Common translation problems

Delores Engine
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I feel this forum needs one more thread for problems that could be present in several languages at once…

I have no idea whether I finish my translation but so far I encountered these two problems (or “problems”):

  1. Brothers or Sisters?

11072 The ghost of Franklin, Chuck Edmund’s brother, is said to haunt the local Edmund Hotel. Pigeon Brothers are on the case. Nickel.dinky
11133 I could get a summer job with the Pigeon Sisters! MainStreet.dinky

I suppose in Delores reality the plumbing company changed (?) its name to “Pigeon Sisters”. Is the sentence “Pigeon Brothers are on the case” an error or is it supposed to be an older story?

  1. How formal should be the dialogs?

English lost “thou” a long time ago but many languages differentiate it. (e.g. German du / Sie)

Usually it is quite easy to choose the right form (Delores + Lenore + Chuckie should definitely use informal way because they are relatives, Leonard is a former schoolmate, etc.), but other situations are not so simple.

I expected Delores to use formal way towards the sheriff and the coroner, so I did not really expect this:
12004 Hi Coroner! Coroner.yack

I always though “hi” is rather informal greetings so it seems Delores knows all older men in TWP and talks to them like they all were her uncles…?
Actually, the combination is almost unthinkable in Czech - that would sound at best sarcastically. Was that intentional?

The only obvious exception for me is Madame Morena. Delores should definitely use formal way talking to her, but Madame would use informal. (She still thinks Delores is a little girl.)

I’m not quiet sure about Willie. He seems to be much older and it seemed in TWP that he’s not really a family friend.

What do you think about this? What attitude did you choose in your languages?

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Thus far I have only made a difference between covernment workers (formal) and other people (informal).

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  1. Brothers or Sisters
    As these are Names, I kept them as they are in the english text. So even my translation will call em Sisters and Brothers. I double checked it with the official TWP translation and Boris the translator did this too.

  2. Formal vs. Informal
    Well, I used gut feeling so far. For example QuickyPal. Leonard speaks there unrequested to any audience. There I used formal language. In the dialogs with Delores however, I use informal language. From my POV there won’t be a simple rule for it. So I would advice to follow your gut too. We can of course discuss all cases here. Happy to share my gut feeling.

  • For Willie I chose informal. From my experience, no one speaks formal with bums.
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“Pigeon Brothers” and “Pigeon Sisters” is the name of their business. And “Brothers” is correct in the TWP timeline, but “Sisters” is correct in this time line.

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Great, so 11072 speaks of the past, which is the TWP timeline. Gotcha. And “pigeon daughters” is already post-credit spoiler for a third game? :wink:

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Well, I do, but I admit it’s probably not quite typical.
But I forgot to mention that I am talking about Delores timeline where Willie is not a bum…

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He is and will ever be, the friendly bum from the neighborhood.

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He is not and never was a bum to Delores in Delores’ Mini-Adventure. So she’d speak to him in a way that was indicated in the mini-adventure, which is informally, as it’s clear she knows him, and he is not her superior.

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Willie is a friend of the family. He and Uncle Chuck have know each other for years, Delores has known him since childhood. I can see her speaking to him informally.

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In Italian, we tried to be as close as possible to the TWP translation, so the Pigeon Brothers became Fratelli Piccione, “Edmund Mansion mansion” stays untranslated even if mansion isn’t a word in Italian, and Delores uses informal “you” with everyone.

Same for Leonard. Does he look like the kind of clerk that speaks formally to customers? I doubt it :stuck_out_tongue:

There are also a couple of sentences that are the same as in TWP (I remember only the play Lotto and the Chewy caramel center ones but there may be more) so we kept the original translation

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Free commemorative glass at S&D diner...

Lowercase typo in diner?

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I don’t. He’s an employee and I’d bet his offering for help is rather driven by “corporate policy” then by his own intension. In that case, he likely would have received phraseology for it, and that would be formal. I’d rather keep it that way, unless The Ron himself disagrees with this POV. :wink:

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13

I just watched a German Let’s Play and Leonard uses formal speak, so I’d keep it consistent with the German version.

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I am pretty sure it was for “poetic” purposes (there’s an assignment involving that).

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I think Leonard should use formal speech with all “strangers” (Ray, Reyes, Ransome in TWP) but not with Delores (both in TWP and Delores minigame).

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Another common problem is when a character reads from a sign that is translated in the art.

For example, I just noticed that the “redeem bottles here” sign in the quickie pal is translated, but our translation uses different wordings. I’ll change that. It’s strange for a player to have a character read a sign and say different words than those shown on screen :stuck_out_tongue:

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Possibly true for Delores, although she might paraphrase, but Ransome might well say something like “dump/toss bottles here.”

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Actually, I thought “Brothers” in 11072 in Delores minigame was probably a mistake because the other newspaper headlines mentioned evens from the Delores timeline but later I realized that it could be regarded as one of the glitches where the TWP timeline shines through. :grinning:

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Stumbled across this too and also decided to go with the Art text. Although I don’t like the german translation in the Art.

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Who addresses his customers with “hey, D!”
So at least in Delores, you can go with informal.
Or if you like switch to formal after Delores tells him to use her full name…

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