[Complete - Full] [RJ172319] TINY KING ~ Amelia and the Dark Lord's Phial ~

[Macavity]

You must be registered to see the links

You must be registered to see the links

I decided to try translating a game. I don't speak Japanese, so I used a machine translation as a base, and translated that to real English.

Completed translation is uploaded. It's for version 1.0.1, the current one. It's also on sale for $2 on dlsite right now, so a great time to buy it and support the creator.

Progress:
Completed

 

[Gummiel]

When you say you are "using a machine translation as a base" I hope that does mean you are gonna try and make it into actual coherent and understandable English? There are quite a few machine translated games that might as well not be translated out there, the English they got are that bad, certainly hope this will not be like that, does look like an game that could be interesting to play, and as such will look forward to it, as long as it is done properly

 

[Macavity]

When you say you are "using a machine translation as a base" I hope that does mean you are gonna try and make it into actual coherent and understandable English? There are quite a few machine translated games that might as well not be translated out there, the English they got are that bad, certainly hope this will not be like that, does look like an game that could be interesting to play, and as such will look forward to it, as long as it is done properly

Yes, I am retranslating it from machine English into actual English. Getting annoyed by the bad machine translation of Lucia Script floating out there is what inspired me to try my hand at translating. That game is way too long for a first project though, so I went with this one.

 

[Thronico]

Yes, I am retranslating it from machine English into actual English. Getting annoyed by the bad machine translation of Lucia Script floating out there is what inspired me to try my hand at translating. That game is way too long for a first project though, so I went with this one.

As someone who made an effort to translate the machine translated Lucia Script, I can tell you that if the machine translation is bad enough, you won't have any idea of what to edit the text into.
At one point, the machine translation gave back to me "100% egg yen milk"

This was during a serious conversation with an enemy encounter. Like, what the fuck does that even mean?

Anyway, hope you have much better luck than I did, that shit was aids. Hang in there.

 

[Macavity]

As someone who made an effort to translate the machine translated Lucia Script, I can tell you that if the machine translation is bad enough, you won't have any idea of what to edit the text into.
At one point, the machine translation gave back to me "100% egg yen milk"

This was during a serious conversation with an enemy encounter. Like, what the fuck does that even mean?

Anyway, hope you have much better luck than I did, that shit was aids. Hang in there.

Thanks! I'm finding that with 2 or 3 different machine translations, at least 1 of them won't bug out with random stuff. It requires a lot more effort than I was expecting though. I've gained more respect for users like Chromium who've translated games at an insane rate.

 

[Macavity]

Completed translation is uploaded. Let me know if you have any problems with it.

 

[Seryuu]

Very nice of you to mtl a game from a company that is already partnered with Kagura. I hope you understand that you ruined their the sales for when the game gets released officially. If you really cant help yourself and need to mtl stuff, then at last go for stuff from companies that aren't already partnered with one of the publishers.

 

[Macavity]

Very nice of you to mtl a game from a company that is already partnered with Kagura. I hope you understand that you ruined the the sales for when the game gets released officially. If you really cant help yourself and need to mtl stuff, then at last go for stuff from companies that aren't already partnered with one of the publishers.

You are wrong on so many counts.

1. This isn't a machine translation. I started with a machine translation and then translated from that into actual English.

2. Kagura has shown no indication that they were going to translate this game, or that sales of Terrible Laboratory were high enough that they were considering others from the circle.

3. If anything, this translation will increase the odds of Kagura picking the game up. They have been very willing to start with fan translations in the past, because it is a ton cheaper for them than translating games from scratch.

4. I'm still encouraging people to buy the game from Dlsite, so the creators are still getting payed. Anyone who pirates it would still pirate it if Kagura releases it.

 

[TTsuyuki]

Very nice of you to mtl a game from a company that is already partnered with Kagura. I hope you understand that you ruined the the sales for when the game gets released officially. If you really cant help yourself and need to mtl stuff, then at last go for stuff from companies that aren't already partnered with one of the publishers.

So i was surprised about how aggressive your comment was and i wanted to understand your point of view a bit more so i looked around at your other posts and it turns out that besides the obvious animosity towards MTL for some reason, you also have completely no idea what you are talking about. I mean how daft do you have to be to say that because someone did a MTL that means NO ONE will do a proper translation now. That's just fucking bonkers. It's like saying that because someone made a barely functional mod for a game that means no one will ever try to fix it or just do it from the start.

Kudos to you Macavity for that calm response. I would have lost my shit in your place.

 

[DarkFire1004]

Going to step in now to say that it's fine if you want to discuss the merits of machine translation, but do not start flaming.

 

[Seryuu]

This isn't a machine translation. I started with a machine translation and then translated from that into actual English.

Unless you actually know Japanese its still a machine translation, just a edited one. Doesn't make it any more accurate or good.

2. Kagura has shown no indication that they were going to translate this game, or that sales of Terrible Laboratory were high enough that they were considering others from the circle.

Most companies Kagura included dont release their sale numbers, or indicate about future project untill they have something to show.

I cant force you to stop but going after partnered companies is nothing but harmful and unethical. If you want to help the community and developers learn Japanese or go for games that have a low chance of ever getting license.

Going to step in now to say that it's fine if you want to discuss the merits of machine translation, but do not start flaming.

I m not trying to start a flame war or anything. Its just sad seeing people pull stuff like this while you have literally thousands of games from unpartnered companies.

 

[zumide]

I mean how daft do you have to be to say that because someone did a MTL that means NO ONE will do a proper translation now. That's just fucking bonkers. It's like saying that because someone made a barely functional mod for a game that means no one will ever try to fix it or just do it from the start.

Eh. Based on my experience from scanlations, machine translations can absolutely make people reconsider their choice of projects. Of course there's no NEVER but "I thought this was already translated" is something I heard more than once. Translators I worked with looked up an artist, saw that the thing they were interested in got a release that's tagged as translated and picked something else instead. "It's better than nothing so I'll just do something else instead" isn't unheard either. Just as an example, there is/was a scanlation group that was infamous for their HORRIBLE translations. Shit translation, shit editing, shit everything. And yet it caused a couple translation plans to get dropped because now there was an english version out there, it's shit but it's better than nothing amirite? (No it's not)

Now compare this to the translation here. It reads well enough and most people are probably not even going to notice that it is based off a machine translation, it sits comfortably in the "Good enough" category. This is why personally I give it low odds that someone is going to revisit this. Is there a possibility that someone does revisit it? Sure, there's lots of people who care enough about accuracy and/or quality that they would spend the time to redo everything. But like it or not, there WILL be people who see that there's now an english version, kick it out of their backlog and move on to one of the thousand other games that are in need of a translation.

 

[Onegai]

Unless you actually know Japanese its still a machine translation, just a edited one. Doesn't make it any more accurate or good.

Do you actually believe what you say?

Thanks for the translation Macavity. Shame on the people who contribute nothing but complain about productive people.

 

[TTsuyuki]

Eh. Based on my experience from scanlations, machine translations can absolutely make people reconsider their choice of projects. Of course there's no NEVER but "I thought this was already translated" is something I heard more than once. Translators I worked with looked up an artist, saw that the thing they were interested in got a release that's tagged as translated and picked something else instead. "It's better than nothing so I'll just do something else instead" isn't unheard either. Just as an example, there is/was a scanlation group that was infamous for their HORRIBLE translations. Shit translation, shit editing, shit everything. And yet it caused a couple translation plans to get dropped because now there was an english version out there, it's shit but it's better than nothing amirite? (No it's not)

Now compare this to the translation here. It reads well enough and most people are probably not even going to notice that it is based off a machine translation, it sits comfortably in the "Good enough" category. This is why personally I give it low odds that someone is going to revisit this. Is there a possibility that someone does revisit it? Sure, there's lots of people who care enough about accuracy and/or quality that they would spend the time to redo everything. But like it or not, there WILL be people who see that there's now an english version, kick it out of their backlog and move on to one of the thousand other games that are in need of a translation.

So instead of 1 proper translation for 1 game you will have 1 mtl translation for a game and 1 proper translation for another game. How is that bad?

 

[zumide]

I don't know what kind of answer you expect that hasn't been already been touched. Again, I've seen entire projects being dropped because of MTLs and shitty translations. If I can reasonably expect a "proper" translation for both (which is one of the reasons this conversation started), I'll take one "proper" translation and waiting for the other one over one proper and one MTL because the average MTL isn't exactly known for caring about accuracy or a degree of polish. As far as I'm concerned, two decent translations at a later point > one decent and one meh now. The average guy probably doesn't consider it as a bad thing because "good enough". That's fine too, but pretending it increases the chance of getting translated or that correcting grammar makes it more accurate is just... no.

 

[ScuffedJays]

Eh. Based on my experience from scanlations, machine translations can absolutely make people reconsider their choice of projects. Of course there's no NEVER but "I thought this was already translated" is something I heard more than once. Translators I worked with looked up an artist, saw that the thing they were interested in got a release that's tagged as translated and picked something else instead. "It's better than nothing so I'll just do something else instead" isn't unheard either. Just as an example, there is/was a scanlation group that was infamous for their HORRIBLE translations. Shit translation, shit editing, shit everything. And yet it caused a couple translation plans to get dropped because now there was an english version out there, it's shit but it's better than nothing amirite? (No it's not)

I don't know what kind of answer you expect that hasn't been already been touched. Again, I've seen entire projects being dropped because of MTLs and shitty translations.

I'm ignoring the obvious troll, but as it seems like you're at least trying to make an argument- which projects are you talking about? I'm legitimately curious here as I've never heard of a fan translator let alone a company deciding not to work on something because of MTL, and I feel like your arguments would hold more merit if you were mentioning some tangible examples rather than "I've seen some shit, man."

 

[Macavity]

that correcting grammar makes it more accurate

I wasn't just correcting grammar. It was more often than not completely rewriting the machine translation output to read better. I attached a sample of one early scene as an example of the changes. If the machine translation was bad, I'd try other translators, or even look up the Japanese words individually to make sense of the sentences. I'm not claiming that it is perfectly accurate, but this is not some highly philosophical kamige, it's just a short RPGMaker game that 80%+ of the dialogue is sex scenes or people mocking Amelia. There isn't any deep context that you are losing even if my translation isn't 100% accurate. It may be my personal preference, but I find a lot of the "properly" translated games, like Terrible Laboratory, have their dialogue be a little on the dry side. I think it's worth taking minor liberties for a better sounding story.

 

[Seryuu]

"completely rewriting"
So its not even a mtl but fan fiction instead.
Why not just make your own game then?

 

[Macavity]

"completely rewriting"
So its not even a mtl but fan fiction instead.
Why not just make your own game then?

Do you even know how translating something works? Japanese to English is almost never going to be a completely literal translation. Just look at Castle Shikigami 2 to see where that ends up. "I like girls. But now, it's about justice. " Or try watching a dub of an Anime with subtitles on, and you will get slightly different dialogue. Is the dub just fan fiction?

 

[JackyHF]

Do you even know how translating something works? Japanese to English is almost never going to be a completely literal translation. Just look at Castle Shikigami 2 to see where that ends up. "I like girls. But now, it's about justice. " Or try watching a dub of an Anime with subtitles on, and you will get slightly different dialogue. Is the dub just fan fiction?

Considering Seryuu actually works in the business of translations and you probably don't, yes, I would say Seryuu actually knows how translating works and you don't.