Mox II: Ooops, Mox did it again!

En español

Less than a year ago, Mox surprised the world with a book, which compiled the comic strops from Mox's blog, together with many more strips and some articles from well-known translators.

This year, Mox did it again. Well, not Mox, but Alejandro Moreno, his 'father'.

A beautiful list of collaborators...
It's a real pleasure to share pages with them.

He compiled again more comic strips from his blog, as well as other unpublished ones. He also asked other translation celebrities, such as AndréHöchemer, Catherine Christaki, Erik Hansson, Riccardo Schiaffino, Xosé Castro or Michelle Hof, among others, to write an article for his book. Alejandro also asked the humble servant and owner of this blog (a very tiny one next to them) to also write one little article.


The result: a compilation of hilarious comic strips, and a list of thoughts of several professionals of our world that complement perfectly with the cartoons, which Alejandro prepared with all his love.

The cover of the book: I bet many translators
have found themselves in this situation.

I also recommend to read first the first book (or the whole Mox' blog, if you prefer), as it will be a good way to know the whole of Mox's story from the beginning.

The beginning of my tiny contribution.

BTW, my modest contribution is just a small anecdote about many of the e-mails many of us receive from agencies, the eternal debate about "my best fee" might not be "your best fee", a discussion that might get into an infinite spiral between the PM and the translator... until one of them gives up.




No doubt, this will be the ideal present for any translator or interpreter, a must-have for this festive period, which can be yours with just a few clicks (and a PayPal account, of course). I am sure that Santa and the Three Wise Men (if you also get presents on this day) will love gifting you this (after opening them to have a quick look, that's it).

Happy Holidays and an even better 2013!!

A review of 2011

En castellano

Today I look back and I see myself having done my first presentation in a conference, very happy for what I had achieved in the last months of 2010. However, the year didn’t start quite as expected, especially if we compare it with how 2010 had finished. Do not worry, I am quite stubborn and I was determined to change it, and so I focused on getting more clients and a good workflow. Thanks to working hard the year before for the online betting company, they asked me to go back for a few weeks at the beginning of the year, and so the timing was perfect, while I was waiting for the games localisation Spree in summer. Now you know: Work hard, and make sure you prove you are professional and reliable, as you never know when you are going to be needed again. In the middle of this joy, I received an e-mail letting me know that I had been admitted to present a paper to another Conference: el Media4All in London, at the end of June.

I don’t know if you had the same, but to me, it seemed as if the “translation” part was taking a bit too long to take off, just as if, suddenly, translation agencies had disappeared from the map. As I can’t spend too long without doing something, I seize the low moments to do another important aspect of the translator’s life: networking. In April, as Xosé Castro was doing a Workshop about Word (in Spanish) in Valencia (Spain), which was organised by Asetrad (Spanish Association of Translators, Interpreters and editors), I decided to go to Valencia to visit my good friend Vanessa, and see what all the fuss was about. The experience was amazing (I and II, in Spanish), not only because I introduce my friend Vanessa to the whole world of conferences, tweeters and bloggers, but also because I was able to meet more tweeters, as Manuel Saavedra, Jordi Barcells, Irene Sánchez, Ana Rubio and, of course, Xosé Castro (a guru of Audiovisual Translation, very well referred in two of the subjects I did about Audiovisual Translation at uni), who I really wanted to meet (in order to see if he was real… and yes, he was!). Also, I met other amazing people, such as Judit Samblás, Gemma Sanza, Marta Ortells or Núria Sanmartí.

I went back home with my battery charged. Fully-charged. But the translation world still seemed to be idle, and so I used the time to prepare an article about “localisation, testing and QA” to publish. Also, I had to undertake an operation in my ear (a long story. You can read about it in Spanish here) and, not long after, I had very sad news about a friend. That’s Murphy’s Law: if something can go wrong, it will go wrong. But the good thing is that, once you have reached bottom, you can only go up. And so was it. Media4All was here, another amazing experience I recommend to everybody (more info here, and in Spanish here and here). There I met (as in, finally meeting them in person) three more gurus of Audiovisual Translation: Jorge Díaz-Cintas, Miguel Bernal and Frederic Chaume (and yes, they are also real and you can touch them, and even they allow you to take a photo of them!). Wow! I felt like a teenager when Justin Bieber gives her an autograph... but without the screaming.

Of course, Murphy was spying on me all year long, and during those three days of Conference that I wanted to myself, was the perfect moment to make the interesting projects to arrive. The first one was a videogame for several platforms about a Cartoon Network character (when I can disclose more details, I will do so). Then, it was the time for a MMORPG based in the Medieval Times, a very interesting project (the biggest I have done so far), which drove me mental with the research of weapons and punishment tools. I wasn’t even finished with the project and I had to move flat, then go on “holidays” (you know translators can never go on holidays), then come back to London to receive my sister and her family at home... Glorious summer!

Kindly created by @MonkeysvsRobots

No, no, no. Don’t go anyway, as summer didn’t finish here. I also had time to publish my first article, start new projects, as Revista Traditori, a new magazine made by professionals from the Translation/Interpreting industry to anyone interested about translation, interpreting, languages, etc., but mainly focused to future translators, to whom we explain a bit about the “real world of translation” (if you can understand Spanish, you can read about it here, here, here, here and here, or just ask GoogleTranslator to help you out). I also started a project with Pablo and Elizabeth, organised by Johanna Angulo, which I hope I will be able to talk about really soon. What else? Ah, well. In September, an old colleague called me to ask me to collaborate with them creating a videogame, and that is how my autumn started.

The localisation projects, the videogames, preparing my lessons for Johanna’s Project, finish my second article, I barely realise that November had arrived. But my life wasn’t fun me to invited me to do a presentation about student mobility in December. A month earlier, many tweeters colleagues (as well as Maya, the president of the Catalan Association of Translators and Interpreters-APTIC) spent two weeks trying to convince me to go to Barcelona to a workshop about blogs organised by APTIC (in Spanish). I could not say ‘no’. Ah, well, I hear the words “party”, “translators”, “fun”, “networking” ( Carolina, Aida, Iris, Maya, Clara, Mar, Verónica, José Luis, José Manuel, Laia, Miriam, Manuel y Lidia...)... And I have to go. Another unmissable event.

The icing of the cake: the year ended with two (indecent?) proposals. The first of them, Mox’s Blog’s authos, Alejandro, was asking permission (???) for him to publish a comic strip in a book that has just been launched, as he had been inspired on an idea that I sent to him a few months back. Imagine my face... Just like a manga character, with my mouth wide open hanging to the floor. The second one (proposal, of course), was to be part of the teachers group of a new course organised by Educación Digital (in Spanish, though), which will start at the end of January. This time, apart from leaving my mouth open, I had to rub my eyes a few times, because I couldn’t believe what I was reading. Of course, I enrolled the ship too.

And last, but not least, when it seemed the year was going to finish just like that, I was lucky enough being able to start a translation project with other tweeters: Manuel, Ander and Jennifer, as well as Miguel Ángel (who I didn’t know before, and I don’t think I follow him on Twitter). The project was offered by the best Spanish agency I have worked with so far (Kobalt Languages), under the conduction of two project managers who made the whole process pretty easy: Ricard and Ana.

Now, my year has started quite well. I really hope it will be the beginning of an even better year. As you can see, bad things happen, but also good ones, and we have to take advantage of the bad ones, when you are at the bottom, to gain momentum and run up the mountain. Just one more advice: Never give up!

Kindly created by @MonkeysvsRobots

Have an amazing 2012!

Entrada en castellano

Mox’s book can now be yours!

I am sure many of you already know Mox, a very young and well-educated translator, with two PhD’s and six languages (well, exactly how we would have loved to be when finishing our studies). However, due to his innocence and over-enthusiasm to become someone important in the translation World, he accepts any abuse given by agencies and other senior translators, not only in the form of peanuts rates, but also agreeing to each of the wishes of the mischievous PM, whose favourite entertainment is make their translators suffer.

So, Alejandro Moreno, Mox’s creator (nope, Mox is not human. He is the character of a comic strip, even though he is a mixture of every translator and interpreter around the world), has decided to compile more than 2 years of comic strips, as well as many other unpublished, in one single book: Mox’s Illustrated Guide to Freelance Translation.

I learnt about the book when Alejandro sent me an e-mail with a comic strip he had created thanks to an idea I had sent to him some time ago. WOW! Alejandro himself sending an e-mail to me? Justin Bieber’s fans: be envious, as Justin doesn’t even know that you exist! ;)

Of course, as soon as I saw on Mox’s blog that the book was available to be purchased, I didn’t hesitate to buy it (he says I bought it before even had time to publish it on Twitter). When I received the package, I opened it as if Santa had just come home to give me a voucher “worth a romantic dinner with Jared Letto”. The pleasant surprise arrived when I opened the book: Mox had signed the book for me!!

View of the first page of my copy

If that is not taking care of the fans…

I have read many of the comic strips in the blog. I have also had a quick look at the book and I can assure you that it is worth every cent I paid, not only because you will be laughing out loud (and nodding) at every one of them, but also because it is a reminder that the translation, proofreading and interpreting profession needs professionals and, therefore, we must charge accordingly, instead of charging peanuts. Each comic strip is a lesson that we must not forget.

So, have you started your New Year’s resolutions? There is just one thing to add: Buy Mox’s book! J

Happy Reading!

Media4All: the «Oscar» of the Audiovisual translation (Part I)

A week after the big audiovisual translation event, I have managed to find a a few minutes to explain you how the experience was. As many of you may know, I presented a paper about videogames localisation and quality assurance (a new version, slightly different from the one I did last December in December, which I started to explain to you about a few months back), therefore, the whole event was even more special for me.

The adventure started on Tuesday the 28^th. In the morning there were some workshops on offer for some people. For others, like me, the whole thing started in the evening, as the Spanish Embassy had invited some of the lecturers and collaborators to the embassy. I went there with Jennifer Vela, who I as looping forward to meet again. After Jorge Díaz-Cintas, Fréderic Chaume and the Spanish Ambassador in London addressed their speeches to us, we were allowed to socialise a bit before we had to move to the Imperial College London to the presentation party. It was in this little while at the Embassy that Jennifer introduced me to some of the translation celebrities (Wow! This girl knows loads of important people!), included Miguel Ángel Bernal, one of the most important researchers in videogames localisation. I also saw known faces, such as Pilar Orero’s (I love her!) or Diana Sánchez, who was my teacher at university back in 2003-2004.

Afterwards, we headed to the Imperial College London, where some drinks and munchies were waiting for us: our first networking and socialisation night at Media4All. Jennifer and I spent just a few hours there (including the hour that took us to ay goodbye ^_^) were very interesting. I met some interesting people, got some contacts and enjoyed to see so many people as crazy as me about translation and quality. I also met another teacher from my uni, Eva Espasa, with whom I hope I can collaborate very soon in something (stay tuned: second part coming soon).

The following day, on Wednesday, we started at 9 am and Julia Buckingham opened the conference and introduced a Round Table about Taking Stock in Audiovisual Translation. It was interesting to see how pretty was everything from the point of view of the big multinational company, which infuriated many of the audiovisual freelance translators present. And that was just the beginning… I couldn’t wait to see how everything would end.

After this round table, it was time for a break, tea/coffee and biscuits included. After the break it was the time to go separate ways and choose different rooms, as the parallel presentations were about to start: a total of 5 different rooms offering different presentations simultaneously. Decisions, decisions, decisions. Too many interesting subjects! However, as human clonation hasn’t been invented (yet), nor is teleporting, we had to choose which presentations to go to. As it was the beginning and I had been checking for a few hours, I knew exactly where I was going to go: Audiodescription. Jennifer Vela was presenting a paper and Pilar Orero was the chair, so I couldn’t miss it!

However, it was time of the “anecdote of the day”, and probably, the anecdote of the whole conference. Half-way through the first paper, the FIRE alarm was activated and we had to evacuate the building. We were told that, somewhere in the building, they were recording the last movie of Batman (no, I didn’t see Christian Bale, even though I was looking for him), so we just blamed the recording team for that. I am sure they made something explode and they forgot to warn the security team.

About half an hour later, we were allowed to go back in and we restarted the presentations. Jennifer’s presentation was very interesting, as she compared Audiodescription in different European countries and the USA, as well as the differences in the legal aspect, which proved to be tricky, as nowadays, researches have to pay constant attention to, as rules and regulations keep changing and the information that is true right now, might be obsolete just a few weeks later. Two attendees confirmed her that new laws about Audiodescription and accessibility had been created in some countries. Great news for the accessibility world, aren’t they?

Lunch time arrived, and we went to the food hall to grab some nibbles. It became a bit stressful as it seems the catering service didn’t realise that we were so many hungry people, waiting to be fed. Waiters and waitresses could barely leave the kitchen and the food on their trays was already finished. I had to wait for a long while to be able to grab my first bowl of food. I went to the kitchen Entrance (yes, like a hyena waiting for the lion family to fill their bellies J), where I found Pablo, and asked him to help me get something toe at, as my breakfast and the few biscuits I had during the tea break had been digested a long time ago. My surprise was meeting there a follower of this blog, David (how exciting! A fan!), who also helped me to get another bowl of food. Isn’t that cute?

Lunch time ended and the next presentations session started. This time it was the turn of characters translatability in movies and the effect of those characters in the audiences. Three very interesting papers. On one hand, we were given (loads of) data about audiences in cinema festivals in Italy. Then, Carlos de Pablos explained to us part of his research about how different audiences (people who had contact with Spanish culture and people who had no contact whatsoever, as well as Spanish audiences) perceived the different characters and roles in Pedro Almodóvar’s movies. The results were astonishing, and helped me understand why British people thought I was a bit of a nutter J The last presentation was given by an old university classmate, who explained how characters from the Lord of the Rings books had been “translated” in the movies. I had already seen his presentation in Barcelona, but there he had focus his study on videogames, and not movies, but it was as interesting as the first time I heard him.

Another tea/coffee break and the last session of the day started. Now my heart was divided, as I was interested in the papers being presented in two of the rooms, and so I tried to go first to one of them and, then, to the other one.

I started with audiodescription in museums, which was pretty interesting. They explained that in Ottawa museum they had an App for iPhone and iPad with audiodescription and subtitles of each of their artworks. It was like an accessible audioguide. The rest of the presentation, I was a bit lost, as it seemed they were advertising how great their museum was, and we weren’t interested on listening to commercials, were we? ;)

And the «Vino de honor» (Honour wine) time arrived. I decided to go for juice, as I had some work to do at home, but it seems wine honoured many of the guests. ;) After the wine and networking time, we went to look for a place to have some dinner. The idea was to go to have a pizza, but we couldn’t fidn the place and ended up having English pub dinner. And, as it happens in all English pubs at 11 pm are last orders, so we had to leave. My presentation was the day after, so I decided that my party time was over for the night and went home.

To be continued…

Quality Assurance, Localisation and Experience: The Perfect Combination for the Best Localisation (Part II)

In my last post, I was explaining what a developer or publisher has to have into account when localising a game, and I also gave some of examples of games, whose developers or publishers have failed in reaching a good localisation. In this post, I will continue with those suggestions on game localisation.

[En español]

c) Poor knowledge of the game

Something translators would request on time and time again when they are given the task to translate anything is to please provide some context. In the case of games localisation, knowing how the game works is crucial in order to get the most accurate translation for each term or sentence. There are multiple examples of how key the context is for a good localisation. For example, in a game where the player has to collect different kinds of objects, the word “bat” could be translated in different ways if we refer to the animal, the “stick” used to bat a baseball, a table tennis bat, or even a verb implying the player to bat. Therefore, there are 1 out of 5 chances to get it right, and so, not only the context but an image or even the game would be necessary to be able to solve this problem successfully.

d) Poor knowledge of the source language

Another example would be those localisations where the user needs not only to know very well the source language, but also how the game to localise works from within. One example of this would be those cases in which the source in English would use the plural to refer to a single person but without wanting to mention the genre of that person (they/them). In Spanish we also have ways to express this “neutral” genre. However, by seeing the English text in plural, any translator without a wide knowledge of this aspect from the English grammar might be tempted to use the plural, instead of singular.

For example, if we go back to the example of Happy Aquarium, when visiting a neighbour, the user can click on an icon to let the aquarium’s owner know that their fish need feeding. At the top-left corner of the screen, there is an icon with the message: “Let them know”, which could literally be translated into Spanish as: “Díselo a ellos”, in plural. However, in the game, by clicking on this button, you only let know ONE person. The correct form in Spanish should be in singular: “Díselo”. In this case, the translator should wonder if this is a neutral singular form or just plural. If they don’t know, they may ask the client for clarification or, as it was explained in the previous point, play the game and discover what that function does, and so, avoid the error in localisation.

e) Specific requirements for a market or culture

The localisation of a videogame takes place, most of the times, while the videogame is still being created. This facilitates the process of adapting the videogame to certain culture, either because puns and jokes won’t be understood in the target culture (and, therefore, we can change them during the Translation/Localisation process), or because certain parts from the source culture are not allowed or accepted by the target one.

For example, in Germany it is forbidden to show red blood or dismemberment of human bodies, or even certain violent scenes in videogames (and it seems that more laws will appear soon on violent videogames development). Therefore, companies wanting to localise their products for the German gamers must add an option in which blood does not look like blood. This can be very creative, sometimes. Most of the times, it can be removed all together, or the colour can be changed, so it is not red anymore. But the options are infinite (as long as the red colour is not used), and creativity can sometimes can sometimes flourish within the design of the game.

In one of the games of the famous Hitman saga, you could either turn off the option of seeing any blood at all, or even switch it to an option that will show flowers instead of blood. Yes, when Agent 47 kills someone in the German version, the dead person “bleeds” flowers. I might be too twee for some people, but it works for the German censorship. In this case the localisation does not really mean an extra cost, as this “flowery” version is included in all languages and the game is sold in just one SKU, Storage Keeping Unit, which in videogames is usually the format or formats the game is created (DVD, game card, downloadable content, etc.).

Sometimes a videogame may require the game developers to do a special version for a certain culture, which will be sold separately, or in a separate SKU. While I was part of the Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures testing team, I was amazed to learn that the company had to do a special version of the ways to kill an enemy.

Age of Conan is a saga of MMORPG translated into 6 languages, in which the main character, so you, the gamer, has to gain reputation by killing, stealing, helping people, etc. So for you to have an idea of what I mean, just imagine Conan the Barbarian (you can use Arnold Schwarzenegger in this case), slaying enemies with his sword, chopping heads and limbs off and leaving the bodies bleeding to death. Something like that would never be allowed by the German censorship. For this reason, Funcom, the developers, had to create a new version of the game in which the killings were “non-aggressive” (if we can say that). Besides, the character would never chop off any heads or limbs. Blood was also inexistent. Due to all those changes in the code itself, this version had to be sold in a different SKU (on a DVD), aimed only to the German market.

It might seem that localising a game might mean a lot of effort and money, and that doing those special versions may make things too complicated, raise the budget and make the whole project more expensive, but when a game is good and the foreign gamers like the localisation, the sales a company may reach will completely justify the initial expense. Because a good localised product does not have to be too expensive, and it should not add any extra issues to the already complicated software creation. I think it is wrong to believe that, the most important thing when creating a videogame is to keep costs to the minimum, without caring what the result will be. Also, localising a videogame once the whole process is finished or doing it while the product is being created can make a whole of a difference. As Diana Díaz Monzón explains in her article about localisation, “planning the game localisation from the beginning is an investment that may be tremendously profitable: up to 50% of income is obtained from international markets”. The “easy” solution may not always be the cheapest and not even the one providing the best quality.

But with the industry in need of experienced, flexible and hard-working professionals, we should wonder why do we see once and again games that haven’t been properly localised (such as the examples I showed above). Are external contractors the best to do the job or is it better to have everything done internally? I will try to explain these and other questions in my next post.

Thanks for reading.

Curri

Quality Assurance, Localisation and Experience: The Perfect Combination for the Best Localisation (Part I)

First of all, I wanted to apologise for not having updated my blog for so long, but I have been busy on personal things, doing some more website testing, doing some translation tests and, well, embracing the arrival of spring, which will probably be the season with the best weather we will have in London. J I have also been preparing a paper to be published. I have never thought that publishing a paper was so challenging, especially because of the amount of references and the tone you need to use (well, you know me, it’s hard for me to be cold-serious at all times…). But I am still working on it. Hopefully, I will manage to get a good text and I will get it published.

But now it is time to explain you a bit about one of the subjects that really worry me: Quality Localisation of videogames. That was what I talked about at the Conference about Translation and Accessibility on Videogames and Virtual Worlds in Barcelona.

So, Ready? Stady? Go!

[En español]

Quality Assurance, Localisation and Experience: The Perfect Combination for the Best Localisation.

1.- Introduction

Videogames, Arcade games, Facebook applications, smartphone applications, mobile games, online games… Since their first conception in the 50s, and their boom in the 70s, we all have interacted with one those in some way: on an arcade machine at the nearest pub, at our best friend’s house, using our older brother’s consoles, being beaten by our big brother, at the school/university computer (even though this is not allowed) or grabbing our partners’ phone when they aren’t looking… The era of the Internet allowed the games industry to take off and get to what we know it now, where we can interact with other people in our games, or even play and speak at the same time. Nowadays, we are more connected with the rest of the world than ever, and selling a videogame in an international market can prove huge benefits for its creator (Diana Monzón, 2006: 4). It is because of all this that the translation of any game or application is essential for any company that would like to reach top marks in sales worldwide.

But, as it always happens in any business, money seems to be the most important part, and, at the same time, localisation and creating good versions of a game or application for international markets seems to be the least important part of their business. Therefore, the localisation of software is not always up to the highest standards, not only because companies want to save on costs, but probably because they don’t really understand the importance of a localised product and how it can impact on their sales.

2.- What is considered a good localisation?

There are examples of games in which this cultural adaptation has been brought too far.

a) Translations too specific for a culture or a generation

Not long ago, Álvaro García, a blogger who writes about translation in his blog “[Sé lo que] Traducistes”, helped us discovering a fantastic game, which had been localised into Spanish following a parody on a famous Spanish comedian. The whole game was full of expressions used by this comedian in his jokes, which made this localisation not only a bit old-fashioned, but also a bit annoying. It is true that one of the prints of the creativity present in the games localisation is the so-called linguistic variation (which Molina and Hurtado, 2002, defined as “the introduction in the target text of dialects absent in the original for characterisation purposes”), but I think, in this case, the localiser went one step too far. I have not played the game, but we could imagine that, spending around 20 hours reading not only spelling and grammar mistakes but also the same type of language, jokes and twists that used to characterise that comedian, can be very, very tiring. I will mention three examples that made me raise an eyebrow:

1) If you can understand Spanish, in this first image you can see how an extra “l” is added to the end of the last word of each line. This was how this comedian used to pronounce some words. It was funny for a while, but that was 15 years ago. Not anymore. Also, in this case, it shows the lack of imagination of the translator, who instead of doing a proper poem out of three lines, with their corresponding rhyme and metrics, decided to rhyme those lyrics by making the words to finish the same way.

2) In the second case, the translator decided to use one of the insulting words of that comedian. “Fistro” is what this comedian would use to call someone an idiot (pardon my French), even though that word does not exist in Spanish. But the irony of all is that, in the game, this was not used as an insult, but as the name of a character.

3) In some cases, the localisation of some of the characters names was puzzling and difficult to find a relation with the original. And it is not because the translator decided to localise most of the names and use proper Spanish names, which would have made some sort of sense, but the fact that, in some cases, references to this comedian, certain Spanish beverages, insults or even politicians, were added to the localised name.

One good point is that the three main characters were localised properly adapting the original names to how they would be pronounced by a Spanish-speaker:

· Howser → Hauser

· Liam → Liam

· Verde → Verdi

On the other hand, some of the names of the “supporting characters” can bring some giggles or smiles to those Spaniards reading them, and not for the good reasons:

· Jaden → Merluzo (male hake; a fish)

· Mike → Florentino (a TV Presenter)

· Adolf → Rosendo (the name of a Spanish band)

· Lily → Pecadora (Sinner, female)

· Caden → Aznarín (“Little Aznar”. Aznar is a Spanish former politician)

There are also other funny names such as Tintorro (beverage) or Fistra, as well as other very old-fashioned names such as Hortensio, Agapito, Fecunda or Wilfredo (Wilfred), which brings us to our memories names of our grandparents and great grandparents.

This is the full list of names, for your rejoice:

Main characters

· Howser -> Hauser

· Liam -> Liam

· Verde -> Verdi

Secondary characters

· Mr M. -> M.

· Elaine -> Rosario

· Kenzie -> Darío

· Nicole -> Romilda

· Jaden -> Merluzo

· Mike -> Florentino

· Lunasa -> Aurelia

· Keine -> Belén

· Deon -> Wilfredo

· Sadie -> Concepción

· Adolf -> Rosendo

· Lily -> Pecadora

· Caden -> Aznarín

· Shea -> Fabián

· Alena -> Soraya

Unknown characters

· Xavier, Josh, Merlan, Lyrica, Conner, Grace, Kaleb, Aidan y Cace.

· Elias, Ariadna, Hortensio, Agapito, Claudio, Aurora, Fecunda, Fistra, Araceli, Tintorro.

The problem of this localisation is that it can’t travel through time (15 years later, people might not understand the jokes) and people from other countries where Spanish is spoken might not understand it either (not only in Latin America, but also any other person in any country where people might understand Spanish). This is because the localisation has been made for a particular culture, is stuck in a period of time relatively short (what are 5 years of the comedian Chiquito de la Calzada in Spain when Spanish language has been “alive” for 1000 years!). I doubt many of the teenagers nowadays can understand this localisation, as when Chiquito de la Calzada was on TV, they were just babies, or maybe their parents weren’t even together! J

Yes, it is important to adapt the product to the culture, but it has to be understood by most of its members, even better if several generations can understand it. It is also recommendable, especially with humour, that it can work well throughout the years.

b) Localisations unfinished or partly localised

Apart from those cultural-related issues when localising, there are other mistakes in localisation that may come from lack of information about the game to localise or even a poor level of the source language that they might have. Sometimes, it can be as easy as the lack of interest from the developer/distributor to even spend some money on doing a proper localisation. One example of the latter can be found in the so-called Spanish localised version of Happy Aquarium. This is a very simple game, in which the player has to keep and take care of an aquarium by buying fish and making sure they are fed and healthy at all times. But it seems the developers gave up too quickly in localising the game, as they have left it half translated.

The text highlighted in red is translated whereas other items that are always present, such as the Rescue/Ignore icons or even the ‘s after the name of the owner of the Aquarium, aren’t localised. Even in the game tabs at the top, it seems that they forgot to translate basic things such as “My neighbours”.

To be continued...

List of conferences and activities for translators, interpreters and linguists taking place in Spain and some other countries

After the fruitful experience I had at the conference I participated in last December in Barcelona, I have decided to go to more events during this year. As I said in a previous post, I will be at the Media4All conference held in London in June, but until then, there are loads of things happening in the "Conference for translators" world.

So, to have a visual image of when each event happens, I have decided to create a document with all the conferences, courses, talks, etc. happening not only in Spain but also in other countries. The idea came after speaking to two colleagues, Eugenia and Jennifer, who were also thinking about creating a list of activities, so I told them why we didn't share them online :) For now, I only have those happening in the first six months of the year, but I hope I will have more information about others happening in the future. The document is in Spanish, but do not hesitate to ask me for a translated one if you need it. Of course, anybody can add any other events you know and aren't present in the document, as well as letting me know of anything that might improve the document.

The link is the following (in Spanish): https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0Ao0favkU3Ua4dGRCZmpXX3VkVmlVY0ZYTlRyRm02Z0E&hl=en&authkey=COyjwd4L

Let's hope this way we will have more events to go to and meet each other :)

Have a good day!