Game Translation Archives - J-En Translations

My Five Do’s and Don’ts of Game Translation

I attend a small coffee group of local translators and this month’s topic of conversation was “your five do’s and don’ts of localization.” Of course I had too many, so I decided to focus on specifically game translation. Do… Read,

Why Do Video Game Subtitles Suck?

Subtitles are lines of text on a screen that depict what is being said. These are incredibly useful for allowing a lot of people to better engage with media. Subtitles aren’t just for people who are hard of hearing, they’re

Game Localization Link Roundup [Spring 2021]

Articles related to video games and localization from the past……from however long ago I did this last. Enjoy! Game Localization in General The manifold challenges of localising Disco Elysium This is such an incredibly interesting article! If you don’t

All The Video Game Localizations – Translation Link Roundup [January 2018]

Translation What We Talk About When We Talk About Translation – Deborah Smith talks about her translation of The Vegetarian. And how translations are so heavily rooted in the source culture. Exclusive Interview: Award-winning translator Hiroaki Sato on literary translation and ‘The Silver

New Video Game Translator – Beware the Jabberwocks

Are you a new video game translator? Many beginner Japanese to English game translators struggle to find work. It’s the ever frustrating catch 22 of “you need experience to get the job, but need the job to get experience”. It’s

Game Translation Scams

So the other day I got a message from a friend saying he might have a game translation for me. But he also mentioned that something wasn’t quite right about this ‘job’. He was messaging me to check it out

My First Japanese Otome Game Translation

Starting out as a freelance translator is hard. You need experience to get jobs but can’t get jobs without experience. I can see why though, with every new job you learn something new and your translation improves. And companies want

What Went Wrong With The Persona 5 Translation?

Persona 5 was a highly anticipated game that was released internationally in April 2017. Only many players were shocked to find there was something off about the Persona 5 translation. Many people went online to point out all the places

Translating Japanese Video Games – Ikinari Maou

At the end of 2016 IGDA – Localization SIG announced on their Facebook Page a competition to translate a Japanese video game in 17 days. On the 9th December 2016 the first ever LocJAM Japan began! [WPGP gif_id=”448″ width=”600″] The winners were

Shaping Game Lore through Localization

Many translators, when hired for a job, will translate the text given to them. Depending on the type of text and the company, the level of how much a text will change from the original will vary. I’ve discussed before

The Beautiful Translation of Final Fantasy XV

As a translator and gamer when I have the chance to play a game in Japanese and English, I will. I love playing them listening to the Japanese audio and reading the English text to see how the game was

How Not to Localize a Video Game – Street Fighter V

My husband and I watch EVO over the weekend, which is a large video game tournament in Las Vagus that has been running for the last 20 years. The largest tournament there is Street Fighter, and as my husband is a

Anthropology and Localising Video Games

When people ask me what my degree was their response to “Social Anthropology” is normally “Oohhh… What’s that?”. To which I normally reply “Social anthropology is the study of different cultures.” Yet social anthropology (or cultural anthropology in the US)

All Games Should Be Localised Like Ni no Kuni

Translation & Localisation in Games One thing they never explained in my Theory and Practice of Translation MA, was that translation and localisation are two different things. In fact, the subject of localisation was never touched upon at all. Which