#nanigma translates

[nanigma]

Hello again. I was wondering if you could translate Linhardt's lines about not being trusted by the church due to the fact he's from the empire. If youre up for it the lines are from The Rose Colored River chapter and the lines are: 常国の出だと、あんまり重要なことを任されなくて自由でいいですねえ。いや、実はこっそり監視とか、ついてるのかもしれませんけど。

So the lines in English are as follows:

And in Japanese:

Linhardt: It sure is nice being free and not being entrusted with important tasks as much, considering I left the Empire.

Linhardt: On second thought, it probably also comes with being stealthily monitered and things like that.

Byleth: [Still, monitering seems a bit much...]

Linhardt: You think?

OR

Byleth: [That could be the case.]

+ Support with Linhardt

Linhardt: You think so too, Professor? I'll say, war sure is scary, isn't it?.

Hope this helped!

[fantasyinvader]

@randomnameless

I think I found something about the localization that might interest you. It goes to show how the translation team tried to change the impact of Edelgard's ending.

I was thinking about the lines of the epilogue, namely this one:

Embracing her newfound power, Edelgard could at last set about destroying Fódlan’s entrenched system of nobility and rebuild a world free of the tyranny of Crests and status.

There's some liberties Treehouse took with this one. As @Nanigma translated it years ago:

Imposing a strongly centralized authority, Edelgard started working on a reform that would dismantle the nobility. She set out to create a new world where no one would be judged on the basis of crests.

We can see some changes here. It makes Edelgard out that she wants to abolish more than the “tyranny” of Crests, but also people of status abusing it. But while Edelgard is against this systemic tyranny, the translation leaves out to do so that she centralizes power on herself in order to impose her will. And if we think back to her S support, where the translation removed the mention of her path being one of hadou, or as they put it in VW “military rule” there just seems to be this effort to make it so that players will equate Edelgard to freedom from tyrants rather than Edelgard being a tyrant herself. It also extends into the Edelgard/Byleth ending, with the translation calling Rhea a tyrant in Byleth's Flower ending and even trying to make the Church to problem in her paired ending by changing “restored” to “rehabilitated.”

But that's old hat, but what I notice was the mention of how Edelgard's goal is getting rid of the nobility through her reforms. Edelgard endings mention that she accomplishes reforms to the nobility, with her solo ending tacking on a mention of her wanting to create a “free” people to further the idea of her being for the people (the “independent” part is her trying to create a society where people don't rely on others and are instead self-reliant), but... that's it.

Edelgard was the emperor of the new Adrestian Empire. As emperor, Edelgard devoted her life to the rule of Fodlan. She worked tirelessly to reform the status system and create a society where people could be self-reliant. In her later years, she decided that she had done what she had to do. She left her legacy to her successor and disappeared. Translated with DeepL.com (free version)

She makes reforms to the nobility, but doesn't manage to abolish it. Edelgard fails to accomplish her goal here. Now think about some other translation changes with this in mind.

The noble system is called antiquated in her solo ending, antiquated being added. It makes the system seem out of date, ancient and has been in place for a long time. However, Edelgard's claim to Dorothea that the nobility didn't exist before Crests is in conflict with Dorothea's Japanese support with Hanneman where he talks about the original criteria for the nobilty. It had nothing to do with Crests, and those in power used their authority to keep it for their families while keeping others down. This is also backed up by the library text that Wilhelm started the War of Heroes with destroying clans/houses that tried to increase their power. The nobility were supposed to be a meritocracy, but that original definition is instead changed to just being Hanneman's opinion on what a noble should be.

In addition, Edelgard saying as the Flame Emperor that she will put the world back as it once was becomes instead that she'll “reshape” the world.

Caspar's endings where he's made commander of the Imperial army and isn't able to control his forces? That instead becomes “sometimes reckless,” while text confirming that they're active in other countries is gone. Can't have Edelgard be the one lord not to promote good relations with her neighbours after all despite her talk about the Empire ruling the world with Thales and how she'll do what she can to that end. Possibly linked to Seteth's solo ending where he works to make Fodlan more accepting to other faiths changing “he learned to relax and be less strict” to him becoming more “tolerant.” It makes it out that Seteth was a bigot.

Then we have Hubert's endings, where he keeps the people under government surveillance. His solo ending is... wow.

Hubert devoted his life to her, serving as Emperor Edelgard's personal sword. He was a man of blackness, both in appearance and in his heart,who supported the Emperor's reign from the front and from the shadows using any means necessary. He was feared by everyone, but he never paid them attention and simply continued to fulfill his role.

The man of blackness bit was removed, btw. And what does it mean to have a black heart? Collins dictionary says it means evil, malicious or malignant. Hubert's solo ending CALLS HIM EVIL in his service to Edelgard. What does that say about her?

It really feels like Treehouse were doing everything they could to make it seem like Edelgard did accomplish something. There's still nobility around in the endings, with the Byleth/Lorenz ending in particular showing that nobles still can simply hand their titles over to their kids. So really, what did she accomplish other than giving herself more power? What ends are you trying to justify here? What did the player actually end up supporting?

And we know they erased the symbolism of the Mandate of Heaven, but here's the thing about Confucianism. When you get a benevolent leader, people will obediently follow them and will follow in their example. A good leader makes good people. However, when you get a leader who needs to use the strength of the government and violence to enforce their rule, you're not going to get good people. Likewise, promoting crooked men into positions of power only fuels resentment from the people. We know that the devs said that the world was built to support Silver Snow's story, so is the problem the system? No, because as Lorenz points out in Flower the nobility only pay lip service to the Church in order to maintain the support of the people. They have long since moved away from the standards Rhea and Willy had for them, and the Empire kids are supposed to be representative of that moral decline with them joining Edelgard, in a scene titled Path of Thorns aka a path of sin, showing the true face of the Empire.

The problem in Confucianism isn't the system, it's the people. When the people lose their virtue, when they stop being benevolent and instead become selfish, that's the problem. Edelgard blames they system and Treehouse tries to support her take, but the original text is meant to read that the nobility, as in the people in it, as the problem as they have turned their backs on morality. They were willing to support a tyrant like Edelgard for the benefits or at least to keep their own heads, and that's not meant to be a good thing.

Edelgard taking advantage of the war to increase her own power and force her ideals onto the people? That's not virtuous according to the game's intended symbolism. That's the shit that loses you the Mandate of Heaven.

Okay, I know this scene isn't in the novel but it's just so good.

[agoddamn]

I'm not a Japanese native speaker, but for the making Ekaterina the only mom text, I don't feel the Japanese tries to make a distinction. For one it says lots of children twice, and the artbook and other canon material always specify "different mothers" maybe there is a nuance I'm missing, but it's not the unequivocal phrasing they usually use to talk about the Nohr sibs several mothers.

Mmm...alright, so this is entirely my gut feeling feeling here and I have no concrete source with which to back this up. My Japanese level is "particularly stupid child" and when I have to construct sentences I do so in an unnatural see-spot-run kind of way to avoid miscommunication (which, I've read that writing like that is actually kind of rude, but it's at least immediately apparent to people that I'm talking like that because I can't do better and not because I'm being condescending). I could be entirely wrong here. If I am, feel free to tell me.

All that said!

After muddling through a lot of Japanese sentences, my observation about sentence construction is that you can shove a lot of appositives into Japanese sentences and have them still come out coherently in a way that you can't in English.

It's also one of the things that trips up amateur translators a lot; Japanese sentences tend to be much longer than English ones, and your initial instinct is to try and transmit all the same information in the same sentence out of a desire to be "accurate". However, the punctuation that we use in English is foreign to the Japanese language. The way sentences and thoughts are divided just isn't the same.

I think it's at least partly on account of being a pro-drop language; English is pretty hard on its rule of "sentence = subject + verb" in a way that Japanese isn't. If you take an English sentence and give it one noun, all the appositives in that sentence are assumed to apply to that noun unless explicitly indicated otherwise.

Japanese isn't really like that, and you can take one..."framing idea", I suppose, and have that be the subject of your sentence in a more abstract word-web sort of way. Like, that FEH sentence goes "Garon's children" は "there are many" "they are skilled" "his heir is Marx" "Marx's mother is Garon's dead queen".

According to my understanding, the very fact that "Garon's dead queen" is AFTER は implies that "Garon's dead queen" does not apply to everything before は.

I'm gonna @nanigma here; am I entirely talking out my ass? I still struggle to wrap my head around the は/が difference, let alone verbalize it.

[bloomandcoffee]

Whats this talk about Dedue saying Dimitri is his one and only?

Hello anon!

It's from the japanese text of what Dedue tells Dimitri before he transforms into a Demonic Beast in CF! @nanigma did an incredible post and translation about it you can read it here.

Among other things the english translation omitted of that dialogue is the fact that Dedue also mentions Duscur (and that he does it first!) When he does the sacrifice.

[kariya077]

I'm so pleased that my Leokumi manga was translated into English by Ms. Nanigma (http://nanigma.tumblr.com/ ) and got the permission to repost it again! Thank you very much! (◍ ´꒳` ◍) Original Post: http://nanigma.tumblr.com/post/167498456672/kariya077-%E6%8A%95%E7%A5%A8%E5%A4%A7%E6%88%A6%E3%81%8A%E7%96%B2%E3%82%8C%E3%81%95%E3%81%BE%E3%81%A7%E3%81%97%E3%81%9F-hope-its-fine-if-i

[nanigma]

Sorry if this has been asked before but could you translate parts from a dialogue choice in Edelgards A-support? Its the one where she accuses Byleth of being detatched, but Ive heard that in japanese the accusation is more about Byleth being inhuman/different from humans, and Edelgard says she is the same because of the experiments: E: 人間離れした貴方にも、 人らしいところがあって安心したわ。B: 人間離れなんて…… / それを言うならそちらこそ…… E: しているわよ。 そこに議論の余地はない。まあ、私も同じように、ただの人からは 少し離れてしまったかもしれないけれど。/ そうね。私もいろいろと体を弄られて、 ただの人からは少し離れてしまった。

Okay sorry it took so long. Whatever free time I have had recently was mostly sucked up by Genshin. haha

Anyway, so the English says this:

Or, depending on your answer:

Meanwhile in Japanese it's:

Or

Which I would translate to:

Edelgard: "Someone as removed from humanity as you having humanlike qualities puts me at ease."

Byleth: "That's a bit much..."

Edelgard: "I know all about it. You have no room for argument."

Edelgard: "Well, looking at my case, I might have also strayed a bit from being an ordinary human."

OR

Byleth: "You say that, but I could say the same of you..."

Edelgard: "You are right. Having my body tampered with so much might have also caused me to stray a bit from being an ordinary human."

The thing here is that, the word she uses 人間離れ (ningenbanare) means "otherwordly", "inhuman", "beyond human", "superhuman" etc. It is essentially comprised of two parts: 1) 人間 (ningen) meaning human, but more in the sense of "humanity". 2) 離れ (b/hanare) meaning "to remove", "to let go", "to detach" etc.. So literally speaking you could translate it as "to be removed from humanity".

Another interesting thing to note is how Edelgard's answer to Byleth protesting the attribution is to literally say "I know (about it). There is no room for argument." pointing very deliberately to Byleth's Nabatean background, I assume.

Hope that helped!

[nanigma]

Hello again. If youre up for it can you translate lines from an npc at the Monastery regarding Dedue? If you are the chapter and route it's from is Chapter 21 of Verdant Wind and the lines in question are: ドゥドゥーさんは、エーデルガルトが討たれたのを見届けて去りました。宿願を果たした彼の表情は、清々しくも、どこか寂しそうにも見えました。どこへ行ったのかはわかりませんが……故郷のダスカーにでも帰ったのでしょ う。

Sure thing!

Soldier: "Dedue assured himself that Edelgard had been struck down."

Soldier: "Having fulfilled his longstanding desire, his expression seemed refreshed, yet also lonely somehow."

Soldier: "I don't know where he went, but... Surely he must have returned to his homeland of Duscur."

I'll also throw in the convo that happens if Dedue died during the chapter, since I'm already at it.

Soldier: "Dedue's fierce struggle is still burned into my eyes."

Soldier: "I do not know why he was so obsessed with striking down Edelgard, but..."

Soldier: "I can only pray that his soul is peacefully ascending to Heaven now that his longstanding desire is fulfilled."

No sir, there is no clue as to why he wanted to bring down Edelgard. It will forever be a mystery... lol

[nanigma]

Blue Lions Translation 11

Link to the previous posts

Okay, so this took a bit longer again, but I still keep working on this piece. Actually this marks roughly the half-way point for this translation, so well, I guess it’ll just be another 2ish years before I finish this. haha

As always, if you enjoy what I do, I would highly appreciate a coffee or two for my efforts.~

Anyway, enjoy!

Link to the post

[nanigma]

Blue Lions Translation 10

Link to the previous posts

And here we go again. Has been some more time, but hey, so long as it takes less than a year, I don’t feel tooooo guilty about it. Life is still sucking me up and what is left gets devoted to friends and games, like the Three Hopes demo, which I enjoyed a lot more than I thought I would.

But I don’t wanna waffle on for too long. As always, I would really appreciate it, if you could buy me a coffee or two for what I am doing here. Never any pressure, of course. 

Hope you enjoy:

Here is the link to the rest!

[nanigma]

Good day. I was wondering if you could translate these lines from Sylvain's and Mercedes's support conversations for me? If youre up for it the lines are: Mercedes: …... ねえシルヴァン。あなたなら、私を紋章の呪縛から救い出してくれる ? Sylvain: す……救い出す! 誠心誠意救い出します!好きだ、よし、結婚しよう!

Sure!

So for comparison the English lines are:

While the Japanese is this:

Mercedes: "... Hey, Sylvain. Will you be the one to free me from the binding spell of my crest?"

Sylvain: "I... I will save you! With all my heart, I will! I love you, all right, let's get married!"

Some notes: Mercedes uses the word 呪縛 (jubaku) to describe the effect of her crest on her. EN translates this to "curse" and it's not exactly wrong, but more specifically it refers to a "spell" that restrains your movement or "binds" you, if you will.

Also English has Sylvain more loudly on the whole love train, which may be to underline the comic overexaggeration this is going for. Also the mention of crest babies added.

[nanigma]

Thank you for all the translations you do, its all very interesting to read! I had a question about Rheas title in japanese. While english went with The Immaculate One, in japanese her name just seems to be "white one", like her Fallen title in Heroes being 白きものレア?

That is exactly right. Her Japanese title is indeed "White one" or "White being". The English just wanted to emphasize the purity aspect of the title.

Also sorry again for the late reply. I swear I check this blog regularly, it's just hard sometimes to find the opportunity to really sit down and write things out. I hate answering over mobile too.

[nanigma]

Hi, sorry to bother you with this but, how would you translate dimitri's part 2 jp crit quote, "足掻くな"?

Google translate-ing it has very confusing results...

*rises from the dead to answer*

Hey! It means something like "Don't struggle." (with an implied "to escape"). Basically, the enemy should just accept the inevitable and roll over dead. Hope that helped.

[nanigma]

Hello! If you have time, I had some questions about a part of L!Myrrhs level 40 dialogue from Heroes. 短い時を、精いっぱい生きようとする。 それが人のもつ力……私には、 竜にはそれが、輝いて見えるんです。 あなたも、そうなのでしょうか……？[Summoner]さん…… 一緒に、見守っていきましょう。 It was translated as 'Humans try to do as much as they can with what little time they have. As a dragon, I admire that. Will you also choose to fight against fate? I will watch over you, no matter your decision.', but I don't think thats entirely correct?

Myrrh: "Doing their best in life with the little time they have. That is the power humans possess. ... To me, to a dragon they appear to be sparkling. Surely it is the same for you as well... ? [Summoner]... Let us watch over them together."

You are right the translation is a bit off in the latter half. With pronoun usage being a bit lacking in Japanese, I can understand why they would interpret the third line that way, but then the fourth line makes it clear Myrrh sees the summoner as separate from the "humans" she was referring to ealier and wants to watch over them "together" explicitly.

Whether this means anything lore-wise, I have no idea. Maybe it's just referring to the summoner's role in the army.

[nanigma]

Fates Reexploration Part 1: 5 years later

We are here folks. Ground floor. I admit, firing up my old Japanese 3DS and seeing the title screen was really nostalgic. Sorry for the shitty phone shots. Miiverse is dead and I have no money to shell out for SD cards too. If anyone has any other idea on how to get normal screenshots from the game, feel free to shoot me an ask or something. 

This is the Birthright version of the game, but I will be playing all three versions at the same time once we get to the split. 

Now let’s get started!

I will be playing as F!Kamui/Corrin for all routes. 

If anyone wants me to get a specific pairing, feel free to suggest them. Otherwise I’ll just pair whoever I want. I only vaguely remember most supports anyway. haha;;

This is something I completely forgot about. In the Japanese version you can choose between different voice styles, on a scale of child<->adult, domineering<->energetic (though I think it’s different for M!Kamui. This does not just affect the actual voice acting, but changes Kamui’s dialogue throughout the whole game. 

It affects the kind of pronouns they use and generally how polite they are. By standard, F!Kamui uses ‘watashi’ and generally polite phrasings (ending sentences with -desu etc.) as well as addresses everyone outside of her older siblings (who get nee-san/nii-san), mother (okaa-san) or the villains (who get nothing) by adding -san to their name, which feels weirdly formal when it comes to the younger siblings.  

The more childish variant uses “atashi” (the more casual, feminine variant) and very casual and simple in her phrasings. Also addresses her older siblings as onii-chan/onee-chan, which is.. well rather childish. 

The other variant that’s drastically different is the most “domineering” one. Uses “atashi”, but also has a very feminine style of speech (adding wa at the end of her sentences) without the usual trappings of politeness. It’s almost identical to how Camilla speaks actually. Also the only other variant that doesn’t use honorifics with the younger siblings, so this is what I always go with.

I really don’t want to downplay how much effort it was to put this in. Kamui has 5 different versions of every single bit of dialogue, even down to the supports. And they are the very talkative kind of protagonist! 

 God, how I missed that lobster armour.

And deep-voiced Marx/Xander. (I barely use him in Heroes okay?) , No, seriously, go listen to the Japanese clip of this, if you don’t believe me.

I missed him most though. ;-;

For those who don’t know, Takumi is one of the characters done dirtiest by the localization. He got his dialogue dumbed down a lot, but in Japanese his style of speech is almost identical to Leo(n)’s.

Speaking of, here he is. He has this little catch phrase he uses whenever he sees Kamui. It literally translates to “Your bad luck sure is strong, big sister [Kamui]. .... Which in this case is accurate, since my Flaw is actually in luck. lol

If anyone woke me by making me feel cold, they’d be dead. orz

That feeling when Marx just casually lets his cav superiority hang out.

I still can’t get over the fact that they made an entirely different model for Leon’s reversed collar thing. (I know there’s a name for it, but I can’t remember. I am not a fashion historian xD) I can’t even tell if the spot on his back is supposed to be a low-poly Nohrian emblem or his actual clothes tag. xD

Seriously, this combined with giving Kamui multiple variants of dialogue just goes to show how much attention to detail was put into certain parts of this game. I love it.

-----

That’s it for now folks. Tell me if you want me to add more screens or just generally have better ideas on how to do this.

Anyone who really likes what I do, please consider sending me a ko-fi. 

[nanigma]

Blue Lions Tea Party observation lines:

Okay, sorry for the long wait, anon. Here we finally are. It’s a doozy of a translation.

Many thanks to the amazing @garlandgerard​ for translating half of these lines and correcting me along the way. I would have taken much much longer without his help. 

If you like my work, consider buying me ko-fi or two. I would really appreciate it.

Click here for the rest

[nanigma]

Hi, sorry to bother you. I don't know have you ever done the translation of this before. I saw a translation of conversation between Dimitri and Edelgard in AM, regarding the highborn line. They said the english line was mistranslated. This is the line ;

Dimitri:「・・・人はそういう生き方ができるのだと、俺は、先生に・・・皆に、おしえられた。」

Edelgard:「・・・貴方のような持つ者には、持たざる者の気持ちがわからないのでしょうね。」

And here is the right translation ;

Dimitri: I have learned that humans are capable of all that from Sensei.. and from everyone in my life.

Edelgard: Someone who was fortunate enough like you to have those things, will never understand those of us who don't have those things.

Is this translation right? Because that line changed some perspective here. Or was the highborn line the right one?

Thank you.

For comparisons sake, here is the English “Highborn” localization line:

As for my translation of the Japanese:

Dimitri: ... I have learned that humans are capable of living in this way from the professor... from everyone.

Edelgard: Surely a have like you can never understand the feelings of the have nots.*

Edelgard mentions the 持つ者 and the 持たざる者. Whoever did the other translation seems to have confused this as relating to the above sentence, but it actually refers to the concept of the Haves and Have Nots. The ones who possess things and those who do not in general. A clear social hierarchy implied based on possession of property. 

There is a Japanese book called 持たざる者 (by Hitomi Kanehara), whose title is translated into English as “The Have-Nots” 

You could argue the English could have translated it as something more close to “generally rich” as opposed to “born into wealth” to make the intention more clear. But Edelgard is still referring to Dimitri being too privileged to know the struggles of the masses, which we know is.. wrong.

Also sidenote to explain my different translation in my first sentence: 

Dimitri first says: “人はそういう生き方ができるのだと”, where “生き方 “ literally refers to “way of life” and is connected to the 人 (humans) before that. So humans being capable of that way of life essentially. I don’t see any way how you could take out that “生き方“ and try to tag it onto Dimitri’s later point of learning this from everyone as a general “in my life”.