Retranslation Project of FF7 IN PROGRESS

[Kawaii Ryûkishi]

Hey Ryu, You know anything about these:


Kearu > ケアル > Care not Cure
Kearura > ケアルア > Carera not Cura
Kearuga > ケアルダ > Carega not Curaga

< That was put up as a possibility. Certainly it seems more plausible to the romaji? What say you?

Care is "kea," so it's closer, but still not exact. Some groups have even translated it as "Keal" in the past, because it doesn't exactly match any real word. A lot of Japanese spell names in the series are like this: the Silence spell is actually "Silece," Sleep is "Sleeple," Protect is "Protes," and so on. I think "kearu" in particular is open to interpretation.

If you go with Cure, though, it should be Curega, not Curaga. Just like Figa instead of Firaga.

And:

Gysahl/Gizzard Greens > ギサールの野菜 > Gisahl Greens
[ Gysahl Greens - The Final Fantasy Wiki has more Final Fantasy information than Cid could research
http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/Gysa ... asy_III%29
They get their name from the town in FF3 where they were first bought
There is still debate on what the town is properly translated to:
Gisahl, Gizarl among them
Has a duplicate named Gizzard Greens]

The town's name is another original term, so it's also open to interpretation. However, I believe it's most commonly been referred to as "Gysahl," so I'd stick with that.

[seiferalmasy2]

Translator disagrees with you on sleeple. In fact I brought this item up with 2 of them and both said it is sleepel as opposed to sleeple
>

Sleepel > スリプル > Suripuru > Sleepel

I will ask them why that is.


Silence > サイレス > Sairesu > Silence

I would assume it is silence. They use su for a number of endings and since they don't have ce sound, I would assume that Sairesu is as close as they can get to silence or they rather shoddily approximated it....

Any case, I have noted Gysahl and will see what the others say on care....

A few online translators do give Care for the romaji I would assume that care is exactly what word they were looking for. Everyone (inc you) pretty much agrees that it is closer than cure....

and yes, I have already noted the ga,ra thing; same as fire.

Thanks for help, as usual

[Crimson]

I refuse to even LOOK at this redo if you dont leave in "This guy are sick."

[seiferalmasy2]

I refuse to even LOOK at this redo if you dont leave in "This guy are sick."

That is already corrected on PC version So I don't need to :P

[MJN SEIFER]

seiferalmasy, it's your choice but are you going to do a proper correction for the "So that's how you fooled them?" scene? I wasn't impressed with the fanboy like replacment the PC version gave.

[seiferalmasy2]

canon has mostly been thrown out on favour of accuracy. In same way, all dialogue is to be retranslated as accurately as possible. We won't keep something in just because it pleases people.

For example, a lot of people were very angry that we are ditching barret's rathe racist stereotype (which is not present in japanese game). This doesn't mean he will not be aggressive, obv that is his character, but it does mean he won't be saying "yo" "bro" "nuthin'" "shi'"

So to answer your question, the original translation will be changed if it is found to be inaccurate.

That scene will be sorted out properly. Since it is near start of game I am sure when we knuckle down, you won't have long to wait until you see what we come up with. I will see what you think.

[MJN SEIFER]

Got it.

Enjoying this so far.

[seiferalmasy2]

to ryu again:

Discussing "Elemental" Materia. Obv a lot of them are not classic elements and this appears to have been mistranslated or localised. What would you call it?

ぞくせいattribute, context, earthly life, growing gregariously, growing in clusters, secular surname, this world.

I am thinking just "Attribute" or "Planet Attribute"

[Crimson]

I refuse to even LOOK at this redo if you dont leave in "This guy are sick."

That is already corrected on PC version ;) So I don't need to :P

But it's the best typo in the game.


It shouldnt have been fixed.

[seiferalmasy2]

That is no typo, seems to be more the level of education the translators were at

[Zeromus_X]

Tbh, I'm not sure why you wouldn't use "element" for zokusei. Many games use elements that aren't the "classical elements", and the word element still makes sense in this case; element doesn't have to just refer to those. I'd go with "element" or "attribute" for that since anything else just wouldn't make much sense.

RPGs commonly translate it as "element" or "attribute" or similar to begin with, so calling it a mistranslation or fault of FFVII's localization crew is a bit of a stretch. Here's an example of a Tales game translating the word (from two different translations):

[seiferalmasy2]

There is no "element" in the translated word....therefore to call it that (when ebverybody knows the 4 elements) can't be seen as anything other than erroneous imho

[Zeromus_X]

The "attribute" meaning of the word can certainly be "element", and in video games, this is precisely what elements are and the word is often translated as (again, the word element doesn't always refer to the four classical elements, in fact another meaning of the word is attribute). It just seems rather silly to not use the word element when the word is commonly translated that way just because "it's incorrect".

[seiferalmasy2]

There are many things that have become the norm, but had they meant element, they would have used the japanese symbol for it (they must have one)

I have no authority to go with it because it is commonly used. From day 1, I have made sure to stick to accuracy over canon....

(there are some exceptions with 1 or 2 character names)

[The Summoner of Leviathan]

Did a quick bit of research, ぞくせい (zokusei) can be written in a few ways in Japanese. While the game may utilize kana to spell the word, the listing above consisted of translations of a homonyms. The kanji make the difference clear.

Note, all these words are "zokusei" but just different ways to spelling it (i.e. homonyms):

属性 -attribute
族生 -growing in clusters (plants), growing gregariously
俗世 -this world, mundane world, earthly life
俗姓 -secular name (priest's)

So given the context, like Zero said "attribute" is a good translation. Also, "element" works fine. "Element" traditionally means a part, aspect, an attribute of something. It can mean the classical elements but that is just one meaning. Also, the Japanese have 5 elements based on Buddhist ideas (earth, fire, water, air, and void/space). The "Classical Elements" (earth, fire, water and air) are products of pre-Socratic Greek philosophy as far as I can remember.

Also, dictionaries are not the be-all-end-all for translations, sometimes being less literal helps people understand better.

Oh, and for them not using the "Japanese symbol" (i.e. kanji) for "element" or whatever they wanted "zokusei" to mean, it has to do with the target age of the game. Simply put, the older the audience the more kanji they use. Also, it could simply be convention not to us kanji for that word to. Hard to know which.