German

#1

Hi, I am that guy with the somewhat random nick with an u and a p and 42 on IRC. :slight_smile:
This shall be a thread to discuss the german translation, brainstorm and improve until it feels natural. I guess it makes sense to talk german in here.

Ich f?nde es wichtig, die Charactere der Spielfiguren in der Sprache zu erhalten. Daher sollten wir vielleicht erstmal ?berlegen, wie man sie beschreiben k?nnte. Was mir so in den Sinn gekommen ist:

Frogatto:

[ul][li]Lausebengel[/li]
[li]frech, aber doch liebenswert und “gut”[/li]
[li]Arbeitet nur, wenn etwas f?r ihn dabei rausspringt[/li][/ul]

Nene:

[ul][li]Eine Kindheits-Freundin von Frogatto, ex-Spielgef?hrtin[/li]
[li]erwachsener, wie eine gr??ere Schwester[/li][/ul]

Eule (weiss den Namen grad nicht):

[ul][li]Etepetete[/li]
[li]sehr gew?hltes britisches Englisch, den Stil im gesamten Spiel zu erhalten ist besonders f?r den Abspann wichtig.[/li]
[li]Frogatto gibt sich ihm gegen?ber etwas M?he nicht allzu flapsig zu sein.[/li][/ul]

Soweit erstmal, ich bin sehr offen f?r Kritik und Diskussion. Es muss ja nicht alles “stimmen”, Hauptsache ist, dass wir die Sprache passend ?bersetzen.
edit: Grad gefunden: http://www.frogatto.com/devforum/index.php/topic,17.0.html

Wortspiele und Slang sollten (ausser wenn m?glich) nicht Wort f?r Wort ?bersetzt werden, da dies meist in Anglizismen und fragw?rdiger Sprache endet. Vielmehr sollte man versuchen den Sinn bzw die Bedeutung zu erhalten, aber “echtes Deutsch” zu verwenden. Wenn es besser passt oder es garnicht anders geht, dann kann man gerne auch mal etwas ganz anders machen. Mal ein Beispiel:

Frogatto: "Hey Nene, what's cooking?" Nene: "I'm making a cake."

Streng genommen ist “what’s cooking” so etwas wie “wie geht’s” oder “was machst du so”.

Frogatto: "Hallo Nene, wie geht's?" Nene: "Ich backe einen Kuchen."

Nene antwortet aber, dass sie einen Kuchen b?ckt. Das ganze ist also ein Wortspiel (cooking -> baking -> cake). Von daher f?nde ich so etwas sch?ner:

Frogatto: "Hey Nene, was duftet hier so?" Nene: "Ich backe einen Kuchen."
Oder auch (Jo_Rs)
Frogatto: "Hallo Nene. Was riecht hier denn so gut?" Nene: "Ich backe einen Kuchen."
#2

(I’m Jo_R/Joooo/JoR in IRC/SVN etc.)

Since some of the decisions we, as the German translators, make will be important for further translation and interpretation (maybe the devs want to tell us how they want characters to be), let’s keep this Thread as english as possible (I started a global style thread before but didn’t like it so didn’t post it).

Hannes, Would you mind to roughly translate your introductional post for the non-english audience?
Originally I prefered

Hey Nene. Wie geht's?
Or something like that which means like
Hey Nene, What's up?
Because that translates the primary meaning but now I think Hannes suggestion sounds much more freindly...

An important decision that has to be consistent is when to use the polite form, many languages, including German has (“du”, “Sie” or even “Ihr”). So, of course Frogatto and Nene don’t talk politely to each other but what about the pigeon whose name I forgot as well? I think he uses the polite form but what about Frogatto? In our current translation (by DerHannes?) I think (or is it a misinterpretation?) he uses the kingly “Ihr” (I think in english a “king” would refer to himself as “we”, in German other can refer to others with “Ihr” to underline his dignity (dignity? Is that the word?) but it isn’t used in everyday language so maybe it’s meant to be the unpolite plural form though it wouldn’t really make sense).

#3

Hey, good thing to keep this in English.

I’m trying to translate the thing in French, and I too was wondering how Frogatto would adress the other characters.

Since I see him as a cool guy, I went for the informal way all the time (“tu” in French, “Sie” in German, “usted” in Spanish…). Of course I can change that to be coherent with other translations.

EDIT: the informal pronouns are “du” in German and “tu” in Spanish, don’t know what I was thinking about…

#4

If you haven’t solved the cookie translation otherwise, yet, how about this:

Frogatto: "Hallo Nene, was gibt's?" Nene: "Kuchen. Magst du auch ein St?ck?"
(I just added the following sentence, because the single-word-answer might appear too short and unfriendly.)

Since “was gibt’s (Neues)?” can be translated by “what’s up?” and “es gibt Kuchen” is a common phrase in German, this would translate even the punny part of the conversation.

#5

That’s great. You’re a genius! :smiley:
There it is in the SVN repos, thanks for your help!

#6

:smiley: Hey man! Nice to see you around here.

#7

Glad to have stumbled across another awesome game, Jetrel. :wink:

I don’t think I’ll contribute much (remembering there are still unfinished wesnoth animations since more than a year), but I’m glad to help occasionally.
Couldn’t resist reading the translation file, though, and changed some minor errors, added two more translations (ll. 326f. and 338f.) and would like to suggest changing “und lassen sie Milgram das eine Lehre sein.” to “und erteilen Sie Milgram eine Lektion von uns!”.
Maybe Joo could upload it… ::slight_smile:

de.po (94.2 KB)

#8

Done :slight_smile:

#9

Thanks! :slight_smile:

Oh, and one more suggestion, only briefly discussed by manu: the manner of address.
In some conversations “Sie” is used instead of “du”. To me it feels a little strange in a not-too-modern, fantastic adventure setting (it looks pretty much like XVIIIth century, with medieval and steam-punk elements included).
How about changing it to the archaic honorific form “Ihr”? (Which wasn’t replaced by “Sie” in Germany before the XIXth-XXth century.)

Don’t know how it is done in other games with a comparable setting - e.g. Chrono Trigger - as I didn’t play them in German. Do you?

Generally, I’d keep the distinction between formal and informal manner of address - it’s almost unavoidable in German and even adds to atmosphere in some scenes.

[SPOILER] Especially when discussing things like gentlemen in the last scene. [/SPOILER]

#10

The way I’m doing things in my Brazilian Portuguese translation, Frogatto, Pato, Nene, Berd, etc. speak as a normal person of our age would, with the exception of any expressions that would be considered slang. The Elder and Milgram may use some bigger words, etc, but I don’t feel the setting is ancient enough to consider any archaic expressions - there’s refrigerators and soda machines* around, anyway!
I could say I’m aiming to write this translation in a way that I as a 8-year old would have understood.
Anyway…
I’m probably misunderstanding what you mean, though, since I have no idea how archaic “Ihr” sounds.

  • Not yet used in game.
#11

Hey, sorry for being absent. Other things got priority at the moment.

Discussing the characters is definitely something that will benefit all translators. I cannot be arsed to translate my post at the moment, sorry about that. Maybe someone could wrap up this thread and make a new one for actual “international” discussion?

In my opinion it does not make much sense to discuss german specific things (like the actual wording or small changes of content) in english. We’d just be adding an additional layer of possible confusion.

EELuminatus’s idea is fantastic!