<story><title>Games with Famous Bad Translations into Japanese</title><url>https://legendsoflocalization.com/games-with-famous-bad-translations-into-japanese/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>corey_moncure</author><text>I&amp;#x27;ve seen Let&amp;#x27;s Plays of the Japanese translation of Portal and felt that it misses the sardonic notes of GLaDOS&amp;#x27; script, and as a result falls completely flat.  In my opinion, this aspect is essential to the Portal experience.  It&amp;#x27;s not that I couldn&amp;#x27;t think of how to express certain lines in Japanese, rather it just seemed that the translation team didn&amp;#x27;t get the jokes at all.&lt;p&gt;That said, translating jokes can be very, very difficult.  Sometimes you&amp;#x27;re lucky and there&amp;#x27;s a low hanging fruit to grab, a pun that works in both source and target languages, or a similar idiom that&amp;#x27;s recognizable if you switch out a word with another one in the same category.  All too often with language pairs as distant as English and Japanese, you just end up writing your own joke.&lt;p&gt;Having grown up with &amp;quot;spoony bard&amp;quot;, &amp;quot;this guy are sick&amp;quot; and many other memorable zingers, it is somehow ironic, somehow comforting, to know that bad translations aren&amp;#x27;t a one-way street.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>gambiting</author><text>I remember being shocked when I watched Shrek for the first time in English - all the jokes were different than how I remembered it(I watched it in Polish for the first time)! But well, thinking about it, that makes perfect sense - English jokes translated literally into Polish wouldn&amp;#x27;t have been anywhere near as funny - so the translators took a bit of a creative liberty and changed them to work with Polish audiences, even inserting some Polish pop-culture references where appropriate. And yeah, I remember it being incredibly funny and in comparison the English version is just....different(not to mention all the voices are just....wrong lol).&lt;p&gt;It brings up an interesting question though - do we care about the outcome(the film being funny) or about being &amp;quot;correct&amp;quot;. After all, Polish translation of Shakespeare doesn&amp;#x27;t change the meaning just to be more relatable to Poles. But then again, books like Harry Potter had plenty of changes to work in Polish(like the Sphinx&amp;#x27;s riddle being completely different in Polish just so it would make any sense - I would argue that one was kind of necessary though).</text></comment>
<story><title>Games with Famous Bad Translations into Japanese</title><url>https://legendsoflocalization.com/games-with-famous-bad-translations-into-japanese/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>corey_moncure</author><text>I&amp;#x27;ve seen Let&amp;#x27;s Plays of the Japanese translation of Portal and felt that it misses the sardonic notes of GLaDOS&amp;#x27; script, and as a result falls completely flat.  In my opinion, this aspect is essential to the Portal experience.  It&amp;#x27;s not that I couldn&amp;#x27;t think of how to express certain lines in Japanese, rather it just seemed that the translation team didn&amp;#x27;t get the jokes at all.&lt;p&gt;That said, translating jokes can be very, very difficult.  Sometimes you&amp;#x27;re lucky and there&amp;#x27;s a low hanging fruit to grab, a pun that works in both source and target languages, or a similar idiom that&amp;#x27;s recognizable if you switch out a word with another one in the same category.  All too often with language pairs as distant as English and Japanese, you just end up writing your own joke.&lt;p&gt;Having grown up with &amp;quot;spoony bard&amp;quot;, &amp;quot;this guy are sick&amp;quot; and many other memorable zingers, it is somehow ironic, somehow comforting, to know that bad translations aren&amp;#x27;t a one-way street.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>reificator</author><text>Ouch.  Portal is one of my favorites, but partly because I really loved GLaDOS. (Genetic Lifeform and Disk Operating System)&lt;p&gt;Without her constant prodding at you, I think the game would lose both charm and player motivation.  I&amp;#x27;d imagine the pacing takes a hit as a result.&lt;p&gt;Here&amp;#x27;s one of my favorite examples of a bad translation to English: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.youtube.com&amp;#x2F;watch?v=gFg6QOlV-EE&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.youtube.com&amp;#x2F;watch?v=gFg6QOlV-EE&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s an NES game, but before I spoil it for you, try to figure out which one by letting the music play out.</text></comment>