Playing The AI-assisted Re-Translation

[The_Box]

Let me open with a really clear disclaimer. Nothing here is intended as a dig at the expense of the people working on this project. Chatting with Tails privately, the goal of that project isn't really to be entertaining or superior, but simply accurate. And aside from a handful of grammar and punctuation errors, as far as I can tell, it's succeeding at that goal.

So, onwards. I decided to grab the Main Scenario 01 file from the github, the most up to date version of it at least, and dropped it into my bundle. I then played through what I'd call the 'first act', the segment from the opening through when you gain control of Nowa and company in the first town, twice. Once with English VA and the re-translated text so I could 1-to-1 the original localisation with the re-translated one, and then again with Japanese voices and the re-translated text for more of a 'subbed anime' kind of feel. I suspect the latter is more in line with what's intended.

Both plays were interesting in their own ways.

For the first, the re-translated script and the English VA, what mostly struck me was how much of it wasn't different. It's all been through DeepL and then an edit pass, so the lines are technically different just because of how that works, but the lines are, more often than not, functionally the same about 90% of the time. The other 10%, it still stays very close. But the tone, context and what was being communicated was always the same throughout.

What I mostly noticed was that everything was dialed way back in terms of characterization. All the characters felt largely the same, as though you didn't have unique individuals delivering the lines. The only exception to that that I could really pick out was, interestingly, Lian, who was still pretty dang extra throughout.


The second playthrough, with English re-translation and Japanese VA was also interesting. It became a bit harder to pick out differences, on account of not speaking Japanese obviously, but all in all, it did feel a bit better there, since I wasn't really doing a comparison anymore. That said, I still came away with a lot of similar feelings. The written dialog often didn't feel like it matched the tone of the character speaking it, and a lot of character was lost between different dialog segments. The writing felt very wooden and kind of flat, overall.


Again, no dig here. The purpose of the project is accuracy first and foremost. Tails said specifically that this isn't a rewrite, it's a retranslation. If the translation is flatter, that's the trade-off. I mostly just found it interesting just how much of it just isn't really different from the original localisation. A great many lines are even exactly the same, interestingly.

Honestly, for anybody curious, I'd really recommend grabbing what's been done so far and bundling it and then doing a quick new game+ playthrough to see the differences more plainly. Maybe even tweak it to turn off random encounters so you can just shoot through it all quick like. It really makes for a fascinating experience.

[The_Box]

Originally posted by Llyes:

Uh, other than being a standard anime cliche that you could find anywhere (in both cases), not really. Can't say which is more accurate without the japanese in front of me though.

Sure.

そんなの！！！\n君には、やることがあるんだろ、セイ！！
それは君だって……
くっ！！セイ、早く！！！

[Llyes]

Originally posted by The_Box:

Originally posted by Llyes:

Uh, other than being a standard anime cliche that you could find anywhere (in both cases), not really. Can't say which is more accurate without the japanese in front of me though.

Sure.

そんなの！！！\n君には、やることがあるんだろ、セイ！！
それは君だって……
くっ！！セイ、早く！！！

Hmm, this is an interesting one for sure, it comes down to pure personal preference for the first two, as the stament amounts to: this sort of thing is (untenable) You've got many things to do later, don't you, Sei
and: That is true for you as well

This makes both lines 100% okay, can't favor either over the other accuracy wise

The last line is where things take a turn, we open with what amounts to an onomatopoeia for an intake of breath, which both versions apparently hated and discarded, and then it's just: Sei, hurry up

In all honesty I don't like either. I guess I would go with:
This is pointless！！！You've got far more important things ahead of you, don't you, Sei！！！
I could say the same to you....
Kuhhhh！！Sei, hurry up (, we're leaving?) dunno about that last part, the leaving is implied in the japanese due to word conotations, so I would probably include it


In case you were wondering what I hope for out of this mod, I have a(n) (extremely) negligible understanding of spoken japanese, so I mostly just try to follow the original voices, however that is much easier (only possible) with subs that match them. I would be entirely fine with a pure machine translation, after it is tested to make sure that it can actually get through the game just fine, which the original one couldn't due to errors. Any improvements to the subs to weed out any "woodenness" as you put it would simply be a bonus, and might help me understand things better.

Having said that this would only be important for a replay of the game, because, well, you know.... I just made do the first time around, and it was pretty miserable, it was hard to follow at all, especially with the lack of a backlog.

[NewMoonShadow]

Originally posted by Llyes:

Having said that this would only be important for a replay of the game, because, well, you know.... I just made do the first time around, and it was pretty miserable, it was hard to follow at all, especially with the lack of a backlog.

Of all the complaints I've seen lodged against the game, having a "hard to follow story" was not among them. It's actually a pretty simplistic story, and the English translation doesn't make it any more complicated. nor would a machine-translation make it any easier to follow.

[Tails]

I’m going to be honest, this feels like some sort of callout post. If you want to give feedback on the mod, you can do so in the discord, privately to me, or in the original thread. I don’t exactly see the purpose in making an entire new thread about this and continuing to make accusations against one of the contributors in the comments.

[tankanidis]

Originally posted by Tails:

I’m going to be honest, this feels like some sort of callout post. If you want to give feedback on the mod, you can do so in the discord, privately to me, or in the original thread. I don’t exactly see the purpose in making an entire new thread about this and continuing to make accusations against one of the contributors in the comments.

Feels that way because that's exactly what it is

[The_Box]

Originally posted by Tails:

I’m going to be honest, this feels like some sort of callout post. If you want to give feedback on the mod, you can do so in the discord, privately to me, or in the original thread. I don’t exactly see the purpose in making an entire new thread about this and continuing to make accusations against one of the contributors in the comments.

First, if this thread wasn't critical at all, and instead exclusively positive and praising of the translation, would you also say it shouldn't have been created, and instead all feedback should be provided in a private and discreet way?

Second, the only real 'accusation' I've leveled has been still having issues with the usage and attempted normalization of something that is an active slur in the rest of the world. You'll notice that while I've routinely said 'Chud' was not used in the game as a political slur and isn't evidence of a political agenda, I've never suggested it shouldn't be removed anyway, since a great many people do find offense in it. Similarly, I never claimed QT was using it as a slur, or that there was intent behind it, but that it is one and they should reconsider how freely they use it. But that was the closest anything has gotten to an 'accusation'.

Others pointed out the fact that QT isn't actually fluent in either the source or destination languages. Someone speaking in support of QT, in fact.

Lastly, I have provided this feedback to you directly, both the comments about the dialog feeling wooden, along with a privately shared google doc detailing any full on errors I encountered whilst playing through the segment I played. It's disingenous to act like I'm just 'calling out' and that I never discussed any of this in a direct manner, because I absolutely did. It's also why I've frequently echoed your own statements about the purpose of the mod not being to be better or improve on the localisation, simply to be more directly accurate.

Even you yourself have said, quote, "As for the writing, there’s not much I can say on that? This isn’t a rewrite, it’s a retranslation. If the AI translation is flatter, then that’s just the trade off in using it"

I've said over and over that it's wooden, yes, but that that's not a problem because the goal wasn't to be anything but. I've also said very clearly that I think people SHOULD play the game with the retranslation to see for themselves because it is still a very interesting playthrough. It was others who wanted to drill into why it was wooden and demanded exact examples and justifications. Even while I was saying, repeatedly, that the dialog being wooden isn't a problem, since that's not counter to the mod's--to your--stated goal. Which was specifically why I didn't want to get into the weeds of exact examples and debate on specific segments, and refused to several times.

[UltimateTobi]

Originally posted by The_Box:

Others pointed out the fact that QT isn't actually fluent in either the source or destination languages. Someone speaking in support of QT, in fact.

Nobody has pointed that out and you even criticized ShadowMoon for outright changing what I said despite quoting exactly what I said.
Not native =/= not fluent.

You're disingenous beyond belief. Even twisting argumentation in the very same thread, just a couple replies later.

[tankanidis]

Originally posted by UltimateTobi:

Originally posted by The_Box:

Others pointed out the fact that QT isn't actually fluent in either the source or destination languages. Someone speaking in support of QT, in fact.

Nobody has pointed that out and you even criticized ShadowMoon for outright changing what I said despite quoting exactly what I said.
Not native =/= not fluent.

You're disingenous beyond belief. Even twisting argumentation in the very same thread, just a couple replies later.

And in a few weeks they will start the conversation again as if none of this ever happened, with their corrupted viewpoint as what happened, pretending none of this ever existed

[HolyGrail]

Originally posted by tankanidis:

Originally posted by Tails:

I’m going to be honest, this feels like some sort of callout post. If you want to give feedback on the mod, you can do so in the discord, privately to me, or in the original thread. I don’t exactly see the purpose in making an entire new thread about this and continuing to make accusations against one of the contributors in the comments.

Feels that way because that's exactly what it is

True.. taking over a hobby and controlling translation to gatekeep people you don't like isn't enough..

Gotta go after their bootleg versions as well! How did we even get here..

[The_Box]

Originally posted by UltimateTobi:

Originally posted by The_Box:

Others pointed out the fact that QT isn't actually fluent in either the source or destination languages. Someone speaking in support of QT, in fact.

Nobody has pointed that out and you even criticized ShadowMoon for outright changing what I said despite quoting exactly what I said.
Not native =/= not fluent.

You're disingenous beyond belief. Even twisting argumentation in the very same thread, just a couple replies later.

Ahem...

Originally posted by UltimateTobi:

Yes, he had some issues with punctuation, but I helped him out with that. He is not a native English speaker and neither am I.

If someone has issues with punctuation and grammar, that suggests they are not fully fluent. Native or not is irrelevant. The fact I chose to use the word 'fluent' rather than 'native' doesn't really matter, your own description of events in fact suggests that you should have said fluent rather than native, given you were speaking about a difficulty with basic fundamentals.

[The_Box]

Originally posted by HolyGrail:

Originally posted by tankanidis:

Feels that way because that's exactly what it is

True.. taking over a hobby and controlling translation to gatekeep people you don't like isn't enough..

Gotta go after their bootleg versions as well! How did we even get here..

Wait, so only you guys are allowed to have criticisms of things?

[NewMoonShadow]

Originally posted by UltimateTobi:

Originally posted by The_Box:

Others pointed out the fact that QT isn't actually fluent in either the source or destination languages. Someone speaking in support of QT, in fact.

Nobody has pointed that out and you even criticized ShadowMoon for outright changing what I said despite quoting exactly what I said.
Not native =/= not fluent.

You're disingenous beyond belief. Even twisting argumentation in the very same thread, just a couple replies later.

I mean, maybe I messed up using the phrase" fluent" but it doesn't really change the point I was making or invalidate it. As The_Box pointed out, the idea that someone who doesn't natively speak either of the languages involved (and has only a very minor understanding of Japanese, if my understanding is correct) in the translation is going to criticize the translation from one to the other and set out on a mission to do better is... silly, at best.

That is literally like if I watched a Mexicen soap opera dubbed in Japanese and tried to criticize the writing. I couldn't even BEGIN to do that. It would be ridiculous to try. But that's basically what's happening here.

And out of all the lines exampled in this thread, nearly all of the changed lines are identical to the machine-translated ones anyway, just worded differently, which seems really, really weird when the entire impetus for this whole project was supposed to be that the EN translators changed the MEANING of the dialogue and thus the characters' personalities, when this thread seems to be slowly proving that that's just not true. Most of the changes seem to be along the lines of changing "Let's hurry up and go!" to "We've gotta go now!" or something.

And the person working on it seems to either not notice or not care.

[The_Box]

I do want to chime in briefly once again and state that, regardless of QT's goals, the mods intent was NEVER to be better or more entertaining than the original EN localisation. The owner himself has said that the dialog being flat is acceptable and fine because the goal isn't to re-write (which it seems like QT is doing to a degree, but I digress) but ONLY to re-translate as literally as possible.

We keep getting back into an assumption (and therefore debate) about whether or not it's better, or whether or not it can be better, and in doing so we forget that being better has never been the mods goal, and it's unfair to the work everybody else has done on it to hold it to a standard is has never wanted to meet.

EDIT: Also I don't think it's that QT doesn't care about that fact, I think it's that they've actually only read very, VERY little of the original script, given they've claimed a few times that the group had an internal discussion and decided unanimously to completely discard the original localisation and work only from the JP script and DeepL translation.

Weirdly, I asked Tails if that was accurate and could never get a concrete answer about if that conversation even happened, just a statement that they themselves did the first 100 or so files themselves and used the original EN localisation as a reference, and that QT basically took it over after that.

[Melodia]

It's amazing how much mental gymnastics are present in this thread.

[Llyes]

Originally posted by NewMoonShadow:

Originally posted by Llyes:

Having said that this would only be important for a replay of the game, because, well, you know.... I just made do the first time around, and it was pretty miserable, it was hard to follow at all, especially with the lack of a backlog.

Of all the complaints I've seen lodged against the game, having a "hard to follow story" was not among them. It's actually a pretty simplistic story, and the English translation doesn't make it any more complicated. nor would a machine-translation make it any easier to follow.

What part of wanting the subs to match the spoken japanese so that I can understand what was being said did you miss? The localization is not at all helpful in that regard, as it adds all kinds of nonsense not present in the original script, making it hard to follow the japanese voices using the subs.