Core Books in other languages??

[Melkor Lord Of ALL!]

Well, they have just published PH in Polish, a pity I ordered it over a year ago from Amazon.com

 

[Staffan]

While there isn't any official translation to Swedish, one of the guys involved in translating BD&D back in the 80s translated a whole bunch of the terms involved and put them on his website at http://mikael.borjesson.net/dnd/översättningar.htm. The classes are translated as:
Barbarian - Barbar
Bard - Bard
Cleric - Präst
Druid - Druid
Fighter - Krigare
Monk - Munk
Paladin - Paladin
Ranger - Jägare
Rogue - Rackare
Sorcerer - Trollkonstnär
Wizard - Magiker

 

[StalkingBlue]

Hello Knight Otu



Yes the rumour said it was due to Hasbro/WoTC making querries or couldn`t scope up with the reading of the translation.

How would you had translate Sorcerer?

The problem the translators had with translating Sorcerer was that there is already a variant "witch" class in the DMG, and the decision was to reserve the word "Hexe" (which is the literal translation for witch) for that.

By the way, despite the widespread belief that the word "Hexenmeister" means "master of witches", or "witch lord", as somebody posted here, is erroneous. The term really means "master of witchcraft", so it's not really all bad as a rendering of Sorceror.

There are many issues I have with the German translation of the PHB (haven't looked at the DMG yet), but this is not one of them.



And yes, one of the translators told me at a Con that they completed the PHB translation on schedule, and then Hasbro had it proofread by a guy who didn't have good grasp of the German language (as is proven by his dubious work on Magic cards) but had a big ego.
That caused some lengthy discussions back and forth.

Believe me: it's not an enviable job to convince a client of the quality of your translation when the client doesn't even speak the language you are translating into.

 

[Astragoth]

there is no such thing as a dutch translation for any D&D material available as far as I know.... I don't think there would be a market for it anyhow. I'm sort of wondering how wizard/sorcerer would tranlate to dutch though.. I suspect it would be tovenaar/ magier. Any other dutch have any idea?

 

[Ravellion]

I am trained in Dutch English translation, but I find that the Dutch language is lacking heavily in the fantasy department. Kobolds, Goblins and Gnome are all "aardmannetjes" (Earthmen), and as for wizard/Sorcerer: the thing is is that "Wizard" comes from the Germanic langauge family (meaning wise man or wise natured), and "sorcerer" originates from a latin language. Since Dutch didn't take in a lot of latin words, we often don't have multiple words for one concept.

Rav

 

[Sammael99]

About French:
[*]Warrior (the NPC class) by "homme d'armes" (man-at-arms), and Commoner by "gens du commun" (ugly, ugly, ugly ! "Quidam" (anonymous bypasser) and "Roturier" (non-noble, litteral translation of commoner) would both have been much better.

Although I agree that "gens du commun" is lame and "roturier" would have been better, "homme d'armes" isn't too bad, IMO.

[*]Outsider by "Extérieur". Extérieur means "outside", not "outsider"...

Tricky one to translate though. I don't like extérieur either, but since it might be useful to me in the future, what would you replace it with ?

[*]Pure drunkeness, like "Rûhk" for Roc, whose correct translation would simply have been "Roc". I don't even want to know why Mr Holweck thought "Rûhk" would be better suited. Why not "Gûhbelin" for "goblin", while he's at it ?

Isn't Rûhk the original translation of the creature as featured in 1001 nights ? I could be wrong though. I don't find it shocking... If anything, it's got flavour...

[*]"Gobelours" for bugbear, which prove the translator didn't knew it wasn't a name invented by D&D designers from bug and bear, but just how English call the Croquemitaine... I don't blame this on Holwieck, however, as it comes from previous editions.

I always found this translation ridiculuos, especially since, as has been pointed above, the portemanteau word turns upon itself and means something very different from what was originally intended...

[*]Halfelin for halfling. Not bad, but too heavy. Holwieck said that was much better than the formerly used "petit-homme" (and I agree on that) and that it was used by Jack Vance's translators as well. False, they shortened it to the prettier and easier to pronounce "Hafelin".

I quite like that, actually. Admittedly, it's a mouthful, but again, it's got a bit of flavour, unlike "little-man"

On another topic, although "roublard" is primarily an adjective, dictionnaries acknowledge its use as a noun. My French/English one even propose "dodger" as a translation of its noun form. It seems quite appropriate, all things considered.

Not an easy translation either. For that matter, I still think that Rogue, although a more adequate description of the class as featured in 3E than "thief" is still lame. "jack-of-all-trades", although inappropriate is a more accurate description, which would make it "débrouillard" in French. Not very heroic, I agree. But "roublard" implies a negative moral stance...

On the whole subject of translations, I can tell you it's not as easy as it seems. A few years back, when I lived in Britain, I ran a long Rêve de Dragon campaign. I translated all the specific game terminology, and it was a nightmare, although a fun nightmare. I even had back and forth correspondance with the author who gave his opinion on proposed translations (good thing he's fluent in English too ;-)

So I would cut the translating guys some slack. There are some lame translations, but it's not easy... And Gez, I notice that you criticize a number of choices without proposing alternatives. How about it ? Shall we start a "how should they have translated the terms" thread ?

 

[LcKedovan]

Isn't Rûhk the original translation of the creature as featured in 1001 nights ? I could be wrong though. I don't find it shocking... If anything, it's got flavour...

It may have been, wasn't 1001's original translation French as well?

-Will

 

[Sammael99]

It may have been, wasn't 1001's original translation French as well?

-Will

So... We meet again !



Yes, I think it was although for the life of me I can't remember the name of the translator...

C’est autour de l’an 1700 que le Français Antoine Galland, lors de ses voyages en Syrie, mis la main sur des manuscrits des Mille et Une Nuits (Alf laylah wa laylah). Il en fit une traduction, la toute première dans une langue européenne, qu’il publia en 1704. (from http://pages.infinit.net/vdemers/nuits.html)

So that's it. I'll check to see if there's an online version of the original translation

 

[Knight Otu]

The problem the translators had with translating Sorcerer was that there is already a variant "witch" class in the DMG, and the decision was to reserve the word "Hexe" (which is the literal translation for witch) for that.

Yes, that is a problem with translations. The english language has many words that basicall mean the same, especially along the line of spellcaster(wizard, sorcerer, witch/warlock...) or ghost(spectre, wraith, apparation...). I do see that it is hard to come up with good translations sometimes. But still, Hexenmeister does not really sit that well with me.

By the way, despite the widespread belief that the word "Hexenmeister" means "master of witches", or "witch lord", as somebody posted here, is erroneous. The term really means "master of witchcraft", so it's not really all bad as a rendering of Sorceror.

That is something I didn't know.

There are many issues I have with the German translation of the PHB (haven't looked at the DMG yet), but this is not one of them.

At least I have not found anything like the infamous "Taschenlampe" yet. I didn't play at that time, but heard about a few things ...

And yes, one of the translators told me at a Con that they completed the PHB translation on schedule, and then Hasbro had it proofread by a guy who didn't have good grasp of the German language (as is proven by his dubious work on Magic cards) but had a big ego.
That caused some lengthy discussions back and forth.

Believe me: it's not an enviable job to convince a client of the quality of your translation when the client doesn't even speak the language you are translating into.

I wonder why he should even be judging the quality of a translation in the first place .
But then again, I wonder why someone would bother to translate a city name like Innspa. This of course depends on how many english speakers know the meaning of -spa in the word? I'm really curious about this, but from what I heard it is quite obscure.

 

[Melan]

There is a Hungarian translation of the PHB. The DMG is supposed to come out in late September or early October. No word on the MM yet.