't think anyone was questioning that if the Japanese version used an existing concept and the original translators were too daft to realize the reference (instead outputting a nonsense name that doesn't convey anything), then it is naturally an improvement to fix it.

Having seen some of the changes (I am still not sure if you have read the full document at my forum http://break-off.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=41&t=1003 I can tell you that a lot of these are simply mistakes and have nothing whatsoever to do with “making it sound better”.  I don’t understand how you can believe that this near useless translation team did it on purpose when all evidence suggests that the vast majority were done because they simply didn’t have a clue.  The fact a lot of these have been corrected in future instalments says a lot about it.

However, even here there is normally a balance to strike; Japanese people often choose foreign names only for the "cool" feeling they evoke, and directly translating that into something that sounds dull or just weird in English means the feeling is lost.

I would say that most names have a good logical background, usually in mythology.   Half of these names won’t sound cool to a Japanese person because they too would have to research what they mean.  They would have no more idea what a Midgardsormr is than we do before we look into Norse.  That is 1 example.  There are hundreds.  By your logic, if Cloud sound poor to a French person he can opt to call him “claude”  I am afraid it all breaks down and becomes a disaster if we start dictating what is or isn’t acceptable.  Cloud and strife are chosen specifically to refer to cloud’s mental state being clouded, and strife as ‘in trouble’.  Changing his name takes away from this and does not add to it.  Unfortunately every other country needs to know English to get that background but so do the Japanese.  For the most part FF7’s monsters and names were made from English words.  That is how they chose to do it.

This is often just as important as the literal meaning of the original word, and it is the translators job to try to strike a balance when there is no translation that is both literally, connotationally and emotionally accurate (i.e. most of the time).

Again, the literal word is often completely acceptable.  Not always, which is why we might have to leave Death Blow, even though it means “certain kill” or “Special Technique”, but most of them needed no such adjustment.

In my opinion, a perfect example is the translation of Chrono Trigger's Schala and Janus -- the original Japanese had them as "Sarah" and "Jack". The names sounded cool to them and enhanced the foreign and out-of-place feel of the ancient Zeal kingdom, but had those names been used as-is in the English version, they would have accomplished the complete opposite and detracted from the experience.

That is just tough luck.  A name is a name.  No one has the right to overrule the author because they think it sounds better (unless they have been given authority by them to change ones that sound “bad”).  Where there is lee way there is lee way, but strictly, names are not for changing.  I can understand that some people names like Tina sound crap to most westerners and very exotic to Japanese but that is their fault, not the translators and in the case of VII there were no such problems.  So this particular example doesn’t apply here.  A name is a combination of letters, there is no good or bad, it is all subjective.  Most people might think Tina sounds bad and Terra sounds great, well tough luck because that is what the author chose and he may have had his own reasons for chosing it which were not dependant on it sounding cool.  (see cloud strife and Barrett fire arms to name 2).  I take your point about that affecting the “feel” of the game but it is usually a minor occurrence and again, I say, it is just tough Titty.  

Instead, the translator invented new names (though based the originals) that evoked roughly similar feelings in English audience as the original names did to Japanese people, and credit should go to him for that.

A translator translates; he does not dictate what is or is not acceptable.  He has no authority to change things like that and this is the reason we have a stereotypical black man in VII when we should have a decent character who doesn’t conform to that stupid and off-putting caricature.  You see it works both ways.  The translators thought Mr T would be a good idea for VII and instead all it does it make him look like a dumb useless idiot there purely for comic relief.  No translator has the right to change a character’s personality.  So although you feel changing names is a good thing you have to realise that Translators do not always make good sound choices and sometimes butcher a character as they did with VII.

The other point to consider is that when Japanese people put in references to Japanese culture in their writing, it is meant to be easily recognizable (like references to English culture are to us).

That simply isn’t true.  A lot of the references are mythological and have no more meaning to Japanese gamers than they do to us.

This retranslation project clearly aims for a very literal translation, and this should be kept in mind when viewing it

No, it doesn’t.  It aims to be faithful to the original creator’s designs and choices.  Weapons, armours and accessories and all that goes with it are literal by their very design. There is often NO lee way.  NO amount of change required, and most of the changes in VII are mistakes.  

If you mean the dialogue, then you are also wrong.  We will make this stick to the facts and change it so that the characters retain the personality they were intended to have.  The dialogue has lee way, the non dialogue does not.  Dialogue in VII was also poor on the whole with many mistakes including ones that ruined the plot (originally Zeng dies in PSX English for example). There are many more of those examples, albeit not as down right disastrous.

Since no changes are being made to accommodate the target audience, it thus remains Japanese.

No, it doesn’t.  The Japanese use English, German, French, Chinese words in most of the non dialogue, with mythology strongly attached, some from Japanese.  These should be retained.  If we want dumbed down FF, then best start changing Odin to “Horse man”, Ramu to “Lightning guy”  and every single other reference to something everyone will understand.  

Personally Qhimm, If you are talking here about non dialogue changes, I think you are way off the mark.  If you are talking about dialogue changes, we haven’t made any yet and when we do you will see that lots of it has been rounded so that it fits in with good English and does not sound literal.  That does not mean that mistakes are acceptable.  

Let us be clear here, FFVII has a poor translation on the whole.  Any professional work that spells “because” wrong and has sentences like “this guy are sick”  is not professional.

Playing it will not give you the original Japanese experience unless you are well-versed enough to play it in an fully Japanese mindset -- and if you can do that, you might just want to play the Japanese original in order to avoid any confusion.

Again if you are talking about the dialogue changes, then wait and see before casting stones.

Also, I brought up your “Cut” problem and it was dismissed by someone who lives in Japan and knows the language well,  he is 1 of my translators and said “They know the difference between Cut and Attack.  As far as I am aware this is simply cut, and does not mean anything else.”

I will ask others but given that 6 of them went through the document and did not point out that as a change I doubt they will be changing opinion (If they do, I will of course change it).  Those names were designed for cloud.  Same as “Cut all” (slash all)  was.  Some look just as wrong to a Japanese person, and since it was in the original version, I haven’t changed anything.

I think some people believe I am changing things because I want to do.  This isn’t the case.  I would love to keep Aeris (I think Aerith sounds crap!)  But it comes from English word Earth and that is what the writers wanted.  So they are god.  End of.  I would love to change to “Attack all” and other stuff but I am afraid as far as non dialogue goes, my hands are tied.  I am called arrogant, yet it isn’t me arguing with the creators of this game.  It isn’t me arguing with multiple Japanese speakers and people who live there and who agree with me 10-1.  I think that is a worse kind of arrogance than I have.  My arrogance is unashamedly saying that I know better to trust what I am told by people who know the god damn language and that I am sticking to my guns.  I can’t make any apologies for that and I never ever will.  People can hate me all they like.

I am not here to bend over backwards and change things because they sound better, that starts us down a very slippery slope and I am not going down it.  That is why canon was thrown out immediately.  Canon is a disease (Hojo’s brain in a computer?  Get real.  Genesis popping up from nowhere just to carry on this cash cow? ).  I am here to make a translation that is how it was intended by the people who created this brilliant game.  They are god.  We are not.

At the end of the day, you are welcome to criticise (and let it be known right now that I am listening, but this stuff has been brought up 100 times) but I have no authority to go against logic, majority of Japanese people and speakers and the original creators.  No one does.   If people think they can do a better job with their own research then they can get off their arses and do it (Gemini is doing and I look forward to seeing what he makes of it when we have both finished, I respect he will interpret some things different but that is because dialogue partly requires a person’s own words and “feel”).  I am sick of slaving away for months and months finding interesting stuff that others apply the most warped kind of logic to in order to attack it.   It isn’t my fault that someone thought Ziggy Stardust would be a good reference for a monster in the Great Crater (I actually love that reference) and that some people think Gighee is better even though it means f*** all.

Yes I am arrogant, but that is needed here in order to get this done, it is how I have always operated and it is efficient to taking notice of 100 voices telling me conflicting things about what they want and do not want.  There is 1 vision here, the original vision.  If people don’t like it, they can go tell Nojima, Nomura, Sakaguchi, Kitase or create their own fan translation, but it isn’t ever going to be “better” than mine, because mine was made to the original vision and was done by listening to Japanese people and speakers and 1000 hours of research.  I would point out that at the moment, I know more about this games non dialogue than any other person on the globe apart from the original creators.  No I am not joking.

That really is all I have to say on it and I hope this has cleared it up.  I won’t be back to explaining my motivations again as I think this makes it very clear.  Again I would remind you that Dialogue is a different kettle of fish altogether to non-dialogue and I will probably be needing help in order to get it to gel properly and to sound great.  It is a completely different animal.  It will NOT be me overruling translators major objections and running rough shod through the game with “what I want”.

[/Quote]you might just want to play the Japanese original in order to avoid any confusion. [/Quote]

Isn’t that the point…this is being translated because most westerner’s cannot do that?

This isn’t a rant or an emotional outburst or a personal attack.  It is simply a frustrated and complete response to the many attacks this project gets- I feel, without any real logic whatsoever being applied, and a tunnel vision view that leads to things like Barrett “Mr T”  Wallace and Spring Gun Clip.   Saying that, there are many people who are actually in agreement with my sentiments and like all things, everyone has a personal taste.  They know they don’t have to install the mod, so I don’t understand why some find it necessary to go crackers over this (again not Qhimm).  I won’t even get into Removal of Cait Sith project, I want to live to at least 50.



Dan. / Colonel Almasy

[sl1982]

A translator translates; he does not dictate what is or is not acceptable.  He has no authority to change things like that and this is the reason we have a stereotypical black man in VII when we should have a decent character who doesn’t conform to that stupid and off-putting caricature.  You see it works both ways.  The translators thought Mr T would be a good idea for VII and instead all it does it make him look like a dumb useless idiot there purely for comic relief.  No translator has the right to change a character’s personality.  So although you feel changing names is a good thing you have to realise that Translators do not always make good sound choices and sometimes butcher a character as they did with VII.

This is funny. For you to assume that the translators from square did not have the authority to change the things they did is ludacris. They arent pure translators. They also localize the dialog/names to make it fit in more with the target culture. So in this respect qhimm is 100% accurate in the respect that your translation is the same as playing the japanese game.

Well to be honest Qhimm, I think you are being a bit unfair and over the top when it comes to which names we have chosen and what we have actually done.,  I don’t quite know what you mean when you say too literal, as the changes we have made are better than the original, more accurate and very often more intelligent because they conform to the whole meaning behind them and not some mistake and that is what tons of these are, let’s not be in ANY doubt about that.  A lot of these mistakes have been corrected in FF’s after VII including Midgardsormr. 

Do you not think this is a bit (very) arrogant? Even if some of these words are more accurate if a person has to sit down and play the game with a dictionary beside him you just defeated the whole purpose of what Square was going for. Mass market appeal. Now what if someone remade the game with all sprites and got rid off all the 3d entirely because that is what all the other final fantasy's were like before that? I am sure you would have some choice words for said person. You seem to forget that square has made many changes in the game that were entirely by design, so that does not make your translation the true FF7. It just makes it one closer to the japanese version.

[Colonel Ramsay]

The translators may well have been square employees, they were not Nojima, Nomura, Kitase or Sakaguchi and it is not debatable that they made tons of mistakes, it is a fact.

[sl1982]

I am not arguing mistakes (such as this guy are sick). But you are basically saying that anything in the game that doesnt match the japanese in a literal translation was a mistake. Which I am sure not all of them can be, some were most likely intentional. And how do you know that Nojima, Nomura, Kitase or Sakaguchi did not have input into the translation? Have you spoken with them? How do you know they did not have to approve the changes? Look, I am not trying to bash your work here. It is a very interesting thing you are doing. But to call your translation correct while calling the original wrong is just ... wrong.

[Colonel Ramsay]

Well I will be banned soon, and I am not going into this more.  I have pretty much said all I want to.  But to reply, I don't know if they did.  But certainly they do not seem to know english well so they wouldnt prob have hd any direct contact.  In any case, the sheer number of bad translations indicate the vast majority were not intentional.

A few were and we also had to make a few.  See the document at my forum and it will all become clear.

[Kudistos Megistos]

I actually have some sympathy with a few of the things Seifer is saying (I know that's a cardinal sin around here )

The fact that there are so many glaring errors in the translation does suggest that the translators didn't know what they were doing. I'm pretty sure that Square didn't knowingly green light "this guy are sick", "beacause" and "x was cought off guard", so how can we be sure they gave the green light to all of the other liberties the translators took? Of course, that isn't to say that no liberties should be taken; we don't want it sounding like a bad anime fansub.

One also needs to bear in mind that the target audience for a retranslation patch will be different from the target audience Square had for the original game. The latter was aimed at a mass audience, as sl1982 said, so there are times when sacrifices had to be made for the purpose of localisation; to an extent, there might be a dumbing down as well (Square sometimes sees Westerners as less intelligent, so even if a dumbing down wasn't necessary, it might have been encouraged). It was probably made with the belief that the average video game fan doesn't want something that feels too Japanese and doesn't want something that's too intellectually demanding.

A retranslation, both because of it's nature as a retranslation and because it will appeal to people with at least a three-figure IQ, will attract an audience who will be more curious about Japanese culture on average. At the very least, its audience will want something closer to the "authenticity" end of the authenticity-localisation spectrum. Of course, that doesn't mean that there can be any excuse for being over-literal, which is something that I've noticed in this project at times (although the problem isn't as bad now as it was when "cure" was going to be changed to "care"). Furethemore, Qhimm point about names being changed in Chrono Trigger is a good one; sometimes it's good to have something that sounds a little exotic, or to have something that looks like a bastardisation of an English word (bastardisations can be very good for things like weapon and monster names). I suppose what I'm saying is that a balance must be struck, but the balance for the retranslation's audience will be slightly different from the balance for the original translation.

This post, before anyone suggests otherwise, isn't about taking sides; far from it. It's just my partially objective view of the situation.

[Colonel Ramsay]

Thankyou, a good decent constructive post.  I understand that some things will sound maybe a little literal...although this is only non dialogue and very few in number.   Care is an interesting subject, as I am beaten over about once being prepared to use it.  I must emphasise that I hated the idea but I did not have any choice as that was what the Japanese actually is (well, within reason, they did place ru on the end of a lot of words in FF1 which were then kept).  But after further research we discovered that FF1 team might not have been in the know and may have used Cure afterall....and there are plces it is used with that katakana.  Knowing there was a reasonable chance of it being Cure, I changed back and marked it as "possibly wrong"

Now, the bigots would have had me use Cure because it sounds better, but I had an open mind and changed it back when there was reasoable evidence I was wrong.

That is how to make a good project.  To go over things and research and have an open mind.  To some of the items there  is no room for open mind as they are facts.  Others...we arent sure about but I think that document notes everything I feel is correct, maybe correct, deliberately changed or in fact completely wrong.

[Colonel Ramsay]

Also I will add that it became clear that there were going to have to be concessions.  Omnislash is the largest and I am still stressed out that we weren't able to make it work.  The opposition to its change and the vote and the fact omnislash isnt TOO far away from beinga  good meaning, meant I left it.

I have not been totally gung ho on literalism (is that a word?).

I under stand that Super War God Slash would simply not work.  Funnily enough there is 1 game where they have called the move omnislash in the japanese counterpart.  So maybe even the Japanese translators realise that the name just purely sucks

[Kudistos Megistos]

Now now, let's not call anyone bigots

And yes, Omnislash is a tough one, since Super War God Slash just sounds stupid in English (mind you, Omnislash doesn't sound much better). The only solution would have been to find the name of an arbitrary war god from some mythology and use it, but I'm not sure whether "Ares Slash", "Mars Slash" or "Tyr Slash" would have sounded any better.

It also has to be borne in mind that in certain cases (i.e. when one is thinking about the name of a well-known enemy or weapon that isn't widely known to be a mistranslation), it's best to go with the original for legacy and nostalgia reasons. Midgar Zolom, Safer Sephiroth and Helletic Hojo are well known to be mistranslations, and the right translations sound better, so there's a good reason to change those, but things like "Buster Sword" and "Omnislash" might be better left alone (and both of them are mistranslations, unless we suppose the translators just didn't want the word "bastard" popping up in the menu screen all the time).

[Colonel Ramsay]

Ok it isn't.  I did check into this and found slightly diff katakana....anyway they share same.  I will check this again.

バスター   Buster

バスター  Bastard

edit:  Strange this dictionary has changed since lst time, there was a slight variation.  Now it shows both as that.  I am guessing both come out as same katakana, and it isn't possible to know which was meant, although obv bastard is favoured (well kinda since buster sword looks nothin liek a longsword).  I will have to look into this yet again.

edit 2:  http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%83%90%E3%82%B9%E3%82%BF%E3%83%BC%E3%83%89%E3%82%BD%E3%83%BC%E3%83%89  yeah it does seem to be more バスタード for bastard as in sword, though it is said that it was changed due to a limit in characters, but 8 characters seems ok...strange.  Maybe they did mean bastard and maybe they didnt.  I will look into this for sure.

We did put Hachiman slash and those others to the vote....and it did geta  few, but omnislash was just too great and I had to abide by vote which was across 2 forums.  Would have been here too but what can I do

[titeguy3]

The katakana for Buster Sword, "バスターソード" was frequently used as the transliteration for bastard-sword in early Japanese games due to the limit on characters.

Did any of the Japanese versions of FF7 ever have a 7 character limit? (8 including the null-terminator I suppose). It doesn't really follow 100% that the creators weren't going for "Buster Sword" but rather "Bastard Sword" if not, but I suppose if it were recognizable enough to Japanese Gamers as such, it's a possibility.

The Japanese do tend to abbreviate things in the middle like "pasokon" (Personal Computer) or "terebii" (Television) even if it isn't necessary.

[Colonel Ramsay]

http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%82%B6%E3%83%83%E3%82%AF%E3%82%B9%E3%83%BB%E3%83%95%E3%82%A7%E3%82%A2#.E3.83.90.E3.82.B9.E3.82.BF.E3.83.BC.E3.82.BD.E3.83.BC.E3.83.89

Well I will have some japanese speaker run through that as it does make a distinction.  You may be correct titeguy about the terminator use.  Any case I think buster wouldnt be too much of a concession as atm there doesnt seem to be any way to verify if they did mean buster.  Bastard seems more logical though...

[sl1982]

Well given the fact that bastard swords to exist and are named as such in many other games makes me wonder if they were trying for a more 'pg' type name. If the original japanese was bastard sword then maybe it should be changed. Given the fact that the item name is not uncommon or unheard of in the english language. But tough call on that one as buster sword has become a staple of ff7 'religion' so to speak.

[Colonel Ramsay]

http://www.ne.jp/asahi/personal/heaven/games/bof4/weapon.html

The only issue is that games like BOF use the preferred spelling and not the one FF7 used.

[Tekkie.X]

If you look at the western interpretation of a Bastard sword, it's just a fairly regular looking sword but if you look at Eastern interpretations it looks bigger with a very large blade. In FFVII's case Bastard would have been correct.

Western:



Eastern:

[Kudistos Megistos]

But tough call on that one as buster sword has become a staple of ff7 'religion' so to speak.

My point exactly.

Buster Sword also gives it more individuality. Bastard Sword is kind of a general sword type; you may as well call it "Broadsword". Buster Sword isn't, so it sounds more like the name of a specific sword rather than the class of swords to which it belongs; it sounds more like a proper noun than a common noun.

[Colonel Ramsay]

That complicates matters....but still BOF seems to use the accepted, and FF7 had no limit and this sword hasn't appeared in earlier FF's?  has it?

If not then I think we can just about go with Buster....

[obesebear]

But tough call on that one as buster sword has become a staple of ff7 'religion' so to speak.

My point exactly.

Buster Sword also gives it more individuality. Bastard Sword is kind of a general sword type; you may as well call it "Broadsword". Buster Sword isn't, so it sounds more like the name of a specific sword rather than the class of swords to which it belongs; it sounds more like a proper noun than a common noun.

It's no longer a type of sword, but is now the name of Cloud's sword.    I don't know if ya'll have Hardee's or Carl's Jr in England, but here they call the hamburgers "Thick Burgers".  It's not that the burger is thick, it's just the name of that particular burger.

Also, in your translation haven't you changed other things that are now considered to be canon?  If so you may as well go with Bastard.

[Colonel Ramsay]

http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/Ravager_%28Final_Fantasy_Tactics_A2%29

also uses バスタード

There isn't enough evidence to suggest bastard is correct....it could be either as it stands and even FF games seem to have used バスタード and not バスター  I will do some more digging.  As it stands I will keep Buster but add a note

[Colonel Ramsay]

http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/List_of_Final_Fantasy_XII_Weapons

12 uses:

http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/Bastard_Sword

and is not the FF7 katakana.  Assuming this is correct, Buster it is.  If that sword on FF6 uses the preferred spelling, then we can go with Buster with at least a pretty good liklihood that it is right.  So far it seems to be the case

[Timu Sumisu]

although ff12 has a bastard sword, that firstly resembles a bastard sword a lot more than the buster sword and also from ff12,


gilgamesh has the buster sword (albeit a fake)





and as mentioned above it has become more the name of the sword rather than the type. it is unique.

[luksy]

Hi everyone, I've been working with Dan on the translation (although not nearly as hard or as often as I would have liked) just thought I'd chip in my two sen.

Maybe a little bg info on me might help first, I live and work in Japan and a small part of my work is translations (although hardly ever fiction), I have a degree in Japanese and a level 2 JLPT (hopefully I'll have the 1 later this year, I flunked it last December ). I'm not trying to turn this into some kind of e-penis post though, I've met many a person with no qualifications who can do a far better job than me, I just want you to know that I'm not talking crap all of the time!

First off it isn't our intention to do a literal translation, I hope this will be clearer when we start doing the actual dialogue, in fact some of the dialogue in the menus and world map that we have redone isn't literal at all.

So far a few of the monster names, weapons, items etc have been kept close to the Japanese for a few reasons, e.g. some are wholly Japanese concepts like Hachimaki or Uchide mallet for which there is no exact English equivalent (i.e. we don't use "spy" in the place of "ninja"), and quite a few we just have no clue, which leads me to another point.

There is a huge amount of evidence that the original translator(s) were rushed, had poor communication channels, were incompetent or more likely a combination of these. Some of the English suffers from poor grammar - "This guy are sick" - (usually indicates a rushed job), being out of context -"Cloud, that one!"- (i.e. was translated as a block of text by people who hadn't even seen the game), and at times is just plain wrong -"Zauger's cup"- (I don't know what to say) and a lot of the monster names (no communication with the original creators). Bizzarro Sephiroth is a personal favorite  

This isn't to say that the original translation should be binned, most of the characters were very well characterized and I think we'll be keeping a lot of the original flavor and text.

As sadly we can't just phone Nomura & co. (well I suppose we could try, probably wouldn't go down very well!), for some of the (non-dialogue) material we have no choice but to do a 1:1 with the Japanese because that's all we're left with. Very often the original translation's solution was to just come up with something that sounded similar, which I don't think is necessarily a better way of doing things at best, but more importantly it eliminates any concept of what should be considered the English "canon".

There are so many holes in the original translation that it is very hard to take any of it at face value; why should any of it be automatically considered "official"?

We also have far, far more information available at our fingertips than the original translators would have had, which has allowed us to catch many more references to people, places and mythology than the original translation, not to mention far more input and criticism, both very important as we can and have definitely been wrong about many things (and I hope it keeps coming).

At the end of the day this is just another community mod; hopefully the finished product will be as close as possible to the original without sounding like a 5th rate fansub. Again without a direct line to square we can't be sure on some things, but with so many clues in the original translation suggesting the same, I don't see how it can be worse.

The best thing is of course this in no way alters anything, love it or hate it you're free to install or ignore it as you please.

I'll answer any questions to the best of my abilities.

(sorry for the constant edits, crappy grammar here and there)

[sl1982]

Welcome and thanks for giving a little bit more insight into what you are doing. Like i told seifer before I will hold judgement until i actually see the translation in effect. And we do appreciate the way you explained it. It is far more helpful then things like this:

Yes I am arrogant, but that is needed here in order to get this done, it is how I have always operated and it is efficient to taking notice of 100 voices telling me conflicting things about what they want and do not want.  There is 1 vision here, the original vision.  If people don’t like it, they can go tell Nojima, Nomura, Sakaguchi, Kitase or create their own fan translation, but it isn’t ever going to be “better” than mine, because mine was made to the original vision and was done by listening to Japanese people and speakers and 1000 hours of research.  I would point out that at the moment, I know more about this games non dialogue than any other person on the globe apart from the original creators.  No I am not joking.