Engrish is done for, long live Spangrish.

[Kitsune Sniper]

What a day. I wandered over to Kotaku yesterday and I found this article.

http://kotaku.com/376085/mercenaries-2-invades-venezuelan-newspaper

This probably won't bother those of you who don't really speak Spanish, but it only highlights a huge problem for me - companies who don't bother hiring competent translators.

Pandemic sent out a fake newspaper as a promotional item for their upcoming Mercenaries 2 game. Now, I have no idea how the game plays, what the story is, or whatever. I'm not really interested in the game, to be honest; I don't own a current-gen system, and won't for a long time.

But looking at that paper made me feel ill. It's the equivalent of 1990's SNKgrish, only in Spanish. It's probably the absolute worst translation I've ever seen, and I really can't believe someone actually paid money to have that made...

It only makes me wish more companies would hire competent Spanish translators. Hell, I'd do this almost for free, as long as it helped me get my foot in the door in the gaming translation business. That two page flyer? I can translate that in less than a day, probably a few hours, even.

I dunno. I just felt like ranting somewhere. >_< Heck, I'm barely resisting the urge to register at Pandemic's forums just to tell them I'd do it for cheap, or even free, just so they get it right...

[Daria]

Why not promote yourself at their forums? You know you could do a better job, it's the kind of work you're looking for (well, ok it's not game translation but it's a start), and the worse that could happen is they ignore you.

[Berserker]

The guy who runs shit through Babelfish works for cheap. The guy who has actual competence in a skill charges accordingly, or leaves the company to wallow in the portion of hemisphere it just alienated.

[roushimsx]

Doesn't look like (http://www.pandemicstudios.com/jobs_la.php) there's an opening for you, but you could always submit a resume to jobs@pandemicstudios.com anyway and see what happens. Then again, the PR portion might have actually been handled by EA (http://jobs.ea.com/pljb/ElectronicArts/United_States/applicant/index.jsp).

Fuck it, start shooting your resume out there and see where it gets you :)

[smork]

"Un ganador es tu!"
"Todos sus bases son nuestros!"
"Victolia!"

[Kitsune Sniper]

"Un ganador es tu!"
"Todos sus bases son nuestros!"
"Victolia!"

Would you believe SNK's Spanish translation division actually did some decent work back in the day? That is, until Art of Fighting 3 came out. Someone fucked up and made the Spanish setting spit out Portuguese instead...

As for applying for jobs... I've already sent some resumes to a few companies, but so far nobody's called or written back. But I'm working on something right now that'll hopefully get me noticed.

I'm just worried a bit about someone associating my internet activities (the whole Japanese translation thing) with my real life work...

[Sothy]

Come to work out here.

I like the sign in my apartment complex " ARE POOLS OPEN"

Like is that a question? Well yes the pool is open seeing as this sign is on the gate to the pool that ten thousand little kids are peeing into..

Or the little market down the street "OPEN 24/7 8AM - 10pm"

[Damaramu]

I dunno. I just felt like ranting somewhere. >_< Heck, I'm barely resisting the urge to register at Pandemic's forums just to tell them I'd do it for cheap, or even free, just so they get it right...

Just got off the horn with a buddy of mine who works at Pandemic. Showed him the Kotaku article and he was pretty much unaware of it.

He said, and I quote:


Pandemic does not handle anything related to marketing.

and suggested that you look to EA instead.

[Melf]

You gotta love it... unless your in Venezuela and have a stick up your ass.

Lol.

While the Spanish in that newspaper is horrendous, this is nothing. You guy's should see how both languages can be butchered here in Puerto Rico. I watch out for these types of things, and I'm slowly gathering pictures of each one to use in my classes in a PowerPoint presentation. Some of them are just hilarious.

[Kitsune Sniper]

Just got off the horn with a buddy of mine who works at Pandemic. Showed him the Kotaku article and he was pretty much unaware of it.

My bad, then. I figured this was done by Pandemic; EA -does- have some decent localization teams, which only makes this even weirder.

[Jorpho]

My bad, then. I figured this was done by Pandemic; EA -does- have some decent localization teams, which only makes this even weirder.

It would seem that the developers have access to different translators than the marketers do, then.

[Aussie2B]

If it's really that bad, then there's a good chance they didn't pay anyone to do that to begin with. They probably either ran it through Babelfish or picked out whoever in the office knew the most (in other words - very little) Spanish.

Honestly, I don't have much sympathy for Spanish speakers whining about Spanish translation. I mean, it's the most widely spoken language in America after English, and thus I'm sure it has the largest and most skilled body of interpreters/translators as a result. Heck, even my brother is one. I think some Spanish speakers have developed a certain level of arrogance considering the status their language has in America, so they just expect more and more. I couldn't even tell you how many times I've seen and heard stories of people getting on buses in NYC, start speaking to the bus driver in Spanish as if of course they must know it because they have a public job, and then get pissed off and start complaining in Spanish when the bus driver hasn't a clue what they're saying. Compare that to my grandparents, who primarily speak Latvian. Try finding ANYBODY who speaks that, let alone an interpreter, and I've never once heard a complaint from them about it.

My point is that if the translation is making you feel ill, I think you're taking it just a wee bit too seriously. Just relax and get a laugh out of it. That's what English speakers do when they read Engrish. And, heck, is there any real reason why this NEEDS a good translation? It's just a silly promo item, for goodness sakes. Who cares? I don't think that even really warrants paying a lot of money for a good translator. Throwing it in Babelfish is adequate enough to meet their goal, even if it does read like rubbish. I mean, it's nowhere near as bad as if it was within a game itself, and English speakers have had to tolerate A LOT of incomprehensible Engrish in their games over the years, even in ones that cost upwards of 70 or 80 dollars.

[DonMarco]

Maybe they just didn't care?

"Yo no sabo espanol" is hideously incorrect, but only to anyone that spent more than five weeks in a high school Spanish class. However! I still say that exact phrase to people who ask me if I speak Spanish. I know I'm wrong, they know I'm wrong... And somehow the world just keeps on spinning.

[Kitsune Sniper]

My point is that if the translation is making you feel ill, I think you're taking it just a wee bit too seriously. Just relax and get a laugh out of it. That's what English speakers do when they read Engrish. And, heck, is there any real reason why this NEEDS a good translation?

See... it's just that this sort of material gets redistributed all over the world, including South America. A lot of games never get localized for Spanish speaking markets (other than the manual, which is more or less shrinkwrapped to the game case).

I'm not too confident about a company that doesn't even bother to translate things right. Many people in Spain and South America like to play their games with Spanish in-game menus, subtitles or voice acting, which are now becoming more and more common in games thanks to the booming Latin American market. I'm ticked because even though companies know there's a market for Spanish in games, they don't really bother getting things right at all. *shrugs*

Also, it's my right to take it seriously, because I'm a goddamn English / Spanish translator. :P Every time I see things like this, I go "... and they keep hiring bilingual people without a lick of training... why?"

[Overbite]

They're trying to get immigrants to speak english by handing out uninteligble spanish flyers