D&D 5E D&D Shabby Italian Translations

[Stefano Rinaldelli]

This morning I realized how much WOTC is completely unrespectful of its costumers in Italy. The last translated manual, Guida di Van Richten a Ravenloft seems clearly translated by a software and maybe revised by an english speaking guy without experience with D&D, who knows italian because is grand grand pa was italian

All the Italian community is largely upset by this shabby translation.

The previous translation team was Asmodee who did the work very well, under the Gale Force Nine agreement. Now we italian people are at least embarassed by the horrible work has been done by this new translation team (if it exist, because in the book there's no trace of a credit about).

I would suggest to WOTC that the same maniacal attention they adress to be inclusive with POC, LGBT+ etc. as part of a dutiful will to respect everybody, MUST be addressed to non-english speaking people who WERE happy to buy their translation. Just in case you don't know, brutalize a language is offensive to people who read it.

Given that this forum is frequented by people of all nations, in particular Germany, French and Spanish who have in their hands the new translations, I'm really curious to know if the translations in their language is as sloppy and clumsy (if not sometimes plainly wrong) as the Italian translation.

 

[pukunui]

That really sucks. Sorry to hear that!

I'd be interested to see an example.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

The French translation is adequate, but is caught in some kind of drama about who owns the licence to do this and that.

 

[Stefano Rinaldelli]

That really sucks. Sorry to hear that!

I'd be interested to see an example.

Planes as Pianure
Beholder as Onnivedente
Features as Privilegi

are some examples of error with a single word.

There are an enormous amount of phrases that are syntactically inconsistent.

And last but not least, some technical or lore-related terms completely uncoherent with a 30+ years tradition: all place-name or NPC's surname translated (after 30+ years of NO translation) in a literal, stupid way, with bleeding eye effect.

 

[Umbran]

I would suggest to WOTC...

I'm sorry that you got a bad translation.

But, if you want to suggest something to WotC, you need to suggest it to WotC, not to EN World. We are not their customer service department - stuff you write here does not reach them.

 

[Dioltach]

Welcome to the world of professional translation. Machine translation companies have been saying for at least 20 years that it's nearly as good as human translation. It's not - nowhere near, for anything involving abstract concepts or any degree of figurative speech - but they've marketed their message so aggressively that people believe it.

It doesn't help that people want to believe it: it's so fast and cheap that you can conveniently ignore the fact that the quality is awful. I agree about it being disrespectful too - it's what I've been telling clients for years.

 

[Alby87]

There is more than that. Do you know that Nosferatu are hunters of undead? And Kas is a vampire widely know in the plains (not in the planes)? And when common people give voice to their hopes, is because Ezra is praying. The Boneless "crushing embrace" before doing what is in the original english manual, it automatically grapples the target creature.
And the Beholder... they called the Beholder "Beholder" in the MM and XGE (it's a book written by a beholder!) and in VRGR_ITA, it is "Onnivedente" (All Seing Eye), that you can not find in the MM. And those are the easiest errors to report in an english forum!

 

[Stefano Rinaldelli]

I'm sorry that you got a bad translation.

But, if you want to suggest something to WotC, you need to suggest it to WotC, not to EN World. We are not their customer service department - stuff you write here does not reach them.

Already done, but infinite thanks for your precious advice.

In this forum the topic is this:

Given that this forum is frequented by people of all nations, in particular Germany, French and Spanish who have in their hands the new translations, I'm really curious to know if the translations in their language is as sloppy and clumsy (if not sometimes plainly wrong) as the Italian translation.