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Poll: Would you like to help with translating Hawken?

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Poll: Crowdsourcing translations (23 member(s) have cast votes)

Please select the language(s) that you know well enough to be able to translate English descriptions into that language:

  1. German (2 votes [8.70%] - View)

    Percentage of vote: 8.70%

  2. French (4 votes [17.39%] - View)

    Percentage of vote: 17.39%

  3. Spanish (3 votes [13.04%] - View)

    Percentage of vote: 13.04%

  4. Russian (0 votes [0.00%])

    Percentage of vote: 0.00%

  5. Japanese (0 votes [0.00%])

    Percentage of vote: 0.00%

  6. Other (specifiy below) (6 votes [26.09%] - View)

    Percentage of vote: 26.09%

  7. None but I would help with proof-reading the English descriptions (8 votes [34.78%] - View)

    Percentage of vote: 34.78%

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#1 ReEvolve

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Posted April 28 2014 - 09:45 AM

One of Hawken's biggest problems right now is it's player retention. One suggestion that came up quite often when talking about improving the player retention is: improving the localisations.

Not everyone is able to understand english perfectly and many players have to rely on other localisations of Hawken. I didn't test all of them but I can at least say that the german translation is bad, incomplete (there are descriptions saying "UPDATEME") and buggy (there are lots of Spanish descriptions instead of German descriptions for some reason). From what I've read the french and the russian translations are bad as well. Players that have to rely on those localisations might give up playing pretty quickly if the translations are confusing or even misleading.

The problem is that the developers themselves don't speak all of the other languages which Hawken offers it's players.

I talked with a dev and as it turns out some devs are curious if there are enough people willing to help with crowdsourcing the translations. I made this thread to find out how many community members want to help out. The devs won't start such an endeavour if they don't even know wether or not enough community members are capable of helping and acutally want to help with translating Hawken into other languages. Of course a certain level of knowledge about the English language is required as well.

So, please only vote if you really want to help. Please create a post and elaborate if you would like to help to translate Hawken into a different language than the "main languages" which already have translations of varying quality.

#2 BadCatWillum

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Posted April 28 2014 - 09:53 AM

I've got experience with i18n and l10n in large open source projects (and doing the same commercially for large closed source projects, and guess what, the stuff you pay for sucks). Something the size of one game's texts should be a cinch.  I guess ADH will still want to pay for localized voice work though.

#3 JulianZ

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Posted April 28 2014 - 09:54 AM

So I would give a try translating to Lithuanian (my mother language), if the developers consider adding that language.

#4 Estif

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Posted April 28 2014 - 09:58 AM

Spanish is pretty much all traslated in-game, but there are a few things that need improve,for example all the web page explaining tactics and mechs is crucial to have it traslated. I can help with that, my english is not perfect (Around 70 %), but I have a friend who is English teacher and had a job as translator, I´m quite sure he can help me to check for errors. :D

Edited by Estif, April 28 2014 - 10:00 AM.

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#5 EliteShooter

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Posted April 28 2014 - 10:10 AM

Yes, Arabic.

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#6 DerMax

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Posted April 28 2014 - 11:12 AM

As a certified translator, I have to say that having a good command of a language* and being able to deliver a high-quality translation to that language are two different things. The former is necessary but not sufficient for the latter. Most non-professional translators tend to overestimate their translation ability, which is why translation crowdsourcing is frowned upon by many specialist translators.

That said, a so-so translation is probably better than nothing in our case, so why not.

* In fact, you must be proficient in at least two languages to be able to deliver a quality translation. And if you think you know your mother tongue well enough without being a linguist, I have bad news for you—most people in most countries can't write one paragraph without making grammatical mistakes.

#7 BadCatWillum

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Posted April 28 2014 - 11:19 AM

View PostDerMax, on April 28 2014 - 11:12 AM, said:

As a certified translator, I have to say that having a good command of a language* and being able to deliver a high-quality translation to that language are two different things. The former is necessary but not sufficient for the latter.
Absolutely.

View PostDerMax, on April 28 2014 - 11:12 AM, said:

Most non-professional translators tend to overestimate their translation ability, which is why translation crowdsourcing is frowned upon by many specialist translators.
But it's still possible to get crappy translation by paying for it, and if ADH are considering crowdsourcing, I'm sure their paid-for alternative is not going to be a top-dollar translation by certified, specialist professional translators but some dog-on-a-string operation employing undergraduate foreign students. No disrespect, budget constraints have forced us to use these services too.

#8 DerMax

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Posted April 28 2014 - 11:49 AM

View PostBadCatWillum, on April 28 2014 - 11:19 AM, said:

But it's still possible to get crappy translation by paying for it, and if ADH are considering crowdsourcing, I'm sure their paid-for alternative is not going to be a top-dollar translation by certified, specialist professional translators but some dog-on-a-string operation employing undergraduate foreign students. No disrespect, budget constraints have forced us to use these services too.

Spot on. Professional translation is quite costly.

#9 ReEvolve

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Posted April 28 2014 - 12:09 PM

View PostDerMax, on April 28 2014 - 11:12 AM, said:

* In fact, you must be proficient in at least two languages to be able to deliver a quality translation. And if you think you know your mother tongue well enough without being a linguist, I have bad news for you—most people in most countries can't write one paragraph without making grammatical mistakes.

Let's not forget that several players would work on a translation. Others can proof-read what you wrote. It's certainly not an easy feat but it's not like we're creating a translation from scratch. As far as gameplay terms are concerned we can orientate ourselves by the original translation. Depending on the translation most of the work might just be proof-reading.

#10 BadCatWillum

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Posted April 28 2014 - 11:09 PM

Apropos:
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#11 Neraste

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Posted May 01 2014 - 05:45 AM

I have quickly tried French translation at first, but it was not very good and I remember some English parts were remaining, so I gave up and have used English interface since then. But I am very interested in helping translation in my native language.

#12 Houruck

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Posted May 01 2014 - 04:06 PM

There is a great site MineCraft used called Crowdin. I contributed to that and already translated several softwares to Hungarian (it could be tricky without context, but we all know our beloved game here). I can translate it to Hungarian and BSB has members all across Europe (France, Russia, Netherlands, Norway, Turkey, Isreal...), so we can help with other localisations as well.

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#13 Aregon

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Posted May 01 2014 - 04:31 PM

I see no reason to translate it to Norwegian as we learn English every year through school and we watch lots of English TV shows, so we know English quite well.

Would love to help but I see no reason too.
I`ll fix it later.

#14 The_Silencer

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Posted May 01 2014 - 07:18 PM

English to Spanish translations are one of my expertises.

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#15 ReEvolve

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Posted May 01 2014 - 07:41 PM

View PostThe_Silencer, on May 01 2014 - 07:18 PM, said:

English to Spanish translations are one of my expertises.

If that's the case then I recommend voting for "Spanish", lol.

#16 Vdragon

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Posted May 02 2014 - 08:17 AM

Traducting mechs' name is french was an error.

#17 NightmareHunter31

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Posted May 02 2014 - 09:33 AM

I'd like to translate it to croatian, Serbia and Slovenia have similar languages to croatian so it would be for 3 countries, also some people in Croatia, Slovenia and Serbia don't really know english very well.

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#18 The_Silencer

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Posted May 02 2014 - 04:55 PM

View PostReEvolve, on May 01 2014 - 07:41 PM, said:

View PostThe_Silencer, on May 01 2014 - 07:18 PM, said:

English to Spanish translations are one of my expertises.

If that's the case then I recommend voting for "Spanish", lol.

Ok, lol.

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#19 Koskeo

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Posted May 12 2014 - 11:47 AM

Finnish

#20 Niels

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Posted May 12 2014 - 04:37 PM

More than 6 few weeks ago I reported many french translation errors on the Steam forum : http://steamcommunit...51813190407541/

Seeing as all of them are still here, including the very misleading HC/XP boost error (no, they don't double anymore !), I think so-so translation by the community would beat what we currently have, especially if does not evolve anymore.

Unlike many of our European neighbors, most french people are very very bad in english (or any other foreign language for that matter). So a good French translation is not an option. I have no problem with english comprehension myself, but I prefer to see my native language in-game.

Edited by Niels, May 13 2014 - 06:26 AM.






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