• There are currently leaks out on the internet for FFVII Rebirth; we have received legal notice about these being posted on the forums. Do not post any images, videos, or other media, or links to them from FFVII Rebirth or the artbook. Any leaked media or links to them will be deleted.Repeat offenders will be suspended.
    Please help us out by reporting any leaks, and do not post spoilers outside of the spoiler section.

Amazing interview with former Square Enix translator

The Twilight Mexican

Ex-SeeD-ingly good
AKA
TresDias
I don't know how I haven't seen this before, but RPGamer did an interview with Tom Slattery a couple of years ago:

http://www.rpgamer.com/features/insidegaming/tslatteryint.html

This is perhaps the luckiest motherfucker in the history of Square Enix translators. He got to translate FFVI Advance, FFTactics: The War of the Lions, FFIV DS, Chrono Trigger DS and FFXIII.

The interview is fascinating, giving insight into a lot of what goes into the translation process. The part about FFXIII will especially be of interest to those who had issues with its translations or voice work.
 

ForceStealer

Double Growth
That was awesome, Tres, thanks a lot.

MAC: Were there any changes between the English and Japanese versions that were problematic?
TS: Vocal fans on the internet often complain about translators "changing" things in the English versions of games. This always amuses me, as we're very often working alongside the team to help name those things in the first place. For example, on Final Fantasy XIII, we were asked to help with the naming of the roles--Medic, Synergist, Ravager, and so on. We were intending to use different names in Japan and the US/EU from the start, and we (the English translators) brainstormed and proposed both sets. For the Japanese version, they needed English words that (A) sounded cool when rendered into Japanese, and (B) would be understood by non-English-speaking Japanese players, so we worked with the writers to come up with a set of consistent-sounding terms that met those criteria. For the localized version, our focus was on creating names that would have a more sci-fi feel to a native speaker's ear, and also abbreviate to three letters in a way that looked natural and made the short forms quickly and easily distinguishable from one another. We didn't "change" anything; we just generated two different sets of names for two different audiences.

Retroactive integration of the English translation into the Japanese version happens on projects quite often as well. For example, we were asked to come up with a translation for the names of the transporters in the Nautilus theme park. The Japanese name at the time was not something that really worked for us, so we went with "Nautilift." A few weeks later, that started popping up in the Japanese script. That kind of thing is always a huge compliment. It's a collaborative process. No one is going out stomping all over each other's work just for the heck of it.

...

I feel that the primary goal of localization should be to produce a game that can be enjoyed as if it had been created domestically for the audience playing it. If it feels natural, immersive, and culturally appropriate, then you've succeeded. Games are supposed to be fun. I am always extremely respectful of the source material, but there is a lot one can do to make a translation come alive without changing the underlying meaning of the text. When changes do need to be made, it comes down to judgment calls. Lightning's real name in the English version of Final Fantasy XIII is not Éclair, because to an English-speaking audience, that is a pastry. The name was phoneticized differently from the dessert in Japanese, so the problem didn't exist for a Japanese audience, but rendered into English, it's very much a chocolate-covered treat. The director understood and agreed with our concerns, and now her official name in English is Claire.

I like this guy. This is exactly how I feel about localizations. It should be natural, not dogmatic-literalist.
 

ForceStealer

Double Growth
It's also super cool that he was a big fan of the classic FFs and therefore had an idea of what was nostalgic versus just bad and what that meant for his translation (although getting rid of "son of a submariner" was still a mistake in my eyes). And it was further interesting how he didn't have that luxury with Chrono Trigger and had to do a bunch of research. Pretty fascinating.
 

Lex

Administrator
TS: My most lasting contribution was probably creating the localization glossary tool now used there to help ensure consistent series terminology translation. When I joined the company, translators had to try to track down Excel file glossaries tucked away in disorganized folders on an internal server, taking wild guesses at where a term may have appeared. It was easy to overlook obscure references or assume a term was new when it had actually been pulled from a much earlier entry in the series. Now translators have a tool sitting on their desktops that they can paste a word or phrase into and instantly see if it appeared in any other games, and if so, how it was translated in a given language.

This guy is like the dream of RPG translators, both for fans and the company. He came up with this idea that they'll never stop using that keeps things consistent across games and we don't lose references like we've done in the past.

This guy is a legend!

EDIT:
Lightning's real name in the English version of Final Fantasy XIII is not Éclair, because to an English-speaking audience, that is a pastry. The name was phoneticized differently from the dessert in Japanese, so the problem didn't exist for a Japanese audience, but rendered into English, it's very much a chocolate-covered treat. The director understood and agreed with our concerns, and now her official name in English is Claire.

This obviously isn't news but somehow it made me laugh quite hard reading it from the official source XD. I'm sure me and fangu have had discussions about her real name before and I was like... I know it's French and shit but it's a pastry!
 

Blade

That Man
AKA
Darkside-Ky/Mimeblade
I still get a kick out of the fact they use a database system that retains all the Final Fantasy "terminology" throughout the series for reference while translating, so they can look stuff up and just fill it in for the scripts.

I forget the name of the system, "Moogle" something or other...
 

Strangelove

AI Researcher
AKA
hitoshura
Moomle (a play on the Japanese for moogle 'môguri/mouguri' and 'mou muri' [I can't take it anymore]) is the name of program they made to coordinate audio localisation.
 
Top Bottom