Grammar in Paradox products.

[Aquitaine]

My apologies if this has been brought up before. It is intended as an honest question and constructive criticism.

The thing that really draws me to Paradox's products is the sheer amount of research and academic effort that goes into them -- even outside of the actual releases, the work that is done is these forums to improve the games is remarkable. There is obviously a high standard for excellence in terms of how to create and balance the historical aspect of the game versus playability, and that is quite an acomplishment.

It is precisely that accomplishment which makes the English translation so painful. I don't know who does the translations -- if Paradox outsources it, or how it gets done, and I know it's an immense amount of text, but when one's target audience seems to be (pseudo)-intellectuals, I'm surprised that more attention is not paid to this sort of thing; or perhaps it's just the English version that is error-prone?

I'm referring to events and tooltips. Spelling seems to be fairly good throughout, but grammar -- especially run-on sentences and comma splices -- is consistently bad. I'm not saying this to complain; I'm genuinely curious why this is, and if there is anything that can be done about it. If this was held to a similar standard as other parts of these games obviously are, it seems as though you could hand a copy of Victoria to a high school student or to a Professor Emeritus of history at a classy university and get high marks from both.

Thanks,
Aquitaine

 

[unmerged(4989)]

My apologies if this has been brought up before. It is intended as an honest question and constructive criticism.

The thing that really draws me to Paradox's products is the sheer amount of research and academic effort that goes into them -- even outside of the actual releases, the work that is done is these forums to improve the games is remarkable. There is obviously a high standard for excellence in terms of how to create and balance the historical aspect of the game versus playability, and that is quite an acomplishment.

It is precisely that accomplishment which makes the English translation so painful. I don't know who does the translations -- if Paradox outsources it, or how it gets done, and I know it's an immense amount of text, but when one's target audience seems to be (pseudo)-intellectuals, I'm surprised that more attention is not paid to this sort of thing; or perhaps it's just the English version that is error-prone?

I'm referring to events and tooltips. Spelling seems to be fairly good throughout, but grammar -- especially run-on sentences and comma splices -- is consistently bad. I'm not saying this to complain; I'm genuinely curious why this is, and if there is anything that can be done about it. If this was held to a similar standard as other parts of these games obviously are, it seems as though you could hand a copy of Victoria to a high school student or to a Professor Emeritus of history at a classy university and get high marks from both.

Thanks,
Aquitaine

Fair enough. EUII had the same problem that was kind of distracting. Aparently the Swedes aren't watching enough Friends re-runs to fully understand English yet...

 

[Aquitaine]

Eu2 and HOI both have it, although I didn't notice it as much in HoI.

 

[unmerged(19817)]

I haven't been bothered by it, and it doesn't sound like it's bothering you that much, either...I think the complexity and magnitude of the game that you spoke of makes the occasional run on sentence an acceptable blemish.

 

[Aquitaine]

I don't get personally upset by it, no. It's a fun game. But it's also a game where the vast majority of the content is delivered through text, so having sloppy presentation does sour the experience a little.

It may be that not many people care about it, though. I know it struck me right away the first time I played EU2 (about a year ago).

So it does concern me, I just try to avoid the 'lol paradox sux0rs because <complaint> i will never buy your products again unless my demands are met' approach to such things...

 

[OriginalRafiki]

I've noticed it too; while putting together the Techtionary, I saw quite a few errors, but decided to leave them alone, since a) there were many and b) I couldn't be sure that my corrections would've been that much better anyway

Rafiki

 

[Grosshaus]

It is precisely that accomplishment which makes the English translation so painful. I don't know who does the translations -- if Paradox outsources it, or how it gets done, and I know it's an immense amount of text, but when one's target audience seems to be (pseudo)-intellectuals, I'm surprised that more attention is not paid to this sort of thing; or perhaps it's just the English version that is error-prone?

Actually the English version is the original one, the rest are translated from it.

I'm referring to events and tooltips. Spelling seems to be fairly good throughout, but grammar -- especially run-on sentences and comma splices -- is consistently bad. I'm not saying this to complain; I'm genuinely curious why this is, and if there is anything that can be done about it. If this was held to a similar standard as other parts of these games obviously are, it seems as though you could hand a copy of Victoria to a high school student or to a Professor Emeritus of history at a classy university and get high marks from both.

Yeah, most propably there are grammar mistakes. It's just that none of Paradox workers are native English speakers and neither are most of betas. It would require quite a lot of extra resources to let an actual pro check it through, which isn't financially possible. Of course it would be better, but I'd rather see them spend their money on improving gameplay if the texts are still understandable.

If you have the spare time and motivation I'm sure they would appreciate posting some of the flaws in the bug forum so they can perhaps be fixed in later patches.

 

[OriginalRafiki]

Of course it would be better, but I'd rather see them spend their money on improving gameplay if the texts are still understandable.

Amen to that!

Rafiki

 

[Aquitaine]

I agree entirely. I'm surprised that the Betas aren't - so many of them are extraordinarily well-spoken on these forums, I never would've guessed.

If it's simply a question of finding a semi-professional type to copy-edit, I'm sure they could find someone to be a beta who knows that sort of thing. I'm by no means a professional, but I can probably catch a few more things than have been caught so far.

I would be happy to peruse a couple of the events files when I have some time and post corrections if they would actually be used. I can't promise too much, but every little bit helps -- maybe a couple of majors, like the UK and Prussia...

-Aq

 

[unmerged(7034)]

I'm glad someone shares my feelings. When I read Victoria's in-game texts, I get a bad toothache. Plenty of factual errors too - percussion cap weapons are called Muzzle-loaded, even though the description identifies them correctly... aargh don't get me started.

 

[kristoff]

I'm glad someone shares my feelings. When I read Victoria's in-game texts, I get a bad toothache. Plenty of factual errors too - percussion cap weapons are called Muzzle-loaded, even though the description identifies them correctly... aargh don't get me started.

Unfortunately, it's true. And it's a good time to once again rise a question of Polish province Spiff WTH is that? I can't think of anything even close to that name in Polish, wich would correspond with this... Because I don't believe it could be Spisz region, which would mean it's totally misplaced in VIC map, not to mention totally wrong in terms of importance.

 

[unmerged(10426)]

Would it be too much to ask to get someone relatively qualified in the use of English to simply proof-read the damn text?

 

[DGuller]

I've done some proofreading work in college, my grammar is not perfect, but much better than my fellow students' grammar. I guess that living in an English-speaking country while not being a native speaker is ideal for developing a sense of grammatical correctness. You don't need to be a professional to proofread Paradox games, certainly we don't need an English text that will stand up to the toughest scrutiny, we just don't want to have elementary mistakes that even fifth-graders notice, and there are indeed plenty of those.

 

[Dark Knight]

I'm referring to events and tooltips. Spelling seems to be fairly good throughout, but grammar -- especially run-on sentences and comma splices -- is consistently bad. I'm not saying this to complain; I'm genuinely curious why this is, and if there is anything that can be done about it.

Welcome to Swenglish.

 

[Mordoch]

I agree entirely. I'm surprised that the Betas aren't - so many of them are extraordinarily well-spoken on these forums, I never would've guessed.

Some of us are native English speakers, and I can say personally that I did correct some issues and akward sentences in the manual for instance, but the problem is the amount to test, taking time to check and fix text takes time away which I could be potentially using to beta test the game, and after awhile it gets quite boring to do this.

 

[unmerged(15204)]

I am an experienced writer, and have done a lot of copy-editing myself, so I quickly notice the grammatical mistakes. It does bother me at times, but English is actually a very difficult language to master. Just look at all the irregular verbs we have, not to mention the pronunciation rules for words like:

bomb tomb comb

What I do is write down the offending words, then edit them in the *text.csv files. I'd suggest a grammar mod for Victoria if it wasn't such an anal thing to do

 

[unmerged(6766)]

Welcome to Swenglish.

Personally I also favor Swenglish =) and Japlish and whatever other chopped up pidgin English anyone speaks. It adds variety...

While I don't mind grammatical mistakes, run-on sentences, etc. (as long as I can understand it, it's good), I do get a little headache from spelling mistakes but that's part of my everlasting quest for better shaped ROTW provinces.

Moneit instead of Momeit...
Mandao instead of Manado....

Of course those could be localizations (localisations!) like Sankt Petersburg So as long as I can understand it, it's cool.

 

[Cagliostro]

I always fear looking like an elitist so I tend not to comment about these issues, but it drives me crazy. I've also done professional copy-editing work, and tend to notice every little spelling and grammar error. I'm sure that Paradox is in contact with plenty of native English speakers who would gladly copy-edit for free (or at least very cheaply), but I doubt that they think the problem is particularly severe, since they're not native English speakers and can't see it themselves.

The manuals tend to particularly suffer from poor English, in my experience - they often seem to be written as an afterthought and don't address some of the crucial game aspects even in the release versions.

 

[unmerged(11929)]

I don't get annoyed with run-on sentences as long as they are within an acceptable understanding standard. However, obvious grammatical errors and spelling mistakes do annoy me a lot.

For example, this line is in the release notes of a patch for EU2:

"Several spell mistakes have been fixed."

I hope the guy who wrote it didn't actually correct those mistakes.

To Paradox's defence, however, proper translation does cost a lot of money. I work in a software company, and we spend €1M every year to translate 12000 lines of text from the database into 12 languages.

Like someone said before, I'd rather them to spend that €1M into the game.

Oh, and writing here makes me nervous of making any errors, so I've spell-checked twice.

 

[OriginalRafiki]

Oh, and writing here makes me nervous of making any errors, so I've spell-checked twice.

:rofl:

Rafiki

PS: knubbel, which software company do you work for?