Incredibly chatty, yet Disco Elysium has made its way into the hearts of not only critics, but many casual gamers as well. But there is one hurdle associated with talkativeness: the name does not have an official Czech translation. Those who do not know English or another language used in the game are out of luck. But not for long. The PřekladyHer.eu team has already completed 80 percent of the translation of the PC version into Czech. At Zing.cz we discussed the intricacies of our language and the future of game translations with Ondřej Partl, who takes care of the background of the website and leads the Disco Elysia team.
Why did you choose Disco Elysium for translation? Do you have a personal relationship with him?
I don’t think so. Initially, we chose Pillars of Eternity 2, but then we had to tweak some technical issues. There was a huge demand for Disco Elysium, which also had great reviews, so one translator in our team started with it.
When I interviewed about the Czech localization of the massive game Red Dead Redemption 2, respondents told me that their translation has 257,000 lines of text, which is more than 6,000 standard pages. How much will Disco Elysium have compared to it?
This is about 3200 standard pages.
I guess it’s one of the biggest games you’ve translated… It has a huge amount of text and is quite “chatty”.
Disco Elysium is specific in that its gameplay lies in the text. In that case, it’s very important how to play with humor and context, with the way it’s written. Disco Elysium stands out for its script and the fact that someone won with it. That’s why we’re trying to add some notes to the Czech version, and it’s not just a boring translation of the English text.
How did you feel about humor? Can you think of any incidents that got you into trouble?
There are many, but I probably wouldn’t publish it in a written article. (laughter) These are complex derogatory texts that you don’t often see in other games. The humor is pretty gross.
And Czech has a lot of options for obscene words… Maybe more than English, right?
Exactly. We want to win with him so that the Czechs will be interested in him too. We also try to ensure that the expressions are not monotonous – what is the translator, what is unique. For example, the characters use a different style of humor. Regardless, Disco Elysium is very specific and it takes time to get through it all.
How long have you been working on the translation?
Last year we started on February 20th. True, with the fact that he was not immediately transferred, but sorted out with technical issues, background and other things. Thus, the transfer began in mid-April.
Of course, the translation of the game does not happen by simply translating English words into Czech. There is also a lot of work around. What is your team doing that the average player might not even think about?
It’s hard to say how ordinary players represent the translation of the community. That’s why we try to raise awareness and show different streamers, for example, how we work. We don’t keep it a secret. Now we are also working on an open system for people who want to translate themselves.
As for the rest, it’s not exactly easy. You have to not only “get” the text, but also surround the developers and publishers with the fact that you want to translate their game. Not the fact that you will be answered at all. Unfortunately, no one talks to us at Disco Elysia, because they have their own problems. At the beginning, we were told “OK, you can translate”, but now we have a problem with the fact that Czech fonts do not work for us, which therefore has to be done manually for each individual version.
How big is your team now?
At the moment it’s me as a leader, two main technicians and four or five active translators, three of which are also proofreaders. So almost every day about eight people work on it. Subsequently, we have a team of four to five testers. At 90 percent of the draft translation, they start testing the game itself. Only thirteen active people.
With so much going on, aren’t you tired of Disco Elysium itself?
I think no. Everyone on the team is pleasant and easy to work with. In the end, I still enjoy the translation and the team. But I must say that there were times when maybe 20 translators went through the network, you as a team leader spend a lot of time with them, teach them the whole system … And they translate three or four standard pages and leave.
We talk together in the evenings, from which I conclude that during the day you are probably at another job. Does this mean that you do it in your spare time?
Yes, like everyone else. (laughter)
So are you more of a fan?
Just fans. I always say that I was about 12 years old, and at that time I did not know English well. I was happy when someone did Czech in the community. And now we’re at the age where we’re bringing it back to the next generation of screens. Or vice versa, the older one, who does not speak English well.
In recent years, the number of official translations into Czech has decreased slightly, for example for Assassin’s Creed. Do you think official Czech translations of the games will run out or disappear over time?
It has two levels. First, why is he disappearing now? We have a small market, so the translation of large games is quite expensive. In my opinion, this is just a calculation of the big studios, who believe that it will not pay off for them. And I don’t think we’re just starting to replace it now, we’re replacing it in the long run. Now this can be seen on large translations, but in general there is a lot of community – for smaller games. Second, there is the question of what artificial intelligence will bring in the future. Of course, it can get to the point that even a company as large as Ubisoft will say: “OK, we will pass the text through artificial intelligence, then some proofreader will look at it, and we will just publish it.”
Can you imagine a publisher inviting you to translate?
It’s already inviting. A team led by PredatorV is officially translating Baldur’s Gate 3 for Larian Studio. However, given that this is a community translation, this means that there is no financial reward for it. They translate as fans, but they have an agreement with Larian that he will subsequently publish their work as an official translation. It also worked in Divinity: Original Sin II.
But what if there was a financial reward? I guess less than if they hired their own translator for this…
If I have to get some kind of funding with a certain term, then I have to keep it. At the same time, about 80 percent of my team are people who have jobs. And, of course, they must complete their work first, and only then can they focus on translation. Secondly, each of the team would already have to work on a trade certificate. And the question is, is it worth it to them.
Lately, there has also been a lot of machine translation. What do you think of them?
We are consumers, and everyone wants to consume something of their own. If anyone wants to consume machine translations, so be it. Someone buys a broken car to have it right away, and someone saves up for a new beautiful car. These are two opposites, and the same with machine translation. They are nowhere near as good as those Czechs that someone has translated, but they have their customers.
The fact is that the “cars” are prepared within a week, and as it turned out, almost anyone can make them in a week. We can do it too. This was shown, for example, by the FarFlame website, which previously translated Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order.and the translation was absolutely perfect. Now they just released a “machine book” to show that they too could release it on the first day. Anyone can do this – running texts through a translator is easy. But then, of course, he must pass some kind of control. We also tried it in Disco Elysia to see what happens. But the proofreading itself was so complex that it was faster to translate the text yourself. But I personally think that DeepL or other systems from Google Translator are a good tool.
This is quite a compromise. Do you use artificial intelligence or translators?
Yes, most of them help themselves. Sometimes there are slang expressions in the text and translation is difficult. Of course, you cannot know all the words. But it’s about how you use it. Purely copying unknown text does not work. And when you need to edit the context, clans, lore, and so on, the translator will not be able to cope with this. It’s tried and tested. However, I agree that the translator as such, and even more so in the form in which it is today, is a convenient tool. It speeds up the work, but you need to use it correctly.
Source :Indian TV
