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Originally Posted by Luthair Localization is trivial, how long do you think it takes a bilingual person to translate a paragraph? |
It depends. Correctly, or babelfishly?
Being bilingual isn't enough. You also need to know the subject matter being adressed (or at least have an idea of it) to do the job correctly.
In the french version of the game, there's still this Edgemaster's Gauntlet, which is translated as "Gantelet du Maître des Confins". Gantelet is Gauntlet, Maître is master, Confins is french for edge.
As in land's edge, not weapon's edge. The translation is perfectly correct. Taken out of context. Of course, if you look at the weapon, you do realise the translation falls flat on its face; the edge is clearly a weapon's edge, considering the gauntlet boosts your skill in all edged weapons.
It's only an example of the problems of translation. Then you do have problems of culture. One shape, one color, means something for you, and something different to a japanese person. Localisation of a product is something that's far, far more tricky than merely translating word by word.
(still, Blizzard has done one of the best jobs in a MMO to date. Far better than the hideous butchery that SOE did with EQ2)