Hey, everyone. Long time, no translate. Here’s a fun thing to look at, though: the internet is buzzing about Fire Emblem Fates, and I might as well shamelessly capitalize by dissecting the fan translation.
The internet at large is Very Angry over a lot of localization decisions for the newest strategy/mass-dating-sim for the 3DS. One of the points of contention is what appears to be a support conversation, compared side-by-side with the fan translation. Sadly, I am here to bury that translation, not to praise it.
There’s a lot of unpacking to do here, so let’s take it chunk by chunk.
Saizou: You’re…. The assassin from Nohr, Belka aren’t you.
Belka: …..did you want something? Hoshido’s shinobi…..Saizou.
Saizou: Oh….? It seems that we already know one another’s names.
Belka: Yes…. The name Saizou of Hoshido is widely known in Nohr. The next king’s faithful retainer…. As well as an assassin of high ability.
Saizou: Same here, from a young age to kill without hesitation, rumours of a little girl that was a ruthless murder weapon.
We open with nitpicks about sentence structure. The first few lines are exact translations of the original Japanese, down to the word order, and it shows. The last line is a particularly grave offender. The original Japanese, with a literal translation:
お前のほうこそ、(“You’re the same here”)
幼いながらも殺す事に躊躇いをもたぬ、(“From a young age, killing without hesitating”)
冷酷な殺人兵器の少女と (“Rumors of a young girl that was a cold-hearted murder weapon”
噂に聞いていたぞ。 (“I have heard”)
That one sentence spread across four lines should have been broken up and reordered. Additionally, the “ruthless murder weapon” line could easily merge in English with”killing without hesitation”, but we’re getting ahead of ourselves here.
Belka: …I see. How many…. Have you killed?
Saizou: What’s with that question….. you remember such things?
Belka: As an assassin counting is a daily routine in my job. But after I was taken in by Lady Camilla…. I stopped counting. I don’t know if that’s good or bad for me… only that, that had changed.
Saizou: Is that so.
I’m not sure if it’s because of space constraints or because they didn’t know how to breach the subject, but the fan translation missed out on some small details about Beruka’s past.
殺し屋の仕事を始めた頃は (From the time I began working as a killer,)
数えるのが日課だった。 (keeping count was an everyday thing.)
でもカミラ様に拾われてからは… (But, after Lady Camilla took me in)
数えるのを止めた。 (I stopped counting.)
それが自分にとって良いのか悪いのかは わからない… (I’m not sure if that’s good or bad for me…)
ただ、転機ではあったのだと思う。(But, I suppose it was a turning point.)
Another thing to note is that the fan translation maintains the passive voice whenever the Japanese uses it. “拾われて” (hirowarete) is the passive form of the verb 拾う (hirou), to find or gather. While passive voice verbs work very hard in the Japanese language to keep things flowing, it doesn’t read as well in English.
Belka: ….I’ve answered. So how about you?
Saizou: I…. can never forget. Even if I don’t want to remember…. Even if I want to forget….. The faces and numbers of people that I’ve killed…. It’s been engraved clearly into my heart.
Belka: ……I see.
There’s not a lot going wrong here, aside from an overly literal look at the text. More on this in a little bit.
Saizou: To have to join hands with an assassin from an enemy country like this must be fate. We both have Lords that we must protect….. Belka. Please take good care of me from here on out.
Belka: Understood.
As if saving the best for last, the translation dumps not one, but two gratuitous misinterpretations of the Japanese onto our laps. The first sentence literally translated “手を組む” (te wo kumu) as “to join hands.” While literally correct on a mechanical level — “te” is hand, and “kumu” is to join — this term can also translate to the much more believable “join forces.”
Meanwhile, on the other end of this paragraph, is “よろしく頼む” (yoroshiku tanomu) translated as “Please take good care of me.”
Yoroshiku onegaishimasu (and its informal equivalent used here) is one of those phrases that does not have a comfortable 1:1 translation in the English language. It can be a lot of things — “I’m asking you a favor,” or “pleased to meet you,” or “please take care of this for me.” Yoroshiku is a very, very versatile term.
The problem, which is manifest in a lot of fan translations, is an urge to try to find stock phrases to cover these tricky words. If you’ve ever read something and saw the phrase “Please take good care of me,” or “It can’t be helped,” someone couldn’t think of a better way to reword yoroshiku and shikata ga nai, respectively.*
This translation has a lot of problems. Some of them are tiny things that an editor could fix. Others are pretty bad mistakes that are common to first attempts at translation. I’m not speaking from the perspective of the average fan, but I don’t think I could stomach or support a translation like that over the course of two hours of gameplay, let alone 50.
Next, we’ll take a look at that support conversation and see how many ways we can translate it, because nothing is quite as much fun as playing with other people’s words. See you in hopefully less than a year!
*rewordings for yoroshiku and shikata ga nai: “Pleased to meetcha!” and “Well, what can you do?”