7 most awkward/bad translations in FFVII

[Channy]

"Words aren't the only things that tell people what you're thinking."

While not technically a mistranslation, it reads very awkwardly and not like something a native English speaker would actually say. Dissidia's translation of this line ("Words aren't the only way to convey your feelings") sounds much better and more natural.

I think this line is fine but better if you replaced 'things' with 'way'... Words aren't the only way to tell people what you're thinking.

It's most certainly "Sefer." "Sefer Sephiroth" would mean some approximation to "Book of Numbers." That's the fourth book of the Bible/Torah -- the one in which the Israelites arrive at the Promised Land. That name is no accident given what Seph was about to do.

I think that this is one of those odd cases where even the Katakana isn't quite correct.

I've always thought that this was intended to be the more logical and less repetitive, "Seraph Sephiroth" – since that augments his natural "One-Winged Angel" design with the halos and six white wings that compose the lower half of his body, especially since the Seraphs are the angels that have six wings and are flying above the throne of God.
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Chalk me up on the Seraph train... Safer never made sense nor occurred to me, and I'd seen enough anime to know what Seraph/ims were

 

[lithiumkatana17]

I can't find the screenshot for the life of me, but I thought of this one last night when I was going to bed.

In Crisis Core, when Zack talks to one of the NPCs on the SOLDIER floor, the NPC says 'she-dogging' when speaking about... Rufus, I believe?

S'he-dogging'. Instead of 'bitching'. They couldn't have just written 'complaining' instead?

 

[Shademp]

In Crisis Core, when Zack talks to one of the NPCs on the SOLDIER floor, the NPC says 'she-dogging' when speaking about... Rufus, I believe?

S'he-dogging'. Instead of 'bitching'. They couldn't have just written 'complaining' instead?

SOLDIER 3rd Class

A long time ago, I was on a security assignment
to escort Dr. Hollander.
I remember him she-dogging, even back then,
that he wanted to leave Shinra.​

This line is available in Chapter 5, shortly after you battled Bahamut Fury in Chapter 4. Here is the line in the Japanese game if you speak to this NPC at that time.

ソルジャー3rd

昔、任務でホランダー博士の護衛を
やったことがあるんスよ。
そういえば、あの頃から神羅を辞めたいって
グチってましたね。​

Japanese text extracted from file1619.atel using JBedford's Lazard program.

I'll leave it to the real translators to comment on the Japanese text.

 

[Pixel]

Dogging
The practice of carrying out or watching sexual activities in semi-secluded locations such as parks or car parks, often arranged by e-mail or text messages.

Filth

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

I'll leave it to the real translators to comment on the Japanese text.

It's pretty dull:

"I escorted Professor Hollander on a mission a long time ago. Come to think of it, he had been saying he wanted to leave Shin-Ra since back then."

 

[lithiumkatana17]

Ah Shad. You are lovely for finding it.

And I guess he was referring to Hollander, not Rufus lol. My bad.

 

[Kermitu Kleric Katie]

"Words aren't the only things that tell people what you're thinking."

While not technically a mistranslation, it reads very awkwardly and not like something a native English speaker would actually say. Dissidia's translation of this line ("Words aren't the only way to convey your feelings") sounds much better and more natural.

I think this line is fine but better if you replaced 'things' with 'way'... Words aren't the only way to tell people what you're thinking.

That definitely looks better, though I'd probably also replace "thinking" with "feeling" because I think feeling makes more sense in the context of the scene. The word "things" is definitely my biggest problem with the line though, as I think it doesn't convey the intended risqueness of the line well enough, whereas I think the word "way" makes it much more clear what she's referring to. Calling sex a thing that tells people what you're thinking just sounds awkward to me, whereas referring to it as a way to convey or express your thoughts/feelings makes much more sense IMO.

 

[leadmyskeptic]

I know I'm quite late to the 'response train' at this point (the Shinra MPs almost cornered me), and this is a comment on the design rather than the translation that applies to it, but I just wanted to say that I think the fact that they made Sephiroth's final form so angelic and largely beautiful, along with the backdrop where the battle takes place, is brilliant, and makes it so much creepier and skin-getting-undery than if they had gone with the more obvious demon/devil type opponent. I think that's part of why I latched onto the "Saviour" title, even though I can see now via the forumers brilliant detective/translation work that it's largely not correct. The whole thing adds a lot more heft to that "I will become a God, to rule over every soul" bit, rather than Seph's motivations being added to the 'FF villains whose motivations are hopelessly vague and/or based around "taking over the world" in its most cliched form' pile. It's like a...a perverse form of redemption, almost. "Brush your teeth before bed, kids, and say your prayers to Sephiroth"

 

[Pixel]

"Words aren't the only way to show how you're feeling" sounds a LOT more natural. I hate reading or hearing lines in movies, etc that nobody would ever say, like watching an episode of dawson's creek.