More accurate translation changes

[DarknessNox]

Hello!

I started playing on the server and a few things immediately came to my attention. I hope you will consider my suggestions, I tried to make it as informative as I can!

Since I've been studying Korean for about 3 years, I cannot help but notice that the translations could be more accurate and true to their original meaning
Specifically when it comes to translating the ㄹ (R/L)
The letter ㄹ (Rieul) is read as either R or L depending on where it is and what follows it.

Usually when it is the first letter of a word, it is R.
It's why we have "Ramyeon" 라면 and not "Lamyeon" (following the logic from the origin word in Japanese - Ramen)

ㄹ can be complicated and is used a lot and there are few exceptions where it is read as an L. Let me provide an example - 리그 오브 레전드 - this is how you spell "League of Legends" in Korean. But how you read it is always with Rs (Rigeu obeu Rejeondeu).
Usually ㄹ sounds like L when it's towards the end of a word.
물 (mul) = water 오늘 (oneul) = today 불 (bul) = fire
In that logic, 라마 is Rama, not "Lama".
And ㅈ is always J so it's 자베드 (Javed), etc.
It is important when translating, to think about what you are working with, regarding the language and why is it the way it is.
It's why 데이지 (Deiji) is translated as "Daisy", simply because Deiji is how the name is pronounced in Korean!

There are a few tricky things that could be translated more accurately, for accuracy's sake.
Also the "Vanshee Natalie" comes to mind. It should be "Banshee", although the word is not natively Korean, they spelled the only way they can with the Hangul alphabet. Since they don't have V as a letter or a sound, they use ㅂ which is always a B.
The name of the character "BaekHo" is written as "BeakHo" which is a typo, since his name is 백호 (BaekHo). (ㅂ B) (ㅐ AE) (ㄱ K) (ㅎ H) (ㅗ O)
ChungHa (청하) should have a capital H. Leona's last name is "Bernier". It should be "Laura Constance" 라우라 is her name in Korean (Ra-U-Ra) which is the equivalent of Laura. "Constance" is the translation for 콘스탄스, since it's how the actual name is spelled in English originally.
On the same note it's 루민 (Rumin)
There might be other examples, but those are the ones I spotted so far.

Overall it's not an urgent issue (1 out of 5)
It won't affect the game economy or any core features.
If you approve the issue, the server will look more professional, since these things really stick out like a sore thumb for me and likely others, who played on one of the official servers.
If you decline it, then it is what it is and the world moves on *shrug* but if you need a consultant for some accurate translations, I'm available huhuhu

 

[vonDrach]

im fully for it and as war as i know there is a file you can just extract and you got ALL Text inside the game on one place. i tried a while back to fix it, but got overwhelmed by those over 300k lines and missing the context of later quests.

 

[DarknessNox]

im fully for it and as war as i know there is a file you can just extract and you got ALL Text inside the game on one place. i tried a while back to fix it, but got overwhelmed by those over 300k lines and missing the context of later quests.

Hmmm, I'd be willing to help. I am no expert in Korean, but I guess I know more than the average person who doesn't know Korean at all, hahahaha!

 

[Aithus]

Your suggestion is good, but as far as we saw, there is only one developer and to correct all the spelling issues will eat the time of any further development.
I would suggest in correcting the quest information. Quests had a lot of modifications over time and players still have issues and report them as bugs.

 

[vonDrach]

i think the offer is that he/she/them does the Translate with some ppl and the right to access it.

 

[Sladex]

As some of you said, the accurate translation from Korean is pending to do that is not going to happen with the small team GEa have now. And once in a while someone is wiling to do it but the big effort that is needed discourages many people.

For me, some names like ChungHa would not make like difference but for Lora/Laura is super weird as is a common name I know.

In the other hand, a friend of mine wanted to do a translation to spanish, but review the machine translation of random lines is not an easy job.

My two cents if anything helps, would be that I can extract the line into a XLSX or TXT format to work with, machine translation and repack the lines into the file, also, I can do some advanced text searches/modifications in notepad++/SQL.

Regards.

 

[DarknessNox]

I actually talked to one of the GMs and he gave me the file and I started to tackle it. The thing is, he said I shouldn't really change the incorrect names, etc and focus on the quest dialogues, but the whole point was to correct the incorrect things all together. I know everyone is used to "Lama" stance and "Lada" but they will get used to the new and correct translations too. I am actually discouraged to make the effort on the translation if I have to keep the incorrect names.

 

[Aithus]

@DarknessNox I wish you the best of luck and thank your for supporting the game.

 

[CrownClown]

Ex-geeu staff here ( translator of Eng=>Ru, but also polished Eng too where i was able to).
Thing is Kor=>Eng was made by non- native English speakers. Native Koreans, yah.
Plus there was no real management behind the process of translation. There was no list of approved translations of names, etc. As basically whole Kor=>Eng was made by one single man.
That lead to many different problems, mainly around names and R/L pairs(Log guild from Synodia is my trauma. Rogue!), but sometimes more (D/T pairs,character gender problems, and stuff.).
Consider that GE itself also uses non-English words (like Aurel Lupus, early being an awkward "Aurellufs" in English)... Of course there would be a lot of problems.
Majority of it doesnt really affect anyting but client side. I think when Admin said about "do not change the names", a bit different idea was meant.
90% of english texts can be changed without any problems if you dont mess with tags.
10% is stuff that should not be changed in any way. Not because it'll lead to technical problems, but due to communication between players.
Main idea- your client ALWAYS use client-side translation. But:
1) Server-side always use server locale. If you search an item on MM- serverside name will be used to search, but clientside name used in item list. For example, Vigi dagger was called "Vigilar Nife". Even if you change the name to "Vigilar Knife", MM will not find anything with "Vigilar Kni" query, but will with "Vigilar Ni". But result will be shown to you as Vigilar Knife. Thus- do not touch item names. Yah, even cards. Lada card will still be Lada card.
2) Chat always use sender client side name. If you change Nife as above, and link it to the chat- Knife will be show in chat for everyone, but if other players have unfixed dictionary- they will see Knife in chat, but Nife in item window opened when you click on link in chat. Same with maps and other stuff.
But that leads to kinda big amount of strings you cant touch. Like...
Do not touch character names if character can be recruited and name is mentioned in char card name. Cano card is Cano card. You can change Cano Kielche to Cano Kielce, but not to Kano Kielche.
Chars have stances. Stances is books, rings and stuff. If you change Aurel Lupus to Aurellufs- you will have to rename rings, which you cant rename).
Stances have Skills. Skills is rings and stuff.. u got it.

Everything thats not in 1) or 2) is safe!

Few useful stuff:
Ashardalon blog and Mega have a links to GEdictionary editor. Tool written by a player i worked with. Its not very simple, but useful.it can parse tags and help you fix it, find missing strings and stuff.

CSV produced by ix3.exe can be modified a bit ( 1st string to mention tab as delimiter) and renamed to .tsv. it will allow you to open it with Excel. Later it can be easily converted back to xml.

If you use ix3 on ies file without having the dictionary.ipf nearby- itll parse string numbers from dictionary (like Name="<$>123465<\>".
If you keep dictionary- it will parse texts like Name="Blahblahblah".). It can be easily used to separate strings you should not touch.

 

[Sladex]

Thanks @CrownClown, I have a better idea of the whole translation issue.

As I come from GE.US from T3, most of the names of items/chars were kinda accurate as @DarknessNox was explaining. And I think that most of the people that wanted to translate the game and also myself, were in the understood that changing the names were not related to make an issue.

I think that the whole game can be translated but char names, rings, etc. but it would need extra adjustments of the dev, and those adjustments are not in the dev priority now.