Fire Emblem 12 ~Heroes~ Translation Project

[Dark Sage]

I have a question.

If you're going to ignore the results of a poll you post here by saying "Serenes Forest is not a large enough representation" or that "it sounds better so I'm going to ignore poll results", why are you bothering to put up polls here, especially when you ignore the winning result because you like another option better.

At this point, the argument's gone past Malliesa vs Malicia and Belf vs Vergil and into more of the method of how you're doing things. Frankly, I can see where both sides are coming from. Obviously I can understand how the translation team wants to have their own unique touch onto the patch and like any human, are sick of being constantly argued against and being questioned regarding well, every decision. On the other hand, the critics do sort of have a point. While in cases like Belf, changing a name is fine, do it in a fashion that makes sense. And some of the behavior from some of the translators is sort of childish. I mean "outraeg" machine? Seriously?

I'm mostly annoyed about how you seem to pretend how we have a say in it. For example, the people here voted for Malliesia and you're refusing to go along with it. If you're going to do what you want anyway, don't pretend that we have some choice in the matter. It's honestly quite insulting.

At this point, I'd consider having a PR man. You're really going to need it.

Anyway I'd actually like to make a request. Please change Jeorge to George and Lorenz to Lawrence. George and Lawrence are actual names and the NoA names are pronounced the same way anyway. Might as well change it to something that resembles an actual name since Jeorge and Lorenz are quite ugly to read.

I also suggest Belves for Belf's name since it's less stupid plus it's close enough to Belf. I mean Vergil? What? I'm overall neutral towards Ellerean's name though.

Edited August 18, 2011 by Clockwork Sage

[Arch]

Jesus, why do you guys have to keep coming up with the same questions? Reading is your friend (especially the statements by the staff). We can "ignore" the results of a poll because sometimes we use polls to merely test public opinion, not as a definitive referendum on a choice. We saw public support go for Malliessia, and we decided to press forward anyways.

I have to ask the question again, have you been reading this topic? You'd understand why I mockingly call them the "outraeg" machine if you did. It's one thing to be critical, it's one thing to say "hey, I think you guys are wrong here." But some of these people are absolutely crazy. There was a tooth-and-nail argument over changing Kleine -> Claine, a whopping two letter difference. Whenever we dare touch a name someone's head explodes and we have to spend hours of time, that could be spend translating, justifying ourselves time and time again. And it's like this on every single point (except for Belf, it's a relief that we can at least get people to agree that HIS name sucks). I'd be questioning the maturity levels of the people who lash out on the internet, type in all caps, swear, and fight us tooth-and-nail because we dared change a precious name of a character in a video game, at least before you start questioning mine.

And what you're "mostly annoyed" about is entirely farce. We've done three polls, two of which have been followed. If you want to get technical, you guys have a 66% success-rate with those things so far (which is more than most fandoms can probably say for their translation patches). You're echoing the same incorrect sentiments as your other critical brethren. In reality, the place where the majority of people who will be playing this patch live, this translation project is one of the most open projects of its kind. Hell, it might even be the most open one the FE community has ever seen. Don't you go chastising us about how the public's opinions don't matter. If their opinions didn't matter, Belves wouldn't even be considered and I would've already had it changed to Vergil.

Also, I think we'll be keeping Jeorge and Lorenz for the sake of consistency with FE11 NoA (Caeda as well). That's a standard we set a long time ago, and I don't think we'll stray from it now.

Edited August 18, 2011 by Arch

[CT075]

According to some comments during a skype chat, they weren't intending to have the poll in the first place.

[dondon151]

dondon, I feel like you're grasping at straws here. Erelian is just as plausible, I feel, as Elrean or Ellerean. By your explanation, all three names are a stretch. You even stated that two-syllables for the ending shouldn't be okay, which means El-re-an and El-ler-re-an are out the window too. Although it's nice to see you arguing for throwing a fanslation name out the window, I don't think that going with something totally different is necessary in this case.

There are other alternatives in use like Elren and Elleren that more closely match the pronunciation of the kana. I just feel like "-lian" is fundamentally inaccurate whereas something like "-lain" would actually be very close to the pronunciation of the kana.

As for Bell and Belves... Bell seems more like a feminine name to me (if it were applied as a name to anyone at all). Belves is okay, but I don't see how it's any less "out-of-place" than Vergil. If either way we're going for an "out-of-place" name, might as well go with the one that sounds better (Vergil) and the one that is actually based on a real name (Belves turned up matches or close matches on BtN's name database).

"Belves" is, as I've mentioned before, a real name (though not generally belonging to a person). The primary argument against "Vergil" is that it nowhere near resembles the kana and most of us are loath to go around arbitrarily renaming characters. We might as well call Sirius, "Johnson."

As for "Bell," I'm pretty sure that the first figure most people would associate with the name is the man who is credited with the invention of the telephone. There is also a clear distinction with "Belle," which is mostly reserved for females.

[Arch]

Just to make a correction in a previous post, I seem to have been applying a weird pronunciation to Ellerean, using re-ahn instead of reen. My apologies for the error.

Also, I think el-reen (Elrean) sounds absolutely terrible now.

Edited August 18, 2011 by Arch

[The Blind Archer]

o no gaiz, they changed jeigan to jagen how terrible

[Arch]

dondon, I understand your gripe with the fundamental inaccuracy, and I'm actually glad to have had that explained to me (I'm learning a lot about Japanese linguistics by being the machine's punching bag, so at least I'm getting something out of this ordeal), but I feel like being 100% spot-on accurate isn't the most important thing, especially when it comes to transposing names between languages with no common roots. What should be most important is the sound, with the source being kept in mind. I feel that Erelian fulfills both requirements there, although inaccurate by dividing the ending, the name has a better flow to it, in my opinion.

Edited August 18, 2011 by Arch

[VincentASM]

About the polls, I apologise if I misled anybody with them, but I never mentioned anywhere in those polls that the poll results would equate to anything.

Rainbow Potion 1

This is just a quick poll on which item name you think would be better, the results of which *may* influence some decisions for the FE12 fan translation.

Malicia 1

Another quick poll just to gather some information that might be useful for the FE12 fan translation.

Since Cam mentioned it, these polls weren't going to be held, but I pushed for them because I was interested to see what people on SF were thinking.

@Arch

If we're trying to improve the flow for Elrean, maybe something like Elerain might fit better? I dunno, I find it easier to pronounced a L followed by a R than the other way round. This argument might be slightly irrelevant though sorry, just testing the word irrelevant, since it has a R - L sound.

Edited August 18, 2011 by VincentASM

[Rewjeo]

On the topic of Erureen, I like Erelian, but I still prefer the way I pronounce Ellerean to that. Maybe Ellerian? Or Elren or Elleren if you want to be closer to the kana.

Edit: Also, although I'm not bothered by Malicia anymore, I do still feel you should either have another poll over at your blog or go with something closer to Malliesia. Malicia doesn't bother me, but the reasons for using it despite the numbers from the one poll you've held still bother me :/

Edited August 18, 2011 by Rewjeo

[dondon151]

dondon, I understand your gripe with the fundamental inaccuracy, and I'm actually glad to have had that explained to me (I'm learning a lot about Japanese linguistics by being the machine's punching bag, so at least I'm getting something out of this ordeal), but I feel like being 100% spot-on accurate isn't the most important thing, especially when it comes to transposing names between languages with no common roots. What should be most important is the sound, with the source being kept in mind. I feel that Erelian fulfills both requirements there, although inaccurate by dividing the ending, the name has a better flow to it, in my opinion.

What about "Erelain" (rhymes with French words like "pain," "bains," "dauphin," etc.)?

Or in case no one knows how to pronounce French, the last syllable rhymes with English "pen" and has much the same inflection.

[Othin]

There are other alternatives in use like Elren and Elleren that more closely match the pronunciation of the kana. I just feel like "-lian" is fundamentally inaccurate whereas something like "-lain" would actually be very close to the pronunciation of the kana.

Being perfectly literal with the pronunciation of the kana has never mattered in any official translation of an FE game, and that's as it should be. A good translation is not a literal one. As has been noted, we would never use a raw, unaltered or nearly unaltered result from Google Translate for the script; there's no reason we would want to use the same process for the names.

Anyway I'd actually like to make a request. Please change Jeorge to George and Lorenz to Lawrence. George and Lawrence are actual names and the NoA names are pronounced the same way anyway. Might as well change it to something that resembles an actual name since Jeorge and Lorenz are quite ugly to read.

Jeorge and Lorenz are names. Lorenz seems to be particularly rare as a first name, but they both are indeed real, legitimate names.

Edited August 18, 2011 by Othin

[Arch]

I'd actually considered that right before you posted, hahah. Erelain strikes me as somewhat feminine. I don't know exactly what it is, but it reminds me of other feminine names like "Caroline" and "Elaine." I guess it's the ending "ain" coupled with the soft beginning. And he's already got that long blonde hair, I don't think the guy was meant to be a trap.

Also, it seems I forgot to address your points on Belves. I'd like you to explain to me the origin of Belves as a human name; the only results I got were a couple towns. Although it's certainly more of a name than Belf, and I wouldn't protest if Belves were the eventual winner, I still side with Vergil and think that Vergil is the better name. Both names are a stretch, so if it's Belves v. Vergil why not go for the better name? Though I do love your tactic to make yours' seem like less of a stretch. "Hey, let's compare their suggestion to one that's TOTALLY radical and random so as to make mine look more reasonable." Good rhetoric don, good rhetoric indeed.

Edited August 18, 2011 by Arch

[dondon151]

Being perfectly literal with the pronunciation of the kana has never mattered in any official translation of an FE game,

Uh, you've clearly never played FE games, then.

Sain, Kent, Florina, Marcus, Eliwood, Ninian, Ephraim, Franz, Rennac, Knoll, Ike, Oscar, Shinon, Marcia, Jill, Marth, Jagen, Ogma, Darros, Julian, Wendell, etc. are some of numerous examples where the English pronunciations are very closely approximated by the Japanese kana. I'd wager that a vast majority of localized names stay true to the Japanese kana.

I'd actually considered that right before you posted, hahah. Erelain strikes me as somewhat feminine. I don't know exactly what it is, but it reminds me of other feminine names like "Caroline" and "Elaine." I guess it's the ending "ain" coupled with the soft beginning. And he's already got that long blonde hair, I don't think the guy was meant to be a trap.

I don't think it's wrong for a name to sound feminine - after all, there are plenty of feminine sounding names that can be attributed to males in the US, like Taylor and Ashley. Party of it is also subjective; Erelain doesn't sound very feminine to me at all.

Also, it seems I forgot to address your points on Belves. I'd like you to explain to me the origin of Belves as a human name; the only results I got were a couple towns. Although it's certainly more of a name than Belf, and I wouldn't protest if Belves were the eventual winner, I still side with Vergil and think that Vergil is the better name. Both names are a stretch, so if it's Belves v. Vergil why not go for the better name? Though I do love your tactic to make yours' seem like less of a stretch. "Hey, let's compare their suggestion to one that's TOTALLY radical and random so as to make mine look more reasonable." Good rhetoric don, good rhetoric indeed.

Jagen isn't a human name either, for example. A lot of names in FE aren't actually real human names, much less names of actual locales. Additionally, it's perfectly logical for towns to be named after people and vice versa.

Edited August 18, 2011 by Sirius

[Rewjeo]

Personally, I'd prefer to have the 'l' before the 'r' in his name. It just sounds better to me that way :/ That said, none of the names put forward bother me much, although Erelain does sound a little too feminine, IMO. My favorite pronunciation for the end of his name is the ee-un one, so I would favor one like that, but there is the question of how close you do want stay to the kana.

[Anouleth]

I'd actually considered that right before you posted, hahah. Erelain strikes me as somewhat feminine. I don't know exactly what it is, but it reminds me of other feminine names like "Caroline" and "Elaine." I guess it's the ending "ain" coupled with the soft beginning. And he's already got that long blonde hair, I don't think the guy was meant to be a trap.

Are you pronouncing the "ain" sound like it's pronounced in French? The way that dondon described the name, the pronounciation would rhyme closer to "-lan" than "-line" or "-lane". I guess Erelan isn't really a very flowing name.

How do you feel about the name "Roro", by the way? Because I personally think it sounds ridiculous.

[Arch]

It really is a subjective issue (which is why I didn't state that it was definitively feminine, I stated that it was to me), which means neither of us can really argue that point. I've had others agree with me that Erelain sounds feminine (which I feels come from the softness and subliminal association with Elaine), but it obviously won't strike everyone the same way. Either way, I prefer the way Erelian sounds compared to Erelain. But at this point we're just treading deeper into subjective territory.

But I'll give you one point, Jagen is certainly not a name. It reminds me at least of Jaden, an actual English human name, but Jagen by itself isn't anything. I'll also give you that not all characters in FE aren't entirely human names, but the localized versions tend to strongly resemble names. Belves does accomplish this, so once again we're back into the swamp of subjectivity. I like the way Vergil sounds more than I like Belves, but it just comes down to a matter of my personal preference.

It's been nice wandering the swamp with you, dondon. Since we've stripped it down entirely to subjective issues, I see no reason in further arguing about those name suggestions. There should be an opinion poll (not to be confused with a referendum where a decision is made, but it will impact an ultimate decision) coming soon on both of these topics.

[Momo]

How do you feel about the name "Roro", by the way? Because I personally think it sounds ridiculous.

If they change the name Roro I'll hate them forever.

[Rewjeo]

Regarding Roro, I think there was viking or some such thing named Rollo who was rather prominent. This reaching back a year into history, and it wasn't a major point at all, but I remember thinking "Oh, maybe that's what his name is supposed to be" in regards to Roro. My memory of it is rather foggy, but I think I saw something like that.

Edit: Yes, Rollo was the founder of Normandy.

Edit 2: Further, it appears Rollo is the Latin version of Hrolfr, which, in modern Scandinavian, is Rolf, and he was baptized as Robert, if you want other suggestions for names. Although we do already have a Rolf in FE and Robert in this game :/

Edited August 18, 2011 by Rewjeo

[Othin]

Uh, you've clearly never played FE games, then.

Sain, Kent, Florina, Marcus, Eliwood, Ninian, Ephraim, Franz, Rennac, Knoll, Ike, Oscar, Shinon, Marcia, Jill, Marth, Jagen, Ogma, Darros, Julian, Wendell, etc. are some of numerous examples where the English pronunciations are very closely approximated by the Japanese kana. I'd wager that a vast majority of localized names stay true to the Japanese kana.

Indeed, official translations tend to take the Japanese kana as a good approximation for what pronunciations to use when feasible for the English game, especially when the pronunciation corresponds to an existing English name. By listing about 20 names, you've proven that much and nothing more. I have not argued that point, because it's irrelevant.

What I said was that the translators were never concerned about being perfectly accurate with respect to the kana. Perhaps I should clarify - I meant the entire game being perfectly accurate, not individual names. The translators have takes considerable to complete liberties in deciding how to translate names such as Chap, Stella, Dalahowe, Soanevalcke, Kilroy, Ulysses, and Topuck, to use the FE9 translation as an example. Now, I don't know the kana for these names. It's certainly possible that a few of these have kana a bit closer to the English translations than it looks from this perspective, but I'm guessing not all of them do. If you believe the kana for all of these names lines up perfectly with the English translations, feel free to show proof of that. But if even one of these names is different by a syllable, that means the official translations have been willing to bend a syllable here and there when they feel there is a good reason. And if even one of these names is largely or completely different from the kana pronunciation, that means the official translations have been willing to entirely rewrite a name here and there when they feel there is a good reason. And that is all that is being proposed here: the occasional minor or significant change.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it is my impression that you have been arguing that the translation team is overstepping its bounds to pick a few choice characters and change their names by a syllable or two. Keeping all of this in mind, is this (still) your stance?

[Arch]

http://fe12ds.blogspot.com/2011/08/polling-for-new-name.html

Let's get cracking, folks.

[Max Power]

Are you pronouncing the "ain" sound like it's pronounced in French? The way that dondon described the name, the pronounciation would rhyme closer to "-lan" than "-line" or "-lane". I guess Erelan isn't really a very flowing name.

For those interested and doesn't already know, the sound "ain" or "in" at the end of a word in French is pronounced a bit like "pain" in English (because in French, pain means bread lol) but wihout pronouncing the "n" sound at all. It's hard to really give a good idea to English speakers because there is no sound like that in English. (btw, French is mother tongue)

But if you name Elerain thinking of the "ain" sound in French, it's not necessarily a bad idea, but you can be sure no one is gonna say it with that sound. Even I would pronouce à la english.

Anyway, I really don't care how you name that character. As long as it has a name lol

Edited August 18, 2011 by Max Power

[Celice]

There was a tooth-and-nail argument over changing Kleine -> Claine, a whopping two letter difference.

I don't remember this. Every time you exaggerate, it seems to more accurately represent your reaction rather than what's happening. It was being discussed why the translation matters, and why some defenses for one name over the other were pretty weak and biased. It was pretty mellow. If you got puckered over it... that's on you.

Whenever we dare touch a name someone's head explodes and we have to spend hours of time, that could be spend translating, justifying ourselves time and time again.

If one chooses to stop working because someone said something, that's also on their part, not the person who said something. You're responsible for your own behaviour--no one's holding your fingers back from a keyboard.

Elren/Eleren is how I've said his name. The 'leh' sound is usually pretty quick, french-like. Can't find much difference in it between a standard 'l' pronunciation.

EDIT: Oh. Good job on the poll--leaving out the original name and giving an opinion that it's not great before anyone can make their own decision :/

Edited August 18, 2011 by Celice

[CT075]

Wasn't the worst of the shitstorm deleted?

[Anouleth]

For those interested and doesn't already know, the sound "ain" or "in" at the end of a word in French is pronounced a bit like "pain" in English (because in French, pain means bread lol) but wihout pronouncing the "n" sound at all. It's hard to really give a good idea to English speakers because there is no sound like that in English. (btw, French is mother tongue)

You make it sound like it's phonetically equivalent to the word "pay", when it it really closer to "pan" without the "n". Although you're correct that it's hard to describe. Certainly, if Arch is pronouncing it like Elaine, then he is doing it wrong.

[Celice]

The 'ai' sound would be similar to how Americans begin pronouncing the letter 'm'. That 'e-h' part before. J'aime toi. The 'aimer' part is where the 'm' sound is similar. A bit like the 'e' in 'ren.'