Reply to thread

Message

<blockquote data-quote="Zappo" data-source="post: 1376431" data-attributes="member: 633">What Fabio said. I game with lots of non- or very poor english speakers, so using an English PHB is out of the equation. The Italian translations are actually excellent, they have a high degree of consistancy both internal, across books, and even with the previous editions all the way back to OD&amp;D. The terms have been chosen to reflect the original intention more than an actual translation - for example, &quot;Strisciante delle Carogne&quot;, while technically correct, would be awful for a carrion crawler. Verme-iena is shorter, easier to pronounce, and perfectly conveys the meaning of something that crawls (worm) and eats carrion (hyena). This kind of stuff is the hallmark of a professional translation.&nbsp;&nbsp;There are only two things in translated D&amp;D that really irk me. One is that they translated &quot;rogue&quot; with the same term for &quot;thief&quot;. I would be unable to find a better translation though. All possible translations for &quot;rogue&quot; are either synonymous with thief, or are unused/old-fashioned words, or have a strongly negative connotation.&nbsp;&nbsp;The other is with the magic schools, where &quot;conjuration&quot; =&gt; &quot;evocazione&quot; and &quot;evocation&quot; =&gt; &quot;invocazione&quot;. Or something like that, I can't bloody ever remember them. A typical session where I DM will feature scenes like: &quot;ok, you see a magical aura of... uhm... evocazione... eer... well, the fireball school&quot;. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin&nbsp; &nbsp; :D"&nbsp; data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" />&nbsp;&nbsp;Some of the spells sound better in English, and there's no denying that, but they aren't many. Chiefly the fireball; the possibility to merge two words in English gives its best here and many friends of mine usually say fireball rather than &quot;palla di fuoco&quot;. Actually, even the word &quot;spell&quot; sounds better than &quot;incantesimo&quot;. I can't think of any other term right now for which we use the english version.&nbsp;&nbsp;A different matter is stuff that comes from English manuals. We use it in English. This includes lots of Star Wars terms, for example, to the point that the (fully translated and dubbed) movies actually sound wrong to some of us. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin&nbsp; &nbsp; :D"&nbsp; data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" /></blockquote>

[QUOTE="Zappo, post: 1376431, member: 633"] What Fabio said. I game with lots of non- or very poor english speakers, so using an English PHB is out of the equation. The Italian translations are actually [i]excellent[/i], they have a high degree of consistancy both internal, across books, and even with the previous editions all the way back to OD&D. The terms have been chosen to reflect the original intention more than an actual translation - for example, "Strisciante delle Carogne", while technically correct, would be awful for a carrion crawler. Verme-iena is shorter, easier to pronounce, and perfectly conveys the meaning of something that crawls (worm) and eats carrion (hyena). This kind of stuff is the hallmark of a professional translation. There are only two things in translated D&D that really irk me. One is that they translated "rogue" with the same term for "thief". I would be unable to find a better translation though. All possible translations for "rogue" are either synonymous with thief, or are unused/old-fashioned words, or have a strongly negative connotation. The other is with the magic schools, where "conjuration" => "evocazione" and "evocation" => "invocazione". Or something like that, I can't bloody [i]ever[/i] remember them. A typical session where I DM will feature scenes like: "ok, you see a magical aura of... uhm... [i]evocazione[/i]... eer... well, the [i]fireball[/i] school". :D Some of the spells sound better in English, and there's no denying that, but they aren't many. Chiefly the fireball; the possibility to merge two words in English gives its best here and many friends of mine usually say fireball rather than "palla di fuoco". Actually, even the word "spell" sounds better than "incantesimo". I can't think of any other term right now for which we use the english version. A different matter is stuff that comes from English manuals. We use it in English. This includes lots of Star Wars terms, for example, to the point that the (fully translated and dubbed) [i]movies[/i] actually sound wrong to some of us. :D [/QUOTE]

Verification