What's The Deal With D&D Translations?

Over the last year or so, the question of translations of D&D 5E into foreign languages has arisen from time to time. Sites like Hobby Japan have stated that WotC indicated that no D&D translations would be permitted, although very recently that site was apparently given permission to do translate the Basic Rules (more on that below), and today a petition was created by a German fan asking for translated books.

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This was Hobby Japan's announcement back in July 2014.

AN IMPORTANT NOTICE ABOUT "D&D NEXT"
Thank you very much for your continued patronage of Dungeons & Dragons (D&D).

Since January of 2013, we have been engaging in promotional activities, primarily through "Table Game Channel", on the assumption of making the transtion from D&D 4th Edition to D&D Next. However, Wizards of the Coast, the publisher of D&D, has decided to sell only English versions of D&D Next, and not put out a license for translations. This applies not only to Japan, but all non-English language regions.
As a result, we cannot release a Japanese version of D&D Next.
We deeply apologize that we can meet the expectations of everyone who was looking forward to a Japanese version of D&D Next.

As a company, we will wait for an opportunity to do the translation, taking in account the possiblity that Wizards of the Coast may change their policy, but we must announce here that for the time being, there is no plan to publish Japanese versions of D&D Next merchandise.

From the bottom of our hearts, we thank everyone who has supported the Japanese versions of D&D over the 10 years since the Japanese release of D&D 3rd Edition.

Eiji Nakabayashi
Game Development Department
Hobby Japan, Inc.
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WotC's Chris Perkins shortly thereafter clarified this, by saying "We want to adopt a plan that makes it possible for us to deliver new releases in multiple languages at the same time. That requires a lot of work on our end, and also likely ties into digital publishing."

Last week, Masaki Yanagida in Japan dropped me a note with the latest translation news from Japan.

As we know, Wizards of the Coast has not granted a translation license of the D&D 5th for other than English, yet. But Japanese D&D gamers obtained permission to publish the Basic Rules for D&D (Japanese version) on the Hobby Japan's D&D Suport page.

This translation made by volunteer who played D&D at D&D Adventure League (JapanRegion). Our regional coordinator and HJ's Staffs requested this permission to the WotC, and they gave it.

Player's rules comes first (PDF), and Dungeon Masters rules are in preparation now.

Some geek news sites picked up this news. And announced that, there is no plan to release a Japanese version of D&D 5th, but volunteer has translated free rules which is published at WotC site. So you can get this translation for free at HJ's D&D Site. Comments on this news shows that, not only active gamers but also retired gamers are
interested in this New D&D.

http://game.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/newsclip/20150930_723372.html

http://www.4gamer.net/games/319/G031949/20151001001/

If D&D5th translated and sell legally, more Japanese gamers will return gameshop,play the D&D, and purchase the D&D. We hope the WotC to grant translation license of D&D for local publisher.

I think, this accomplishment will encourage all other non-English gamers demanding for translated D&D.
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And just today, Info Kiem from Germany started a petition on Change.org, asking WotC to translate D&D into other languages.

With 5th Edition, Wizards of the Coast has dropped all partnerships with local publishers and stopped all foreign-language editions of the game. It may not be reflected by the sales numbers, but D&D needs a proper localization. Most dedicated players may still buy the English rulebooks, but there are always players at the table, especially younger ones, that need a translation. Other RPGs are translated, all previous editions of D&D were, why not this one? If we rally up support here, maybe we can change somebody's mind at Wizards of the Coast.

Translate the 5th Edition rulebooks!
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[MoonSong]

that a WotC translation could likely end badly...

Well, I would prefer a WotC translation. If only so it remained consistent. There is not a single publisher that could do that for long enough -and even the same one varies between translators -, it really gets annoying when names just keep changing. How do you translate Hit Points to Spanish? puntos de golpeo? puntos de vida? Vida? salud? sangre? golpes? just HP? that is only one. Rogue and ranger are equally difficult (Pathfinder's Picaro and Explorador don't really convince me). And how about AC, DC, Hit dice? those can be translated to very wordy -and awkward- forms and alternatives can be countless. Maybe this is a reason D&D isn't that popular in my country.

 

[rangergcg]

I want French books to gift my young nephews and initiate them to D&D!

Having the Core rulebooks translated would be better buy you may find a French translation of the Basic Rules (Rules and Creatures) on http://www.aidedd.org/ (after an official agreement with Wizards of the Coast).

 

[Cristian Andreu]

Well, I would prefer a WotC translation. If only so it remained consistent. There is not a single publisher that could do that for long enough -and even the same one varies between translators -, it really gets annoying when names just keep changing. How do you translate Hit Points to Spanish? puntos de golpeo? puntos de vida? Vida? salud? sangre? golpes? just HP? that is only one. Rogue and ranger are equally difficult (Pathfinder's Picaro and Explorador don't really convince me). And how about AC, DC, Hit dice? those can be translated to very wordy -and awkward- forms and alternatives can be countless. Maybe this is a reason D&D isn't that popular in my country.

I think you are overstating the issue of translation consistency in Castilian. Yes, there are instances of different terms used, such as how they have "Dragones y Mazmorras" in the Peninsula and we have "Calabozos y Dragones" here in Latin America. But for the most part, this has rarely proven to be a significant issue; other than the infamous "Arco-X" first print of the AD&D 2e translation (which is now so hard to find it's actually considered a collector's item, which I've seen on sale for over 500 USD), D&D books in Castilian work perfectly fine. I've been playing with both English and Castilian books for the past 20 years and I've never stumbled upon a problem that goes beyond "This term here is slightly different".

Hit Points have always been "Puntos de Golpe"; Hit Dice have always been "Dados de Golpe"; AC has always been "Categoría de Armadura"; the Rogue has gone through "Ladrón", "Bribón", and then back to "Ladrón" but that's mostly because it also changed names in the original English books. That's how it was with Ediciones Zinco back in AD&D, and it's been used by Devir in both 3e and 4e. For some reason it changes some terms with Pathfinder where it's "Clase de Armadura" rather than "Categoría" and "Pícaro" rather than "Ladrón", but even in those cases the differences are pretty inconsequential, especially since we consider the terms are well-defined and consistent within their respective rules systems.

With every language we will encounter that there are many ways of translating a term. Yes, Castilian is characterised for being a particularly florid tongue, extremely poetic and effusive, which is why it's great for expressing complex thoughts and emotions, yet somewhat clumsy at explaining technical information and bad at term agglutination; a science book always needs more pages in Castilian than it does in English, and names like Stonebellow Thunderingforge are very hard to pull off in the Tongue of Cervantes. But the fact you could technically translate a term like Feats into Dotes/Cualidades/Dones/Aptitudes/Hazaña/Proeza is not a thing specific to our language, but rather a standard phenomenon of translation. That's why the more precise term for what is done with these works is not really "translation", but rather "interpretation", since it needs to take a lot more than just literal meaning into consideration.

Besides, a Castilian version of the game, even if it was poorly translated, would be better than having no translation at all.

 

[Parmandur]

They say that every act of translation is a betrayal...

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[SunGold]

They say that every act of translation is a betrayal...

Reading a translated book is like standing with your back to a painting while someone describes it to you. Still better than nothing if that's your only way to access it, though.

 

[MoonSong]

I think you are overstating the issue of translation consistency in Castilian. Yes, there are instances of different terms used, such as how they have "Dragones y Mazmorras" in the Peninsula and we have "Calabozos y Dragones" here in Latin America. But for the most part, this has rarely proven to be a significant issue; other than the infamous "Arco-X" first print of the AD&D 2e translation (which is now so hard to find it's actually considered a collector's item, which I've seen on sale for over 500 USD), D&D books in Castilian work perfectly fine. I've been playing with both English and Castilian books for the past 20 years and I've never stumbled upon a problem that goes beyond "This term here is slightly different".

Hit Points have always been "Puntos de Golpe"; Hit Dice have always been "Dados de Golpe"; AC has always been "Categoría de Armadura"; the Rogue has gone through "Ladrón", "Bribón", and then back to "Ladrón" but that's mostly because it also changed names in the original English books. That's how it was with Ediciones Zinco back in AD&D, and it's been used by Devir in both 3e and 4e. For some reason it changes some terms with Pathfinder where it's "Clase de Armadura" rather than "Categoría" and "Pícaro" rather than "Ladrón", but even in those cases the differences are pretty inconsequential, especially since we consider the terms are well-defined and consistent within their respective rules systems.

With every language we will encounter that there are many ways of translating a term. Yes, Castilian is characterised for being a particularly florid tongue, extremely poetic and effusive, which is why it's great for expressing complex thoughts and emotions, yet somewhat clumsy at explaining technical information and bad at term agglutination; a science book always needs more pages in Castilian than it does in English, and names like Stonebellow Thunderingforge are very hard to pull off in the Tongue of Cervantes. But the fact you could technically translate a term like Feats into Dotes/Cualidades/Dones/Aptitudes/Hazaña/Proeza is not a thing specific to our language, but rather a standard phenomenon of translation. That's why the more precise term for what is done with these works is not really "translation", but rather "interpretation", since it needs to take a lot more than just literal meaning into consideration.

Besides, a Castilian version of the game, even if it was poorly translated, would be better than having no translation at all.

Una mala localización puede hacer más mal que bien. En particular yo solo pude aprender con los libros en inglés la invasión de textos de tantos lados produce mucha confusion. Y bueno, la verdad me gustaria tener una buena localización para poder enseñar a nuevas personas. Pero no creo que haya tanto público en mi país, el rol se considera lo más frikki de lo friki, y tiene una gran mística... pero Call of Ctulhu y Vampiro son los juegos en la conciencia colectiva, recuerdo que hace no mucho -como tres años, no he vuelto a ir a una convención- estabamos jugando cuando una chava se acercó a preguntar sobre el juego, pero se fue con disgusto apenas mencionamos calabozos y dragones

 

[Mistwell]

umm, well I really didn't want to derail the thread. Go back to it I guess... (Thanks to everybody who showed support you made me feel better)

Um yes, I don't really want a Spanish version of the game, game translations to Spanish -beyond standalones- are usually very clumsy. There are just too many ways to say the same thing in Spanish -and only a few are idiomatic- it can be a nightmare, even followups by the same company show wildly different names for the same stuff, and the prevalence of blind-idiot translation can be jarring. Add to it the differences in translation traditions between Spain and Latin America -Spain: lets translate everything, use as little neologisms/anglicisms as possible -LA: Let's keep some anglicisms. Invent funny words for what is awkward, overall: just translate word by word without checking beyond the second dictionary entry.

Having said that, I would love to have the chance to get German and Japanese versions of the books.

My understanding is there is a truly superb Spanish edition (Spain) based initially on Basic/Expert an expanded since then into essentially it's own version of D&D. I think it's called "Aventuras en La Marca del Este". There was a Kickstarter to create an English translation.

[Also, I didn't know CoC and Vampire were big in Mexico]

 

[Ti-bob]

Having the Core rulebooks translated would be better buy you may find a French translation of the Basic Rules (Rules and Creatures) on http://www.aidedd.org/ (after an official agreement with Wizards of the Coast).

Thanks. I already know of that translation.

I want the physical book to give as a gift to my 8-12 years old nephews and a printed document don't make it. And it's always easiest tu run an adventures in my native language (for me anyway).

 

[Alzrius]

Anyone else hearing this thread title in the voice of Jerry Seinfeld?

That said, while there are doubtlessly financial reasons guiding WotC's hand with regards to their translation policy for 5E, I think that it's a poor choice for the community to leave so much of the non-English-speaking TTRPG world without access to the game, particularly since they seemed to have such a robust set of translations going on for previous editions.

Personally, the fact that WotC allowed for a fan-made Japanese translation of the Basic 5E PDF strikes me as a bad sign. I see that as a tacit admission that they have no particular plan in place for translations; that it was a "eh, we're not going to do it and it costs us nothing, so why not let 'em post it?" reaction.