Collaborative Translation

Please create a web-based translation tool where we (the public) can submit translations of various phrases in any language. The languages that reach 100% translation completedness can make it into the game.

Would be cool if there were like multiple tags for each language, and there all phrases in English with text boxes behind/under them. So people can fill in the boxes with their language… Some kind of Stonehearth translation wiki principel.

Just a basic idea… Maybe a very bad one. But hey… Just throwing it out there :slight_smile:

Excuse my grammar, not my native language.

Don`t be embarrassed you are not the only one with this problem and the people are kind about it.

A community based translation is a great idea. Not only is it less effort for the developers, but I think, that the quality would be really high. Just because the fans care about what they are translating. Not like the translation drones in there translation hive.
They translated General in Sims 3 (the military title) with allgemein (means everything)
And Power in Civ 4 with Elektrizität (means means electricity)
I could go an for some time but I think you get the point. The people who translate something should know in what context the words appear.

hi @W13 … forgive me if i’m missing the intent, but does your suggestion differ significantly from this thread? are you looking for a collaborative effort at translations?

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@SteveAdamo I think this is more a suggestion to implement a web based tool which would allow for easier management of localizations. Could be one idea how the topic in this other thread could be solved.

ahhh, right… well that would be a fairly helpful tool indeed… :smile:

apologies for my misunderstanding, and it will be interesting to see if something like this could be fleshed out…

Wow, some people have a really bold conception of translators (if I have interpreted you correctly). I guess you’re implying that professional translators “don’t care” about THEIR work? Rather bold, if you ask me. Grabbing two examples of bad work and then saying the whole profession is bad is like saying that doctors are bad because one doctor screwed up and killed a patient.

You are quite right about the context, though, that’s why good translators actually prepare for their job by researching and studying each particular context and other important considerations.

Quality-wise, I differ, it would not be “really high”. Fans do not necessarily have a good proficiency of their own language, let alone their foreign language. Spelling mistakes, grammar errors, translation mistakes… they are far more common among amateurs than among professional translators; at least “good” professional translators.

For some reason people believe that just by “knowing” two languages, a person is capable of translating, when in fact it is a complicated process. There’s a reason why Translation is studied in the university.

Apart from the quality concerns, there is an ethical aspect that probably won’t matter to most people, but it really is devastating. Volunteers working for free for a company set a bad example that is spreading quite fast (we love developers but they are a company after all)… I know people in a gaming community want the best for “their” game, but all that free work is just obscene when you stop to think about it. Then again, fans are free to dedicate their time to whatever they wish…

Of course, community translations are free and professional ones are not (yeah, strangely, some people like to get paid for their work), and I guess that’s all that is important, right?

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I don’t quite understand why you’re so hostile about something relatively harmless, but OK… The point for fan translation doesn’t exactly make sense. I don’t see whats wrong with crowdsourcing. It only works if people are willing to actually do it, and feel it’s worth their time. [quote=“Luiggi, post:7, topic:1949”]
Wow, some people have a really bold conception of translators (if I have interpreted you correctly). I guess you’re implying that professional translators “don’t care” about THEIR work?
[/quote]
I don’t see the value of that interpretation. Yes, it was quite negative to begin with, but I think his point was more that with this setup, there’s a better “review” process, though I wouldn’t know, since I’m not a translator.

Yeah, I’m rambling, because your post really irked me for some reason. The real reason, I feel, that people are volunteering to translate is because they WANT to. RadEnt could easily get away with only making the game in English (look at the amount of people from other countries that speak it), but many of those people would just feel more comfortable or have an easier time playing in their native language, so they’re willing to translate it not just for themselves, but for everyone else in the same situation.

Let me end this by saying that this is in no way an attack on you, but we have a community based on mutual respect and understanding. It’s one thing to not understand or to disagree with something someone says, but you should at least ask for clarification before attacking them and their point. Perhaps you didn’t mean for it to come off that way, but watch for that in the future, then.

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May be I was a bit overwhelmed.
I actually know a translator my self and she give a great deal of thought in translating and her work over all. So I don’t want to cause bad blood there. May be my post was a bit trying to hard to be funny and that did not come across because of my bad English. So sorry for that!!!

It is just a fact that there are really good community based translations, with great people and great effort. A great example is the translation of Oblivion which was not overall terrible but had so much stupid things in it (in fact a lot of). There was then a community patch, that was just great, really great. It gave the game a hole new experience.

In this case I just suspected, if they would do a translation, they had to keep it cheep and was just frightened of what might be the result. So I thought the community thing might be the way to go.

As a note I might point out, that the translation thing in my opinion is exceptionally bad in Germany. Here there is no thing as a translation study and a lot of translation, especially in games or fantasy books/movies or everywhere were the theme is important, are terrible.

That’s why fan translations are generally better as a whole, IF there is a strong community. Its not that translators don’t care about their work, but more that several translators vs several thousand eager, invested fans, (even more so in this case, with Kickstarter) who are willing to devote their time to the game to make it what they want to be. In the end, I’d choose THIS community over official translators for several reasons, most importantly the combination of a) Indie Development and time (I’d rather they have the ability to spend the time and money on making the game versus finding translators) and b) looks at the community creation already, with something like 6 months until the BETA is out. People care about this game, so their translations for it would be pretty high quality, especially since you have the entire community to grammar/spell/context check the work.

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I’m sorry if it sounded hostile, by no means I wanted the message to sound that way. It is not a personal attack either, I just took the quote as a base to open debate or just “answer” to show different points of view.

I acknowledge the strength of a community and respect their willingness to help towards a “common” cause, but it is sometimes not enough in order to obtain quality translations, simply because most people are not prepared from a proficiency standpoint (I repeat, knowing a language is not enough). So having experts (good, sensitive translators that also know about video games) to do it “should” deliver more quality.

My second point was simply that volunteer translation is questionable unless it is done for NGOs or other non-profit goals. Of course, people are free to do what they want, but it just surprises me how many amateur translators are willing to work for free. Even if their goal is to help other gamers, companies make a profit out of it (I have nothing against Radiant, in fact I hope that the game sells millions and the devs can bathe in 100 dollar bills) and I believe that this is ethically questionable. Making money out of other’s free work is a bit “gamebreaking”, isn’t it?

So those were my main “concerns” or observations. I apologize if it sounded rude or “hostile”, it was not my intention.

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im looking for one
one to croatian