Machine translation quality

[SomethingShady]

We all know just how bad the machine translations are in most games. especially in RPGM games.

But for anyone who have used Clip Studio Paint and used their asset store, might have seen just how good their translations are, as 90% of the content is machine translated from japanese.

It says it translated by Microsoft, is there any reason why most people don't use this while translating, or why other translators are just so bad comperatively?

 

[Crimson Delight Games]

It says it translated by Microsoft, is there any reason why most people don't use this while translating, or why other translators are just so bad comperatively?

People probably don't know about that particular software.

But it sounds interesting! Do you have any side-by-side comparisons?

 

[Glib_Gentleman]

It says it translated by Microsoft, is there any reason why most people don't use this while translating, or why other translators are just so bad comperatively?

Google translate has gotten better and better over the years.

I think the main problem is that people who machine-translate games go about it in a largely automated fashion. I've never understood why someone who is machine translating a game doesn't go back in and check and edit things. You don't need to know the original Japanese to know when a translation is screwed up, a pronoun is a mismatch to the character speaking, or just basic grammatical errors.

I've used machine translation for some Japanese doujins before and you get different results feeding the AI one sentence versus a paragraph at a time. The added context sometimes helps immensely.

It bugs me when I see machine translated text like - "Natsuke walking was towards school in morning when" When if it is a game in 1st person, and you know that Japanese people can say their own name to mean "I", you can EASILY clean that shit up by taking that output and writing it like a native English speaker would - "I was walking to school this morning when".

It's just freaking lazy. With a game you have PICTURES to help you get meaning too. When I machine translate doujins, I can translate all the text on the page, or several pages, paste it in order, then go back and get meaning from the images to correct errors or clear up ambiguities in the machine translation. My Japanese is piss poor, but I can produce some great "localized" translations with machine translation.

 

[Meaning Less]

It says it translated by Microsoft, is there any reason why most people don't use this while translating, or why other translators are just so bad comperatively?

Because right now the best machine translators take a lot of computing power and AI usage, so they are paid and not widely available. Most people mtling stuff are using the free stuff.

It's just freaking lazy.

No shit... that's the whole point of automating the process, it's fast.

There is just not enough people to do the tedious work line by line of every single japanese game. People that do that sometimes take weeks~months to finish each project, compare that with direct MTL which can be done in minutes (depending on the game).

Reality is just that there are way more games being released than there are translators, MTL has existed since the beggining of japanese games coming to the west and it will always exist.


On the bright side, with time automatic translation is getting better and better, so hopefuly one day we won't need manual translation anymore.

 

[DuniX]

The fact that you can easily patch RPG Maker and Unity means we are already living in a new era.
I remember the old days of Translator Aggregator what a mess that was.
Games more on the Gameplay spectrum are fairly playable nowadays.

 

[F4C430]

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I think you need to try actually translating a game.

We all know just how bad the machine translations are in most games. especially in RPGM games.

But for anyone who have used Clip Studio Paint and used their asset store, might have seen just how good their translations are, as 90% of the content is machine translated from japanese.

It says it translated by Microsoft, is there any reason why most people don't use this while translating, or why other translators are just so bad comperatively?

The last time i tried translating a game with Translator++ (maybe a year ago), Google gave the best translations overall out of the free services available. Bing (Microsoft) was putting out more weird translations that what people already complain about. I also don't know if commercial websites are maybe paying for an enterprise translation service that's better quality that what MS and Google make available to the public for free.

 

[Glib_Gentleman]

No shit... that's the whole point of automating the process, it's fast.

There is just not enough people to do the tedious work line by line of every single japanese game. People that do that sometimes take weeks~months to finish each project, compare that with direct MTL which can be done in minutes (depending on the game).

Reality is just that there are way more games being released than there are translators, MTL has existed since the beggining of japanese games coming to the west and it will always exist.

I know all that - but why bother to even MTL a game unless you give a shit about the game?

Yeah, it could take weeks to MTL a game with the kind of editing and checking I'm talking about, but if you care about the game being enjoyable in English - why wouldn't you? Automated MTL may be fast, but if the end result is still bad enough to make native English speakers go "What the fuck is going on?" and drop the game, what was the point in the first place?

There are professionally published games from Japan (RECENTLY) that seem to use MTL, and they are atrocious. One series was translated from Japanese to Chinese, then the Chinese was MTL to English. It's clear a native English speaker never looked at a word of the script, and the text is damn near incomprehensible.

I think you need to try actually translating a game.

I've translated doujins, as I said. Going so far as to redraw speech bubbles, patch art, translate sound effects, etc. It's a lot of work. I know a game has MUCH more text, but I guess my point is - "If you're going to do it, do it right."

I can read some Japanese, and know the hiragana and katakana, but my kanji knowledge is abysmal, so my overall skill with the language is ... shit. But I know enough to recognize when the MTL is going off the rails. I'm also personally a fan of making sure localization is happening - not just translation. The Dragon Quest localization team are gods.

But I play all games for story, even porn games (otherwise I'd just get my rocks off on an image board), so I can't stand a shitty MTL.

The last time i tried translating a game with Translator++ (maybe a year ago), Google gave the best translations overall out of the free services available.

I agree that Google's Translate app is the best free service I've found. Sometimes, like I said, I'll need to try different groups of sentences or a paragraph at a time and run it a couple of times to find the most accurate translation. And I think having even terrible and shitty Japanese language knowledge helps me.

But mostly now I've got enough other games to enjoy and work to keep me busy that I don't mind waiting even years for a human handled English translation of games. If the demand for an English version isn't strong enough to produce a translation after years and years, the game probably wasn't very good to begin with.

 

[DuniX]

I know all that - but why bother to even MTL a game unless you give a shit about the game?

Yeah, it could take weeks to MTL a game with the kind of editing and checking I'm talking about, but if you care about the game being enjoyable in English - why wouldn't you? Automated MTL may be fast, but if the end result is still bad enough to make native English speakers go "What the fuck is going on?" and drop the game, what was the point in the first place?

Wait you are playing MTL games for the story?
I Skip most of that and only use it to get an idea how to progress further.

 

[Meaning Less]

I know all that - but why bother to even MTL a game unless you give a shit about the game?

Because people wanted to play the game asap, and it is good enough for that?

People are impatient, noone is going to sit and wait for a handful of translators to create a perfect translations for every single shitty adult game they are curious about, most of those games don't even deserve this level of effort in the first place. If you care that much then just sit and wait, or even better, translate the game yourself and help the community.