- Aug 23, 2020
- 2,530
- 12,171
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.
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.
