C.A.! Translation mistakes in German version!

[Stefan the Berserker]

Bad mistakes in translation! Could you fix that through Patch, or providing proper .txts?

My probs:

Almohads = Mauren! Not "Almohaden"!
"eine päpstliche gruppe" = That must be "eine heidnische Gruppe"
Magnonel = Magnonel??? Magnonel = Mange!
Longboat = Langschiff? Longboat = Drachenboot!
"Wetter gut, den ganzen Tag" = that would be "Weather good, the whole day" put in other way around!

This arn't all mistakes but it would be great if you correct them with patch! "Almohaden" is really silly!

[Stefan the Berserker]

And before I forget: Why did you use anglicanised Latin? And Russian for Orthodox? Why arn't catholic orders in the language of the Countries-version? That would have made more sense!

[Niccolomachiavelli]

and taken about another year to accomplish. insert some realism into your complaints and see where it gets you. They were translating this language into god only knows how many languages. think mistakes wont happen? personally im impressed the mistakes are as few as they are. if your going to bitch about something, bitch about something more legitimate and more impacting the gameplay, like the crash to desktop, lack of diplmacy or reinforcements controls.

[TenkiSoratoti]

This is a British game and British it will stay, dont you dare get at the poor old CA team.


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"The good fighters of the old first put themselves beyond the possibility of defeat, and then waited for an oppurtunity to defeat the enemy."

[Stefan the Berserker]

I would see you if it was a german company and named the almohads "Maurens" in english version! It are even more mistakes, as I said. My poll is that they should get the translator and give him some helpful better guy and let him do the job again until it is without mistakes!

[baz]

i am sure that they are general mistakes and that they definately did not intend to be offensive. i have a feeling that it might be activision who do the translating :s

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previously BarryNoDachi - KenchiBND

Clan Kenchikuka (http://www.totalwar.org/kenchikuka)

[GilJaysmith]

Quote Originally posted by baz:
i am sure that they are general mistakes and that they definately did not intend to be offensive. i have a feeling that it might be activision who do the translating :s
[/QUOTE]

This is correct; we provide the English text, and Activision arranges for its translation.

[Lahn]

...which ends up with guys who can perfectly translate but have not the slightest idea about the gameplay or the historic background. If you think this is bad, you should play some older sims- TERRIBLE! I for myself nearly stopped buying German versions, they are taking away the whole fun (Baldurs Gate or Fallout spring to my mind). Anyway, this game could be worse but sometimes I have the feeling the translator used Babblefish for it http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/biggrin.gif

[The Yogi]

Stefan,

I don't speak German, but the term "Mauren" is probably the equivalent of the English "Moor". Now, the Muslims of Medieval Spain were generally know as moors, but the ruling dynasty of moorish Spain at the time of Early MTW period was the Almohad dynasty.

I'm certain that the German language must differentiate between Moor and Almohad in some way, if "Almohaden" is not correct then there must be some other similar word for the dynasty.

[A.Saturnus]

Actually I think that "Almohaden" is correct. It`s the name of the rulering clan not the whole people. Just like the Turkish empire was called "Osmanisch".
But anyway translations should be better and to say that`s a Brittish company is no excuse. If they want to sell in Germany they should make a decent translation or just let it English. I got the English version anyway, but in Germany often enough you don`t get them.

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In the name of electricity: CHARGE!!!

[Niccolomachiavelli]

fine then, for the sake of avoiding the problem of mistranslations, they should simply not sell to Germany. There, problem solved, no complaints about translation.

[Bohemond]

Stefan, though I'm a fellow German and I share the resentment about low quality of many localizations, I think you are a bit nitpicking here, at least the examples you present are not very good. 'Almohaden' ist absolutely correct, I can show you many maps where the Almohad territory is referred to as "Das Reich der Almohaden" and longboat is often translatet as "Langboot".

But in general I agree, and for this reason I bought the english version of MTW, and I'm avoiding german version at all. It was available at www.okaysoft.de (http://www.okaysoft.de) without extra charge.

Still love to remember the good old days before computers became mainstream when localized versions were the exception and not like today were english versions are a rare commodity here.

[Bohemond]

Ah and one more thing. You pointed to the solution yourself - all text messages can be altered in txt files. Just do a CTRL+F filesearch in the MTW folder for the passages you don't like.

[Einar Matveinen]

The spanish version has many translation mistakes too. I've corrected nearly all of them i think. You can correct editing text files in total war\loc\spanish directory. (in yours german directory)

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Rekisteröitynyt Linux käyttäjä nro 221083
http://barrapunto.com/index.pl?section=mbp-einarmatveinen

[el_slapper]

I've seen one single error in french - an untranslated string, in fact, while sieging. Considerinf it has been done in 3 weeks or so, much respect for the translators.

Stefan, learn that translating is VERY hard, as the better experts are usually very expensive, & the other ones usually are not specialists of the domain. So some mistakes can be understood.

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War is not about who is right, only about who is left

[Stefan the Berserker]

Errr? Almohaden is really a Dynasty but not the people. If middleage German Generals spoke of them they called them Mauren, I can prove that.

Easy guys: I'll make a txt pack for proper german and upload it! And we'll have "Graf" not Lord!!!

But CA, put Actision's nose on that thematic so they'll care to translate proper. Proper Translations arn't expensive...

[Lahn]

One of the errors I saw was "starke Ladung" - "strong charge" which should mean Sturmangriff or something like that.

[The Yogi]

Quote Originally posted by Stefan the Berserker:
Errr? Almohaden is really a Dynasty but not the people. If middleage German Generals spoke of them they called them Mauren, I can prove that. [/QUOTE]

We KNOW that. Nobody claimed the people were called Almohads. They were called Moors (or Mauren).

But the English version uses "Almohads" since that was the name of the ruling dynasty (which is the convention regarding muslim states - Ummayads, Abbasids, Fatimids and Safavids would all be known as 'Arabs' if we went by the name of the people). So 'Almohaden' would seem to be a perfectly good TRANSLATION of what is used in the english version.

I must agree though that it is slightly illogical to use Almohads for Muslim Spain and North Africa but "Egyptians" for Egypt and the Levant. It should be either Almohads and Fatimids or Moors and Egyptians.

[Bohemond]

Quote
I must agree though that it is slightly illogical to use Almohads for Muslim Spain and North Africa but "Egyptians" for Egypt and the Levant. It should be either Almohads and Fatimids or Moors and Egyptians.[/B][/QUOTE]

Yes, exactly, and the Turks should then be The Seldjuks.

[The Yogi]

Quote Originally posted by Bohemond:
Yes, exactly, and the Turks should then be The Seldjuks.[/QUOTE]

I think that the use of Turks might be because by the end of the game period the Seljuks were long gone and replaced by the Ottoman dynasty.

But this is true also for the Almohad and Fatimid dynasties. In fact, the Almohads didn't even exist at the start of the MTW Early period!

The Almohads (aka Muhavids) did not rule in Al-Andalus until the mid 12th century, when they replaced the earlier Almoravids (aka Murabits). The Almohads bought the ticket around 1269 AD and were replaced by Hafsids, Marinids and the indpendent emirate of Granada.

As for the Fatimids of Egypt, they fell to Nureddin, turkish Atabek of Mosul, in 1169. Nureddins successor was none other than Saladin, a kurdish general and the founder of the Ayyubid dynasty. Which was replaced by the Mameluks in the 13th century.

The point of all this recapitulation being simply that in a game that follows the history of nations through 4 centuries, using a naming convention based on the ruling dynasty is a bad idea, even if this is the accepted norm among historians.

It would be much better to use Moors, Egyptians and Turks.

[This message has been edited by The Yogi (edited 10-25-2002).]

[Stefan the Berserker]

Yes, Imagine:

Germans called "S(t)aufers", Byzantine as "Rhomanoi" and Chinese as "Maos"!

[The Yogi]

Quote Originally posted by Stefan the Berserker:
Yes, Imagine:

Germans called "S(t)aufers", Byzantine as "Rhomanoi" and Chinese as "Maos"![/QUOTE]

Well, ACTUALLY... http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif

There has never been anything called the Byzantine Empire. Its a historians label on the Roman Empire during the middle ages. The Byzantines thought of themselves as Romans, and so did their neighbours - the Seljuk Sultanate of Rum (ie Rome) is a good example of this. Or the italian region of Romagna (Papal States in the game) was called so because in the 7th century, after the Lombards invaded Italy, it was the part that was still under control of the Byzantine Empire. Even today, the Greek speaking minority of Istanbul refer to themselves as Romans - or so I've heard.

So rightly it should be Roman Empire instead of Byzantine Empire - but that would perhaps cause some confusion with the HRE...

[TBR]

Other translation mistakes:
Naples=Naples (not translated at all)

Neduinische Kamelreiter (obvious typo)

Whenever you grant a title that guy becomes Lord whatsoever, it's ridiculous if you get 'Lord der Bär' and the like

Serpentine should be Feldschlange

Hauptmänner should be Knechte

Urbane Miliz should be städtische Miliz

Kampfgeist should be Moral

ther are A LOT more of them, but those are springing to mind (in addition to those mentioned above) because they surface often and are thus more annoying.

[AvramL]

It's as if activision just used the babelfish program to translate those phrases rather than actually getting someone to provide the more common, correct German wording.

[Stefan the Berserker]

Post more Mistakes that bother you, I'll replace it all!

Things that also bother me:

Golden Horde? Mongols? No Euros knew that! They simly called them Tartar and also not named their Boss "Khan"...

Inquisitor - must be INQUISATOR!

Italy - Lombards! It is not whole Italy! It is only Lombardy. This will be changed.

...Hmmm...
Right! Byzantium should be called "Rhomanoi" so as romans...

[JRock]

Btw, it's Mangonel in English, not Magnonel. I don't know if that matters in the translation though.

[Lord Krazy]

How about calling Ireland, Eireann
as it should be.

As for our "it's an
British game" friend,well he probably
would not know anything about
bad translation in games with
funny languages so how could he
understand what you are talking
about.This is a very bad attitude
if you ask me.I wonder if this person
has played an other side apart from the
English ,from fear
of nasty foreign words like
Saxon or Angel they were nasty Germans
weren't they
Anglo\Saxon with a touch of Norman
some Welsh some reluctant scottish
and you get the the person
who wrote "it's an British game"
Yet not one these languages
are represented in the game.
So I would like to point out
there is no such thing as the British
language so to use such a term in
a discussion on language translation
makes no sence at all.
I'm sure you meant English
as this would be typical
of an English person
speaking about thier own
British language.I feel it
more important to know what a word
means than to know how to spell it
my British chum
---------------------------------------------
Wales?Could one of you names buffs
find out where this name came from
"Cymru" or something similar is
the celtic name.
---------------------------------------------
I'm don't mind this translation thing myself on the basis that they gave us the ability
to change all these things nearly
As far as I'm concerned that's the priority
I hate when a game has all the potential
you want but in a fashion you don't
like and you can't change it.

This game has a few of these things
You all know what the are.The hardcoded
names the ones that defeats the purpose
in changing the rest.Whats the point
in doing a mod so you can play as
the Irish if the heros are called
EL Cid or Iven the slayer and distainer
of the Irish
or the ability to have any colour you
want, as long as it's black
or the ability to give your
cannon and gun more firepower and ammo,
but not range, this I find the strangest
of all, I mean who tought of that one.
Big 0 for you buddy on that one,
you know what I mean

So stef you keep changing the names
We'll keep changing what we can
too and hope CA changes the bit's
of the code the would make this
deserving of adulation it has recieved
it's a very very good game
but the best game ever would not
have prompted the things I
have pointed out.

Slan a cairde http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif

LK http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif

_____________________________________________

Is fearr rith maith le na droch she a'samh

[Stefan the Berserker]

http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif No Prob...

Highland Klansmannen will also be made... They arn't english so why keep the anglicanised Name in Translations? And I'm sure Gallowglass has another Irish word for it... Currently they are called "Gallowglass-Krieger" in german version.

I got an Idea!!! LK? While I'm making proper german, we could collect all original Troop names and make a small mod for them... I think if, for example Italian Infantry was called "Infantirio" or something that name would be soundyer...

[Lord Krazy]

This is something I would like to do
alright let's just call them
alternative names lest we offend
anyone.If they don't like they can use the orinals as the names CA gave them
which I think on the whole are sound.

Gallowglass is of Viking origin
These warriors faught in Ireland and
Scotland but the word is not from gailge.
It has a W and W is not a letter in
gailge so it's pretty obvious to
me this is not an Irish word.
It would be like having a German word
spelled with Korean letters.
So "Gallowglass-Krieger" is probably more
correct than any Irish translation
you'll get.Now I'm not saying that the word was not used by Irish people.What am saying
is there is no and I mean no way they
spelled it like that.Any one that does not believe this fell free to get an Irish
dictionary and find a word that has a w
in it.If you do I would be very interested.
I know they added a Z and a X a few years ago
to accomidate words like zoo and so on
but I do not cosider these words to be Irish.Just as I do not cosider them to be
English words .So gallowglass should be
mercenaries as they were in real life
spuring from northern places.
I'll provide a list of Irish names
LK

[The Yogi]

In the english version, English name forms are (almost) consistently used. So in the translated versions, the German/French/Spanish/whatever nameform should also be consistently used. It would not make sense to use Gaelic or Italian names in the German translation.

If you start to use local names, were would it stop? Should the french have Knights? Should it not be Chevaliers?

I have noticed that Greek names ARE used in the English version, though. Why Kataphractoi instead of Cataphracts? Its not consistent...

[Bohemond]

Stefan will you please check where you found INQUISATOR? I think it must be Inquisitor or Inquisiteur.

[Bohemond]

And yes, though I disagree with you about some translations most of your examples give the impression that CA's translators were indeed very sloppy .. and this can ruin a game for me.

[Lord Krazy]

Quote Originally posted by The Yogi:
In the english version, English name forms are (almost) consistently used. So in the translated versions, the German/French/Spanish/whatever nameform should also be consistently used. It would not make sense to use Gaelic or Italian names in the German translation.

If you start to use local names, were would it stop? Should the french have Knights? Should it not be Chevaliers?

I have noticed that Greek names ARE used in the English version, though. Why Kataphractoi instead of Cataphracts? Its not consistent...

[/QUOTE]
---------------------------------------------
Yogi,
I don't think you understand
what stef and I are talking about.
We are thinking more on a generic basis.
Where units would be called by thier
native name.If they all were it would
be cosistant ,ya.
Also something can not be almost consistant
it either is or it is not.So
please tell me is it consistant or not.
I do not think so.I do not see why it should be.Have you never heard of the feutility
of consistancy ,it's a system
were people beleive, that if you keep doing things the same way ,you will never know
another.
So I say German names for germans and
Irish names for irish and Spanish names
for spanish and then everybody that plays
the game can have the same names.
So you see inconsistancy, when approched in the right way can give you a consistant
result.
Is this a consistant enough explanation
for you?
Or are you going to be consistant on this
one?
danka,

LK http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/biggrin.gif

[JRock]

Quote Originally posted by Bohemond:
And yes, though I disagree with you about some translations most of your examples give the impression that CA's translators were indeed very sloppy .. and this can ruin a game for me.[/QUOTE]

It is Activision's translator, not CA's. Activision just found an American kid with a couple years of German on his resume and hired him to convert everything to German, which is apparently all he did. He didn't know any of the nuances or actual German words for certain things, he just went around adding "en" to the end of nouns and such. http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/biggrin.gif

That's what you get when the production company doesn't care a great deal about the multilanguage component of games.

What they SHOULD have done was hire a native of the language which they are translating to get more accurate translation. If I ran a production company that is what I would do.

[The Yogi]

Quote Originally posted by Lord Krazy:
Yogi,
I don't think you understand
what stef and I are talking about.
We are thinking more on a generic basis.
Where units would be called by thier
native name.If they all were it would
be cosistant ,ya.
Also something can not be almost consistant
it either is or it is not.So
please tell me is it consistant or not.
I do not think so.I do not see why it should be.Have you never heard of the feutility
of consistancy ,it's a system
were people beleive, that if you keep doing things the same way ,you will never know
another.
So I say German names for germans and
Irish names for irish and Spanish names
for spanish and then everybody that plays
the game can have the same names.
So you see inconsistancy, when approched in the right way can give you a consistant
result.
Is this a consistant enough explanation
for you?
Or are you going to be consistant on this
one?
[/QUOTE]

You're right, I did not understand what you wanted, partly because this thread is (used to be) about bad translation in the German version. I agree that it would be consistent to always use local names, but I don't think it would be a very good idea.

First, very often the name of a unit in your own language tells you a lot about it. Take "Spearmen" - crystal clear what its all about. Use the arab, russian or gaelic word for spearmen and I wouldn't have a clue what kind of unit it was.

Second, since many units are shared by many nations, you would have to make a clone unit for each faction with a different name - its either that or use a common name in English for those units (like spearmen) and then it wouldn't be consistent http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif.

And as for almost consistent... as far as something can be almost perfect, almost right, etc then something can be almost consistent, ie not consistent, but very nearly. http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif

[el_slapper]

Once again, the french translation is very good. Surprising, as german market is bigger, and the translation sounds bad... Only an untranslated string in sieges, and a strange & old "vougiers" for spearmen. Not false, but I had to look at a medieval encyclopedia to be sure of what it meant...

In other words, a good translation is possible, why did it not work in German? no idea. Big money, probably...

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War is not about who is right, only about who is left

[Callandor]

In my opinion the german translation was made by germans. MTW contains lots of text (messages, explanations etc.), all of this is grammatical correct and spelled right. A non-german never can do this in that way. I think that the translators have not the historical background and knowledge like historical experts like you (no sarcasm, i'm really impressed about some explanations in this thread). And gaining that knowledge for a translation job is hard and takes some time which nobody has, you all agree with me? The people who translate games are often hired by publishers continuously, i mean for many different games. So i don't search the hair in the soup (german common words, is it also common english?) because i know, they have tried to do their best for the translation and the publisher has obviously NOT hired a american kid with some german knowledge. Btw. Stefan: Inquisitor is the correct term also in german. Have a look here: http://www.xipolis.net/215124c8982276a77e5f3a76fe44a6fe/suche/artikel.php?shortname=b24&artikel_id=10053103
Maybe you meant "pilsator" ;-)

Sorry for my poor english, i'm a "kraut", you guessed it ...

[Lord Krazy]

Quote Originally posted by The Yogi:


First, very often the name of a unit in your own language tells you a lot about it. Take "Spearmen" - crystal clear what its all about. Use the arab, russian or gaelic word for spearmen and I wouldn't have a clue what kind of unit it was.

http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif[/QUOTE]

---------------------------------------------
Did you ever play Shogun?
I still don't know what they
mean but I new how to use them.
The icon the weapon and the description
always sort of gave it away.
I mean this goes for MTW too.
What is a Jinette when it's at home.
I have a very good grasp of English
and I have never heard of this word.
I do also have a very good grasp
of the Spanish language also
and in Spanish I know it to
mean jocky or horse rider,
so your point about consistancy
is one of those often but not
always but should be maybe points,
that refers to some things but not others
or am I only kinda wrong? http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/biggrin.gif

As the german thing, if stef want's
to move it, I will http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif
On this point you are very right.
regards
LK

[Stefan the Berserker]

Inquisator is right, check Hisorybooks!

Evil mistakes:

Lord? No german word, make there Herr aswell. I got a guy called Lord Bismarck, so OUCH!

Province is MARK in middleaged german.

Egyptans - to discuss: Sarazenen or Ägypter? They where called that way and the Arabs they should represent where not only egyptan...

I think Byzantinian Emperors title should be orignal: Caesar!!! How do people think of "Imperion Rhomanoi" as Byzantium, if Greeks are here who could look up if this is right it would be great...

Imagine Shogun without native names: Peasant Spearmen, Samurai Spearmen, Samurai Swordsmen... Yari-Ashigaru, Yari-Samurai and No-Dachi Samurai is much better! It provides an acustic background, to which nationality this guys belong!

LK, heard that? French Knights for your mod = Chevaliers!

What is better as Troop name? French Knights or Chevalier? Maybe you understand my point now...

LK? Viking-Background for Gallowglass? Why not then just give the Irish word for Viking??? Norse?? Or Germanic? http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/biggrin.gif

[bwellsxx]

Quote Originally posted by Lord Krazy:
Gallowglass is of Viking origin
These warriors faught in Ireland and
Scotland but the word is not from gailge.
It has a W and W is not a letter in
gailge so it's pretty obvious to
me this is not an Irish word.
[/QUOTE]

Unfortunately your logic isn't correct. Gallowglas could simply be the anglicised spelling of a corrupted Irish word. Along the lines of Galway. I don't believe there is a Y in Irish either but you still have Kerry from Ciaraigh and Derry from Doire.

In fact (after just looking it up on Google) the word comes from Galloglaigh which meant foreign warrior.

[Lord Krazy]

Quote Originally posted by bwellsxx:
Unfortunately your logic isn't correct. Gallowglas could simply be the anglicised spelling of a corrupted Irish word. Along the lines of Galway. I don't believe there is a Y in Irish either but you still have Kerry from Ciaraigh and Derry from Doire.

In fact (after just looking it up on Google) the word comes from Galloglaigh which meant foreign warrior.[/QUOTE]

---------------------------------------------
I'm sorry I don't understand.
This is the point I am trying
to make. Galloglaigh is an Irish word
and Gallowglass is not.
The fact that it means foreign
anything sort of implies that
it might be of foreign origin.
I'm not sure what point you thought
I was tring to make.I am sorry
if I was not clear,this is common.
Btw I didn't learn my Gailge
on google.Also it would have been
unlikely that people in Ireland
a few hundred years ago would
have spelled a word finishing
in "gh", as this format has
only been in use for the
last fifty years.
So I would suggest you go
back to google and find
out how it would have been spelled
then.Then you will realise we don't
need the English to bastardise
our language http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif
For example my Father is an Irish
speaker and has been all his life.
Now he can not read and understand
Irish in the way it is written now,
so you can imagine how it has
changed since the time period
of the game and how confusing
the translations have become.
English is a very good example
of this also.

So after all that I hope
you see my original point.
I'm not saying these are
bad English translations,
I was pointing out that
they are not the Irish
way to spell it.
Do you have a problem
with me wishing to give
Irish names to Irish units
or do you think I should
accept the english bastardisations
if not bad translation.
Btw I'm from Waterford and
my parents live in Kilkenny.
So I don't need a lesson in
Irish place names.Waterford is
of viking origin also, just
like gallowglass and when the
normans came they changed a lot of
things too. So the logic
of your english translations
thing is not necessarily correct.
It's amazing what you can find out
in a half hour on the internet.
But being there can be nice too.

So after all that I hope
you see my original point.
Regards http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/biggrin.gif
Krazy O'Rodaigh(Rodaig:my fathers way)

_____________________________________________

Is fear rith maith 'le na droch she a'samh

I would prefer to make a good run
than a bad stand

[Stefan the Berserker]

Captain = Kaloy!!!
Sir = !!!
Lord = Herr !!!

To add some more... and keep this living!