English to English translations

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Victoria_La
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Joined: 28 December 2015, 20:55

English to English translations

Post by Victoria_La »

Dear Translators! I appreciate the job you doing translating the games, but it has been already few times when people start
changing original English strings without applying any guidelines or consultations with developer which is really annoying.
Specifically bunch of Lewis & Clark strings were changed, and few things were violated, it applies to other games as well.

[*] Bunch of periods (.) were added. In general translator should not be adding periods at the end since it usually at appear in content where it is not required, such as state prompt and logs. Especially if you don't know which context strings appears in (and it looks very ugly especially with graphics before period). The only place period is ok is in the middle of multi-sentence or in tooltips text.
[*] Few sentences were changed to use present tense, which were previous past. For this game I always use past tense for the logs. It should be either all past or all present, and in this specific game its all past and should not be changed by translator. Especially now its like 50/50 because some were changed and some not. And now it all will start cascading to other languages and will be a mess. And if you have strong feeling that 200 sentences were wrong maybe you should be talking to developer first before making such as drastic change.
[*] The capitalisation was changed. I use the capitation of terms from English rule book, i.e. "On your turn, you must perform an Action. There are two types of Action: the Character cards’ Actions and the Indian Village Actions on the game board.". Translator decided to go around and put bunch of these terms like Action in lowercase. Again why? I understand if English sentence has an obvious typo, but changing original strings "just because" should not be allowed imho.
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ollyfish2002
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Joined: 29 January 2015, 09:32

Re: English to English translations

Post by ollyfish2002 »

hello
I totally agree with you. I understand now the reason of my previous post about translators that just add a period or a space to my translation to be credited. I thought I missed all those periods but I did not know they were able to change the original English. And they do it a lot of time to get the rewards and get free membership...
Either modifying original sentences should not be allowed or should be submitted to the développer.
Maybe original English sentences should be tracked as our translations to see what and why they have been changed !
Or remove the rewards...
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Een
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Joined: 16 June 2010, 19:52

Re: English to English translations

Post by Een »

ollyfish2002 wrote: Maybe original English sentences should be tracked as our translations to see what and why they have been changed !
There is a translation history for each string (where the translator can leave a comment) to track the changes. Maybe a comment should be mandatory in English, in addition to the current warning that it's the original text and that it should be handled with special care.
ollyfish2002 wrote: Or remove the rewards...
Actually for English the strings are automatically validated from the start, so there is no reward for changing them (except the feeling of contributing a better text for the game). I took a look and the changes seem to have been made with good intentions, even if the translator should have been more careful about consistency on the three points raised by Victoria_La.
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Wakan Tanka
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Re: English to English translations

Post by Wakan Tanka »

I agree with Victoria_La especially because very soon after these small changes in English strings are made all the other translators follow and there are hundreds of unnecessary changes like: add dot, remove dot etc.

Although, you've also used same words with uppercase in some strings and with lowercase in another. For example: '${you} must select action strength (card or Indians)' and 'Use Indian as Strength'. Besides, these capital letter words don't always make sense to me. I can understand a use of capital letters to mark the unique elements of the game. But let's take the word 'action' for example. In all games we take actions, why is this one so special, that we have to use uppercase? Should we always use the same capitalisation as the original game rulebook?

I think we need more precise guidelines for translators and game strings creators. For example:
Do not use periods at the end of game log and game status strings (In most cases there are no periods, but I've seen some exceptions).
The more specific the guidelines will be, the less misconceptions we're going to have.
Liallan
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Joined: 26 May 2014, 07:01

Re: English to English translations

Post by Liallan »

I have to disagree about the periods. I think they should definitely be in the game log as they are sentences. If they exist in multi-sentence places but not elsewhere, that would be completely inconsistent. i.e. "Player took the widget. He earns 4 points." vs just "Player took the widget" with no period because it's not multi-sentence. That's inconsistent. It also seems inconsistent to have punctuation like question marks or explanation points, but no periods. As to instructions and information across the top, those are generally sentences as well and technically should have periods, but I think they look a little funny in that position.

That said, I think it's more important to be consistent. I know who's putting all the periods on things, and he seems to do it as a matter of course and I'm not convinced he knows all those games. (I can't see accusing him of doing it for reward because we don't really know - maybe, maybe not. People like to jump to conclusions like that.) I would never go through a new game just for the sake of putting periods on everything, but really only because it seems like a lot of trouble. But I will add them when it's inconsistent.

I also don't see anything wrong with adding or deleting spaces, if that's appropriate. Sometimes it's really a matter of being anal, i.e. when something accidentally ends up with two spaces as a typo and correcting that. (And gamers are generally an anal crowd.) But sometimes they are incorrect, like the spaces I continually see before colons. I fix spaces when they're incorrect, and I'm having a hard time figuring out how someone would add/subtract them just for the sake of doing it. (?)

I'm not sure how any of the above are "violations" since there is nothing in the guidelines about it.

I do agree on the tense. That should be consistent. I don't know if it's grammatically incorrect to use present tense, since it's a game log, and some authors choose to write in present tense for effect. But in general, it would be past tense. So I'm not sure why someone would change that. I only make these kind of changes for consistency.

As to the capitalization... I see both sides of this. Grammatically those words should not be capitalized, which might be why someone changed them, and probably meaning well. I see the point of capitalizing special things, like I'm OK with capitalizing resources, and certainly names of cards, etc. I also see the point about doing it like the rules. This is another place where I just try to make sure it's consistent. I haven't looked at this game at all, but if Wakan Tanka is right that there's inconsistencies, that needs fixed.

Again, it's not that hard to find a game and run the log for a while and see what seems to be the general way it's done, and then make sure it's consistent, and I'm not convinced that certain people are doing that.
Liallan
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Joined: 26 May 2014, 07:01

Re: English to English translations

Post by Liallan »

After going through a bit of this game....

As to the capitalization, you're the one who changed this, so I'm not comprehending what the complaint is. Also, I have noticed in the rules that a lot of words are capitalized that have nothing to do with them being "special." For instance, boats, time (during encampment), characters, etc. None of these words are "special" in this game, i.e. I kind of have to agree with Wakan Tanka on this point. (I didn't realize it was so many words.)

But again, in the end, I feel pretty strongly about consistency, including consistency with the rules, especially in terminology and that sort of thing. (On the other hand, the rules aren't always correct, and I usually find errors in any translated rules.) So it should be consistent within a given game, and I do see inconsistency here. (I've changed some I've found.)

I also find it curious that you would add periods to something like "Click this to camp now" if you don't think periods belong. I get there can be a difference of context, but this is an instruction to the player, and is a sentence like all the other sentences. Why does the context here call for a period? And I'm in the game so I see the context of some of this now.

Just as another note, I'm not sure I see the point of forcing a comment. If someone put something like a period because they thought a sentence should have a period, saying so is not going to change that someone else has a different opinion. That's not really the same kind of thing as me changing something for the sake of consistency within the game (or with the rules), which may not be obvious, so I feel I need to say so.
Liallan
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Joined: 26 May 2014, 07:01

Re: English to English translations

Post by Liallan »

ollyfish2002 wrote:hello
I totally agree with you. I understand now the reason of my previous post about translators that just add a period or a space to my translation to be credited. I thought I missed all those periods but I did not know they were able to change the original English. And they do it a lot of time to get the rewards and get free membership...
Either modifying original sentences should not be allowed or should be submitted to the développer.
Sorry, one more thing... I had to go back and find your other post to see what you were referring to. I really wasn't even sure whether to respond here or there, but here is where you're saying modifying the original shouldn't be allowed.

Yes, it should. There are plenty of things that are incorrect. Much of it has been written by non-native speakers, so (most of) the "English" translators are just correcting things, and also making some things consistent within the game, and yes, sometimes removing extra spaces that don't belong or correcting typos, i.e. cleaning it up. Now, I get that some people do some things for what appears to be just the sake of doing it, and it's possible some do it for the reward (though I won't accuse anyone without knowing that). Some even "correct" things and end up making them incorrect! But most of the people I have seen have done pretty well.

And I personally don't see a need for asking a developer about all of this, making honest corrections, getting things consistent, cleaning things up, etc. Perhaps a bigger problem is that I don't believe certain individuals really know every single new game we get, and are perhaps doing things just to be doing them. What is being posted about is not necessarily what everyone is doing.
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Victoria_La
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Re: English to English translations

Post by Victoria_La »

Consistency of punctuation and capitalisation should be upon developer and BGA Development guidelines, its not a translators' job
(except in languages where its part of grammar, but we talking about English now).
There are certain UI guidelines that apply to user interface for English strings such as
- You don't put periods in the UI elements, such as buttons even they are sentences
- You use title style capitalisation for buttons and some other ui controls
etc

And if we talking about consistency I looked at 10 games developed by admins and they don't have periods in the log
or in state prompts. Some do now, and I am not sure now who added them.
And until we have a definite guidelines you should not take it upon yourself to "correct" style of original strings (again typos aside).

Also keep in mind that game was reviewed by BGA admins, Publisher and Author and accepted with the original strings.
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DrKarotte
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Joined: 22 September 2015, 23:42

Re: English to English translations

Post by DrKarotte »

I have now noticed a lot of changes in my first game. If someone improves my English, thats perfectly fine.
Like Victoria_La I have made no use of periods, not because I don't like them or because I don't know that a full sentence normally ends with a period, but because I have noticed that BGA game logs usually don't have periods. My aim was to create a game adaption which is as close to the BGA standard as possible. There are worse things than adding periods, though, for example:

Changing the sense of a sentence to the opposite ("winner" was changed to "last player"). I don't know why he did this. The sentence belongs to a future game variant not in the list and thus will never appear (ATM), so there is no possibility to check the context.

Changing terms taken from the original rule book, like "Bullseye chef".

Unfortunately these changed strings show up in the translation for other languages, so when someone does some ugly changes here minutes after the game is online these mistakes may find their way in many other translations?
Liallan
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Joined: 26 May 2014, 07:01

Re: English to English translations

Post by Liallan »

Victoria_La wrote:Consistency of punctuation and capitalisation should be upon developer and BGA Development guidelines, its not a translators' job
(except in languages where its part of grammar, but we talking about English now).
There are certain UI guidelines that apply to user interface for English strings such as
- You don't put periods in the UI elements, such as buttons even they are sentences
- You use title style capitalisation for buttons and some other ui controls
etc
There is nowhere in the guidelines on this forum, nor anything I've ever seen said in the forums (not that I've read everything of course), that gives these guidelines. I don't know what guidelines exist for the developers and you can't expect the translators to know that. Therefore, if any "translator guideline" was violated, it was only maybe that someone didn't know the game, didn't have the rules open, or something like that. And punctuation and capitalization are part of grammar in English! (If you don't know that, then sorry, but you shouldn't be lecturing about English.) I get that since it is a game log, or instructions to players, etc., that certain grammatical things like that don't have to be followed (like I think it's fine to capitalize certain things we normally wouldn't, with consistency), but someone may believe, with good intention, that they are correcting grammar. After all, the English "translators" aren't literally translating; they're trying to make the English better. (And you're the one who added the capitalization, so still not sure what your issue with that is.)

If there are developer guidelines about no periods on the game log or whatever, again, we can't know about that unless someone was specifically told. i.e. it's not a violation of any policy that I'm aware of. Which is why I have issues with the accusation of violations. I'm fairly sure if anyone had been told this was some violation, they would stop doing it. (I don't agree with the changing of tense, but only because I know some games are present and some are past, but that doesn't mean whoever changed it maybe didn't think it was "supposed" to be present. I can't speak for him.)

And when I speak of "consistency" I mean within any given game, and also with the rules for certain things. I'm not sure why consistency within the game should be up to a developer. So if certain things are capitalized in some places but not in others, it's up to you whether that inconsistency is OK? I'd think they'd want it to be cleaner than that. Some of what we do is "clean up."

You talk as though we have some detailed set of rules we're supposed to be following. No. The guidelines that do exist are for people actually translating, though some of that can apply to fixing English as well. It's not that detailed at all. A few things have come up in these forums, and I've read much of it, or at least if it relates to the English or specific games I know. Nowhere have I seen these guidelines you're talking about. The only real thing I've seen is Een saying they want the "best English" they can get, and quickly so it's better before other translators get to it. Nothing about the stuff you're saying. (Except knowing the game.)

So until such time that they include this in some kind of guideline for us, stop acting like we know better and making accusations. If there is someone who is really doing something they shouldn't (like if they really don't want those periods), perhaps they should contact that person and say so?

Also keep in mind that game was reviewed by BGA admins, Publisher and Author and accepted with the original strings.
And maybe you need to keep in mind that if them approving the original strings was 100% good, the concept of an "English translator" wouldn't exist. And they are all French speakers. And approving the original does not prove that any other possibility is automatically wrong. After all, the original doesn't have all that capitalization but they approved it that way. Which says to me none of them cared about it one way or the other.
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