TRANSLATION GUIDELINES

From DQ5r

The Script

The script is split into roughly 2 parts: chat and party chat. Roughly the first 40% of the script is the chat, and the rest are the 10 or so possible party members that can comment on a particular dialog. At the moment the party chat is probably the most accurate as it was done last whereas the regular chat was mostly translated with little context.

[edit]

Editing

As we near the edit process (and you thought translating sucked), remember that there are still many ambiguous phrases, fixmes, and name changes to be done. One big problem is genderizing the text. "That person" is a literal interpretation, but does little good for an English audience, and it needs to really be "She" or "He" respectively.

There may also be script errors such as <enD> or <Line> which can be fixed with some Perl or regex magickery.

proper nouns, spell names, item names, etc... needed to be standardized. This is most likely more an issue with the first several pages.

Okay let's talk about Characters next.

[edit]

Formatting

Don't worry about the formatting too much.

[edit]

Basic

Example:

#TEXTBLOCK=22
//@男@＊「オイラも　このストレンジャー号みたいに<line>
//　　でかい船を　持ってみたいもんだよ。<end>
//note: ストレンジャー号 = name of the ship, Stranger
@男@*:I'd also like to have a large boat such as the "Stranger" here.<end>

'comments'
- to leave a note or fixme for further reference use //note: after the original, but before the translation.

'lines'
- In the original you needed to end each line with the <line> tag, however with the autoformatter you no longer need to worry about lines. Just translate one line, and make sure you end the line with the <end> tag.

'dialogue'
- In the original additional lines in dialogue were indented with tabs. You do not have to worry about using the <line> tag, and just translate on one line with spaces after periods.
- In conversations with anonymous characters use '*:' after the @_@ macro with no space before or after the ':'.
- In conversations with named characters use ':' after the @_@ macro with no space before or after the ':'.

[edit]

Dragon Quest vs. Dragon Warrior styles

Items, spells, places, and enemies may have alternate translations with more traditional DW styles.
Please use the following format in every applicable area including the script.

//天空のつるぎ
[Heavenly Sword:Zenithian Sword]<end>

or in the script...

@男@Sancho:[Heaven folk:Zenithians] who cannot find
  [Heaven's Castle:the Zenithian Castle] and return home, were
  allowed to live in this castle.<end>

or you could even separate both if it gets too different. 

@男@Sancho:

[Heaven folk who cannot find
  Heaven's Castle and return home, were
  allowed to live in this castle.
:Zenithians who cannot find
  Zenithia and return home, were
  allowed to live in this castle.]
<end>

As you can see...Don't let the <end> tag get put in there. We need that.

[edit]

Translation

Spells, place names, etc... should already be completed and accessible on the wiki.

[edit]

Names

Consistently we have been dropping -kun, -san, -sama completely from the english unless:
- @主@王, @主@さま - When we find out that @主@ is a Prince or King npcs change how they refer to him. Instead of using the third person, in English we use second. This can be translated well by using "your Highness" or "your Majesty". In party chat it is consistently "your Majesty" whereas there is a mix of both in the main script.
- The character referenced is royalty, an evil villain, or self-proclaimed royalty. It's just weird in English to call everyone 'Sir' even though they're just a wealthy guy. Sir is only used at fast food windows or to a knight.
- Example:

//ルドマンさま
Master Ludman
//ルドマンさん
Ludman

- - This is pretty inconsistent throughout the wiki at the moment though.
- Master Dragon can be done either as Lord Master Dragon, but to save space it might just be good enough to use Master Dragon. Since after all, "Master Dragon" does refer to God.
"Cute" nicknames -- It is hard to translate effectively ~ちゃん (-chan). There are a few times that nicknames for main characters are used.
- 坊っちゃん (bocchan) - We have been translating Sancho's nickname for @主@ as "Little Master".
- ビアンカちゃん (bianca-chan) - We have not been consistent at this. At first it was "Biancy" or "Bianchie" as a nickname, but nothing has been settled on.
- フローラちゃん (flora-chan) - This happens about 5 times. "Florie" has been used, but as with Bianca's above this may just confuse the player.
- @豹@ちゃん (borongo-chan) - I've been using "lil' @豹@" consistently. This also may be an option for the two characters above.
- 星さま, お日さま, etc - @娘@ frequently refers to trees, stars, the moon, the sun, animals, in an endearing and cute tone. It's hard to do with "stars", but I've used "Lord Sun", "Lady Moon", "Mister Tree", etc... This seems to keep her childish and cutesy manner of speaking.

[edit]

Language

Try to keep the English translation to a 'T' rating as per the original Nintendo of America translation.
- This is debatable as Nintendo of America was notorious for watering down translations to make them more "suitable" for children.

[edit]