Board Game Arena

I have never encountered a serial killer (happy me), but I am starting to encounter more and more serial translators.

Not a problem for me if the translations are correct (I speak for my mother tongue : french), but I frequently notice word-by-word translations that are awkward for the best, that have absolutely no sense or do not have any relation with the original english words or sentences for the worse.

It even sometimes turn to a translation/reward hunt between serial translators and I feel like in Far-West at the very beginning.

There need to be a sheriff here to maintain order, or one of us is to much in this translation will be the rule.

there already is and you are allowed to report serial translators when you're 100% sure they have never read the rulebook

tchobello wrote: ↑08 September 2023, 16:34 there already is and you are allowed to report serial translators when you're 100% sure they have never read the rulebook

How can you be sure of that ?

Their translations are not 100% roten, but too many of them show sometimes poor understanding of the context, another time poor translation direct from english without any consideration to french syntax.

example (for those who understand french) : put in front of you translated mettez devant de vous. I think that "Google translate" performs better

IMO, like everything else, it depends on the context.

I would never report a translator if their first translation is bad, because to do the first step of translating from the English is very hard (maybe less if you know the game very very well and have the French rulebook with you). It’s very easy to make some mistake (grammar, orthography, typo…) when you translate a whole game with hundreds of translations.
The first translation (and probably more iterations) needs to be peer-reviewed and improved.

If I disagree with a translation (not a fix, but a change), then I usually add a comment to explaining why.

If despite my comment the translator uses their translation back, without explanation, and if several translators agree that it is not good, then I may use the report feature.

But to be honest, I hadn't faced this serial translator problem yet.

Sometimes I wish we could quickly see the list of the last modifications for all game translations, but I guess it would become a race to who did the last modification and get the reward…
Maybe this feature would be good enough only for the changes on already validated texts.

Hagardunor wrote: ↑08 September 2023, 20:13

tchobello wrote: ↑08 September 2023, 16:34 there already is and you are allowed to report serial translators when you're 100% sure they have never read the rulebook

How can you be sure of that ?

Their translations are not 100% roten, but too many of them show sometimes poor understanding of the context, another time poor translation direct from english without any consideration to french syntax.

they are ruining the dev job, the game quality and need to be axed

Hagardunor wrote: ↑08 September 2023, 20:13

tchobello wrote: ↑08 September 2023, 16:34 there already is and you are allowed to report serial translators when you're 100% sure they have never read the rulebook

How can you be sure of that ?

Their translations are not 100% roten, but too many of them show sometimes poor understanding of the context, another time poor translation direct from english without any consideration to french syntax.

Read the top warning on the translation page:

Important: to translate you need to be a native speaker of the target language, and you need to know (and if possible, own) the corresponding game. If you are not in this situation, please don't add or modify translations.

All translators are required to know the game rules and the target language.
Users who cannot translate accordingly shouldn't translate at all.

Even 10% error rate is actually too high to be accepted.
Think about it: a user translates 1000 strings with 10% errors, then 100 translations must be fixed later.
If they are not willing to correct their mistranslations even though you have pointed them out, just report them for everyone's sake.

tchobello wrote: ↑25 September 2023, 22:42 they are ruining the dev job, the game quality and need to be axed

This.

This is the very reason why I started this thread: https://boardgamearena.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=32626

I opened a suggestion report, based on a suggestion made by nessi: https://boardgamearena.com/bug?id=102233 Pleaase vote for it!