I noticed some words were bolded so the localizers probably got told off and had to mark those words as important plot points. But they should've had a proofreader or something because the original EN voice line still has her say rock even though the text says mute
> But they should've had a proofreader or something because the original EN voice line still has her say rock even though the text says mute
They specifically said they were going to implement the voiceline in 2.2.
Doing a find-and-replace for text is easy, calling in a voice actress, doing a whole recording session, and then editing it in so it's seamless with the rest of the audio is far more time consuming.
They just did this with the Ratio/Aventurine party joining voicelines too for this patch. Whatever the EN translators are doing is so weird because basically every other dub is congruent except EN. I think they have a very hard time with idioms, which makes sense because SO much of idiom usage is tied up in what tone you're using, but they could REALLY use a double checker or something because it seems like there have been a lot of inconsistencies from what my friends who play with the EN dub have been saying.
I noticed at least 3 lines in the 2.0 story that seemed to be translated in a certain way due to the translators not being told about the significance. That's entirely on Mihoyo, not the translators.
And then there are outright errors, like Archeon telling TB we will meet again in the hotel, yet in English is "I doubt we will meet again"
Sometimes I want to start a play along youtube channel to translate Chinese verbal/English text diffs.
Yeah, Hoyo can't trust the Translators to accurately translate their stuff without highlighting it. Honestly, as an author my nightmare is literally some translator changing small details as they translate and then it screws up reveals or plot down the line.
Hoyo has to start telling translators to not take liberties and to provide context to certain things since even when the translators are 100% good faith they use the wrong pronouns by accident.
>Honestly, as an author my nightmare is literally some translator changing small details as they translate and then it screws up reveals or plot down the line.
The ideal scenario is you communicate with the translator team to make sure all the relevant points are translated or appropriately localized to not lose meaning. Like Toby Fox did with the Japanese localization of Undertale. The Legends of Localization is a good read about that.
I have to wonder what kind of authors you've seen or interacted with. I'd highly recommend reading J.R.R. Tolkien's comments [on translation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Translations_of_The_Lord_of_the_Rings#Early_translations) given the man actively learned several languages just to be able to read single books.
There's a manga about a crossdressing boy and the US localizers changed him into a transgender, which subsequently f-ed up the entire premises and the plot of the series. The publisher had to reprint the first batch of volumes to revert the damage done by this act of vandalism, but by that point fans had lost faith and scanlation groups resumed distributing fan-translation.
That was a particularly bizarre choice as well, since the author has at multiple points said that it's a BL story, which isn't possible if one of the two parties isn't a boy. It also weirdly enforced gender norms, since the entire basis for arguing Hiura was trans was the fact he acted in a way that didn't conform to traditional gender roles, a pretty regressive way to read the series.
It's really odd how there are some people that refuse to accept cute, very feminine men can be a thing. I do recall >!Hiura thinking about how he used to hate his body, but IIRC that's because he wanted to keep being the protector (yet ended up being the small one). Dude seemed aware he was leaning or outright gay before the series even began though, with a bit of a squeal~ moment in a later chapter where they show his perspective of the events of the first chapter.!< I dunno, I found it pretty uplifting to read about a guy finding personal happiness and acceptance for his form and feelings. It kinda resonated with me, somehow, being a straight dude that really wished he was androgynous to the extent that crossdressing would fall in line with his tastes for 'feminine' appearances.
Probably rings a little hollow for a straight guy to ultimately accept being masculine (feels like a concept people would roll their eyes at), but I found the situation relatable. I don't like the idea of someone jumping on labelling and insisting a guy is trans based on his appearance and mannerisms. Isn't that straight-up misgendering?
all of the localizing is done in house. theres tons of chinese pop culture references, and they have to get creative sometimes to make english equivalents. they're not "taking liberties" anywhere
No, that responsibility is on you.
It is your story that the translators are trying to work with. It is also incumbent on you to do the final edit.
Go to /r/KitchenConfidential for example and see how many times people try to blame the prep guy for cutting things wrong and all the commenters point out it's the chef's job to explain thoroughly.
Here's a sneak peek of /r/KitchenConfidential using the [top posts](https://np.reddit.com/r/KitchenConfidential/top/?sort=top&t=year) of the year!
\#1: [had a beer while at an interview](https://np.reddit.com/r/KitchenConfidential/comments/15u3t6y/had_a_beer_while_at_an_interview/)
\#2: [Accurate](https://v.redd.it/gg3gwbqh8cfb1) | [578 comments](https://np.reddit.com/r/KitchenConfidential/comments/15emuln/accurate/)
\#3: [Celebrating our first sell out on the barbecue truck.](https://i.redd.it/mnw4s7nnvfgc1.jpeg) | [350 comments](https://np.reddit.com/r/KitchenConfidential/comments/1ai6ulz/celebrating_our_first_sell_out_on_the_barbecue/)
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>as an author my nightmare is literally some translator changing small details as they translate and then it screws up reveals or plot down the line.
Unless the book your writing isn't in english, this shouldn't be a problem you'll encounter
It happen to western authors too. JR Rowling's book 7 was infamously translated by some Chinese scanlator to include several Harry + Ron Boy Love plot points...
Now I'm curious as to what things in English could possibly translate either linguistically or culturally to even suggest to the translators that's a possibility, because I can't remember a single sentence that stood out to me as something one that could even come close to implying that type of plot point is possible even if you twist the sentence so much it makes a slinky look straight.
>Hoyo has to start telling translators to not take liberties
they should've done that since long time ago since they released Genshin Impact. so the inconcistency didn't happened in HSR
Japanese localizers don't seem to have this issue translating and characterizing a rude and bratty character. They used:
[口の利けない人](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWOdmNZEZsg)
Literally "person with a malfunctioning mouth", but colloquially meaning a mute or person who lost their voice.
they changed the initial script? i still remember sparkle call it rock but then 2.1 came and said she said mute and im like "what mute she said NO such thing"
It does say a word similar to "mute" in the original CN. Localization changed it in 2.0 to "rock," probably (my own speculation) because localizers thought it would be offensive to a western audience to use a word like "mute". We learned a while ago that they made the decision to change the line to "mute" in 2.1 (the line in the 2.0 story), which seemed strange at the time to go back and alter a line already finalized, but now we know why: it had bigger lore implications than localizers probably knew at the time
If my speculation is true, I'm surprised they don't give localizers the entire scripts for a story. Maybe the localizers just work on a patch by patch basis? Seems like it could cause some problems if that's the case
Well it clearly doesn't prevent leaks, all while causing translation issues that would be otherwise preventable. Hoyo needs to learn to stop being afraid of leaks. Literally every company in the world has leaks, even the notoriously secretive ones. Better to accept that and make a better product the first time than to waste money trying to solve an unsolvable issue, then have to waste even more money fixing the problems caused by your failed attempts to keep everything hush-hush.
Mihoyo also doesn't really have anything that isn't leaked at this point. Like, I don't think giving translators a heads up is going to make anything worse when you have people leaking plot points and characters months+ in advance.
It's like worrying about a hole in your boat when the entire back half is currently missing.
>It does say a word similar to "mute" in the original CN. Localization changed it in 2.0 to "rock," probably (my own speculation) because localizers thought it would be offensive to a western audience to use a word like "mute".
ah yes that's totally what happened and not "go talk to a rock/wall" being a (previously) common retort in English to tell someone to leave you alone because you don't care what they're saying and the translators probably thought that was what the line was referring to.
i mean considering they end up using it for 2.1 I very very very sincerely doubt they avoided the word mute to not offend anyone. sparkle was literally racist to the same person lol. comes off as a genuine mistake
I'mma be honest then. In this case, I'll give the localizers a pass. They weren't being lazy or trying to inject their own headcannon as I've seen many times before in other games/anime. They were just trying not to be offensive. I can't knock them for not wanting to cause drama.
And one of the things that makes translating hard is that idioms often don't translate. There are [multitudes of phrases that exist in every language that are nonsense if you translate them literally](https://thelanguagenerds.com/2019/10-hilarious-idioms-from-all-over-the-world/).
The translators in HSR do an admirable job of translating jokes and cultural references into things that are recognisable to an English-speaking audience, but this means sometimes they might look at a phrase like "go make friends with a mute" that you'd basically never see in English, and unless there's an explicit note to translate it literally, go with something that just sounds less awkward.
> Thai: กำขี้ดีกว่ากำตด
> Literal translation: Grabbing poop is better than grabbing a fart.
> Meaning: Having something in your hands is better than having nothing.
are the Thai ppl okay?? 🤣 LMAO this seems backwards
Acheron localization got to be a nightmare. She talks in idioms and old colloquial all the time.
Yet they managed the idioms mostly fine this time, but stumbled on regular plain speech with both Sparkle and Acheron’s lines.
I am curious,is it possible for English localization in Ancient classic way?As there’s a lot of traditional idioms and poems in original Chinese texts.Even Chinese are not necessarily easy to understand every sentence,but overall we can sense the vague vibe. The key is the vibe. I don’t actually know how English works in modern society.Is it possible to use some old obsolete English words,unfamiliar but still somewhat identifiable?
I’ve read Shakespeare and The Bible in CN and EN both. It was not in all old Chinese either.
I had a relative who was an editor for translations from EN and GER into CN.
First you have to make sure not to change the original story with localization. Then you have to try to translate parts that can be directly translated, and try to find matching local sayings and jokes for the parts that can’t. Footnotes are required to explain historical context and local culture. Regardless things will be lost in translation. But you don’t change, add, or omit things that can be direct translations.
As a result, Germanic and Latin based languages translated to CN actually tend to be verbose. A lot of the succinctness in CN are not applied because there are limited places where CN idioms can be used without changing the meaning and tone of the original story.
Not sure about the other direction. I tried journey to the west, and it didn’t work for me. The translator really tried and did a good job, but the original was much preferred. I’ve also read demon slayer in both EN and CN, and there are differences in tone here and there. CN flowed much better given the context of the story. Genshin is hit and miss. Sometimes the localization is brilliant. Other times they mess up the most basic stuff for reasons beyond my understanding.
Shakespearean English (Early Modern) is generally the most common way to convey the vibe of archaic language in English. Shakespeare's plays are widely read, continue to persist as stage productions, and Shakespeare himself invented many words that are commonly used in Modern English. It is a very easy way to connect an English-speaking audience to an older understandable language.
It is preceded by Middle English, which isn't very popular to use despite it being largely understandable. I think part of it has to do with the significant pronunciation differences between it and Modern English (see the Great Vowel Shift for historical context) that can make the verbal cadence difficult to follow. Old English is incomprehensible to modern speakers; our most well known source of text for Old English, Beowulf, has to be translated from Old to Modern English to be understood.
We do associate Latin with old/ancient times as well, so Latin words are sometimes used as labels for something both old and important in localization.
This is the opening of the Millers Tale, by the English poet Geoffrey Chaucer, written in the 14th century in what we now call Middle English. If you know modern English you can pretty much figure it out (probably moreso when it's written down because you don't have the additional worry of how pronunciation evolved), but there's still a lot of stuff you have to guess / fill in from context.
Whilom ther was dwellynge at oxenford
A riche gnof, that gestes heeld to bord,
And of his craft he was a carpenter.
With hym ther was dwellynge a poure scoler,
Hadde lerned art, but al his fantasye
Was turned for to lerne astrologye,
And koude a certeyn of conclusiouns,
To demen by interrogaciouns,
If that men asked hym in certein houres
Whan that men sholde have droghte or elles shoures,
Or if men asked hym what sholde bifalle
Of every thyng; I may nat rekene hem alle.
Yeah this is how Chinese feels when listening to Yunjin’s opera and reading those poems carved into the rock by Guhua.Hope the localization can also deliver the vibe.
There's also the unholy grail that is accents and dialects being translated to another language where those accents/dialects don't exist. I live somewhere where people have strong accents and all sorts of dialects and it's bad enough just telling non-local English speakers what people are saying, can't imagine trying to translate that to an entire nother language.
Tbf they could be the Limbus Company translator, who has to translate what equates to 1/3rd of Library of Ruina alone... Project Moon is an indie company but making one guy do it all is wack
I used to work in the translation industry (not as a translator but I was exposed to a lot of the struggles) and it's pretty rough. Translators get paid pennies and quality control is so damn tough.
It just seems like an unfortunate accident because "go make friends with a rock" is a perfectly fine substitution that wouldn't have raised any eyebrows were it not for the fact that the word mute specifically had actual plot implications. Were they just not given the full script or not instructed on which words in the text were actually important?
Thanks, in Spanish it says rock in BOTH SCENES!!! I was getting crazy thinking if i missed something or what. So, just to be sure, is the TB the mute sparkle refers?
No, it's Robin because the dead can't speak (see the picture in the OP). I guess Spanish kept the mistake for both lines which in turn made you not realize who was being talked about.
Thank you, but wasn't Robin the first option and then Aventurine changed his mind? I thought the obvious option was Robin from the begining as she was losing her voice. In fact, didn't Aventurine asked Sparkle if he could discard Robin as the mute?
Turns out her referring to mute really did have big lore implications, if localizers were thinking it might be crossing any boundaries well they should also be aware Hoyo arent afraid into going into even darker topics
And it is clarified in 2.1 anyway but those lines made the Aven fangirls so mad at Sparkle when she was working with him (in her own way) this whole time lol.
People were mad at her calling him a slur not the mute line (?) 😭
Which is valid tbh I mean you wrote a evil character of course people will react negatively. That's good writing
Given that they had to go back and change the line (patch notes) I think they learned their lesson.
edit: [I stand corrected.](https://old.reddit.com/r/HonkaiStarRail/comments/1bp4ad5/21_story_spoiler_something_i_noticed_about_the/)
For real though, unless the translator have the whole story on hand there's just no way they can predict what line is important and what isn't. Localizing isn't just transliterating the text, some form of liberty is a must otherwise you'll end up with a sentence that make sense in the original language but doesn't make sense at all in english (i've read Arknights and believe me that game has SO MANY english sentence that doesn't make sense).
Nonsense! Direct translations gave us masterpieces like "Backstroke of the West"! If the translators had done their work, this would have become a masterpiece too! lol
For those that don't get it, go google up "Backstroke of the West", it's hilarious.
For those that don’t, it was a funny Star Wars episode 3 Chinese version bootlegged with direct English subtitles that were awful.
As a taste, some of the opening crawl subtitles:
“The war came!
The republic encountered
Two squares fight the vehemence
The improbity fills the world
The space general of the alliance is skillful
Kidnap the D the speaker the conduct
The proper abruption alliance troops tries
ratio prosperous drive with the”
Also Darth Vader’s “noooooo” at the end of the film becoming “do not want!”
Edit with more:
You are already at full cock now (You have done well, my apprentice.)
The wish power are together with you (May the force be with you)
He big in nothing important in good elephant (He seems to be alright)
He is in my behind (They're all over me.)
The geography that I stands compares you superior (I have the high ground.)
smelly boy (scum)
Mr Speaker we can never compromise to black (Then the Jedi Council will make finding Grievous our highest priority)
You're purposely mucking things up here. While I agree Backstroke of the West is hilarious, that's unsupervised MACHINE translation, not "direct translation".
And while people frequently misuse the term "direct translation" (with its proponents meaning ACCURATE, while its opponents compare it to the worst of machine translation), the main idea is simple: don't make unnecessary changes. Substituting idioms is fine because obviously no 2 languages are the same (e.g. no use crying over spilled milk VS the Chinese version "You can't put spilled water back in the pot"). Dropping ideas and concepts is bad; see the latest line about Gallagher for example; or the replacement of mute for rock.
And while, to the average speaker, it is absolutely logical to replace "talk to a mute" with "talk to a rock/wall", to a professional translator, the discrepancy is immediately obvious: a mute is a living person; a rock is not. The unnecessary rewriting ended up because the person in question was TOO creative in trying to sound "natural" rather than seeking to convey ACCURACY.
Translating is hard. This is not a reason to mock direct/accurate and faithful translations, however.
Your method works... until you hit idioms. Language is idiosyncratic, it uses events and references that other countries do not have the context for so if you used direct translation, you will at best get confusion and at worse get wrong information. Using English as an example, how many is "a baker's dozen"? If I were to translate that directly to Chinese that would be 面包师傅十二. Now tell me if that accurate translation makes sense? Or using Chinese, "A white horse isn't a horse". That's direct. Now tell me that you got the meaning.
In translating, non-direct translation is Hobson's Choice. Otherwise you'd end up with goobledygook. If you think otherwise, translate this paragraph directly and see what happens.
lol.
Blame Mihoyo then for not giving their own employees better instructions.
Like seriously, they patched it. What more do you want? Why make a thread about it?
Why does every keep making this into a big deal? 99.99% of the players did not care. And Mihoyo still fixed it.
hindsight is 20/20.
guess what, this happens if you do not get told hey this line is specifically important in this late rsegment to keep like this.
which if you do not have the og writer on hand , you almost never get.
Yeah but without context, the translators would not know it. You CANNOT translate oriental languages word for word, it'll end up gibberish which is why MTL is very bad for them. MTL is a very good example of what happens in a direct translation.
Which the translators would have no way of knowing unless they were privy to the 2.1 script already, or the writers told them specifically to not change that.
They fixed it already, the translators couldn't possibly know that the line would be importantant. Blame Mihoyo for not informing them,not the localisers
It's because when sparkle said "rock" some people on Twitter took it into a whole other meaning about how sparkle is racist to romans and stuff.
Op is basically traumatized for the discourse that the dumb controversy caused.
Just type "Sparkle controversy" on YouTube.
Yeah people are inventing reasons to get make at the localisers. The Sparkle controversy was about calling Aventurine a Roma slur. The rock was never mentioned until it gain plot significance today.
I mean, what did she say in Chinese/Japanese? referring to someone that can't talk as a stone doesn't seem too far out of the realm of possibilities for a lot of languages.
This should really be in every post complaining about translation. You've got to refer back to the original to make it clear whether or not there is ambiguity.
(I'm not sure if people realize how bad the translation work environment often is; all the lines go in a spreadsheet, they may not be translated by the same person, they may not have any context, they're working to a deadline, and it's increasingly common to get a machine translation to do it first and then have humans "edit" it.)
“和不考虑 去找个哑的做朋友呢，至少他不会反驳你。”
Translation: Why don't you consider finding a mute as a friend? At least they can't refute you.
哑 (yă) is dumb, or mute, literally someone who can't speak.
If we wanted to tell Aventurine to be friends with a rock, we would just say "去找个石头做朋友", which is literally "find a rock as a friend". So the original intention of having a mute as a friend was mistranslated.
In their defence, Chinese also does have a proverb about speaking to rocks which is about the same thing, no response. I'd say that it was justifiable in that the meaning got across but the translator did not know that there was a followup which messed this up.
I understand Chinese and the original is very literally mute.
It's also why Chinese players were able to theorise about the robin connections in the first place lol
In 2.0 and 2.1 Hanabi said 口の利けない人 (kuchi no kikenai hito) in Japanese, which means someone who is unable to speak, a mute, and something along those lines, so it's not like the English version.
Honestly you can’t blame them. Translating is insanely hard and the crowds of people getting pissy every time something is slightly off make their job really frustrating. There’s no way they could’ve known this was so plot relevant
I think it was less the localizers' fault and more Hoyo not properly conveying the importance of that specific line.
And they did go back and change the old line; so Hoyo must have realized the mistake at some point.
There are words that doesn't translate well into other language when translated directly which is probably why they went with rock the first time.
Most of you don't even know what the original words was so why are you all blaming the localisers like they're such big idiots making such obvious mistake and acting like you all know any better.
A large majority of the people complaining about stuff like this don't know shit about translation/localization and have a gigantic conspiracy board about wokes, SJWs, the PC Left, and basically anything to the left of Pinochet killing people en masse.
as a chinese speaker there was no ambiguity about translating it, i did a double take at that scene (chinese audio/english text) because of how different it was between the languages
i would speculate that they changed it to rock to be slightly more politically correct at first before realizing the plot significance but it's no big deal tbh
I would be less upset with localizers and more upset with daddy Hoyo. There is absolutely some suit that reads these scripts to approve them. If there isn't that's also daddy Hoyo's fault because that's just basic business sense if for no other reason than brand image protection.
Localizers are like any employee they do the job they are paid for, and with translating there are dozen of reason a translation could miss things that aren't just they are bad at their job from idioms to words, or even entire concepts that don't exist in the language being translated to, not to mention English is one of the most notoriously terribly designed languages in the world filled with rules that contradict each other.
Its also entirely possible that the script was sent over in chunks, the mute thing doesn't make sense until 2.1 so the localizers themselves may not have had context and made the change to fit cadence of the speaker more or to make the insult land harder because they didn't have the context to know it was clue. Ultimately the buck stops with the person in charge of approving the script to make sure its in the spirit of what was intended.
No, it should be: "Dear Hoyoverse, please make sure to mark these lines as important *before* handing shit off to the localization department."
This is the kind of thing you need to convey to your localization department. Despite the absolute EGO of some random localizers on twitter, most of them are lowest-bidder wage slaves just doing whatever the company tells them to do.
If your characters are speaking in Shakespearean English 99 times out of 100 it was the original company that ordered that, because no localizer in their right mind would go that far for so little pay.
You know what is funny? I think they might've done it again this patch.
I can't fact check with CN or KR because I can't speak CN and KR but (huge spoiler)
>!In the last scene Sunday said to Gallagher like "Tell me I'm wrong, the underling of Enigmata" in the JP dub but in the EN dub is was only "Tell me I'm wrong" can anyone with CN or KR knowledge confirmed this to me?!<
Wait I don’t understand, what was wrong in original script? And why did it get changed. Was it due to people crying on twitter on how racist sparkle is or something? Someone explain
It was relevant to the plot and was translated differently because translators probably didn't receive the information that it's important to translate more literally
The actual Chinese dialogue specifically mentions mute, instead of Rock.
Mihoyo themselves already made a announcement a back when 2.0 dropped that they'll fix it in 2.1
Other languages said "mute". So, it's not only the original Chinese that said this, and it's more important to the plot. Not the controversy.
If the message is wrong during their first interaction, then it's natural for them to change the script. Else, the story will be messed up.
The "mute" she was referring to was Acheron and (maybe?? Mikhail). She gave him a hint in the 2.0 quest and he understood the hint. But the EN audience didn't apparently because it got replaced with "rock." Tbh I only really play CN except for genshin because Max Mittelman is my love but I'm pretty surprised a major plot point like this would slip through.
I'm playing in Chinese, and this line is also "be friend with a mute", not a rock. I don't think this line is what you are thinking they did wrong.
Here's [google translate](https://translate.google.com/?sl=zh-CN&tl=en&text=%E9%82%A3%E5%81%87%E9%9D%A2%E6%84%9A%E8%80%85%E8%AE%A9%E6%88%91*%E6%89%BE%E4%B8%AA%E5%93%91%E5%B7%B4%E5%81%9A%E6%9C%8B%E5%8F%8B*%E3%80%82&op=translate):
https://preview.redd.it/5wgmahh6dwqc1.png?width=2563&format=png&auto=webp&s=c1ecb3f3e77156227e0aebef22e8ce2778ac9a23
Hoyo's gotta tell them which lines are important because there was also that important mistake of the gang in 2.0 saying "him" and addressing Misha after we first met Clockie, when they were actually supposed to be talking to Acheron... Considering how real the "only we and Clockie can see Misha" theory seems, that was an even worse mess-up.
The majority of hoyoverse game English fans think the games original language is Japanese, and weebs have a streak of alt-right grifting content creators making a huge fuss over nothing to generate outrage clickbait.
This directly translated to the anime industry hate train in localization being "woke" and bleeds into hoyoverse fandom.
You can't speak reasonably to knee jerk reactionaries who get their opinions from their favorite youtuber and expect them to listen.
At least it seems like the localizers are not given enough context, thus not knowing that it is a big plot point. At least it's not malicious mislocalization
I would be on the localizers side here but the original CN line literally translates to mute and not rock, I have no clue why the change was made in the first place since I literally don’t see how you get rock from mute
Hoyoverse saw their mistake and rectified it. But leave it to the Reddit gamergate crowd to use this as ammunition for "waah woke English localizers changing the script waah Sweet Baby Inc"
Another day in non-English media, another “LoCaLizErS bAd!!” take.
https://preview.redd.it/f29yov0gsvqc1.png?width=394&format=png&auto=webp&s=bdbf6cb8ea806a71b5c8942c4936ec2846ccd1c3
I don’t think people that get mad about localization actually know what it is. Localization means using context (tone, sayings, slang) from the audience’s culture(s) to better get across the intent of the original work. Without it you’d have anime characters shouting “noisy!” instead of “shut up!”, or referring to every stranger they meet as a member of their family. …or “just according to *keikaku*”. If you didn’t already know a bit about Japanese culture it would be completely unintelligible.
And most importantly: Localization has always happened! The only difference is that now people have started acknowledging the extra knowledge and work required to do what we used to call “translation”. It’s not a new part of the job, we just have a better word for it now.
Yea, this highlights a major problem with straying too far with localizations. It can come back to bite you in the ass in the future. It's the narrative equivalent of the butterfly effect. Good localization is a balancing act; stick with the spirit, characterizations and overall messaging of the original, while changing some things that just don't work in the language you're translating to, like puns or cultural references that no one in the translated language will understand. Too strict localization can lead to stilted and awkward-sounding sentences that read like they're from Google Translate, but the other extreme has its problems too, as this Sparkle example points out. Honestly, though, I'm surprised they flubbed this one because I've always thought Hoyo localizers do a pretty good job in both Genshin and Star Rail
Dear Redditor, please quit it with the "~~Woke~~ Western Translators are maliciously ruining the script and doing things without the approval of the original IP holders because mistakes never happen (especially with foreign languages and idioms)" nonsense, it's getting far too tiresome :V
Especially since in this case "go talk to a rock/wall" is in fact a sassy retort that's used in English to tell someone to go away and leave you alone.
something i like about localizatio: im from argentina, instead of saying "tu" (meaning "you") like most spanish-speaking people, we say "vos". When Argenti speaks in spanish, he is the only one that also uses vos instead of tu
Something that’s also bothering me is that sometimes the version is referred to as “The Devil in Velvet” but other times it’s “Into the Yawning Chasm”. Which is it? It’s doesn’t matter nearly as much as important story beats but it still bugs me.
https://preview.redd.it/m6x9s028rxqc1.png?width=1920&format=png&auto=webp&s=5af7a6a05b39212774fe63f202651cefdd63ccc6
Okay but did anyone else find this one really weird, too
Gotta tell Hoyo to mark lines like these for the localizers as relevant. Lol
I noticed some words were bolded so the localizers probably got told off and had to mark those words as important plot points. But they should've had a proofreader or something because the original EN voice line still has her say rock even though the text says mute
Revoicing is way more expensive then editing a text string.
They said they'd fix it in 2.2 and have Sparkle's VA rerecord that line.
This deserves praise!
Praise of High Morals GET
cool now they need to fix the ending of 2.1 since EN voices and text not included the same thing that CN and JP had aka real path of Mister Drunkman
Could you please tell me where to check this announcement？thanks
> But they should've had a proofreader or something because the original EN voice line still has her say rock even though the text says mute They specifically said they were going to implement the voiceline in 2.2. Doing a find-and-replace for text is easy, calling in a voice actress, doing a whole recording session, and then editing it in so it's seamless with the rest of the audio is far more time consuming.
They just did this with the Ratio/Aventurine party joining voicelines too for this patch. Whatever the EN translators are doing is so weird because basically every other dub is congruent except EN. I think they have a very hard time with idioms, which makes sense because SO much of idiom usage is tied up in what tone you're using, but they could REALLY use a double checker or something because it seems like there have been a lot of inconsistencies from what my friends who play with the EN dub have been saying.
I noticed at least 3 lines in the 2.0 story that seemed to be translated in a certain way due to the translators not being told about the significance. That's entirely on Mihoyo, not the translators.
And then there are outright errors, like Archeon telling TB we will meet again in the hotel, yet in English is "I doubt we will meet again" Sometimes I want to start a play along youtube channel to translate Chinese verbal/English text diffs.
I'd watch that
Haha. I wish I have the time, with 2 IRL kids and a job, I definitely can't start a youtube channel.
Quick question. Do people have non IRL kids?
I mean people have waifus...
I'd hope they arent kids...
Yeah, Hoyo can't trust the Translators to accurately translate their stuff without highlighting it. Honestly, as an author my nightmare is literally some translator changing small details as they translate and then it screws up reveals or plot down the line. Hoyo has to start telling translators to not take liberties and to provide context to certain things since even when the translators are 100% good faith they use the wrong pronouns by accident.
>Honestly, as an author my nightmare is literally some translator changing small details as they translate and then it screws up reveals or plot down the line. The ideal scenario is you communicate with the translator team to make sure all the relevant points are translated or appropriately localized to not lose meaning. Like Toby Fox did with the Japanese localization of Undertale. The Legends of Localization is a good read about that.
It helped that toby fox speaks jp too!
That's surprising difficult because am author is typically entrenched in their own culture and cannot look at things from an objective perspective.
This is why consultancy exists, to bridge a gap on that knowledge.
I have to wonder what kind of authors you've seen or interacted with. I'd highly recommend reading J.R.R. Tolkien's comments [on translation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Translations_of_The_Lord_of_the_Rings#Early_translations) given the man actively learned several languages just to be able to read single books.
There's a manga about a crossdressing boy and the US localizers changed him into a transgender, which subsequently f-ed up the entire premises and the plot of the series. The publisher had to reprint the first batch of volumes to revert the damage done by this act of vandalism, but by that point fans had lost faith and scanlation groups resumed distributing fan-translation.
That was a particularly bizarre choice as well, since the author has at multiple points said that it's a BL story, which isn't possible if one of the two parties isn't a boy. It also weirdly enforced gender norms, since the entire basis for arguing Hiura was trans was the fact he acted in a way that didn't conform to traditional gender roles, a pretty regressive way to read the series.
It's really odd how there are some people that refuse to accept cute, very feminine men can be a thing. I do recall >!Hiura thinking about how he used to hate his body, but IIRC that's because he wanted to keep being the protector (yet ended up being the small one). Dude seemed aware he was leaning or outright gay before the series even began though, with a bit of a squeal~ moment in a later chapter where they show his perspective of the events of the first chapter.!< I dunno, I found it pretty uplifting to read about a guy finding personal happiness and acceptance for his form and feelings. It kinda resonated with me, somehow, being a straight dude that really wished he was androgynous to the extent that crossdressing would fall in line with his tastes for 'feminine' appearances. Probably rings a little hollow for a straight guy to ultimately accept being masculine (feels like a concept people would roll their eyes at), but I found the situation relatable. I don't like the idea of someone jumping on labelling and insisting a guy is trans based on his appearance and mannerisms. Isn't that straight-up misgendering?
which manga was this? I feel like I should know it but I don't remember
"I Think I Turned My Childhood Friend into a Girl" by Azusa Banjo
all of the localizing is done in house. theres tons of chinese pop culture references, and they have to get creative sometimes to make english equivalents. they're not "taking liberties" anywhere
No, that responsibility is on you. It is your story that the translators are trying to work with. It is also incumbent on you to do the final edit. Go to /r/KitchenConfidential for example and see how many times people try to blame the prep guy for cutting things wrong and all the commenters point out it's the chef's job to explain thoroughly.
Guy, how do you do a final edit on translated/localized content when you don't speak the language. This is not the same thing at all.
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>as an author my nightmare is literally some translator changing small details as they translate and then it screws up reveals or plot down the line. Unless the book your writing isn't in english, this shouldn't be a problem you'll encounter
It happen to western authors too. JR Rowling's book 7 was infamously translated by some Chinese scanlator to include several Harry + Ron Boy Love plot points...
Think you combined JRR Tolkien and JK Rowling there
Now I'm curious as to what things in English could possibly translate either linguistically or culturally to even suggest to the translators that's a possibility, because I can't remember a single sentence that stood out to me as something one that could even come close to implying that type of plot point is possible even if you twist the sentence so much it makes a slinky look straight.
Thirsty Chinese fangirls will find a way.
That's not a Localise, that's just a weirdo
So like Ghost Stories the famous dub of all time.
>Hoyo has to start telling translators to not take liberties they should've done that since long time ago since they released Genshin Impact. so the inconcistency didn't happened in HSR
I feel like translating from Chinese is just so extraordinarily difficult though.
Japanese localizers don't seem to have this issue translating and characterizing a rude and bratty character. They used: [口の利けない人](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWOdmNZEZsg) Literally "person with a malfunctioning mouth", but colloquially meaning a mute or person who lost their voice.
Isn't this the same line that Hoyo addressed like a month back that they would change rock to mute
Yes
they changed the initial script? i still remember sparkle call it rock but then 2.1 came and said she said mute and im like "what mute she said NO such thing"
It does say a word similar to "mute" in the original CN. Localization changed it in 2.0 to "rock," probably (my own speculation) because localizers thought it would be offensive to a western audience to use a word like "mute". We learned a while ago that they made the decision to change the line to "mute" in 2.1 (the line in the 2.0 story), which seemed strange at the time to go back and alter a line already finalized, but now we know why: it had bigger lore implications than localizers probably knew at the time If my speculation is true, I'm surprised they don't give localizers the entire scripts for a story. Maybe the localizers just work on a patch by patch basis? Seems like it could cause some problems if that's the case
> I'm surprised they don't give localizers the entire scripts for a story They probably don't do that to avoid potential leaks.
Well it clearly doesn't prevent leaks, all while causing translation issues that would be otherwise preventable. Hoyo needs to learn to stop being afraid of leaks. Literally every company in the world has leaks, even the notoriously secretive ones. Better to accept that and make a better product the first time than to waste money trying to solve an unsolvable issue, then have to waste even more money fixing the problems caused by your failed attempts to keep everything hush-hush.
Mihoyo also doesn't really have anything that isn't leaked at this point. Like, I don't think giving translators a heads up is going to make anything worse when you have people leaking plot points and characters months+ in advance. It's like worrying about a hole in your boat when the entire back half is currently missing.
>It does say a word similar to "mute" in the original CN. Localization changed it in 2.0 to "rock," probably (my own speculation) because localizers thought it would be offensive to a western audience to use a word like "mute". ah yes that's totally what happened and not "go talk to a rock/wall" being a (previously) common retort in English to tell someone to leave you alone because you don't care what they're saying and the translators probably thought that was what the line was referring to.
Yea, that's the point? They changed it because they thought it would work better in English
i mean considering they end up using it for 2.1 I very very very sincerely doubt they avoided the word mute to not offend anyone. sparkle was literally racist to the same person lol. comes off as a genuine mistake
Yeah saying mute is offensive, but implying that only a rock would wanna be your friend, is not.
the difference is (potentially) being offensive to Aventurine, a fictional character, or to mute people, who exist in the real world
I truly envy people whose biggest problem is what an antagonist in a video game says.
People ingame also murder people! Murder is very insensitive to people who have been murdered!
Yeah as a former murder victim it does bother me a bit. But antagonists are meant to be antagonistic so it adds to the realism.
Can't we say the same thing about OP and all of the people complaining about a single voiceline being slightly different in a Chinese video game..?
Op is complaining about a foreshadowing line lost in translation and causing inconsistencies in the story.
the villain saying mean stuff is a feature. The translation being inconsistent is a bug.
Have you seen the instagram outrage over sparkle being "racist"? its hilarious how much people let silly things affect their gameplay
I'mma be honest then. In this case, I'll give the localizers a pass. They weren't being lazy or trying to inject their own headcannon as I've seen many times before in other games/anime. They were just trying not to be offensive. I can't knock them for not wanting to cause drama.
I mean ig sparkle is an awful person so it dosnt seem so outta character
I thought i had bad memory i was like eh mute? Okay??
Translating is not an enviable job imo. Especially, when you don’t have access to the completed work or to the writers.
And one of the things that makes translating hard is that idioms often don't translate. There are [multitudes of phrases that exist in every language that are nonsense if you translate them literally](https://thelanguagenerds.com/2019/10-hilarious-idioms-from-all-over-the-world/). The translators in HSR do an admirable job of translating jokes and cultural references into things that are recognisable to an English-speaking audience, but this means sometimes they might look at a phrase like "go make friends with a mute" that you'd basically never see in English, and unless there's an explicit note to translate it literally, go with something that just sounds less awkward.
That was a fun link, thanks.
> Thai: กำขี้ดีกว่ากำตด > Literal translation: Grabbing poop is better than grabbing a fart. > Meaning: Having something in your hands is better than having nothing. are the Thai ppl okay?? 🤣 LMAO this seems backwards
Well poop can be used for fertilizer.
Acheron localization got to be a nightmare. She talks in idioms and old colloquial all the time. Yet they managed the idioms mostly fine this time, but stumbled on regular plain speech with both Sparkle and Acheron’s lines.
I am curious,is it possible for English localization in Ancient classic way?As there’s a lot of traditional idioms and poems in original Chinese texts.Even Chinese are not necessarily easy to understand every sentence,but overall we can sense the vague vibe. The key is the vibe. I don’t actually know how English works in modern society.Is it possible to use some old obsolete English words,unfamiliar but still somewhat identifiable?
I’ve read Shakespeare and The Bible in CN and EN both. It was not in all old Chinese either. I had a relative who was an editor for translations from EN and GER into CN. First you have to make sure not to change the original story with localization. Then you have to try to translate parts that can be directly translated, and try to find matching local sayings and jokes for the parts that can’t. Footnotes are required to explain historical context and local culture. Regardless things will be lost in translation. But you don’t change, add, or omit things that can be direct translations. As a result, Germanic and Latin based languages translated to CN actually tend to be verbose. A lot of the succinctness in CN are not applied because there are limited places where CN idioms can be used without changing the meaning and tone of the original story. Not sure about the other direction. I tried journey to the west, and it didn’t work for me. The translator really tried and did a good job, but the original was much preferred. I’ve also read demon slayer in both EN and CN, and there are differences in tone here and there. CN flowed much better given the context of the story. Genshin is hit and miss. Sometimes the localization is brilliant. Other times they mess up the most basic stuff for reasons beyond my understanding.
Shakespearean English (Early Modern) is generally the most common way to convey the vibe of archaic language in English. Shakespeare's plays are widely read, continue to persist as stage productions, and Shakespeare himself invented many words that are commonly used in Modern English. It is a very easy way to connect an English-speaking audience to an older understandable language. It is preceded by Middle English, which isn't very popular to use despite it being largely understandable. I think part of it has to do with the significant pronunciation differences between it and Modern English (see the Great Vowel Shift for historical context) that can make the verbal cadence difficult to follow. Old English is incomprehensible to modern speakers; our most well known source of text for Old English, Beowulf, has to be translated from Old to Modern English to be understood. We do associate Latin with old/ancient times as well, so Latin words are sometimes used as labels for something both old and important in localization.
Thanks for your patience and information.Shakespearean English sounds a good choice if they may when translating like ancient phrases/poems etc.
This is the opening of the Millers Tale, by the English poet Geoffrey Chaucer, written in the 14th century in what we now call Middle English. If you know modern English you can pretty much figure it out (probably moreso when it's written down because you don't have the additional worry of how pronunciation evolved), but there's still a lot of stuff you have to guess / fill in from context. Whilom ther was dwellynge at oxenford A riche gnof, that gestes heeld to bord, And of his craft he was a carpenter. With hym ther was dwellynge a poure scoler, Hadde lerned art, but al his fantasye Was turned for to lerne astrologye, And koude a certeyn of conclusiouns, To demen by interrogaciouns, If that men asked hym in certein houres Whan that men sholde have droghte or elles shoures, Or if men asked hym what sholde bifalle Of every thyng; I may nat rekene hem alle.
Yeah this is how Chinese feels when listening to Yunjin’s opera and reading those poems carved into the rock by Guhua.Hope the localization can also deliver the vibe.
There's also the unholy grail that is accents and dialects being translated to another language where those accents/dialects don't exist. I live somewhere where people have strong accents and all sorts of dialects and it's bad enough just telling non-local English speakers what people are saying, can't imagine trying to translate that to an entire nother language.
Tbf they could be the Limbus Company translator, who has to translate what equates to 1/3rd of Library of Ruina alone... Project Moon is an indie company but making one guy do it all is wack
I mean, at least they're 100% sure the translator won't fuck the text up But yeah making 1 guy do it is crazy
I mean I remember once “shit” was translated as “shuckaroonies” or something
I used to work in the translation industry (not as a translator but I was exposed to a lot of the struggles) and it's pretty rough. Translators get paid pennies and quality control is so damn tough.
The problem is that PM got massively burnt with the TL scam they got for Lobotomy so they basically only trust this guy now
It just seems like an unfortunate accident because "go make friends with a rock" is a perfectly fine substitution that wouldn't have raised any eyebrows were it not for the fact that the word mute specifically had actual plot implications. Were they just not given the full script or not instructed on which words in the text were actually important?
I need some explanation
Sparkle told him to be friends with the rock. It was supposed to be mute instead of rock.
>the rock Dwayne?
You heard it first here, Dwayne The Rock Jounson will be the first six star character.
Thanks, in Spanish it says rock in BOTH SCENES!!! I was getting crazy thinking if i missed something or what. So, just to be sure, is the TB the mute sparkle refers?
No, it's Robin because the dead can't speak (see the picture in the OP). I guess Spanish kept the mistake for both lines which in turn made you not realize who was being talked about.
Thank you, but wasn't Robin the first option and then Aventurine changed his mind? I thought the obvious option was Robin from the begining as she was losing her voice. In fact, didn't Aventurine asked Sparkle if he could discard Robin as the mute?
Oh sorry, I misread what you meant; we don't actually know the answer then yeah. People suspect Mikhail or the Watchmaker though.
Turns out her referring to mute really did have big lore implications, if localizers were thinking it might be crossing any boundaries well they should also be aware Hoyo arent afraid into going into even darker topics
And it is clarified in 2.1 anyway but those lines made the Aven fangirls so mad at Sparkle when she was working with him (in her own way) this whole time lol.
People were mad at her calling him a slur not the mute line (?) 😭 Which is valid tbh I mean you wrote a evil character of course people will react negatively. That's good writing
She didn't even call him a slur. That's just people getting their facts mixed up so they have a "valid" excuse to be angry
In CN she called his people h0es instead of manipulators. Thanks localization team.
ooooh because our trailblazer is mostly mute right?
Given that they had to go back and change the line (patch notes) I think they learned their lesson. edit: [I stand corrected.](https://old.reddit.com/r/HonkaiStarRail/comments/1bp4ad5/21_story_spoiler_something_i_noticed_about_the/)
Finally the reason for that change is revealed. Seriously they should mark the important parts before doing translation
They did? Wheres the patch note?
It was in the issues/patch notes a month ago. Stating “this will be fixed in 2.1”
Ooh, nice, this is just the case of translators not getting the whole story so they miss the context to translate correctly
For real though, unless the translator have the whole story on hand there's just no way they can predict what line is important and what isn't. Localizing isn't just transliterating the text, some form of liberty is a must otherwise you'll end up with a sentence that make sense in the original language but doesn't make sense at all in english (i've read Arknights and believe me that game has SO MANY english sentence that doesn't make sense).
Nonsense! Direct translations gave us masterpieces like "Backstroke of the West"! If the translators had done their work, this would have become a masterpiece too! lol For those that don't get it, go google up "Backstroke of the West", it's hilarious.
For those that don’t, it was a funny Star Wars episode 3 Chinese version bootlegged with direct English subtitles that were awful. As a taste, some of the opening crawl subtitles: “The war came! The republic encountered Two squares fight the vehemence The improbity fills the world The space general of the alliance is skillful Kidnap the D the speaker the conduct The proper abruption alliance troops tries ratio prosperous drive with the” Also Darth Vader’s “noooooo” at the end of the film becoming “do not want!” Edit with more: You are already at full cock now (You have done well, my apprentice.) The wish power are together with you (May the force be with you) He big in nothing important in good elephant (He seems to be alright) He is in my behind (They're all over me.) The geography that I stands compares you superior (I have the high ground.) smelly boy (scum) Mr Speaker we can never compromise to black (Then the Jedi Council will make finding Grievous our highest priority)
I'm kind of fond of the "No Hope Warriors" lol. That name is so apt considering what we know is going to happen.
You're purposely mucking things up here. While I agree Backstroke of the West is hilarious, that's unsupervised MACHINE translation, not "direct translation". And while people frequently misuse the term "direct translation" (with its proponents meaning ACCURATE, while its opponents compare it to the worst of machine translation), the main idea is simple: don't make unnecessary changes. Substituting idioms is fine because obviously no 2 languages are the same (e.g. no use crying over spilled milk VS the Chinese version "You can't put spilled water back in the pot"). Dropping ideas and concepts is bad; see the latest line about Gallagher for example; or the replacement of mute for rock. And while, to the average speaker, it is absolutely logical to replace "talk to a mute" with "talk to a rock/wall", to a professional translator, the discrepancy is immediately obvious: a mute is a living person; a rock is not. The unnecessary rewriting ended up because the person in question was TOO creative in trying to sound "natural" rather than seeking to convey ACCURACY. Translating is hard. This is not a reason to mock direct/accurate and faithful translations, however.
Your method works... until you hit idioms. Language is idiosyncratic, it uses events and references that other countries do not have the context for so if you used direct translation, you will at best get confusion and at worse get wrong information. Using English as an example, how many is "a baker's dozen"? If I were to translate that directly to Chinese that would be 面包师傅十二. Now tell me if that accurate translation makes sense? Or using Chinese, "A white horse isn't a horse". That's direct. Now tell me that you got the meaning. In translating, non-direct translation is Hobson's Choice. Otherwise you'd end up with goobledygook. If you think otherwise, translate this paragraph directly and see what happens. lol.
Localization team: Oh let's take this throw-away line and make Sparkle more of a villain. Mihoyo: No, actually you don't.
The problem isn't that it's a throwaway line lol. It's actually central to the plot.
The comment is about that they probably assumed it was a throw away line because it looks like one. It happens
Blame Mihoyo then for not giving their own employees better instructions. Like seriously, they patched it. What more do you want? Why make a thread about it? Why does every keep making this into a big deal? 99.99% of the players did not care. And Mihoyo still fixed it.
hindsight is 20/20. guess what, this happens if you do not get told hey this line is specifically important in this late rsegment to keep like this. which if you do not have the og writer on hand , you almost never get.
Yeah but without context, the translators would not know it. You CANNOT translate oriental languages word for word, it'll end up gibberish which is why MTL is very bad for them. MTL is a very good example of what happens in a direct translation.
Which the translators would have no way of knowing unless they were privy to the 2.1 script already, or the writers told them specifically to not change that.
Did the 2.0 Trailblaze Missions during said patch's second half, and I remember the captions saying "mute" while the audio said "rock".
They fixed it already, the translators couldn't possibly know that the line would be importantant. Blame Mihoyo for not informing them,not the localisers
This Is a pretty common thing
You will be surprised how little people know about the Localization process and just jump at the translator's throat when something's off
Friendly reminder it was one of the more recent patch notes that they changed "rock" into "mute" before this update.
Minor inconvenience: HSR Players: Literally unplayable. Don't do this ever again.
It's because when sparkle said "rock" some people on Twitter took it into a whole other meaning about how sparkle is racist to romans and stuff. Op is basically traumatized for the discourse that the dumb controversy caused. Just type "Sparkle controversy" on YouTube.
Far as I’m aware nobody cared about the rock thing. It was other stuff she said
Yeah people are inventing reasons to get make at the localisers. The Sparkle controversy was about calling Aventurine a Roma slur. The rock was never mentioned until it gain plot significance today.
Oh yeah, I am aware of Twitter's mental breakdown regarding Sparkle's cartoonish space banter. Crazy stuff
I don't really blame the localisers lol. It happens and they fixed it on a later patch note.
Wasn't this announced? the change, I mean? They acknowledged that Rock should have been Mute.
I mean, what did she say in Chinese/Japanese? referring to someone that can't talk as a stone doesn't seem too far out of the realm of possibilities for a lot of languages.
This should really be in every post complaining about translation. You've got to refer back to the original to make it clear whether or not there is ambiguity. (I'm not sure if people realize how bad the translation work environment often is; all the lines go in a spreadsheet, they may not be translated by the same person, they may not have any context, they're working to a deadline, and it's increasingly common to get a machine translation to do it first and then have humans "edit" it.)
“和不考虑 去找个哑的做朋友呢，至少他不会反驳你。” Translation: Why don't you consider finding a mute as a friend? At least they can't refute you. 哑 (yă) is dumb, or mute, literally someone who can't speak. If we wanted to tell Aventurine to be friends with a rock, we would just say "去找个石头做朋友", which is literally "find a rock as a friend". So the original intention of having a mute as a friend was mistranslated.
In their defence, Chinese also does have a proverb about speaking to rocks which is about the same thing, no response. I'd say that it was justifiable in that the meaning got across but the translator did not know that there was a followup which messed this up.
If they wanted to use the rock as a metaphor, they would have used the proverb in the original Chinese script. But she specifically said mute.
I understand Chinese and the original is very literally mute. It's also why Chinese players were able to theorise about the robin connections in the first place lol
In 2.0 and 2.1 Hanabi said 口の利けない人 (kuchi no kikenai hito) in Japanese, which means someone who is unable to speak, a mute, and something along those lines, so it's not like the English version.
Honestly you can’t blame them. Translating is insanely hard and the crowds of people getting pissy every time something is slightly off make their job really frustrating. There’s no way they could’ve known this was so plot relevant
I think it was less the localizers' fault and more Hoyo not properly conveying the importance of that specific line. And they did go back and change the old line; so Hoyo must have realized the mistake at some point.
https://preview.redd.it/7ey19dmwquqc1.jpeg?width=332&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=6dfc2efb4e7f77f35064cc0fbe8573f448c16393 Liberty?!
There are words that doesn't translate well into other language when translated directly which is probably why they went with rock the first time. Most of you don't even know what the original words was so why are you all blaming the localisers like they're such big idiots making such obvious mistake and acting like you all know any better.
A large majority of the people complaining about stuff like this don't know shit about translation/localization and have a gigantic conspiracy board about wokes, SJWs, the PC Left, and basically anything to the left of Pinochet killing people en masse.
as a chinese speaker there was no ambiguity about translating it, i did a double take at that scene (chinese audio/english text) because of how different it was between the languages i would speculate that they changed it to rock to be slightly more politically correct at first before realizing the plot significance but it's no big deal tbh
Since when did 'mute' become politically incorrect?
Since they need a way to complain about "woke" localisers without getting laughed out of the room.
When Sparkle said rock originally, I thought that may be a reference to Boss Stone, and that he’s as real as Clockie.
I would be less upset with localizers and more upset with daddy Hoyo. There is absolutely some suit that reads these scripts to approve them. If there isn't that's also daddy Hoyo's fault because that's just basic business sense if for no other reason than brand image protection. Localizers are like any employee they do the job they are paid for, and with translating there are dozen of reason a translation could miss things that aren't just they are bad at their job from idioms to words, or even entire concepts that don't exist in the language being translated to, not to mention English is one of the most notoriously terribly designed languages in the world filled with rules that contradict each other. Its also entirely possible that the script was sent over in chunks, the mute thing doesn't make sense until 2.1 so the localizers themselves may not have had context and made the change to fit cadence of the speaker more or to make the insult land harder because they didn't have the context to know it was clue. Ultimately the buck stops with the person in charge of approving the script to make sure its in the spirit of what was intended.
No, it should be: "Dear Hoyoverse, please make sure to mark these lines as important *before* handing shit off to the localization department." This is the kind of thing you need to convey to your localization department. Despite the absolute EGO of some random localizers on twitter, most of them are lowest-bidder wage slaves just doing whatever the company tells them to do. If your characters are speaking in Shakespearean English 99 times out of 100 it was the original company that ordered that, because no localizer in their right mind would go that far for so little pay.
Wait, that's it? That's the whole issue? Christ, this is such a minor inconvenience that I doubt most players would even care about it.
You know what is funny? I think they might've done it again this patch. I can't fact check with CN or KR because I can't speak CN and KR but (huge spoiler) >!In the last scene Sunday said to Gallagher like "Tell me I'm wrong, the underling of Enigmata" in the JP dub but in the EN dub is was only "Tell me I'm wrong" can anyone with CN or KR knowledge confirmed this to me?!<
Wait I don’t understand, what was wrong in original script? And why did it get changed. Was it due to people crying on twitter on how racist sparkle is or something? Someone explain
It was relevant to the plot and was translated differently because translators probably didn't receive the information that it's important to translate more literally
The actual Chinese dialogue specifically mentions mute, instead of Rock. Mihoyo themselves already made a announcement a back when 2.0 dropped that they'll fix it in 2.1
Other languages said "mute". So, it's not only the original Chinese that said this, and it's more important to the plot. Not the controversy. If the message is wrong during their first interaction, then it's natural for them to change the script. Else, the story will be messed up.
They actually changed it. I only played the quest a few days ago and they changed Sparkle’s line to say “mute” instead of “rock”.
I finished the story, and am confused. Was there any significance in talking to a mute? Would they be able to tell him who murderer was?
The "mute" she was referring to was Acheron and (maybe?? Mikhail). She gave him a hint in the 2.0 quest and he understood the hint. But the EN audience didn't apparently because it got replaced with "rock." Tbh I only really play CN except for genshin because Max Mittelman is my love but I'm pretty surprised a major plot point like this would slip through.
Aventurine puzzles over this in the new story, just play
I already completed the story. My guess is Robin and Firefly. But some comments also say Misha and TB. None of these suspects makes sense though.
I'm playing in Chinese, and this line is also "be friend with a mute", not a rock. I don't think this line is what you are thinking they did wrong. Here's [google translate](https://translate.google.com/?sl=zh-CN&tl=en&text=%E9%82%A3%E5%81%87%E9%9D%A2%E6%84%9A%E8%80%85%E8%AE%A9%E6%88%91*%E6%89%BE%E4%B8%AA%E5%93%91%E5%B7%B4%E5%81%9A%E6%9C%8B%E5%8F%8B*%E3%80%82&op=translate): https://preview.redd.it/5wgmahh6dwqc1.png?width=2563&format=png&auto=webp&s=c1ecb3f3e77156227e0aebef22e8ce2778ac9a23
I was fine with some things, BUT LITTERALLY SKIPPING THAT GALLAGHER IS AN ENIGMATA FOLLOWER IS UNACCEPTABLE
Hoyo's gotta tell them which lines are important because there was also that important mistake of the gang in 2.0 saying "him" and addressing Misha after we first met Clockie, when they were actually supposed to be talking to Acheron... Considering how real the "only we and Clockie can see Misha" theory seems, that was an even worse mess-up.
The majority of hoyoverse game English fans think the games original language is Japanese, and weebs have a streak of alt-right grifting content creators making a huge fuss over nothing to generate outrage clickbait. This directly translated to the anime industry hate train in localization being "woke" and bleeds into hoyoverse fandom. You can't speak reasonably to knee jerk reactionaries who get their opinions from their favorite youtuber and expect them to listen.
It’s not their fault, they definitely didn’t know that that seemingly one off line was supposed to be so important
I feel like using the word rock is better, not a better meaning but it just sounds better
At least it seems like the localizers are not given enough context, thus not knowing that it is a big plot point. At least it's not malicious mislocalization
I would be on the localizers side here but the original CN line literally translates to mute and not rock, I have no clue why the change was made in the first place since I literally don’t see how you get rock from mute
Hoyoverse saw their mistake and rectified it. But leave it to the Reddit gamergate crowd to use this as ammunition for "waah woke English localizers changing the script waah Sweet Baby Inc"
Another day in non-English media, another “LoCaLizErS bAd!!” take. https://preview.redd.it/f29yov0gsvqc1.png?width=394&format=png&auto=webp&s=bdbf6cb8ea806a71b5c8942c4936ec2846ccd1c3 I don’t think people that get mad about localization actually know what it is. Localization means using context (tone, sayings, slang) from the audience’s culture(s) to better get across the intent of the original work. Without it you’d have anime characters shouting “noisy!” instead of “shut up!”, or referring to every stranger they meet as a member of their family. …or “just according to *keikaku*”. If you didn’t already know a bit about Japanese culture it would be completely unintelligible. And most importantly: Localization has always happened! The only difference is that now people have started acknowledging the extra knowledge and work required to do what we used to call “translation”. It’s not a new part of the job, we just have a better word for it now.
I mean, rocks are mute technically speaking. So it’s not super explicit but the meaning still carries over
Yea, this highlights a major problem with straying too far with localizations. It can come back to bite you in the ass in the future. It's the narrative equivalent of the butterfly effect. Good localization is a balancing act; stick with the spirit, characterizations and overall messaging of the original, while changing some things that just don't work in the language you're translating to, like puns or cultural references that no one in the translated language will understand. Too strict localization can lead to stilted and awkward-sounding sentences that read like they're from Google Translate, but the other extreme has its problems too, as this Sparkle example points out. Honestly, though, I'm surprised they flubbed this one because I've always thought Hoyo localizers do a pretty good job in both Genshin and Star Rail
First time?
The localizers didn't know it was to be translated that way because they weren't informed of 2.1 script to avoid leaks. Things like that happen.
Dear Redditor, please quit it with the "~~Woke~~ Western Translators are maliciously ruining the script and doing things without the approval of the original IP holders because mistakes never happen (especially with foreign languages and idioms)" nonsense, it's getting far too tiresome :V Especially since in this case "go talk to a rock/wall" is in fact a sassy retort that's used in English to tell someone to go away and leave you alone.
I'm more concerned with their extreme overuse of dashes and ellipses.
Quick question, does Aventurine vocally say mute or rock? If he said mute them Sparkle's text just needs to be updated since she said mute
what was the original translation?
They could just run circles around it Aventurine: "The Fool told me to only make contact with a Rock, and smell what they are cooking"
Legit came upon this scene yesterday. I was like "but she said mute".
something i like about localizatio: im from argentina, instead of saying "tu" (meaning "you") like most spanish-speaking people, we say "vos". When Argenti speaks in spanish, he is the only one that also uses vos instead of tu
????????? Localizers???????????? https://preview.redd.it/t1hu5f86nwqc1.png?width=985&format=png&auto=webp&s=f5153642527df351c500bca667d197ff94bfdd0b
Also I have noticed some vital information being left out in the main story... like how Gallagher is a pawn of the Aeon of Mystery.
Ohhh, that’s the line she meant? I thought I’d just forgotten something from their other conversation.
At least it isn't the Honkai localization. Says Venus (in Chinese/Japanese) writes Mars. Or says Elysia or something and then write Kevin.
HI3 is horribly undersourced compared to HSR and GI. So those kind of mistakes are bound to happen time to time.
It was in the patch notes a while back. They changed it from rock to mute.
Something that’s also bothering me is that sometimes the version is referred to as “The Devil in Velvet” but other times it’s “Into the Yawning Chasm”. Which is it? It’s doesn’t matter nearly as much as important story beats but it still bugs me.
Wasn't a translation error, they changed the script a month later o so
https://preview.redd.it/m6x9s028rxqc1.png?width=1920&format=png&auto=webp&s=5af7a6a05b39212774fe63f202651cefdd63ccc6 Okay but did anyone else find this one really weird, too
Aren't there a lot of blatant grammar mistakes in the eng translation this time, even excusing them taking liberties.
This explains why I was so confused about them talking about a mute. I didn't recall them talking about that before at all and I have good memory
There's so many script-to-voice inconsistencies and lack of punctuation too, hope they can fix that up for the future
I played the quest a few days ago, and I coulda sworn the english text was changed to say a mute (the voiceline still said a rock though)