Localization Archives - Page 2 of 2

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 for Beginners

Are you studying Japanese and interested in translation? But you have no idea how to translate something from Japanese into English? This article on translating Japanese for beginners is for you! A few years ago I completed an MA in

Two Japanese Jabberwocky Poems

This is one of my favourite essays from my MA in Translation Theory and Practice. The MA certainly focuses more on the theory side of translation which is evident from this essay. The point of the essay was to compare

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

How to Become a Japanese Translator

I run a website all about study Japanese and recently wrote How to Become a Japanese Translator for one of my readers. While writing it I came to the realization that the best way to become a Japanese translator… 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

User Experience for Freelance Translators

Have you ever had an experience with a company that has stuck with you forever? Have you made a simple inquiry only to get a non-professional, badly written, or rude response? Or no response at all? How did that experience leave

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