#fun with translation

[spanishskulduggery]

Baldur's Gate 3 - Non-binary Translation in Spanish

A while back I had mentioned that when I learned how to change language settings for Baldur's Gate 3, I was curious to learn how they would adapt the non-binary [no binario] option into Spanish since Spanish (like many Romance Languages) is very gendered

What I saw actually surprised me a bit

Usually in game translations with different genders, English tends to treat you as a "they" even though it's usually male or female; and in Spanish most of the lines are gendered, or phrased in a very ambiguous way in translation like speaking of your character as una persona "a person" rather than "he" or "she", or "they"

This is one of the first times I've seen the gender neutral -e endings used in an official setting

-

For the purposes of this, and any future posts on this, I decided I would try to play as a non-binary gnome cleric. I should also mention that when you start up the game in Spanish and you do the character customization, everything starts you with the base word (i.e. masculine by default, or possibly agender but looks masculine)... as in you can choose to be elfo "elf", semielfo "half-elf", humano "human", semiorco "half-orc"... choose between bárbaro "barbarian", mago "wizard", brujo "warlock" and so on

My default character creation screen read gnomo, clérigo for "gnome cleric"

But the way your character is addressed by others is what changes

The first NPC you interact with is "Us" a little brain thing you can choose to help. If you do it calls you "friend":

Nosotros: Somos libres. Tenemos nuestra libertad. amigue Us: We are free. We have our freedom. Friend [nb].

The word used is amigue

For the sake of understanding Spanish grammar, you probably know amigo/a "friend". The G here is a hard G. The gender neutral ending is E... but the combination of GE is pronounced like an H sound in Spanish [la gelatina "gelatin" for example is like "hel-a-ti-na"]. To preserve that hard G sound, you have to add a UE to it... so amigo/a becomes amigue for non-binary

[if you study Spanish this is the exact same grammar you'll see in turning -gar verbs into subjunctive forms; why pagar would turn to pague]

The next person you come across is Lae'zel:

Lae'zel: Tsk'va. No eres une sierve. ¡Vlaakith me bendijo en el día de hoy! Juntes, tal vez podamos sobrevivir. Lae'zel: Tsk'va. You are no thrall [nb]. Vlaakith blessed me today ["on this day of today"; emphatic]. Together [nb plural], we may (yet) survive.

Interestingly, there's first siervo/a meaning "servant" or "serf" or "thrall"

What I found very interesting was that you have une... un and una being "a" are used for indefinite articles; the non-binary form seems to be une

What threw me off though was seeing juntes... now junto/a is "together" [lit. "joined"] but juntes implies a non-binary plural.

I don't know if this is because in Spanish grammar it would imply that non-binary trumps feminine [the way amigos "friends" could be male+female or multiple male, as opposed to amigas "friends" being all female]... or if it's maybe an error or something else; the game treats Lae'zel as a woman in every other regard so I think it's the first one which is a situation I somehow hadn't considered. I had just assumed it would be juntos ...or juntas if you played female

Next I decided to rescue Gale first because he uses a lot of adjectives/professions and I wanted to see what they looked like:

Gale: No serás clérigue por casualidad, ¿verdad? ¿Médique? ¿Cirujane? ¿Increíblemente hábil con una aguja de tejer? Gale: You wouldn't happen to be a cleric, right? A doctor/medic? Surgeon? Unbelievably skilled with a knitting needle?

First is clérigo/a "cleric" being used in non-binary as clérigue. Similarly we have médique which is the non-binary médico/a for "medical doctor"

[just like above C turned to QUE to preserve a hard C/K sound; you'll see this with subjunctive and even preterites of -car verbs... why atacar "to attack" will turn to ataqué "I attacked" and ataque in subjunctive... because CE has a soft S sound in Latin America, and can be lisped in Spain]

And next is cirujane... the word cirujano/a is "surgeon"

Finally important note - hábil being "able" or "skilled" is a unisex adjective, so there is no change in any gender - masculine, feminine, or non-binary

*Note: I did miss it but at some point someone used the article le to describe my character. The el and la "the" are the masculine and feminine definite articles; le is non-binary "the" which still catches me by surprise because it looks French to me

-

I've been told since I made the original post that people have seen the non-binary E ending used in other things, but this was special for me to see. I'm curious how the other gendered languages available treated non-binary options

It was a fun surprise for me, especially for some modern day Spanish linguistics in a VERY big modern game, with non-binary word choices being heavily prominent. It's a bit of a learning experience for me

If I find any more fun examples of NB language being used I'll let y'all know as I go

[erovalkyrie]

OH GOD I CAN'T

So, remember me telling you about German Disco Elysium translations?

Pinball machines are generally called "Flipperautomat" or "Flipper" for short in Germany, they have two flippy parts to play.

Now.

That makes Kim "Kimball" Kitsuragi...

FLIPPURAGI

FLIPPURAGI

"Hey, Flippuragi"

"WUNDERBAR, THE ONLY THING HE REMEMBERS IS THE FLIPPERCOPPO"

[operationhoshinokaabii]

Do you know if Fumu, Bun, Parm and Memu's names come from anywhere? Or are they completely made up? I did notice that in Japanese all of them have the same ending syllable (Fumu, Parm/Pamu and Memu) except for Bun, maybe because he's considered the "odd one out"?

Not that I am aware of! I think they're just supposed to be cute/funny sounding names.

Though Fumu's name is written the same way as the sound for thinking... Like "Hmmm..."

I kinda wish I had written Fumu's name as 'Hum' sometimes, so they'd be Hum and Bun.

[elusivemellifluence]

As I learn more Chinese, I've decided a fun project for myself can be to translate some of my own fanfic. I don't know nearly enough to translate a whole story, so it's just bits and pieces of dialogue so far, but it's really satisfying to figure out what the characters were 'actually' saying in some key scenes. Sometimes it adds extra meaning I wasn't even aware of when I wrote it!

Like this one line I translated today: "Can I carry you?" / 我能抱你吗 / "Wǒ néng bào nǐ ma?". There are several verbs for 'carry', and I decided after some searching that the one I want is 'to carry in one's arms'. That verb - bào 抱 - also means 'to hold, to hug, to embrace, to surround, to cherish' ... 😭Shut uppp, that's so much more romantic in Chinese!

[silvereyedowl]

Here's a bit of random worldbuilding drabble for you all.

I named a bunch of oceans and seas in one of my works after lunar maria because I felt like it.

[scruff-mutt]

Have you ever wanted to be 100% accurate when creating Splatfest-related art? Consider downloading the Splatfest Script today!

[nelkcats]

Dead Language Expert

Danny never thought that he could "major" in languages, and get a job as a translator. But apparently knowing all the dead languages ​​by default and being able to time travel with the help of your ghost tutor was pretty useful outside of Amity.

It happened purely by chance, he was walking through a museum and started laughing because of a mistake in one of the sentences that completely changed the meaning of the text. The museum manager, of course, did not believe him, since many people had said that the piece was "impossible to translate". But he study it anyway.

Days later they were looking for him to translate all the things from that time. And he just carried on with it, in many more civilizations. In some cases he even asked for a few trips to the past to Clockwork to verify.

It got to a point where the wizards, heroes and villains over the world knew him as "the translator of dead languages" and some of them even tried to kidnap him to perform a summoning ritual. Danny rolled his eyes and easily freed himself, but the League assigned him an "escort" anyway.

Exasperated, the halfa escaped from his escorts and continued his work as normal. Superman almost fell out of his chair at the Watchtower meeting when he was informed that the boy had translated the language of Krypton and other missing planets. Besides having managed to lose both the Flash and Green Latern, what the fuck?

[candlefox99]

I'm, like, six years late

circus man

[wasyago]

the kind of chemistry these two have is very entertaining

[fuckyeahchinesefashion]

Happy Spring Festival/Chunjie. Happy Year of the Rabbit/Tunian 兔年吉祥

[knight-says-rollout]

“how would it work if Cybertronians had disabilities” “What if there were disabled Cybertronians”

THERE ARE

THERE ARE

loosing my mind at how some things that are So good can be So niche why can’t we just be a hivemind

Just one example, my favorite example, is:

Shattered Glass Soundwave!!!

He’s gone through Multiple reformats varying between with his consent and,,, not. The latest of which took place when they didn’t have many materials

So they used half earth metals half Cybertronian ones

As it turns out? Those two things don’t mix very well. His joints are Horrible. They lock up randomly, the worst of which being the door to his tape deck.

He physically isn’t able to dock his cassettes reliably because they might get stuck in there.

What does he do to fix this? So glad you asked!! He has his own assistive aids, in this case: a portable external carrying case

It was made and personalized to work specifically for him and his situation

I love him

[erovalkyrie]

WHY DOES JEAN SAY "SHITKID" - a language theory

Ahh, I saw a post on tumblr here asking why Jean uses "shitkid" as an insult, and I forgot to respond, here is my theory:

English swears in most in sexual manners, "fuck" being the main one, French in scatological manners, "merde" being the big one.

Thus, French uses "de merde" (-of shit) as emphasis, like English uses "fucking", i.e.: "putain de merde" (fucking asshole), "truc de merde" (fucking thing that isn't working), "peur de merde" (fucking scared)

"shit" (noun) is just his native language way of using emphasis.

So he is calling Harry a "fucking child", putting emphasis on his tantrums, misbehaviour, immaturity, etc. As people can switch back to their native language when getting emotional, his native "gosse de merde/petit merdeux" probably became "shitkid", and it stuck, that is my theory.

I quickly checked what his real French insult is, and it is "clown de service" (service/professional clown). Again, stressing Harry's unacceptable behaviour *at work*. "Clown" definitely goes harder in the French language as an insult, stressing the unprofessional conduct.

So we have both French with "professional clown" and German with "jelly head" as localisations for "shitkid", and I really like both of them, they fit their respective languages really well! And the English one gives him a unique insult that loops back to the structure of his native language! :D

[operationhoshinokaabii]

Have I mentioned I’m still working on updating the old subs? Tweaks here and there for accuracy and flow basically.

So a few classics are gonna get updates too lol

Though Dedede does talk about it being “fun to watch people suffer” in an earlier scene, for THIS one he actually uses the word 不幸 (misfortune, unhappiness, misery, etc) vs 苦 (suffering, pain, anguish). I think I just got stuck on the term ‘suffering’ thanks to the earlier line and wasn’t paying close enough attention.

:3

[cellgatinbo]

context: pac had fit choose between two different palm tree designs for the pool and fit chose the “uglier” one, which made him get predictably dramatic

[marlynnofmany]

“WHY did that alien ambassador just call me ‘peasant’??”

“Sorry, sorry, it’s a problem with the translation software.”

“What kind of problem? Am I about to insult him by accident too? I want it to be on purpose.”

“No, it’s just that the software had trouble with root words and etymology, comparing our concepts to theirs. They don’t have a word for ‘god,’ you see, and—”

“What the blazes does that have to do with it?”

“Look. The word ‘human’ can be translated as ‘person who lives on the ground, or the dirt, or the Earth, and who isn’t a god.’”

“So how did that—”

“It turned into ‘person who lives in the dirt and has no power over others.’ The closest they had when repeating it back through the translator was ‘peasant.’”

“That is the stupidest thing I’ve heard all week.”

“Why do you think I’ve been pressing for everyone to actually learn the language, instead of relying on the translator?”

“Well, if I make it through this meet-and-greet without having to throw or take a punch, I might take you up on that. Stick close. If somebody says something else dumb, I’m turning to you.”

“Don’t look now; the ambassador’s coming back.”

“Great.”

[chrisrin]

after reading @sixteenth-days's very lovely new fic chapter (go read here!) i just HAD to do a take on a flower husbands fusion design!