Jack Adams

Active Member
Mar 1, 2019
528
4,455
You were the first one to call how long this was going to be:


------------------------------------------


About the translation..


This was years ago.




If I get support
If I get money
If If If

And then nothing happens. Sending 1 sentence out of a thousand to his "american friend from discord" doesn't qualify as getting or wanting any help.
Been 4 years. Just more lies.
1 word page translated per day it's ridiculous. Unless the fontsize is 0.5
Your expressed frustration is valid. His support enjoys a majority demographic that speaks English, and his initial releases are in English. I (along with others) have read his less-than-diplomatic comments here in this thread, and I find that even when emotional his English is roughly 95% fluent.
What surprises me is that he does not write the dialogue and comments in English as he goes along (while waiting for renders to finish). This approach would then simply need a competent English speaker (who does not even know German) to review the script with 'L and P' for ambiguities in the English expression. The time required to catch nuanced intent for the prose would take a relatively short time, and a lot less angst for all involved.
Thank you, Jack.
 

GingerSweetGirl

Engaged Member
Aug 23, 2020
2,528
12,129
I do some proofreading for the game Girls Next Door. The dev who writes the script is Portuguese and has a good handle on English. Probably 80% of his text is perfectly fine, but the hard part for non-native speakers is writing in an informal way, and/or in creating the connective tissue between ideas and thoughts in a scene. The vast majority of the games here that have non-native English speakers doing the writing suffer from extremely formal language. This makes sense because it's how people are taught or it's how language is easiest to translate. But no one speaks in such a formal way. They also suffer from scenes that feel like they don't transition smoothly, or have concepts/ideas/elements that are not properly explained or consistently referenced. I spend a lot of time writing additional text in order to help flesh out ideas that simply need more text to be explained. A non-native speaker doesn't understand how to explain ideas that aren't tangible (stuff like "envious" or "embarrassed") so the scenes either become clumsy or under-baked.

The last thing I help with are with slang and localizing the language for an American audience. There have been many times when some local proverb will be used and I have to completely remove it. I'm always sad to do it, but to an American audience it won't make any sense, or it will standout like a sore thumb. I then need to try and replace it with a common American proverb, but it's never a 1:1 equivalent. So that means that the script needs to be tweaked so that the elements of the sentence all match and are in agreement.

The point is that translating/proofreading/localizing is not a straightforward process and I wouldn't trust it to an electronic translator. If you don't care about the quality of your text, then fine, put it through your online translator. But if you want your game to sound respectable you need an actual person to sit down and go through the script line by line. Is L&P really slow in his translation? Yes. But we shouldn't underestimate that good work in translating/proofreading/localizing takes time.

Also, allow me to plug my signature, I LOVE the guys over at Girls Next Door. They have been a joy to work with and they're making a really fun little game. You should go check it out.
 

L&P's Father-in-Law

Well-Known Member
Jun 25, 2017
1,389
6,563
I don't think you realize how much faster it would be to have everything already translated and just doing minor adjustments with the help of a native speaker.
Shit could be done in two full work days probably even faster.

Edit: And done come with stuff like "oh, but the dialog is sooo complex and hard and it has sooo much depth"
It's a porn game and L&P is no Goethe.
You have to realize you're talking with Sabertooth.
He understands 0 but will talk about stuff he doesn't know about anyways just to defend L&P. You're wasting your time on him.

L&P should simply get a translator (unless someone here is ready to tell me that he will translate it better than any pro out there), like he said he would, 3+ years ago.
 
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L&P's Father-in-Law

Well-Known Member
Jun 25, 2017
1,389
6,563
Your expressed frustration is valid. His support enjoys a majority demographic that speaks English, and his initial releases are in English. I (along with others) have read his less-than-diplomatic comments here in this thread, and I find that even when emotional his English is roughly 95% fluent.
What surprises me is that he does not write the dialogue and comments in English as he goes along (while waiting for renders to finish). This approach would then simply need a competent English speaker (who does not even know German) to review the script with 'L and P' for ambiguities in the English expression. The time required to catch nuanced intent for the prose would take a relatively short time, and a lot less angst for all involved.
Thank you, Jack.
I agree with this 100%
 

DIRTY FILTHY Animal

Devoted Member
Jun 11, 2020
8,568
28,792
I do some proofreading for the game Girls Next Door. The dev who writes the script is Portuguese and has a good handle on English. Probably 80% of his text is perfectly fine, but the hard part for non-native speakers is writing in an informal way, and/or in creating the connective tissue between ideas and thoughts in a scene. The vast majority of the games here that have non-native English speakers doing the writing suffer from extremely formal language. This makes sense because it's how people are taught or it's how language is easiest to translate. But no one speaks in such a formal way. They also suffer from scenes that feel like they don't transition smoothly, or have concepts/ideas/elements that are not properly explained or consistently referenced. I spend a lot of time writing additional text in order to help flesh out ideas that simply need more text to be explained. A non-native speaker doesn't understand how to explain ideas that aren't tangible (stuff like "envious" or "embarrassed") so the scenes either become clumsy or under-baked.

The last thing I help with are with slang and localizing the language for an American audience. There have been many times when some local proverb will be used and I have to completely remove it. I'm always sad to do it, but to an American audience it won't make any sense, or it will standout like a sore thumb. I then need to try and replace it with a common American proverb, but it's never a 1:1 equivalent. So that means that the script needs to be tweaked so that the elements of the sentence all match and are in agreement.

The point is that translating/proofreading/localizing is not a straightforward process and I wouldn't trust it to an electronic translator. If you don't care about the quality of your text, then fine, put it through your online translator. But if you want your game to sound respectable you need an actual person to sit down and go through the script line by line. Is L&P really slow in his translation? Yes. But we shouldn't underestimate that good work in translating/proofreading/localizing takes time.

Also, allow me to plug my signature, I LOVE the guys over at Girls Next Door. They have been a joy to work with and they're making a really fun little game. You should go check it out.
I’ll try it out when I get home from work
 
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r0rschack

Newbie
Jan 22, 2021
56
54
I have to disagree with you on this one and let me tell you why, one of my hobbies or passions are sneakers and i have a lot of them, so having more i pretty much wear everyday a different pair and when i come home i clean them and tose them back in their box (yeah i have their original box for each) so they tend to look new, i have 6 yrs old sneakers and when i wear them some ppl ask me if are new, i swear true story :)
I'm sorry to ask but I'd love to see your sneaker collection, can you post a pic please
 
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nexer

Forum Fanatic
Feb 5, 2019
4,597
18,370
Your expressed frustration is valid. His support enjoys a majority demographic that speaks English, and his initial releases are in English. I (along with others) have read his less-than-diplomatic comments here in this thread, and I find that even when emotional his English is roughly 95% fluent.
What surprises me is that he does not write the dialogue and comments in English as he goes along (while waiting for renders to finish). This approach would then simply need a competent English speaker (who does not even know German) to review the script with 'L and P' for ambiguities in the English expression. The time required to catch nuanced intent for the prose would take a relatively short time, and a lot less angst for all involved.
Thank you, Jack.
Come on. First of all, in your language you move like a fish through water, you're creative.
I have a vague feeling that native English speakers around here only speak English, which gives them a narrow perspective on the process itself.
On the other hand, English is a bit poor in some ways, I would say very poor. In my language I can swear without repeating myself for 24 hours, and when you try to translate all that richness into English you get a limited amount of swearing. Big shame. :ROFLMAO:
 

GingerSweetGirl

Engaged Member
Aug 23, 2020
2,528
12,129
Come on. First of all, in your language you move like a fish through water, you're creative.
I have a vague feeling that native English speakers around here only speak English, which gives them a narrow perspective on the process itself.
On the other hand, English is a bit poor in some ways, I would say very poor. In my language I can swear without repeating myself for 24 hours, and when you try to translate all that richness into English you get a limited amount of swearing. Big shame. :ROFLMAO:
Fewer options in curse words forces us to get creative and find interesting ways to tie curses together.
 
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