Significant Differences Between English and Japanese

Eerie

Fire and Blood
I think for FFVIIR, it's very obvious that it has been translated directly from English into the various languages, as I can spot various differences between the EN / FR translations (I should also watch that FFVIIR movie in French, for the kicks). This was however not the case for the OG, as I remember we had the bad translations in French too (TAT )

Edit: translated from JP not EN my god sorry ?
 
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youffie

Pro Adventurer
I had the impression that they were all done from Japanese, which to me is yet another sign of the great importance and focus on quality from SE when they localize their main games now.
 

youffie

Pro Adventurer
Yes, that's why it's usually cheaper. If they wanted to find translators from Japanese to FIGS languages, for example, I can assure you they wouldn't have to look very far, but they would probably have to be willing to pay more for their services.
 

Suzaku

Pro Adventurer
I mean, yes and no. You can still attempt to preserve the Japanese sentence structure, which is sometimes vital because the delivery may need to convey information in a particular order to elicit surprise or match body language.

In this case, something like, "I was by the hotel and across the street I saw a shop with a suit I wanted to try on."

English is quite flexible in that regard at least.

A good example of this in FF7R would be when you talk to Jessie at the end of Chapter 4. Paraphrasing, In the original Japanese she says, "I only use the best ingredients," and then lists a bunch of ingredients, but in English they changed it to her listing the ingredients first, then saying, "I only use the best ingredients!"

Which is fine, except her mocap has her gesturing as if pointing at a list at the end of the sentence. In Japanese she's counting off the ingredients as she says them. In the English version the gestures are completely incongruent with what she's saying, so it feels fake.

This is an issue that crops up fairly often in FF7R and plenty of other games, because while they can adjust the lipsynching, changing the entire mocap performance just isn't viable. And often the work of translation is done in spreadsheets, without ever looking at the matching footage.
 

Eerie

Fire and Blood
So I'm finally watching that FFVIIR movie in French, and aside the guy skipping a lot of sidequests, I can say that: Aerith doesn't curse, Reno does, the voice acting is good (I like also that the kids' versions of the main cast actually sound like kids). I got to keep the "I hate them all" from Tifa, which was really well delivered.

Also, Jessie is much better in French somehow? Much less over the top than her EN counterparts me thinks. Which makes her more interesting too.
 

Eerie

Fire and Blood
Oh, it was shared here!

Other difference I spotted, but I don't really know if it's because the guy had the Tifa scene (I could have SWORN he would have the Aerith one, given what he showed, also some light differences which made me think his Tifa affection was low), but Cloud says to Elmyra on the morning "it's as if destiny was calling me. I must go", to which Tifa adds "we know how you feel, but please, we all want to save her. We all care a lot about her".

Edit: oh and I forgot, but in the ch14 scene, Cloud answers to Tifa's "it's useless to cry" is "don't say that!" which sounded better and more comforting than his EN's "that's not true!".

Also don't know because I only saw that in French, but Madame M. cursing is hilarious, oh god how much does she curse, she's my heroine XD

And on the roofs, Aerith calling Cloud "méchant" was super super cute lol.

Edit: oh yeah, I should add Aerith' last line I suppose: "the sky is cruel". She definitely was thinking about Zack, with her having a vision of him at that moment :(
 
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The Twilight Mexican

Ex-SeeD-ingly good
AKA
TresDias
Oh, I like that. "The sky is cruel." That's got some flavor. I like the English line too, though -- and actually, of the three, I think the Japanese line is my least favorite.

I usually am really fond of the German localization efforts on FF these days, so I'm going to look up that version of the line now. Will report back.
 

Eerie

Fire and Blood
Yeah I think the French localisation is great. Proof of this, is a little misunderstanding over at the cloti FC, where I noted:

oh yeah, when she saves him after the Rufus fight, Tifa says in French: "C'est la honte là. C'est toi le héros" which made me laugh ("what a disgrace. It's you who's the hero"), with the light emphasis on "toi/you". What a way to support him Tifa :lol:

And people thought it was negative while it made me laugh. And that's clearly where you see the difference in good and bad localisation, because in French the subtext is a low key joke: "c'est la honte" (what a disgrace) is a sentence we often use (either in self-deprecating joke, either to mock others) when we fail to do something simple (albeit being a hero isn't exactly simple... ha!).

As for the second part, she did emphasise the "you", which implies that since he isn't, she's the one doing the job.

However, that didn't translate well, since French (like JP) relies a lot on subtext - there is a lot of "non-dit" (literally "not said" in French) - and we rely heavily on context to understand what's being said. When comparing to English, I can only think that it's natural that the various translations have to wander further from the original text to make people understand what is going on. Even when you translate the closest you can from an original text, especially when it comes from a language that has a lot of subtext like JP, things will get lost in translation. Is the job perfect? It'll probably never be for a lot of fans used to arguing on commas, but honestly? It's probably the best translation of FFVII we'll ever get, and I hope the next game will have the same care.
 

The Twilight Mexican

Ex-SeeD-ingly good
AKA
TresDias
Oh, I like that. "The sky is cruel." That's got some flavor. I like the English line too, though -- and actually, of the three, I think the Japanese line is my least favorite.

I usually am really fond of the German localization efforts on FF these days, so I'm going to look up that version of the line now. Will report back.

"Der Himmel ... macht mir Angst."

"The sky ... scares me."

Ugh, no thanks.
 

odekopeko

Pro Adventurer
AKA
Peko
I think she says something along "you gotta do better if you want to play hero"?
People really took this line negatively? For real? The translation seems alright in English, I guess, but maybe I need to go back and hear how other VAs delivered this line.

Personally, Tifa saying, だらしないぞヒーローなのに/darashinai zo hīrōnanoni, definitely came off as playful. I thought it was obvious from Cloud's reaction as well that he know she was only teasing him.
 

odekopeko

Pro Adventurer
AKA
Peko
"but someone special right?" she says "you're angry/annoyed" basically the meaning is you're fired up or something.

向きになった
doesn't actually mean angry or annoyed. It's sort of like she's telling him, "Don't take things so seriously," or "You're getting so defensive." It's implied the speaker was joking or teasing, but the listener took things too seriously. The translation isn't bad, but it was a weird choice. She actually does say a similar line later after seeing Tifa taken away in the chocobo carriage, but that wasn't translated into English. Not sure why.

Aerith: 大切な人でしょう? taisetsu na hito desho?

大切な人 = special someone; special person; precious one
But I guess if I were to translate it, I'd use, someone you care a lot about and or is significant to you.
 
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odekopeko

Pro Adventurer
AKA
Peko
Yeah, I'm not sure why they translated things that weren't there in the original source, and yet left others untranslated. But the ones I've noticed seem to be really minor inconsistencies and doesn't really affect the overall story, so I can't complain.

Also, seriously OT, but I need an edit button SO BAD.

Edit to say: The moment I posted that, I got my edit button. Woo-hoo!
 

1stclassasshole

Lv. 1 Adventurer
Chapter 18
When our group see Sephiroth on the highway. In JP, Barret says "You fucker from before.." Aerith stops Barret and says "wrong (not true)". In En Barret: "Ok asshole Let's.." Aerith: "Don't" .

Now I believe there're two Sephiroths

Might not be too far off actually... there's ongoing speculation about Sephiroth's use of "Ore" in the end speech at the edge of creation with Cloud when he goes "Ore wa kieta kunai"... so it's kind of interesting as it might be a nod to Crisis Core where he switches from using "Ore" to "Watashi" after that dreaded trip to the library... nuance like that gets lost in translation sadly... it might be a stretch to assert something so subtle has any major connotations, but just thinking about how meticulous they were with nuance in the remake, pretty sure it was deliberate, if nothing else to get people talking
 
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