The translation and localization of gaming related websites: solving semantic problems

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Перевод и локализация игровых вебсайтов: решения семантическиx проблем

The translation and localization of gaming related websites: solving semantic problems

Y. Oliynykova

NT Services Limited, Calgary, AB, Canada

"Translation is like a woman.

If it is beautiful, it is not faithful.

If it is faithful, it is most certainly not beautiful."

Yevgeny Yevtushenko

The past decade has seen an unprecedented revolution in international communications. A person can access the Internet at any time of the day or night and instantly communicate with someone on the other side of the world. Consumers can log onto a website and purchase goods and services from a company ten time zones away. As the world has shrunk, the need to communicate in languages other than English has grown exponentially. To attract foreign customers, companies must ensure that their message is communicated clearly and convincingly in a language that customers understand. This is where professional translators and interpreters enter the picture: translators and interpreters provide the linguistic foundation for the global marketplace.

The online gaming industry is one of the fastest growing online services in the modern global business. It includes: sports betting, online gambling and various video games. Every minute thousands of new players from all over the world are happy to join cyber gaming. In order to attract more clients, improve communication with them and make online games more addictive, it is crucial to translate and localize the English content properly.

The purpose of this paper is to provide recommendations to the content writers, translators and game testers as for potential terminology translation issues and best practices for translation globalization and localization.

Every translation process starts with content. Clear content makes the translation successful. It should be adapted to audience in a foreign market. The content entry modes allow for various strategies of local adaptation that aim at making media content appear more proximate to the culture of the local audience and at avoiding making obvious Lacunae and the “cultural discount” that audience then apply to it. (Rohn, 2010: 112). Often, content managers and copywriters speak English only. They are not able to assess whether the approved content is suitable for translation or not. Below are some recommendations as for writing for translation:

1. Be consistent. According to the Oxford online dictionary, the word “consistency” derives from late Latin “consistentia” and denotes permanence of form. In addition, the dictionary provides the following definition: “The quality of achieving a level of performance which does not vary greatly in quality over time.” (Oxford Dictionaries, 2014). As far as the term `consistency' is concerned, there are basically three types of errors that can occur in technical documents (Dunne, 2007):

- Incorrect terminology (e.g. when the wrong terms are used for designating a given concept).

- Inconsistent terminology (e.g. when different terms are used to refer to the same concept).

- Ambiguous terminology (e.g. when one and the same term is used for designating more than one concept).

The first two errors are most typically found in content in the source language. The third one can generally pertain either to source and target language content. Of all these, inconsistency is by far the most frequently encountered error (Schmitz, K.-D., Straub, D., 2010).

Below are some examples of inconsistent terminology found on neteller.com website. The company uses various different terms: “Member”, “Client”, “Customer”, “Participant”, “Account holder” to denote someone who belongs to a special group, e.g. NETELLER Member. The best practice is to use only one term in both marketing and legal content to avoid inaccurate translation and improve communications with clients. We should consider the fact, that all the above mentioned terms cannot be used as synonyms for consistency reason.

2. Ensure the content is “transferable”. To translate a message means to pick up the exact lexical, grammatical and stylistic equivalent in the target language avoiding paraphrasing when possible. Sometimes it is difficult pick up the exact lexical equivalent in the target language because it simply does not exist. Here is the example of the banner content: “NET+ cards: global, instant, customizable”. We should mention the fact that the number of words you can use in translation is limited due to the size of the banner and design solutions. So, paraphrasing cannot improve translation quality. One more example of a “non-transferable” content: “Enhanced verification required”. In order to translate that message accurately, translators should take the following factors into consideration: purpose of the message, intention of the message sender, expected action that the recipient will take. Some of the translations samples for “Enhanced verification required” can be found below:

Danish: Forbedret bekrжftelse krжves

German: Erweiterte Bestдtigung erforderlich

Spanish: Se necesita la verificaciуn mejorada

Greek: БрбйфеЯфбй велфйщмЭнз ерблЮиехуз

French: Une confirmation complиte est requise

Italian: Necessario effettuare la verifica ottimizzata

Japanese: Ќ‚“x‚И”FЏШ‚Є•K—v‚Е‚·

Korean: Зв»уµИ И®АО °ъБ¤АМ ЗКїдЗХґПґЩ

Norwegian: Du mе fullfшre forbedret verifisering

Polish: Konieczna rozszerzona weryfikacja

Portuguese: Verificaзгo aprimorada necessбria

Russian: Требуется расширенная проверка

Swedish: Utцkad verifiering krдvs

Turkish: Geliюmiю doрrulama gerekiyor

3. Use simple sentences. Syntactic structure of the source text should be taken into consideration in the context of the translation. Use plain language: gender neutral sentences and active constructions. Here is the example of the “wrong” sentence structure: “It can be delivered to anyone in the world and used at any retail website that accepts MasterCard worldwide.” “To enable two-step authentication on your account, follow the instructions provided and use your smartphone to generate a 6-digit one-time authentication code.” In order not to make the target message “heavy”, especially in Spanish, avoid using too many imperative and exclamatory sentences, such as: “Hurry!” “Make a deposit now!” “Register now!” “Enter for a chance to win!” “Claim your bonus now!” in all marketing assets.

Special attention should be paid to email subject lines. Use short sentences. Keep your subject line to 50 characters or fewer. Do not punctuate the end of a sentence. Avoid using quotation marks and currency acronym because they trigger a spam filter. Here are some good examples of the subject lines: “Your account has been closed”, “Выиграйте 1000$ в акции Гонка за наличными,” “Double the points: VIP exclusive promotion,” “La tua nuova Carta Net+ VIP и in arrive,” “ЏЬ‹а 1,000 •ДЌ‘ѓhѓ‹‚р‚ЁЊ©“¦‚µ‚И‚­”.

When the content is ready for translation, we should define the level of translation we want or can afford, taking into account its cost and turnaround time:

- translation at the level of word (word for word translation)

- translation at the level of sentence

- conceptual translation

In the first approach, for each word in the source language (SL) an equivalent word is selected in the target language (TL). This type of translation is effective, especially in translating phrases and proper names such as United Nations, Ministry of Education, Deep Structure, and so on. However, it is problematic at the level of sentence due to the differences in the syntax of source and target languages. Translated texts as a product of this approach are not usually lucid or communicative, and readers will get through the text slowly and uneasily.

When translating at the sentence level, the problem of word for word translation and, therefore, lack of lucidity will be remedied by observing the grammatical rules and word order in the TL while preserving the meaning of individual words. So, sentences such as "Enter the recipient's email address, amount and currency," "You and the receiver will get email confirmations," and "Sign-in to your online account to access your money" can easily be translated into a target language according to the grammatical rules of that language. Translation at the sentence level may thus be considered the same as the translation at the word level except that the grammatical rules and word order in the TL are observed. Texts produced following this approach will communicate better compared to word for word translation.

In conceptual translation, the unit of translation is neither the word nor is it the sentence; rather it is the concept. Companies that fail to properly translate product names and slogans and check their meaning in the target language could experience certain difficulties in cross-cultural advertising. Below is the example of conceptual translation of the promotion name:

English: Daily Discovery Promotion

Danish: Daglig spжnding-kampagnen

German: Promoaktion Jeden Tag ein Gewinn

Spanish: Promociуn de grandes descubrimientos diarios

Greek: КЬие мЭсб кбй мЯб бнбкЬлхшз

French: Promotion Gain Quotidien

Italian: Promozione giornaliera Emozione quotidiana

Japanese: –€“ъ‚Є”­Њ©ѓvѓЌѓ‚Ѓ[ѓVѓ‡ѓ“

Korean: ёЕАП ґзГ· ЗБ·ОёрјЗ

Norwegian: Daglig spenning-kampanjen

Polish: Promocja Codzienne atrakcje

Portuguese: Promoзгo Descoberta Diбria

Russian: Aкция Ежедневная находка

Swedish: Kampanjen Nya upptдckter varje dag

Turkish: Her Gьn Heyecan Promosyonu

When conceptual approach cannot be used, it is linguistically justified to keep the name of the promotion in English, some examples: “Cash dash,” “Cash kickoff,” “Cash drop”. The above mentioned terms are not to be translated and localized in order to avoid any ambiguities and uncertainty of the semantic meaning. Actually, both copywriters and translators need to understand the basics of marketing. They need to know how cultural differences affect marketing and must be aware of constraints placed by the form and functions of the source text. (Sйguinot, 1995:63-69).

To achieve the highest linguistic quality possible, the localization process must include the development of three items:

- A style guideline

- A glossary in the source language

- A terminology list in the target language.

Guidelines, glossaries, and/or terminology lists ensure consistency in the translation over all components of the localized product. Localization is not just about translation. Localization goes beyond translation, to the meaning behind the words that are used. Different cultures use different grammar and sentence structures, so straight word-for-word translations are never enough to convey understanding. Instead, the form of the source language must be replaced with the form of the target language while maintaining the original meaning and style of the source materials. An experienced translator can extract the essential information from the source material, including register (tone, style, formality, complexity, etc.) and carry it over to the target language translation. Quality of localization is directly linked to the translator's experience with the topic and knowledge of both the source and target languages. When it comes to the linguistic translation quality improvement, the sky's the limit.

translation localization gaming websites

References

1. Brдndle D., Bauer. S. The importance of corporate terminology management - Why terminology is key for today's global business, SDL Language Technologies, 2012.

2. Dunne K.J. Terminology: ignore it at your peril. In: Multilingual April/May, Vol. 18 Issue 3, 2007. - Р. 32.

3. Oxford Dictionaries [Электронный ресурс]. - Электрон. данные. - 2014.- Режим доступа: http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition /english/consistency?q=consistency, свободный. - Загл. с экрана. - Яз. англ., дата обращения: 08.2015

4. Rohn U. Cultural Barriers to the Success of Foreign Media Content.- Frankfurt am Main: Peter lang GmbH, 2010. - Р. 112.

5. Schmitz K-D, Straub D. Erfolgreiches Terminologiemanagement im Unternehmen. Grundlagen, Umsetzung, Kosten-Nutzen-Analyse, Systemьbersicht. TC and more GmbH, Stuttgart, Praxishilfe und Leitfaden, 2010.

6. Sйguinot C. Translation and advertising: Going Global. Christina Schдffner and Helen Kelly-Holmes (eds) Cultural Functions of Translation. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters, 1995. - Р. 55 - 86.

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