Re: [MSX] Illusion City English texts / Snatcher
On Sat, 10 Apr 2004 03:44:50 +0200, Laurens Holst wrote: Laurens, About "grammar corrections", the last guy proposed to proofread the texts show me several phrases that should be completly rewriten to be in perfect shape. And all modifications where I was blamed because of "distortion" was simple rewrite. I just got the text: You are in Gilian's Room. There is a ball here. The ball is yellow. And rewrote as: You're in Gilian's Room and you can see a yellow ball. I cannot see how this changed the meaning of the text. Anyway, some people get mad about it, saying I'd modified the texts, introduced errors and so on. This is not the kind of thing that makes happy someone that worked thousands of hours to produce that result. Even if the result is not "that good", it's better voluteer as a proofreader than suggest the programmer to "let 'someone that knows english better' do the job". >Ofcourse you can't really blame people for underestimating the effort >needed for such a job. They at least have good intentions... 1 MB of >plain text? Ok, a bit on the large side *grin*, but hm, it's only >proofreading and correcting a little... how hard can it be. Yeah, the original extracted texts were about 1MB. After a lot of testing I discovered most of it were "trash", because Konami had not reformated the master disk (!) and those texts were just repeated texts and are never used on that positions. Also, about a half of those texts were menus... And about the difficult to proofread the entire text... I don't really know. I made it twice for portuguese version (there are many errors yet, anyway) and made on english version as well (of course... my english is bad so I think a thousand times before changing anything on someone else text), besides all the programming job. Anyway, my answer is based on the times I've sent the texts to proofread and the times I received them proofread. >At least, >that's what I think :). But! I can not know the amount of work in >advance, it is impossible for me to even make an estimate without first >seeing the actual text and giving it a try for a short while. If you want to, I can send it to you. I would be REALLY glad if at least one person sent me the proofread texts back (I have no reason to like incorrect texts). >Anyways, about asking Takamichi's permission... Er... It's your project >:). The english texts are mostly from him, and it's his name that is displayed on the title screen. I think when we look this way it's possible to understand why the need to "ask Takamichi's permission". I must admit I failed in this step (I changed without permission), but this was because Takamichi did not reworked the texts in about a year when I asked him. I thought he was too busy to work on it, and decided to "work fast and try to release the better I could" so people could play Snatcher in English (many people was asking me "When I'll be able to play it in english? Portuguese is like japanese to me..." and other kind of messages. Bad decision, though. If I could be back in time, probably I would be waiting until today, just to not be blamed. >Anyways, as I said, if you can't find a better suited person (seems so >:)), my English isn't perfect but I'd be willing to make an attempt. And >it seems like a fun job. It is, at least in the first 100 messages. After five or six thousand messages... Our brain start to choke and our bad english became even worse. q^= >I can print the text, and make corrections in the train to college, or >something. Like reading a book, but then different :). And if I think it's >too much for me to handle after all, I'll let you know soon enough. Anyways, >if you want to give this a try (which I hope you do), you know my email >address, let me know. Well, I'll send you the latest version I have here in your private mail, as well as a description of the script commands used in the file. Your help is welcome indeed. (^= []'s Daniel Caetano [EMAIL PROTECTED] - http://www.caetano.eng.br/ ..."A necessidade de criatividade e' o que contribui para a mudanca. A criatividade mantem o criador vivo." (Frank Herbert) ___ MSX mailing list ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) Info page: http://lists.stack.nl/mailman/listinfo/msx
Re: [MSX] Illusion City English texts
Daniel Caetano wrote: So, my friend, DO NOT change anything, if you can. Please, for your own sanity. And I'm glad you are translating Illusion City, because I would not be in mood to translate it (as I had said I would, before you started your superb work) just because I really would not like to receive "a year of infuriated mails" again. [...] But it would be even better if people stopped to complain about language correction and really do something about it. Wow... It is amazing that even if you do such a huge job on translating such a game, people actually have the guts to send angry mails about the translation. Anyways, I was not talking about 'Englifying' the text, just about correcting grammatical errors. I think there's a world of difference, and I can't see how anyone can complain about good grammar. Look at the example sentences I gave. None of these changed the meaning of the text. And in case of gramatically flawd sentences, I really wonder how people can find them 'more true to the original', if the original was proper Japanese while the English translation is hard to understand because of errors (such as the last one I mentioned). A strict translation doesn't imply bad English, right? I wrote a reply on this topic, because frankly, on the screenshots page at least the grammar errors were already numerous. Multiply this by 8 disks :). To me, this makes things awkward to read and harder to understand, and it bothered me. So, I thought some constructive comment would be in order :). But right now it looks like the notion is rejected on beforehand because, although a good one, there have been bad experiences in the past. 'Stop complaining, really do something about it?' Er... I offered to help if nessecary, didn't I? And not a hair in my head which would think of not giving any further responses. That's just plain rude. Besides, you know where to find me :) (well, more or less...). My experience too. Many people complain about correction of texts, but when we send 1MB+ of pure-text messages... guys choke and never finish the job. And frustrating is just a glimpse of the real feeling. (as I know you know). (And I do not even sent the menu texts, which I had translated alone since they are pretty damn hard to translate because of space restrictions imposed by the game). Ofcourse you can't really blame people for underestimating the effort needed for such a job. They at least have good intentions... 1 MB of plain text? Ok, a bit on the large side *grin*, but hm, it's only proofreading and correcting a little... how hard can it be. At least, that's what I think :). But! I can not know the amount of work in advance, it is impossible for me to even make an estimate without first seeing the actual text and giving it a try for a short while. Anyways, about asking Takamichi's permission... Er... It's your project :). If you would like the grammar to be corrected (so, not rough editing, but just make them correct English sentences), feel free to try to arrange something :). After all, you're the one doing the project, and Takamichi knows you do. Although personally I don't think you'd need to ask specific permission for that. Just like you know that your English isn't the world's best, as Patriek said, I am sure Takamichi knows his isn't either. Anyways, as I said, if you can't find a better suited person (seems so :)), my English isn't perfect but I'd be willing to make an attempt. And it seems like a fun job. I can print the text, and make corrections in the train to college, or something. Like reading a book, but then different :). And if I think it's too much for me to handle after all, I'll let you know soon enough. Anyways, if you want to give this a try (which I hope you do), you know my email address, let me know. ~Grauw -- Ushiko-san! Kimi wa doushite, Ushiko-san!! ___ MSX mailing list ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) Info page: http://lists.stack.nl/mailman/listinfo/msx
Re: [MSX] Illusion City English texts
Hey Daniel, It seems to me that you had quite some bad luck with the proofreading. I am quite amazed that you get so many negative reactions to the Snatcher translation. I played the entire game (well, almost.. I think I ran into a turboR speed-bug in Queen) and -really- enjoyed the translation. 'Broken English' never disturbed me at all. Indeed, what Takamichi Suzukawa is doing and has been doing for the MSX community is quite amazing. Metal Gear 2, Snatcher, Illusion City, Moonlight Saga... His English isn't perfect, but very well understandable. If you can find someone who can and wants to take the time to proofread things to make the final results even better I see no reason not to do so, but it doesn't matter to mee if that proofreading doesn't happen. Keep up the good work and remember: people have the tendency to complain, yet often forget to send positive remarks. Receiving 5 negative comments and 1 positive remark actually means you did a really, really, really good job ;) Greetz, Snout ___ MSX mailing list ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) Info page: http://lists.stack.nl/mailman/listinfo/msx
Re: [MSX] Illusion City English texts
On Fri, 9 Apr 2004 08:16:21 -0300, Adriano Camargo Rodrigues da Cunha wrote: >So, if any of you wanna help improving the English translation, please ask >Takamichi's permission first. I'll not change a single byte on Takamichi's >translation without his permission. I think it's a matter of respecting his >great work. If Takamichi agrees, I'll be more than happy to send the >texts to the proofreader. Yes, and if you can, I really advice you to NOT change them. I was somewhat obligated on doing so to avoid severe restrictions on gameplay (requiring computer much better than original version - many friends of mine can't even play the game in the version I released) and received too much infuriated messages that made me really put aside english translation (or version, whatever), since everyone complains but... no one really helps. Now there are already 5 persons I have sent the english script for proof reading and not a single one returned me. This is why I think Takamichi work is supperb. He doen't even NEED the translation, but even then he spent time translating the texts. I know it's easy to proofread 50 or 100KB of text, but it's really hard to proofread, keep space restrictions *and* keep a "consistent text look" when working with 1MB+ text files. On Snatcher I changed only a little things on english texts: the common texts (simple things like "Nothing was detected"), texts that were incredibly limited by the game (about size), mainly Gaudi messages, where I decided to keep everything was possible to keep from original translation) and 25% of messages on Disk 1. And even that way I was blamed because "I distorted the game" and so on. It was annoying like the last "conspiracy theory" about MSX Resource Center last week... But I received this kind of blame during 4 ou 5 five months before releasing final Snatcher in english, two months after the release and even today I receive some of them. So, my friend, DO NOT change anything, if you can. Please, for your own sanity. And I'm glad you are translating Illusion City, because I would not be in mood to translate it (as I had said I would, before you started your superb work) just because I really would not like to receive "a year of infuriated mails" again. Anyway, thanks for those that always supported mine and all other people translations. Good translations (regular text and good programming) are a hard work and takes so much time from everyone involved in the project... so it would be never possible without the comunity support. But it would be even better if people stopped to complain about language correction and really do something about it. >Finally, please, please, please, if you don't have time to do such thing >(believe me, it's not neither an easy or small task), if you will quit the >work in 1 week or 1 month, if you will not commit to quality... do not ask >to proofread the texts. Why am I saying this? Just because I know several >people offer to proofread a game translation or translate it to another >language, but most of them do not finish the work or even send a feedback. >And it's really frustrating. My experience too. Many people complain about correction of texts, but when we send 1MB+ of pure-text messages... guys choke and never finish the job. And frustrating is just a glimpse of the real feeling. (as I know you know). (And I do not even sent the menu texts, which I had translated alone since they are pretty damn hard to translate because of space restrictions imposed by the game). And Adriano... keep your good work. I cannot wait for CIEL3++ to play IC in full speed! (^= []'s Daniel Caetano [EMAIL PROTECTED] - http://www.caetano.eng.br/ ..."A necessidade de criatividade e' o que contribui para a mudanca. A criatividade mantem o criador vivo." (Frank Herbert) ___ MSX mailing list ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) Info page: http://lists.stack.nl/mailman/listinfo/msx
Re: [MSX] Illusion City
Adriano Camargo Rodrigues da Cunha wrote: New site. New language. New release. Fantastic! Great site! I can only say superlatives for this ^_^ From [MSX] Illusion City English texts: So, if any of you wanna help improving the English translation, please ask Takamichi's permission first. I'll not change a single byte on Takamichi's translation without his permission. I think it's a matter of respecting his great work. If Takamichi agrees, I'll be more than happy to send the texts to the proofreader. Takamichi's texts were proofread by an english speaker for the Metal Gear 2 translation too. With all due respect, having a broken english translation is not respectful to either Takamichi's or Microcabin's great work. But I don't have to tell you that :) I'm sure Takamichi knows this too. There just has to be found a suitable proofreader. :/ Anyway -and the same counts for the Snatcher translation- broken english is a lot easier to understand than perfect japanese ^_^ Thanks to all people involved! Greetz, Patriek ___ MSX mailing list ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) Info page: http://lists.stack.nl/mailman/listinfo/msx
[MSX] Illusion City English texts
Hi all, I was already aware about comments about the English texts, so let me explain things in detail. Takamichi Suzukawa was responsible for translating IC texts from Japanese to English. I know he's not a native English speaker, but he's an undoubtful Japanese native speaker and his English is very good (better than most Japanese people I know). And better than this, he has a big knowdlege about MSX, MSX games, Japanese culture and the necessary patience and goodwill for such work. I was (and I am) sure that there are no one better than him to translate IC texts. That's why I contacted him for this project. I didn't touch Takamichi's English texts (except some of them just for formatting purposes) because I'm also not a native English speaker, and also because I believe he translated the texts the way they are because it's the closest to the original. Otherwise, it would be a "version", not a "translation". Of course, you can blame me for Portuguese texts, but I think most of you will not play IC in this language. :) So, if any of you wanna help improving the English translation, please ask Takamichi's permission first. I'll not change a single byte on Takamichi's translation without his permission. I think it's a matter of respecting his great work. If Takamichi agrees, I'll be more than happy to send the texts to the proofreader. Finally, please, please, please, if you don't have time to do such thing (believe me, it's not neither an easy or small task), if you will quit the work in 1 week or 1 month, if you will not commit to quality... do not ask to proofread the texts. Why am I saying this? Just because I know several people offer to proofread a game translation or translate it to another language, but most of them do not finish the work or even send a feedback. And it's really frustrating. That's all folks. Regards, Adriano ___ MSX mailing list ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) Info page: http://lists.stack.nl/mailman/listinfo/msx
