The Czech language is so s****** up in this game

[martin.duchoslav]

Not going to be complaining about the game itself, which is excellent on many levels in my view, just about this particular aspect. I am Czech, so let me comment on some of the most striking language weirdness/mistranslations the authors committed making a Prague v2.0.

1. Mramor Pilsner – well, I doubt it very much that a sane Czech person would call a beer brand that. Mramor means "marble" in English (marble furniture...). Beer brands are typically named after Slavic gods in my country, so we have a "Gambrinus" or "Radegast" beer etc. Whoever thought that "Mramor Pilsner" is a good idea for a beer brand probably lost their marbles back then:-).
"Svobody Beer" – correctly "Svoboda Beer or "pivo Svoboda" in Czech. "Svoboda is an equivalent to "freedom" in English and again – nobody sober would call a beer this weird.

2. "Dávný čtvrť" – because of a complex case system used in Czech, we would never say "dávný čtvrť" but "dávná čvrť" (This is called "congruence" in linguistics; the governing constituent dictates basic grammatical categories to the constituent being governed). Well, we probably would if this made sense in the first place because "dávný" means "bygone, long-time, ancient" in English and again, nobody here would give a quarter such an unlikely name.

3. "Hlvani" or "Hlavni", a misspelled variant of "Hlavní", meaning "major, main" in English. There is "Hlavní nádraží" in real Prague, an important public transportation hub.

4. The "Nezadávejte" sign found in metro stations is a literal translation of "do not enter" but in connection with keyboard typing, not in relation to "not being allowed to walk in/past". In this context, the correct wording is "nevstupujte".
"Authorised personnel only"is translated word-for-word, the correct formulation is "Nepovolaným vstup zakázán".

5. District/metro stations names. Prekazka, sometimes misspelled "Prekaska" means "an obstacle" in English. It is beyond absurd for a Prague (or Czech for that matter) quarter/district to bear a name like this. Whose idea was that? Google translate's:-)?
Poutnikova (a metro station name) does not make sense semantically, it means "pilgrim's",

6. Miscellaneous typos (or the wrong use of Czech grammar), such as "visoké" rather than "vysoké" ("napětí" or voltage), "suvenírmi" rather than "suvenýry", ("obchod se suvenýry or "souvenir shop"), "auodily" (correctly "autodíly"), "samoobsluze" (locative/dative case of nominative "samoobsluha"), "provede se prohlídkU" (accusative case) rather than "provede se prohlídkA" etc.

6. NPC names. Drahomír, Irenka, Alexej Volner, Marcie Sedlak (Correctly Marcie Sedláková) and many others that I have not been able to remember now. Rather unlikely names, not used very often, and they sound kind of bookish, somewhat funny.

7. "Chlupatí *ricks". A phrase uttered by one of the NPCs. "Chlupatí" means "the cops" in Czech slang. I wonder why use a combination of Czech and English in this particular case. It sounds totally out of place.

8. Ruzicka station. Correctly "Růžička station" or "Nádraží Růžičkové" can be heard pronounced "roozika" throughout the game. The correct pronunciation is "roo-zhi-chka". BTW.: the name means "a little rose" in English. On a similar note, the name "Václav" (Koller) is mispronounced "Veklaf" rather than ['Vat:slaf].

9. Útulek complex, sometimes misspelled "Utulek". This word is seldom used in relation to people, far more frequently to animals. A better alternative would have been "Úkryt" ("asylum", "shelter") or "Útočiště" ("refuge"). Either way, we would never say something like "Útulek/Úkryt/Útočiště complex" because it is an anglicised way of saying "komplex Útulek/Úkryt/Útočiště.

10. Soft drink translates as "jemný nápoj" in the game, the correct version is "nealkoholický nápoj" or simply "nealko". Another instance of a word-for-word translation.

11. My favourite: Hotel Narikala (correctly "Naříkala"). In English it means " Hotel She Was Crying or She Was Crying Hotel" and makes absolutely no sense in Czech. But I LOL'd real hard:-).

...and many others I cannot recall off the top of my head just now.

As I mentioned, the game plays awesome for me and I especially like its level design, atmosphere, side quests and the exploration aspect but more often than not the mangled Czech detracts from the overall experience I have been having with it (40 hrs in and counting). It looks like the devs decided to put the many names through Google translate to make their work easier, but the downside to this approach is a suffering ear and eye for someone speaking Czech.

It contrasts with a well-dubbed Czech spoken in metro stations and in some places in downtown Prague but then again you overhear police officers speak English with a Russian accent, which makes you cringe... kind of "helps" ruin the atmosphere instead of helping to build it if you ask me. This puzzles me all the more that the devs were apparently able to hire professionals to do a Czech dubbing for their game (I even recognise some prominent Czech voice actors here), while failing to bring in somebody to do some basic proofreading and make all the necessary language and factual corrections. It would almost seem as if there were no Czechs living in Canada...

[WelvynZPorter]

FreeLanceMC původně napsal:

You guys do realize it's in 2029 right?

So you're saying people get dumber in 2029 and start failing at proper grammar?

[Jarilo]

⎛Zii⎞ původně napsal:

FreeLanceMC původně napsal:

You guys do realize it's in 2029 right?

So you're saying people get dumber in 2029 and start failing at proper grammar?

or the language changed a little.

[WelvynZPorter]

FreeLanceMC původně napsal:

⎛Zii⎞ původně napsal:

So you're saying people get dumber in 2029 and start failing at proper grammar?

or the language changed a little.

A language changing and people forgetting grammar are very different things.

Though I'd agree with your point when it comes to slang and names!

[Jarilo]

⎛Zii⎞ původně napsal:

FreeLanceMC původně napsal:

or the language changed a little.

A language changing and people forgetting grammar are very different things.

Look a the US now , people from the past would think people are talking stupid ♥♥♥♥. I mean wtf is a irl and ikr and yo and whateva and I dunno and I can go on forever. Im just trying to make it break less immersion for you maaaan, don't hate me. lol

[WelvynZPorter]

FreeLanceMC původně napsal:

⎛Zii⎞ původně napsal:

A language changing and people forgetting grammar are very different things.

Look a the US now , people from the past would think people are talking stupid ♥♥♥♥. I mean wtf is a irl and ikr and yo and whateva and I dunno and I can go on forever. Im just trying to make it break less immersion for you maaaan, don't hate me. lol

I dun did edit mah post :) when it comes to names and slang I'd get it. But there are some sloppy sections that were overlooked.

[martin.duchoslav]

FreeLanceMC původně napsal:

You guys do realize it's in 2029 right?

Which makes what difference? A few years from now people' s names are going to change from common to uncommon or bookish? Just for a giggle maybe...

[alexander_dougherty]

martin.duchoslav původně napsal:

FreeLanceMC původně napsal:

You guys do realize it's in 2029 right?

Which makes what difference? A few years from now people' s names are going to change from common to uncommon or bookish? Just for a giggle maybe...

Well to be fair, names do go from bookish and uncommon to common all the time.
Not saying it will happen, but weirder things have happened at sea, and all that.

[Nelder Scrolnt]

I'm not as familiar with Czech as I am with Russian, but I know what everyone means about hearing mostly faux-Russian accents... I mostly heard Czech spoken in the subway announcements and some of the police, particularly the exo-suit cops.

I just wanted to say, and I know this is kind of unrelated, but I was really hoping to hear some late Sovet-era Czech underground/protest music, in particular from the Plastic People of the Universe (PPU). I thought it would go well with the Samizdat characters I know licensing can be a pain, but...still, would have been awesome to hear 'Magické noci' playing in the background a few times :)

[stashix]

martin.duchoslav původně napsal:

Avitel původně napsal:

What about «Chto za hujnja»? Does this frase exist in Czech?

None that I know of, but it sounds definitely Russian or Ukrainian. "Chto" in Russian means "co" ("what") in Czech and it probably means "What kind of - hujnja - is this?" Sounds like some curse word to me. Anyway, "huj" in Russian means "*ick" in English so there is a good chance that "hujnja" is derived from that.

I think the closest equivalent would be "Co je to za chuja?"

[paulkneipp]

Thanks for posting this. I knew there would be some guffaws from people who actually knew the language. The Hotel Narikala reference, though, is an old Georgian joke according to Masa Kadlek. When I heard this I couldn't resist researching. Narikala is a 4th century Georgian fortress near Tbilisi. According to Wikipedia, the source of all undisputed truth, the name is Mongol in origin (Little Fortress), not Czech despite the identical spelling.

[CERNASMRT]

I am an American and actually studied the Czech language in Prague for a while and noticed the grammer mistakes as well. Especially the pronounciation of Czech words by non-czech npc's -made me laugh! Some of the character's spoken dialog was too fast for me to catch, but I pick up on a lot of it. The thing that got me the most was the name of the black pilot "Chikane"
HAHAHA! i think they mispelled "Cikane" :))))) Which means ♥♥♥♥♥ - or better, a derogitory name for a darker skinned person... I'm still laughing!!!

[Likesoap]

good to see your post...im chinese i felt the same when jensen travelles to hengsha in last game ...quite funny...

[Fox]

You know that Deus Ex takes place in an alternative timeline where the world and other things did evolve differently?

[gwynbLeidd]

martin.duchoslav původně napsal:

No countryman or anybody who has a grasp of Czech around here?

Hey, I'm here. I'm a linguist myself (Major=English). But I'm curious about other languages too. So, when I heard the way they pronounced "Růžička", I was like "Isn't that supposed to be pronounced as 'roozhichka' 🤔".

Also I didn't understand why Vaclav is pronounced as "Vat:slaf" ? Do you pronounce "C" without the caron/háček as "TS"?

[CERNASMRT]

brkckL původně napsal:

martin.duchoslav původně napsal:

No countryman or anybody who has a grasp of Czech around here?

Hey, I'm here. I'm a linguist myself (Major=English). But I'm curious about other languages too. So, when I heard the way they pronounced "Růžička", I was like "Isn't that supposed to be pronounced as 'roozhichka' 🤔".

Also I didn't understand why Vaclav is pronounced as "Vat:slaf" ? Do you pronounce "C" without the caron/háček as "TS"!

Ahoj! Jste Cech? odkud jste v CR? ja Bydlil jsem v praze na "Ipak" and taky v Caslavi..