L'Ordre du Bâton / The Order of the Stick french translation

[Mayrax]

Bonjour à tous!

I love the Order of the Stick, I find it great! I've tried translating the first strip in French, for the fun of it.What do you think?

http://i1376.photobucket.com/albums/ah22/Mayrax152/Oots0001_zpsnfyvpcwm.gif (http://s1376.photobucket.com/user/Mayrax152/media/Oots0001_zpsnfyvpcwm.gif.html)

Mayrax

[Quild]

Hi,

Several projects of translation in different languages have been started and never much more. Here's the French one. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?123920-OdB-OOTS-French-translation)

They are in plain text because The Giant DOES NOT ALLOW to use OOTS page with modified speech bubbles.

Edit:
From: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/announcement.php?a=1


Copyrighted Material and OotS Images
Using copyrighted artwork as an avatar is technically illegal unless you have the permission of the copyright holder. Even if the art is modified in some way, the original copyright still stands and you can't use it as an avatar. Rich Burlew has specifically requested that people DO NOT use his OOTS art as avatar image, other than those he has specifically provided as the default message board avatars. Also, please do not take, alter, or use the provided avatar images, comic images, or other pieces of Rich's art without express consent. If you want an OOTS-style avatar, there are many burgeoning avatar artists hanging around the Arts and Crafts forum who might make one for you.

Any avatar image that is found to be used without the permission of the copyright holder will be removed. If the creator of an avatar personally approaches the GITP staff and claims that their creation is being used without permission by another poster--as might be the case if they requested credit for the avatar and then were denied such--the Moderators will remove the avatar immediately. The first instance of this will incur a Warning, but should the member reinstate his or her violating avatar or create another avatar that also violates the rules, he or she will be issued an Infraction.

[Mayrax]

Makes sense.

Too bad, the most challenging part of translating was making the translation fit in the speech bubbles.

Mayrax

[Quild]

Some quote from the FAQ in addition:

Q: I speak a language other than English. Can I translate the Order of the Stick for my game site?


A: At this time, the translation program is on indefinite hold. Some of the existing translations apparently suffered from accuracy issues, and all suffered from a lack of support from the translator, most of whom faded away after translating only a fraction of the strip's run. Also, there was no promotion or advertisement by the translators in their native language, resulting in a great deal of work for very, very few hits. Please do not contact me regarding translating OOTS into your native language until such time as I decide whether to continue the translation program.
It's at least 11 years old but still applicable :smalltongue:

Anyway I disagree with you about the challenging part of translating. My point of view on this one page is the following:
- Font isn't really good
- "Que diable ?" does not fit with Haley's usual manner of speaking. Who are you? Jean Sola?
- Durkon's accent isn't good at all
- "modernise" does not fit with Belkar's usual manner of speaking.
- "arme rétrécie" is not very correct. Roy is smart, he would say "rétrécissement d'arme" or something else.

Don't feel bad or your translation, it's hard to make a decent one. That being said, you can feel bad for having overlooked the difficulty of the process.

Edit: Also you should delete the link to the page. Just sayin'.

[hroþila]

Personally I'm convinced V makes translating OotS into a romance language pretty much impossible. Unless you actually make V use some new, non-standard gender-neutral forms at all times, but those are heavily marked and not widely known, and it would come across as the complete opposite of nonchalant disregard for gender that V exhibits in the source text.

Otherwise, I'm highly sceptical about the possibility of just avoiding gendered forms altogether in all of V's speech balloons.

[Mayrax]

Thanks for the remarks,

- Font isn't really good => I used the same font (comic sans MS) and size.
- "Que diable ?" does not fit with Haley's usual manner of speaking. Who are you? Jean Sola? => Mayrax, pour vous servir!
- Durkon's accent isn't good at all => No real equivalent to scottish in French. Auvergnat maybe? Or Franc-comptois, always a giggle to hear.
- "modernise" does not fit with Belkar's usual manner of speaking. => True
- "arme rétrécie" is not very correct. Roy is smart, he would say "rétrécissement d'arme" or something else. => Yeah, but didn't fit in the balloon.

Mayrax

[Quild]

Size of the page being different might contribute to the font being ugly.

Also, it's way too compressed.

[littlebum2002]

- "Que diable ?" does not fit with Haley's usual manner of speaking. Who are you? Jean Sola?


- "modernise" does not fit with Belkar's usual manner of speaking.
- "arme rétrécie" is not very correct. Roy is smart, he would say "rétrécissement d'arme" or something else.



You need to explain these to those of us who don't know French.

[Ron Miel]

Belkar says YES in panel 6. Is this an error, or do the French often use this word?

[Djieff]

Hey! I created a forum account just to reply to this thread, pretty much. :smallsmile:

I'm a professional English-to-French translator; that's what I do for a living. I often thought of giving an unofficial, just-for-fun French translation of OotS a go. However, after careful consideration, I've given up on even trying. I think that anyone attempting that would run into two major problems: language-based puns and Vaarsuvius' gender.

Puns and wordplay are mostly untranslateable, and there are a LOT of them in OotS. Even some that break the fourth wall, like discussions about how words are spelled or pronounced (dragon hoard/horde, for example). A translator would need to invent new jokes and puns in the target language to work around that. That would be extremely difficult to for anyone who doesn't have Rich's talent, and would also change the nature of the source material. And then it turns into an adaptation more than a translation.

The issue of Vaarsuvius's gender is a huge roadblock for anyone attempting a translation into a language that isn't as gender-neutral as English. In French, adjectives and past participles have to agree with the gender of the subject, and there is no "neutral". So every time a character is talking about Vaarsuvius, the translator would have to take a stand: masculine or feminine?

The way I see it, there are 3 ways to approach the problem:
1) Include both the masculine and feminine forms, every time, in a "he/she" format. This would become unreadable after a couple of strips, guaranteed.
2) Find workarounds every time. It is possible to build sentences in such a way as to bypass the issue, but there are very few ways to do this and it would be very tedious. Maybe if OotS was 40 strips long, but at 1000+ strips, it would get really old, really fast.
3) Use the masculine or the feminine according to the way each character sees V. For example, Belkar could always use the masculine when talking about V, Haley could always use the feminine and so on. This could technically work, but what happens when V refers to him/herself? I don't really think that's a viable solution.

Anyway, in a nutshell, that's my reasoning for never attempting it myself, even though I'm a huge fan of the comic. Sorry for the long rambling post, I just really like theorizing around this kind of thing.

Cheers!

-Djieff

[Mayrax]

Hi all,

@Littlebum:
- "Que diable" is a pretty litteral tranlation of "What the hell"
- Jean Sola translated "Game of Thrones", and some French fans didn't like his work. I didn't know any of that, googled it up.
- "Modernise" is the same as in english. Too un-Belkar-like for Quild, I tend to agree
- "Weapon shrinkage" translates to "Rétrécissement d'arme", which doesn't fit in the speech bubble. I came up with "Arme rétrécie" (= "Weapon shrinked")

@Ron:
French do use "Yes!" to express satisfaction, so I kept it.

@Djieff:
Well, translating wouldn't be fun if it was easy, would it? Anyway, if the Giant doesn't want us to translate directly into his bubbles, I won't.

Mayrax

[Murk]

The issue of Vaarsuvius's gender is a huge roadblock for anyone attempting a translation into a language that isn't as gender-neutral as English. In French, adjectives and past participles have to agree with the gender of the subject, and there is no "neutral". So every time a character is talking about Vaarsuvius, the translator would have to take a stand: masculine or feminine?


Most of the characters in OoTS indeed already take a stance on how to refer to Vaarsuvius (he/she) - as for Vaarsuvius himself, how about being inconsistent? Sometimes masculine, sometimes feminine. As others have said, giving Vaarsuvius an extreme stance (like using rare, new or modern neutral words) wouldn't fit with her nonchalance about the issue, but I think just mixing it up is in line with how the comic has treated it.

[hroþila]

Puns and wordplay are mostly untranslateable, and there are a LOT of them in OotS. Even some that break the fourth wall, like discussions about how words are spelled or pronounced (dragon hoard/horde, for example). A translator would need to invent new jokes and puns in the target language to work around that. That would be extremely difficult to for anyone who doesn't have Rich's talent, and would also change the nature of the source material. And then it turns into an adaptation more than a translation.
While this is true, it is also par of the course for translations of comedic material. :smallsmile:

[Quild]

Thanks for this interesting contribution Djieff.


You need to explain these to those of us who don't know French.
"What the hell?" is everyday language in English, while it's translations as "Que Diable ?" or "Par l'enfer !" are really really formal and unused.

That's one of the first difficulties of translating. To adapt is often better than a litteral translation.

Jean Sola is the infamous translator of "A Song of Ice and Fire" in French. He used a "old french"/medieval writing style which is in my opinion really boring to read but moreover is completely different from Martin's style.
Some people do like his style though.

"modernise" is an elaborated word. Belkar does not use that if he can avoid it. Plus, the word does not really translate the idea of an enhancement.

"arme rétrécie" means the same than if Roy had say "weapon shrinked" instead of "weapon shrinkage".


Belkar says YES in panel 6. Is this an error, or do the French often use this word?
Indeed it's not. At all. It's used quite a lot though, but it's not french at all.

[Onyavar]

Salut à tout!

Um, native German here, but I'm very interested in the translation projects. So far, there have been three threads before with French translations, and I THINK it is worth to try and salvage/combine these:

- Ancient collaborative project from 2006/07: Up to #76 (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?5272-OOST-in-french)
- Lissou's first attempt from 2008: up to #54 (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?85968-L-Ordre-du-b%E2ton-french-translation)
- Lissou's second attempt from 2009, up to #19 (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?123920-OdB-OOTS-French-translation)

Lissou was, I think, a professional translator of some kind, who was disappointed by the Giant's lack of enthusiasm for translation projects. So Lissou abandoned the efforts.

As for the V conundrum, I'm quoting Lissou:

What I intent to do is turn V's sentences around so that it's always ambiguous. It will give V a way or talking that will seem weird and uselessly complicated, but in a way that I think fits with V's character. [...] I can turn V's speech around in a way that won't reveal any gender. I'll try at least.

I think that such an approach would really fit V's personality best - if possible. How others call V is less important. Roy adressed him as male once, at least twice others adressed her as female.

Also, I think there had been some factionalism about whether the Canadian or the motherland French should be used, and which is the correct dialect for Durkon. Finally, the puns are difficult to translate (I should know, struggling to come up with german translations), but it is possible to find good equivalents 80% of the time, I estimate.

It would be magnificent to see the French translation project revived somehow. Please please do it!

[Occasional Sage]

Hey! I created a forum account just to reply to this thread, pretty much. :smallsmile:


Welcome!



I'm a professional English-to-French translator; that's what I do for a living. I often thought of giving an unofficial, just-for-fun French translation of OotS a go. However, after careful consideration, I've given up on even trying. I think that anyone attempting that would run into two major problems: language-based puns and Vaarsuvius' gender.

Puns and wordplay are mostly untranslateable, and there are a LOT of them in OotS. Even some that break the fourth wall, like discussions about how words are spelled or pronounced (dragon hoard/horde, for example). A translator would need to invent new jokes and puns in the target language to work around that. That would be extremely difficult to for anyone who doesn't have Rich's talent, and would also change the nature of the source material. And then it turns into an adaptation more than a translation.

The issue of Vaarsuvius's gender is a huge roadblock for anyone attempting a translation into a language that isn't as gender-neutral as English. In French, adjectives and past participles have to agree with the gender of the subject, and there is no "neutral". So every time a character is talking about Vaarsuvius, the translator would have to take a stand: masculine or feminine?

The way I see it, there are 3 ways to approach the problem:
1) Include both the masculine and feminine forms, every time, in a "he/she" format. This would become unreadable after a couple of strips, guaranteed.
2) Find workarounds every time. It is possible to build sentences in such a way as to bypass the issue, but there are very few ways to do this and it would be very tedious. Maybe if OotS was 40 strips long, but at 1000+ strips, it would get really old, really fast.
3) Use the masculine or the feminine according to the way each character sees V. For example, Belkar could always use the masculine when talking about V, Haley could always use the feminine and so on. This could technically work, but what happens when V refers to him/herself? I don't really think that's a viable solution.

Anyway, in a nutshell, that's my reasoning for never attempting it myself, even though I'm a huge fan of the comic. Sorry for the long rambling post, I just really like theorizing around this kind of thing.

Cheers!

-Djieff

On the topic of French/English translations, and the difficulties therein, have you read A Void (http://http://www.powells.com/book/void-9781567922967/2-1) by Georges Perec? For those unaware, it was written originally in French without a single instance of the vowel "e", then translated into English with the same conceit.

I have read the English version, and it is a masterful work of circumlocution. I can only imagine the difficulties in writing the original; the proscribed letter is even more frequent in French than in English! (According to a brief Google binge, the rate is roughly five French "e"s to four English "e"s.) I won't claim it's High Literature, but it's been the first thing I think of for more than a decade when Fr/En translation comes up.

[Mayrax]

I've heard of that novel ("La disparition" in French), I'd like to get around to reading it someday. I didn't know it had been translated in English.

As for translation projects, the decision is Rich's.

Mayrax

[Ron Miel]

What about sound effects? Are they the same in French as in English? In this strip alone you have boing, pop, wa wa wawawa and ping. Do they require a translation?

[Mayrax]

"Boing" and "Pop" are OK in French. Maybe "ding" iso "ping", but I didn't bother.

Maybe "pfuiii" iso "wawawaa" too, but since "wawawaa" isn't really english, it doesn't matter if it isn't really french either.

May

[Ron Miel]

In English, wawawaa is a fairly standard transcription of Sad Trombone (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sC75aU47GRk).

What is "pfuiii" ?

[Quild]

Finally, the puns are difficult to translate (I should know, struggling to come up with german translations), but it is possible to find good equivalents 80% of the time, I estimate.

I believe that the most known/awarded French translator is Patrick Couton, for reasons. He translated Discworld books.

Sir Pratchett's work also contains a lot of puns and not everything can be translated. Patrick Couton decided on some occasions to translate Sir Pratchett's writing style more than his words. He does not struggle to translate a pun when it's not necessary and sometimes adds puns that are not in the original text.
I remember reading in Carpe Jugulum something like "J'imagine mal cette bouffie contre les vampires".
So here's a pun about Buffy the Vampire slayer ("Buffy contre les vampires" in french) and reading it, I wondered what the pun was in English. Turns out there was absolutely no pun here in English.

I sometimes happened to realize that even if there was no pun in the french text, there must have been a pun here in English (it's hard to spot, I took a lot of pride in that).

Also something else quite hard to spot: The imp in Vimes dis-organisers is called "Gooseberry". Which is a reference to a certain brand of smartphones. The imp's name is translated "Groseille" in French. But since we also call the Smartphones "BlackBerry", the reference is lost.

Good Omens was translated by someone else. Patrick Marcel. At some point in the story, someone speak about burning fagg0ts. Which leads to a confusion between burning wood or burning peoples.
In french, there's a footpage note saying that the translator gives up on translating that and simply explains the thing.
Couton's fanbase says he would have find something better. I'm not sure myself but find the footpage amusing.


That's why I highly doubt that a decent translation of the first pages of OOTS can be made. Or translating #761 for that matter.
The rest might be easier. But on a lot of occurrences, you have to put a pun where there was one, and it's hard.

[hroþila]

Translating #761 would be a simple matter of coming up with your own puns. Pretty standard fare when it comes to professional translation.

[Ron Miel]

I guess that #12 (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0012.html) would be the hardest to translate.

[Mayrax]

"Pfuii" would be the sound of a balloon deflating.

[Ron Miel]

Thanks.

What is "stick figure" in French?

[gmatht]

What if you used geolocation so that all viewers south of Paris read comics where V is male and the remainder read comics where V was female? OK, it wouldn't capture quite the same essence of original, and would be more work. However, it would definitely result in French readers being certain of V's real gender, but unable to come to an agreement... so pretty much the same overall experience :smallcool:.

[Onyavar]

I guess that #12 (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0012.html) would be the hardest to translate.

I think others may be worse, although #12 is really a tough nut in most languages. Below I compare the translation of Stiggur (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=530644&postcount=28)and Lissou (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=7023371&postcount=32). Both played with spelling of "niveau" (level), but they differ about the spell level. Stiggur stays closer to the original, while I can't exactly comprendre where the comedy in Lissou's traduction kicks in.
#1
Roy : Enfin, les escaliers!
Haley : Ouuuh, ce prêtre gobelin valait 1000 P.E.!

#2
Roy : Il est temps de descendre d'un niveau!
Haley : Il est temps de monter d'un niveau!

#3
Roy : Monter d'un niveau? Mais on a déjà fait ça.
Haley : Bien sûr, et on le fait encore.
Roy : Pourquoi, y'a quoi si on monte d'un niveau?
Haley : Plus d'attaques sournoises!

#4
Roy : Quoi?? On va recevoir des attaques sournoises si on monte d'un niveau??
Haley : Non, idiot, seulement moi.
Roy : Tu veux monter d'un niveau pour recevoir des attaques sournoises?
Haley : Naturellement.

#5
Roy : Pas question. C'est trop dangereux. On descend d'un niveau à la place.
Haley : Descendre d'un niveau? On aurait pas, genre, besoin d'un vampire ou quelque chose pour ça?
Roy : Hein?

#6
Haley : De toute façon, qu'est-ce qu'on a si on DESCEND d'un niveau?
Roy : Des monstres plus forts!
Haley : Tu veux descendre d'un niveau ET combattre des monstres plus forts?
Roy : Bien sûr.

#7
Haley : Ça ne ferait pas plus de sens de MONTER d'un niveau avant d'affronter des monstres plus forts?
Roy : Non, nous avons déjà fini ce niveau. Il faut descendre.

#8
Haley : Monter!
Roy : Descendre!
Haley : Monter!
Roy : Descendre!
V : Aha! Ça c'est ce que j'appelle un niveau de magie!
Roy : N-I-V-E-A-U
V : Hein?

#9
Roy : J'épèle un "niveau".
V : Mais tu es un guerrier, tu n'as pas ce qu'on peut appeller un niveau de magie.

#10
Roy : Je ne peux pas épeler? Est-ce une autre de ces boutades du genre "Les guerriers sont stupides"? Ça suffit, on descend d'un niveau.
Haley : On monte d'un niveau!
V : Mais si on descend de niveau, je ne pourrai plus appeler mon niveau.
Roy : N-I-V-E-A-U
V : HEIN?
Belkar : Vous voyez à combien de conneries on fait face parce que personne chez TSR n'a regardé le mot "niveau" dans le dictionnaire?#1
Roy : Enfin, un escalier !
Haley : Ooh, ce prêtre gobelin valait 1000 PX !

#2
Roy : Bon, on passe au niveau inférieur !
Haley : Bon, on passe au niveau supérieur !

#3
Roy : Au niveau supérieur ? On l’a déjà fait.
Haley : Oui, et là on recommence.
Roy : Pourquoi, il y a quoi ?
Haley : Des attaques sournoises !

#4
Roy : Quoi ? On aura des attaques sournoises au niveau supérieur ?
Haley : Pas vous, idiot, moi.
Roy : Tu veux te prendre des attaques sournoises ?
Haley : Bien sûr.

#5
Roy : Pas question. C’est trop dangereux. On passe au niveau inférieur.
Haley : Au niveau inférieur ? Il nous faudrait pas, genre, un vampire pour faire ça ?
Roy : Hein ?

#6
Haley : D’ailleurs, on y gagne quoi si on passe au niveau INFÉRIEUR ?
Roy : Des monstres plus forts !
Haley : Tu veux descendre d’un niveau ET affronter des montres plus forts ?
Roy : Évidemment.

#7
Haley : Ça serait pas plus logique d’affronter des monstres plus forts quand on sera au niveau SUPÉRIEUR ?
Roy : Non, on l’a déjà fini. On passe au niveau inférieur.

#8
Haley : Supérieur !
Roy : Inférieur !
Haley : Supérieur !
Roy : Inférieur !
V : Aha ! Un nouveau niveau de sorts !
Roy : Non, on reste !
V : Hein ?

#9
Roy : Personne ne sort.
V : C’est que vous êtes un guerrier, vous n'apprenez pas cela.
Roy : Quoi ? C’est une blague, c’est ça ? Les guerriers, ça fonce tout droit ? Ça suffit maintenant, on passe au niveau inférieur.
Haley : Supérieur !
V : Mais si je passe au niveau inférieur, je perdrai mon niveau de sorts.
Roy : Non, on reste !
V : Hein ??
Belkar : On va en endurer combien, des conneries comme ça, parce que personne chez TSR n'a pensé à utiliser un dico de synonymes ?

I guess il faut un team des éditeurs that not only pieces together the best parts of each translation, but also starts on more translations and discusses them together in one thread, like the team of 2006 already did. I mean, there are more than 900 comics left to translate, but I'd be delighted to read more of them in French as well. It would also améliorer my understanding of the language profoundly. (P.S. After reading all that French text, I mixed my vocabulary somehow. It's a common problem when writing in two learned languages, I guess, so I left it in without looking up the proper words. :smalltongue:)

Edit:

Thanks.

What is "stick figure" in French?

I know the "Bonhomme", but that's basically any "little drawn figure", I believe. I also learned "griffonnage", but that would be rather the crayon drawings of the 270es. "Stick" itself can be translated as "bâton" (physical), "ligne" (drawn), "trait" (both drawn and as a concept, like the english "trait"), "barre" (both drawn and physical). But since I'm not a natural, I'm curious about that myself. The problem of translating the pun in the name of the comic has haunted the German translation project so long that we left it open so far. All four French threads so far called it "L'ordre du bâton", so I guess there is something I don't know?

[Grey Watcher]

Thanks.

What is "stick figure" in French?

Well, this also brings up the issue of the origin on the name. On the one hand, we have the out-of-character origin, which is "stick figure", referring to the art style representing limb and such with small line segments ("sticks"). On the other hand, we have the in-character origin, which refers to "stick" as in "small, slender piece of wood, usually unworked". In languages where the same word isn't used for both things, this presents another problem.

EDIT: Also, this site, while obviously 5th edition, not 3.5, might be a good source to find out what various game jargon terms might be called in French, especially since certain pages have both French and English versions. (Don't know how active the French-speaking readers are in the French-speaking gaming community.) http://www.aidedd.org/

[hroþila]

I think others may be worse, although #12 is really a tough nut in most languages. Below I compare the translation of Stiggur (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=530644&postcount=28)and Lissou (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=7023371&postcount=32). Both played with spelling of "niveau" (level), but they differ about the spell level. Stiggur stays closer to the original, while I can't exactly comprendre where the comedy in Lissou's traduction kicks in.
Stiggur's translation doesn't make any sense, as nothing in the French text gives any reason for Roy to spell out the word "NIVEAU". It's more literal, but by missing the joke altogether I wouldn't say it's actually closer to the original - to its intent. Lissou's translation is automatically better if only on those grounds. I imagine it's meant to be a pun on some form of the verb sortir, "to exit", but I don't speak French so I dunno.

"Staying closer to the original" the way it's usually understood is often not a good thing.

[JustWantedToSay]

In the prequels we see that the stick that the order is named after is of the natural, fallen-from-a-tree variety. Batôn is usually a carved or manufactured stick.

"Branche" "petite branche" or "bout de bois" would be better to address that scene, unfortunately they don't play word games with "bonhomme batôn"

"Bout" has several other translations that might involve simple drawings, (segments, ends, points)

--

As for stick-figure, there's "un bonhomme alumette" ( "matchstick-figure"). You might also find the anglicism "un stickman."

[Elenna]

Stiggur's translation doesn't make any sense, as nothing in the French text gives any reason for Roy to spell out the word "NIVEAU". It's more literal, but by missing the joke altogether I wouldn't say it's actually closer to the original - to its intent. Lissou's translation is automatically better if only on those grounds. I imagine it's meant to be a pun on some form of the verb sortir, "to exit", but I don't speak French so I dunno.

"Staying closer to the original" the way it's usually understood is often not a good thing.

It's been a LONG time since I spoke much French, but as I understand it, Stiggur's translation is a pun on "appelle" (call) versus "épèle" (spell*), which sound similar.
V says "c'est ce que j'appelle un niveau de magie" ("That's what I call a spell level", i.e. they're celebrating their new spell level) but Roy thinks V's saying "J'épèle un "niveau" ("I spell a "level") so he helpfully spells "niveau" ("level"). Then V says "tu n'as pas ce qu'on peut appeller un niveau de magie" ("You don't have what we could call a spell level") but Roy thinks V's he can't spell words ("Je ne peux pas épeler?" "I can't spell?"). Followed by V saying "je ne pourrai plus appeler mon niveau" ("I wouldn't be able to take my spell level [if we go down]") and Roy helpfully spells it again.So yeah, there's definitely a joke there.

Meanwhile, Lissou's pun, as you suggested, does seem to be a pun on the word "sortir" (to exit).
V starts with "Un nouveau niveau de sorts!" (A new spell level!) and Roy apparently only hears the word "sorts", because he responds with "Non, on reste!" (No, we're resting/staying here!). Then V says basically "Well that's because fighters don't learn these things" and Roy responds with "Is that a joke? 'Fighters just go straight ahead', is that it? We're going down a level." V responds with "je perdrai mon niveau de sorts." ("I would lose my spell level") and Roy again only seems to hear the word "sorts" and replies with "No, we're staying here!".

Personally I like Stiggur's translation better.
a) The pun makes more sense to me, since both of them are hearing the exact same thing but just mixing up two near homonyms, while as far as I can tell, Lissou's version relies on Roy not hearing most of what V is saying (I don't think "niveau de sorts" makes sense if you assume "sorts" means "exit").
b) In Lissou's version, Roy keeps alternating between staying they're going to go down a level and then saying they're going to stay there, which bugs me.
Of course, feel free to disagree, like I said it's been years since I really considered myself fluent in French.

*EDIT: To clarify, "épèle" means "to spell the letters in a word", not "spell" as in a wizard's spell.

[hroþila]

Oh, I didn't know French had épeler for "to spell out the letters in a word"! It makes sense now. I agree, Stiggur's translation is very good then. Even perfect, I'd say.

As I said, I don't actually speak French, so that's my excuse. :p

[Lissou]

Personally I'm convinced V makes translating OotS into a romance language pretty much impossible. Unless you actually make V use some new, non-standard gender-neutral forms at all times, but those are heavily marked and not widely known, and it would come across as the complete opposite of nonchalant disregard for gender that V exhibits in the source text.

Otherwise, I'm highly sceptical about the possibility of just avoiding gendered forms altogether in all of V's speech balloons.

I actually went pretty far in translating the comic (I also translated Start of Darkness, but since it's not online I never shared it) and it's absolutely possible. It sounds a bit pretentious at times but fortunately that works well for V.


Lissou was, I think, a professional translator of some kind, who was disappointed by the Giant's lack of enthusiasm for translation projects. So Lissou abandoned the efforts.

I'm still a translator :) And still around. I agree that the most challenging and interesting part of translating comics is fitting them in balloons, and that's a big part of why I stopped posting the translations online: I kept translating the images (to make sure everything would fit the right way) but turning them into transcripts became more of a chore, and there didn't seem to be much interest in the translations to begin with so I got discouraged. I translated most of book 1 somewhere, plus Start of Darkness (which I'm not sharing, and to be fair I don't think I have the file for it anymore anyway).

I too would like to see the translation back on track, although I don't feel right bumping into someone else's thread and railroading it or taking it over. Although it would be possible to put together a team of translators, it would be a bit trickier to stay consistent and avoid the pitfalls of "translation by committee" if that makes sense.

There would definitely be advantages too though. Motivating each other, for instance. And one person won't always have the best translation. For instance I agree that my translation of #12 wasn't ideal (although I was very proud of how I translated the omen about Haley for instance). I think the pun with "appeler/épeler" is a good idea although it's not perfect either (V's second sentence means "but if we go down a level I won't be able to call my spell anymore" which sounds a bit awkward) but overall it works better that my "spell/exit" pun which didn't work well at all. Plus the original "spell level" joke is far-fetched to begin with, anyways :P

Definitely going to keep an eye on this thread. Let me know if you want me to contribute in any specific way. I'm already doing a lot of translating (I was freelance back when I worked on the previous threads, but now I'm working as part of a translation company so work is more regular and steady) but I enjoy translating comics a whole lot and if there is an audience I'd be happy to give it another go.

Again, that is if I'm not stepping on any toes. I'm aware that this isn't my thread here :)

[Onyavar]

Still it's always cool when several forumites are considering a translation in the forum. Post a translation, then let others check it or post their alternate translation, or try the next one.

I hope Mayrax is okay with "his" thread "hijacked" by a transcript-translation? Since the altering of comics isn't allowed, that would be the only choice anyway to continue.

Of course it's at some point important to set conventions, but that's the next step. In my book, if translators prefer to ignore conventions, it's still preferable to having no translation at all!

Still, some things that may be worth considering:
- How do you manage Durkon's accent?
- Is Lissou's idea for translating V and hir gender the only one?
- Are there online references for gaming terms?
- Does "correct/better translation" trump "it fits into potential bubbles"?
- How to translate names - or at all?

Lissou, do you still have your not-posted translations of the first book? I can only say I'm mega-ultra-interested. If you post your take here, one part at a time, people can discuss about it, suggest possible improvements, and continue with book two or something!

I wouldn't view this as a takeover - but look at who's speaking. The german translation started as a group of more than a dozen fans (and the original poster never even posted a second time!), but at some point their numbers diminished. New translators including me arrived and bumped the thread, but only three regulars were left at some point, and then I was suddenly the last one to bump it. Today, I have practically taken over to push it, although I always hope for more participation. Still, like many other stuff in this forum, you never know when and if someone is interested in reading it, so it's always better to keep it online and up-to-date.

I have tons of other obligations IRL, but I'll gladly help here a bit, too.

[Mayrax]

Hi all,

I have no problem with my thread getting hijacked, quite the contrary, I am happy to see those questions are still open and other people are thinking about them. I don't think I'll continue translating, because I believe translating should be done directly into the bubbles, or not at all. How can you judge a comic if your eyes have to go back and forth from images to text somewhere else? So if the Giant says no, it's no.

I've been thinking about that #12 comic over the weekend, and boy, is it a tough piece! Haven't found something better than the previous attempts yet.

Mayrax

[Hamste]

Hi all,

I have no problem with my thread getting hijacked, quite the contrary, I am happy to see those questions are still open and other people are thinking about them. I don't think I'll continue translating, because I believe translating should be done directly into the bubbles, or not at all. How can you judge a comic if your eyes have to go back and forth from images to text somewhere else? So if the Giant says no, it's no.

I've been thinking about that #12 comic over the weekend, and boy, is it a tough piece! Haven't found something better than the previous attempts yet.

Mayrax

Why include #12 at all? It doesn't seem to add anything to the story and it doesn't seem really translatable so just skip it.

[Mayrax]

Several of the most hilarious panels don't add anything to the story. We're not going to skip them just because finding a good translation is difficult.

May

[Lissou]

For Durkon's accent, there isn't much of a Dwarven accent convention in French like the "dwarves are Scottish" one there is in English, so what I've been doing is giving him a Norse accent due to the pantheon he worships. That only means replacing his As with Ås and his Os with Øs, which has the advantage of being very easy to do and also very easy to read.

There is a French SRD, although I have been using the French version of the D&D 3.5 manuals to make sure the proper gaming terms are being used.

Fitting in the bubble often is slightly less important than the translation being accurate, especially since it is possible to draw slightly larger bubbles over the original ones in most cases due to the art at play (I have done it, as well as recreating art on top of sound effects in order to translate them), however there are cases in which the original bubble is extremely small and no correct translation could remotely fit in it, and things may need to be adapted, like adding part of an answer into a question so that the answer can become a simple "yes/no", or simply not including information that can be inferred from the context (such as the art). It's definitely a case-by-case basis though, but that's a big part of why I believe in translating the script into the balloons first before making it a transcript, because when translating a comic you can't ignore the space element, in my opinion. I makes a significant difference.

For names, the way I've been looking at it is that the characters are not speaking English but common translated into English. English words in a French translation therefore are jarring unless they are also used in French. The last names are meant to have a meaning, which is sometimes very relevant (such as Xykon getting Roy's last name wrong, which would be weird if he got his name wrong in a foreign language in the translation). However, first names and names that don't have a significant meaning aren't translated.
Well, that isn't quite true, I guess. Eugene became "Eugène" in the translation, which I guess means his first name was kind of translated. But Roy didn't become something "more French", he's still Roy.

I have changed computers since working on the translation of oots, but I will check if I have a copy in some form or another. At any rate, having translated it before should at the very least make it easy to do it again if there is actual interest for it. I can't promise any sort of regular updating but since we have the go ahead to hijack the thread (thanks by the way!) I'll be happy to post transcripts now and then, as well as discuss translation issues of various kinds.

[Elenna]

Disclaimer: Like I said above, I don't really consider myself fluent in French anymore - I can read it reasonably well, but if I try to speak or translate into French, I'm likely to not be able to remember the words I'm looking for. Also, I have precisely zero experience doing translations. So I guess you can consider this response as being from the perspective of someone who would be interested in seeing such proposed translations, but might not be too helpful in actually creating any translations. :smallsmile:


Still, some things that may be worth considering:
- How do you manage Durkon's accent?
My initial idea would be any conventions for Dwarven accents in French stories. Apparently there isn't one, so my next suggestion would be to just use a Scottish accent, although I'm not sure how that would be written in French. Norse works too.
We definitely would need an accent of some kind, since it becomes a plot point with the HPoH.


- Is Lissou's idea for translating V and hir gender the only one?
I'd say
- For other characters, go with how they usually refer to V in the English translation (e.g. Roy thinks of V as male, Haley thinks of V as female, and there are probably characters that alternate between the two, like I think Sabine does)
- For V, if the sentence can be written without stating hir gender and without sounding too ridiculous, that's probably the best solution. A little pretentious is okay, but I doubt V would go too out of the way to avoid gender since they don't even see gender as important at all.
- Otherwise, inconsistently have V refer to hirself as male sometimes and female sometimes.


- How to translate names - or at all?
Okay, I'm just going to take this as an excuse to fangirl over Lord of the Rings briefly. :smallbiggrin:
I'm reminded of Tolkien writing in the appendix to Lord of the Rings about "translating (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TranslationConvention)" from the original Red Book (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LiteraryAgentHypothesis), which would have been written in Westron, to English. (Apologies in advance to anyone trapped in TVTropes :smallwink:)
He stated that he translated most names which were originally in Westron to names in English (i.e. Brandywine, Hoarwell, Silverlode) to distinguish from names that were originally in other languages such as Elvish. This was intended to keep the common, rustic feel of such names as opposed to older names in other languages. For example, Rivendell is meant to feel like a more "ordinary" name than Imladris, whereas you wouldn't get that feeling if he kept the names as Karningul and Imladris. Names (especially people's names) which don't have a meaning but were "common" names of that time were kept the same or anglicized slightly, for example Bunga, which would have been a male name in Westron, would be changed to Bungo.

Anyhow, fangirling aside, there is obviously a difference between a "translation" of a fictional book into a new story and a translation of an actual story into a different language. But I think the main idea, which is to keep any connotations that names might have and otherwise keep similar names but maybe change them slightly so they make sense in the new language, still applies.
So names that currently have an obvious meaning (e.g. Greenhilt, Redcloak, Azure City, maybe Gobbotopia or Starshine) would be changed into French versions. Other names would probably be kept the same, maybe with added accents or something if there is a very similar French name?

TL;DR: Basically what Lissou said, except with more words and LoTR references. Also, I have way too much time on my hands this week. :smalltongue:

[Hamste]

Several of the most hilarious panels don't add anything to the story. We're not going to skip them just because finding a good translation is difficult.

May

If the joke is completely untranslatable because it is word play then translating it into something else is essentially the same as skipping them.

[hroþila]

If the joke is completely untranslatable because it is word play then translating it into something else is essentially the same as skipping them.
But that's an ABSOLUTELY last resort. Some of the translations given here for that strip work adequately well.

Besides, in a professional context, in my experience, this is seldom the translator's call and they still have to come up with something none the less.

[Onyavar]

I thinks it's weird how by now several people (some even admitted not speaking French!) call something a bad or impossible translation. While I certainly don't understand each and every nuance in French, I do appreciate how difficult obstacles can be elegantly circumnavigated while still preserving some of the original's humour.

For example, I learned via OotS that "Ranch dressing" isn't about farm girl clothes :smallwink: That type of salad sauce is practically unknown in Europe. Translators sure won't skip the last panel of #802 because of it.

Anyway, it's great that a few people are still interested in helping or at least reading.

It brings me to try and combine the various translations of #1 and #2. Note that I just cobbled together the versions of Mayrax, Lissou (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?85968-L-Ordre-du-b%E2ton-french-translation) and bilbo_pingouin (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=529048&postcount=13), and that there may still be errors.

0001: Nouvelle édition (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0001.html)#1
Gobelin: Grrr !

#2
<Son> boing !

#3
Haley: Que diable?! Ce gobelin aurait dû te renverser.
Durkon: Je såis pås, je me suis juste senti très... ståble.

#4
<Son> POUF !

#5
Roy: Euh... C'est une chemise de mailles, je crois.
Elan: Chouette !

#6
Vaarsuvius: Je comprends. Il me semble que nous sommes en cours de conversion vers l’édition 3.5.
Roy: C’est vrai que je me sens plus intimidant...
Belkar: YES !

#7
Belkar: Trois ans que je suis rôdeur à la con, il est temps de progresser.
Belkar: Allez, allez, des nouveaux points de comp' pour Papa !

#8
<Son> pshh !

#9
<Son> pshh !

#10
<Son> pshhhhhhh !

#11
Roy: Ouuh... arme rétrécie
Haley: Hihi, elle est toute petite.
Belkar: FAIS CHIER !
<Son> ding !
Elan: Ooh ! Des points de compétence !
Belkar: FAIS CHIER !


0002: Ça me rappelle le CE1 (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0002.html)#1
#1
Elan: Compétence. J'aime mes six nouveaux points de compétence.
Roy: Il est immense, ce niveau… On trouvera jamais l’escalier pour descendre à ce rythme.

#2
Roy: Haley, prends la moitié de l'équipe et va explorer les couloirs.
Haley: Ca marche !

#3
Haley: Vaarsuvius, tu viens avec moi.
Vaarsuvius : Nos destins sont désormais liés.
Elan: Ouhou !
Roy: Heu, hum… Durkon, par ici.

#4
Haley: Hum… Belkar.
Belkar: Loser.

#5
Elan: Youhou, choisis-moi !

#6
Haley: On se retrouve plus tard.
Elan: Hé Roy ! Youhou !

P7:
Elan: Hé ho! Allez, choisis-moi !
Durkon: Est-ce que tu vås...
Roy: Je réfléchis.


(Edited)

[Quild]

I know it's way easier to criticize than to do, but honestly, there's still a lot of mistakes:

"That goblin was gonna knock you on the ass" => "Il allait te casser la gueule, ce gobelin."
I think that the idea here is that Durkon was really going to be on his ass because of a "Bull Rush" attack or something like that. (Bull Rush is actually not a trip attack, but there must be something that fits). That's why Durkon speaks about being "stable" which is also a term that means something in D&D.

"Chain skirt" => "chemise de maille"
Chemise ? The proper term here is: "Cotte de mailles"

"conversion en nouvelle édition"
"en" isn't really good here. Lissou's translation is better

"menaçant"
intimidant

"YES !"
As discussed before, a proper translation shouldn't use an English term, even if it's widely used in French. I guess

"weapon shrinkage" => "arme rétrécie"
I prefer Lissou's => Ouuh… Ton arme a rétreci.



And that's just one page...


Regarding second page:
"On ne trouvera"
"Loser." translated into "Looser."... Whyyyyyyyyyyyyy?

[Onyavar]

I know it's way easier to criticize than to do, but honestly, there's still a lot of mistakes:

No problem, it's better if you point mistakes out instead of leaving me or other translators ignorant of them. Even more so in the first strip where most people will start reading and decide whether or not it's worth their time. So: Merci beaucoup, I edited the previous post in most cases.


"That goblin was gonna knock you on the ass" => "Il allait te casser la gueule, ce gobelin."
I think that the idea here is that Durkon was really going to be on his ass because of a "Bull Rush" attack or something like that. (Bull Rush is actually not a trip attack, but there must be something that fits). That's why Durkon speaks about being "stable" which is also a term that means something in D&D.

"Chain skirt" => "chemise de maille"
Chemise ? The proper term here is: "Cotte de mailles"

"conversion en nouvelle édition"
"en" isn't really good here. Lissou's translation is better

"menaçant"
intimidant

I changed to the version of Mayrax: ... aurait dû te renverser.
Changed the chemise to cotte (and back to chemise, after Seto's and Lissou's posts below!), took Lissou's conversion version and intimidant. Thanks again.


"YES !"
As discussed before, a proper translation shouldn't use an English term, even if it's widely used in French. I guess

"weapon shrinkage" => "arme rétrécie"
I prefer Lissou's => Ouuh… Ton arme a rétreci.

I also thought so, but all four translations had Belkar shouting "YES!" here. I know that "oui!" does not fit here.

The weapon shrinkage thing is about preference, I guess. Still, Roy is referring to general weapon shrinkage (it's about all weapons being adapted to the size of their wielder), not only in case of Belkar.



Regarding second page:
"On ne trouvera"
"Loser." translated into "Looser."... Whyyyyyyyyyyyyy?
Why? Because I'm a loser, fixed. On the missing "ne", I thought it is common to occasionally drop it in colloquial speech? If not, I'll fix that too.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

I also thought so, but all four translations had Belkar shouting "YES!" here. I know that "oui!" does not fit here.

If I may interject, maybe have him laugh instead (the french equivalent of "HA!")? The "YES!" is an expression of happiness, so a different one will fit just as well. What does Obélix shout when he sees Romans coming in for a fight?

Grey Wolf

[Quild]

My issue with "weapon shrinkage"/"arme rétrécie" is that while both look like sentence fragment, the English sentence sounds more correct to me than the French one. Maybe that's where I'm wrong.
But I don't see Roy using incorrect sentences like that.
Regarding the "ne", well, I don't have strong feelings about it.

Also, "Loser." is still an English word, same problem than for "Yes!".



If I may interject, maybe have him laugh instead (the french equivalent of "HA!")? The "YES!" is an expression of happiness, so a different one will fit just as well. What does Obélix shout when he sees Romans coming in for a fight?

Grey Wolf
Chic, des romains.
Doesn't work, "Chic" is way too polite for Belkar.

It's really hard to come with something better than "Yes!".

I think that "Enfin !" (Finally!) could work here considering Belkar's following sentence.

[Ron Miel]

How about BRAVO or HOURRA or YAY?

[Seto]

I'm French and, while not professional, I do follow a training course in literary translation and have translated some stuff recreationally. (The longest being The Philadelphia Story by Philip Barry). If a collective effort to translate OotS in French takes place (in this thread, for example, although external, more informal coordination might be easier) and you're looking for volunteers, count me in!

As for questions discussed in this thread: I like Lissou's solution to V's gender's problem, I suggest a German accent for Durkon, I'm in favor of leaving the characters' names as is (the most important anyway) and finding something occasionally if need be (such a when Belkar "turns over a new leaf"). As for the "Order of the Stick" thing, I haven't seen or thought of a satisfying solution ("l'ordre du bâton" is probably the lesser evil"), it needs some more brainstorming. I'm also firmly in favor of translating the style and the feel of the comic (especially each character verbal personality quirks) rather than sticking too close to the text and being clusmy. Overall, I think Lissou's traduction is solid in most cases, and a good basis to work on.


- Grrrr !
boing !
- Qu'est-ce qui s'est passé ? Ce gobelin aurait dû te mettre à terre.
- Che ne sais pas. Che me sens très... stable.
POP !
- Euh... On dirait une chemise de mailles.
- Chouette !
- Je crois comprendre. Nous sommes en cours d'adaptation vers la nouvelle édition 3.5.
- C'est vrai que je me sens plus intimidant...
- YES !
- Ca fait trois ans que je m'emmerde à faire le rôdeur, j'ai bien mérité quelques nouveaux bonus !
- Allez, allez, Papa veut plus de points de compétence !
poin
poin
poin poin poin poiiiiiiin
- Oooouh... Ton arme a rétréci.
- Hihi, elle est toute petite !
- PUTAIN !
ping !
- Ohoh ! Des points de compétence !
- PUTAIN !


@Quild : - "Chemise de mailles" is the canon translation for "chain shirt" in the French PHB. ("cotte de mailles" I think is "chain mail").
- Despite it being English, I think "YES" is the best expression of Belkar's state of mind. Plus, he's a pretty informal guy, so, were he French, that's probably what he'd say.

[Lissou]

I don't have a huge amount of time to comment, but I would like to point out that "chemise de maille" is the name of that equipment in the French D&D player manual, and so it seems important to me to keep the D&D term over the (albeit more common) non-D&D term.

[Quild]

Oops, my bad. "Cotte de maille" seems to be for chainmail, right!

[Mayrax]

My bad too, I didn't even know there was a difference between "chain shirt" (chemise de mailles) and "chain mail" (cotte de mailles). So "Chemise de mailles" is the correct translation. I learn every day!

In my defense, we never read or see "chemise de mailles" in French litterature or games, whereas "cotte de mailles" is very common. Even when we google "chemise de mailles" we see more pictures of "cotte de mailles" than "chemise de mailles".

To determine the real translation, we should look it up in the AD&D french rulebook, and see what bards get entitled to in 3.5.

Mayrax

[factotum]

My bad too, I didn't even know there was a difference between "chain shirt" (chemise de mailles) and "chain mail" (cotte de mailles). So "Chemise de mailles" is the correct translation. I learn every day!

The English version of D&D makes a distinction between chain mail and a chain shirt--both terms are used in it. (Basically, the chain shirt is the chest piece of chain mail armour, which also includes gauntlets).

[Lissou]

My bad too, I didn't even know there was a difference between "chain shirt" (chemise de mailles) and "chain mail" (cotte de mailles). So "Chemise de mailles" is the correct translation. I learn every day!

In my defense, we never read or see "chemise de mailles" in French litterature or games, whereas "cotte de mailles" is very common. Even when we google "chemise de mailles" we see more pictures of "cotte de mailles" than "chemise de mailles".

To determine the real translation, we should look it up in the AD&D french rulebook, and see what bards get entitled to in 3.5.

Mayrax

Yeah, that's why I use the 3.5 manuals for translating D&D comics. I have them in English and French so I can make sure how terms translate from one to the other.

[Grey Watcher]

My bad too, I didn't even know there was a difference between "chain shirt" (chemise de mailles) and "chain mail" (cotte de mailles). So "Chemise de mailles" is the correct translation. I learn every day!

In my defense, we never read or see "chemise de mailles" in French litterature or games, whereas "cotte de mailles" is very common. Even when we google "chemise de mailles" we see more pictures of "cotte de mailles" than "chemise de mailles".

To determine the real translation, we should look it up in the AD&D french rulebook, and see what bards get entitled to in 3.5.

Mayrax

Well, to be fair, outside of D&D I don't think I've ever heard the term "chain shirt" in English, either. Chain mail is the far more common term. So it's definitely a very specifically piece of D&D jargon.

[Ron Miel]

The issue of Vaarsuvius's gender is a huge roadblock for anyone attempting a translation into a language that isn't as gender-neutral as English. In French, adjectives and past participles have to agree with the gender of the subject, and there is no "neutral". So every time a character is talking about Vaarsuvius, the translator would have to take a stand: masculine or feminine?

The way I see it, there are 3 ways to approach the problem:
...
3) Use the masculine or the feminine according to the way each character sees V. For example, Belkar could always use the masculine when talking about V, Haley could always use the feminine and so on. This could technically work, but what happens when V refers to him/herself? I don't really think that's a viable solution.

Other people talking about V should be no problem. In English some characters use "he"and some "she" according to their own perceptions. See elf-chick/ elf-dude in #252 (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0252.html)

As for V referring to him/herself, why not alternate between the two forms, and have V say occasionally "What's the difference?"

[Onyavar]

[...] As for V referring to him/herself, why not alternate between the two forms, and have V say occasionally "What's the difference?"
That last suggestion would mean that the translator is adding content, while Lissou's approach is "just" making it difficult for the translator. I'd prefer the latter one.



It brings me to try and combine the various translations of #1 and #2. Note that I just cobbled together the versions of Mayrax, Lissou (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?85968-L-Ordre-du-b%E2ton-french-translation) and bilbo_pingouin (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=529048&postcount=13), and that there may still be errors.

0001: Nouvelle édition (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0001.html)#1
Gobelin: Grrr !

#2
<Son> boing !

#3
Haley: Que diable?! Ce gobelin aurait dû te renverser.
Durkon: Je såis pås, je me suis juste senti très... ståble.

#4
<Son> POUF !

#5
Roy: Euh... C'est une chemise de mailles, je crois.
Elan: Chouette !

#6
Vaarsuvius: Je comprends. Il me semble que nous sommes en cours de conversion vers l’édition 3.5.
Roy: C’est vrai que je me sens plus intimidant...
Belkar: YES !

#7
Belkar: Trois ans que je suis rôdeur à la con, il est temps de progresser.
Belkar: Allez, allez, des nouveaux points de comp' pour Papa !

#8
<Son> pshh !

#9
<Son> pshh !

#10
<Son> pshhhhhhh !

#11
Roy: Ouuh... arme rétrécie
Haley: Hihi, elle est toute petite.
Belkar: FAIS CHIER !
<Son> ding !
Elan: Ooh ! Des points de compétence !
Belkar: FAIS CHIER !


0002: Ça me rappelle le CE1 (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0002.html)#1
#1
Elan: Compétence. J'aime mes six nouveaux points de compétence.
Roy: Il est immense, ce niveau… On trouvera jamais l’escalier pour descendre à ce rythme.

#2
Roy: Haley, prends la moitié de l'équipe et va explorer les couloirs.
Haley: Ca marche !

#3
Haley: Vaarsuvius, tu viens avec moi.
Vaarsuvius : Nos destins sont désormais liés.
Elan: Ouhou !
Roy: Heu, hum… Durkon, par ici.

#4
Haley: Hum… Belkar.
Belkar: Loser.

#5
Elan: Youhou, choisis-moi !

#6
Haley: On se retrouve plus tard.
Elan: Hé Roy ! Youhou !

P7:
Elan: Hé ho! Allez, choisis-moi !
Durkon: Est-ce que tu vås...
Roy: Je réfléchis.



0003: Détection, détection... (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0003.html)#1
Haley: …et les Bottes de Rapidité étaient super puissantes, mais elles étaient, genre, vert pomme.
Vaarsuvius: En effet, c’est un choix des plus cornéliens qui s’est présenté à vous.
Belkar: Attendez.

#2
Belkar: Je crois que je viens de rater un jet de Détection.

#3
Haley: T’es sûr ? Je vois rien.
Belkar: Exactement.

#4
Belkar: Hé, V, t'as un familier qui te donne Vigilance, non ?

#5
Vaarsuvius: Hein ? Oh, oui, bien sûr. Mon corbeau est juste ici.

#6
<son>pouf!

#7
Belkar: Tu vois quelque chose ?
Vaarsuvius: Non, rien.

#8
<son>pouf!

#9
Haley: Je ne savais pas que tu avais un familier...
Gobelins: Euh... on est quand même JUSTE ici.
Belkar: Attendez, je crois que je viens juste de rater un jet de Perception Auditive.

0004: Le Pouvoir de la musique (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0004.html)#1
Elan: Saute, Saute, Saute, Saute par-dessus le fossé!

#2
Roy: Qu'est-ce que tu fabriques ?
Elan: C’est mon Inspiration talentueuse !

#3
Elan: J'utilise mes chansons magiques pour rehausser les esprits et rendre la tâche plus facile!
Roy: Laisse tomber.

#4
Ogre: Hurr. Cent or pour passer.
Roy: Je m’en charge.
Durkon: Øk, møn gårs.

#5
Roy: Euh, hum, bonjour. Nous, euh, avons payé hier.
Ogre: Oh, ok...

#6
Elan: Bluffe, Bluffe, Bluffe, Bluffe l’ogre stupide !

#7
Elan: Il a du réussir son jet de Psychologie.
Roy: Je te hais.

0005: Les Petits esprits se rencontrent (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0005.html)#1
Elan: Est-ce qu'on a semé l'ogre?
Roy: Si par «semé l'ogre» tu veux dire «attiré deux de ses amis», alors oui, on l’a semé.
Durkon: Plus vite s'il-te-plaît.

#2
Belkar: Je ne vois toujours rien!
V: Retraite Expéditive! Retraite Expéditive!

#3
<son>BOUM !

#4
Belkar: Des ogres!
Haley: Beau jet de Détection.

#6
Roy: Pfiou...
Haley: Ouais...

#7
Roy: Un instant... vous vous sauviez de quoi, vous?

#8
Elan: Bon, ça a l’air d’un bon endroit pour se reposer.

0006: Y'a-t-il un prêtre dans la salle ? (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0006.html)#1
Durkon: Bøn, øn leur å réglé leur cømpte, åux øgres. Et maintenant ?

#3
Durkon: Åh øui, c’est vrai.

#4
Durkon: Søins impørtånts ! Søins impørtånts ! Søins légers !
Belkar: Hé ! Ça valait AU MOINS des blessures modérées !
<son>Soigne ! Soigne ! Soigne !

#5
Elan: Caillaux, caillaux, caillaux, mes artères sanguinolantes.
Haley: Elan !

#6
Elan: Salut Haley. Regarde, j'ai trouvé toutes ces épées gratuites.
Elan: Elles étaient dans ma rate.

#7
Durkon: Tu es gråvement blessé, møn gårs ?
Elan: Ça dépend…

#8
Elan: C’est important, ça ?

0007: Prieur de Thor© (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0007.html)#1
Durkon: Elån est en piteux étåt… et je n’åi plus de sørts de Søins.
Roy: Fais ce que tu peux, Durkon.

#2
Durkon: Ø puissånt Thør, tøn humble serviteur søllicite tøn åide pøur un besøin urgent.

#3
Prieur de Thor: Bonjour. Bienvenue sur le Prieur de Thor©.

#4
Prieur de Thor: Pour continuer en langue commune, psalmodiez «un» ! Ech tod kodo kra'th shor «l'deth» frek.
Durkon: Euh... «Un!»

#5
Prieur de Thor: Si vous connaissez le nom du miracle que vous souhaitez accomplir, psalmodiez «un».
Durkon: Un !

#6
Prieur de Thor: Merci d’entonner les deux premières lettres du nom du miracle.
Durkon: Hé bien, je veux te søigner donc...
Durkon: S-Ø!

#7
Prieur de Thor: Vous avez choisi «Soumission des infidèles». Pour confirmer votre choix, psalmodiez «un». Sinon, psalmodiez «deux».
Durkon: Deux !

#8
Prieur de Thor: Vous avez choisi «Souffrance éternelle». Pour confirmer votre choix, psalmodiez «un». Sinon, psalmodiez «deux».
Durkon: Deux ! DEUX !

#9
Prieur de Thor: Vous avez choisi «Déchirure». Pour choisir le type de déchirure à affliger aux ennemis de Thor, psalmodiez «trois».
Durkon: Trøis.
Durkon: Nøn ! MERDE !

#10
Prieur de Thor: Vous avez choisi «Déchirure du colon».
Durkon: Årgh !
Elan: Euh... Si je prenais une potion, plutôt ?

I went ahead and combined a few more translations from bilbo, stiggur and Lissou. Everyone d'accord with them? Or did I mess up again? Regarding the 3615Thor, I think going with "Prieur de Thor ©" will be understandable for future readers as the Minitel is a thing of the past.

[hroþila]

"Prieur de Thor ©" sounds rather bland to me. The priority there should be to make it sound like an actual brand name, even if that means dropping information from the name that can be easily gleaned from the context anyway.

[Jormengand]

A lot of the translations don't seem to keep the tone of the original. For example, I'd translate "Oh. Right." as "Ah. Vrai." not "Ah oui, c'est vrai," which I'd read more as "Oh yeah, that's right."

[Seto]

A lot of the translations don't seem to keep the tone of the original. For example, I'd translate "Oh. Right." as "Ah. Vrai." not "Ah oui, c'est vrai," which I'd read more as "Oh yeah, that's right."

You're very unlikely to hear a French speaker say "Ah. Vrai". It's not really an expression. By contrast, "Oh. Right." is pretty common in English. Usually pronouced in the same context and tone than "Ah oui, c'est vrai", too.

[Onyavar]

0008: Les Avantages d'un Bluff élevé... (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0008.html)#1
Haley: Elan, je t'ai trouvé cette potion de soins.
Elan: Merci Haley!

#2
<son>glou glou glou glou

#3
Haley: Ouah, c'est du bon stock !
Elan: Tu dis !

#4
Elan: Mais comment ça a réparé ma cape... ?
Belkar: Hé, un de vous deux a vu une bouteille verte dans les...
Belkar: HÉ!

#5
Belkar: T'as pris ma potion !
Haley: Quoi?

#6
Haley: Ah je compris. Je suis une roublarde, donc j’ai volé ta potion.

#7
Haley: Oooh... 'vaut mieux verrouiller tout quand Haley est dans le coin -- c'est une ROUBLARDE !
Belkar: Mais... Mais tu tiens la bouteille!

#8
Haley: Franchement, Belkar, avec toutes les images peu flatteuses des halfelins qui courent, je t’aurais cru plus compréhensif.
Belkar: Euh... je, euh.. j'voulais pas, euh...

#9
Haley: Non, non, ça va. C’est juste... j'ai juste cru que nous étions des meilleurs amis que cela.
Elan: Tu devrais avoir honte.
Haley: *Sniff*

#10
Elan: Wahou, c'était super.
Haley: Mon père était un voleur de la 1re édition. C'est de famille.

0009: J’aimerais bien savoir, Elan (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0009.html)#1
Haley: Qu'est-ce que vous faites ?
Roy: On a trouvé une ceinture magique sur l'un des ogres.
Roy: Mr. V lance Identification.

#2
Haley: Je parie que c'est une ceinture de Force de Géant.
Roy: Ah ouais ? 10 po que c'en est pas.

#3
Elan: Ça pourrait être une ceinture à poches multiples.
Roy: Ça pourrait être une idée, si la ceinture avait, je ne sais pas, moi, des POCHES ?

#4
Vaarsuvius: Voilà, mes divinations sont achevées.
Vaarsuvius: Cet objet de pouvoir est une ceinture de Féminité/Masculinité.
Roy: Une quoi ?

#5
Vaarsuvius: Elle contient un enchantement complexe qui transforme quiconque la porte en un membre du sexe opposé.
Roy: Tu plaisantes !

#6
Vaarsuvius: Je ne plaisante pas.
Durkon: Beurk !

#7
Roy: Quel truc inutile.

#8
Roy: Allez, on se casse.
Roy: Tu me dois 10 po.
Haley: Compte là-dessus…

0010: Comme Discours captivant, en plus soporifique (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0010.html)#1
Belkar: Où diable étais-tu?
Elan: Euh, nulle part.
Durkon: Chut!
Roy: Combien?
Haley: Douze... no, treize.
Gobelin: Shuk da yub-yub !
Gobelin: Gruuta !

#2
Vaarsuvius: Sieur Greenhilt, je pense avoir un sortilège de pouvoir qui peut nous être utile.
Roy: Ça me va.
Roy: Et ne m'appelle pas «sieur».

#3
Vaarsuvius: Affrontez votre destin, créatures des ténèbres !

#4
Vaarsuvius: Votre défaite est à portée de main, car je possède un pouvoir arcanique au-delà de votre faible raison gobelinesque!

#5
Vaarsuvius: Les forces même du cosmos répondent à mon commandement et vous ne pouvez saisir la sombre fin qui vous guette, vous et vos affreux compagnons. Non! Vos cervelles inférieures ne peuvent que vous laisser pantois d'horreur alors que je manipule la réalité selon mes désirs!

#6
Vaarsuvius: La magie qui est mienne est capable de déchirer les fibres de l'univers -- non, du multivers en entier, et, en fait, est gaspillée sur des créatures pitoyables comme vous. Mais je vais néanmoins déchaîner cette magie sur vous, et vous regretterez le jour où j'ai choisi de ravager vos vies avec le véritable pouvoir de mes dons arcaniques. Alors, pour les jours et les années à venir, lorsque les enfants viendront jouer dans le cratère fumant qui fut autre fois votre antre démoniaque, il ne sauront rien de vos (...) mais ils pourront sentir les échos de vos (...)
Haley: Bon travail, Vaarsuvius !

#7
Haley: Ton sortilège a endormi tous les gobelins !
Vaarsuvius: Mais... mais...

#8
Vaarsuvius: Je n'ai même pas incanté mon sortilège encore.

0011: Différences d’alignement (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0011.html)#1
Elan: *BAILLE*
Roy: Coup de grâce ! Coup de grâce !
Durkon: Oh ! Euh...
Gobelin: Maudits bienfaiteurs !

#2
Roy: Il semble que certains ont réussi leur jet de Volonté...
Vaarsuvius: Mais je n'ai rien lancé !
Gobelin: Et maintenant, à votre tour !

#3
Gobelin: Ténèbres maudites !

#4
Haley: Peux pas... penser...
Elan: Peux pas... bouger...
Vaarsuvius: Mal absolu… me submerge…
Roy: Déteste les monstres...
Roy: ...avec des niveaux de classe.
Gobelin: Ah! Imbéciles au cœur pur, vous n’êtes pas de taille contre la puissance du Mal !
Belkar: Eh, il se passe quoi ?

#5
Gobelin: Ténèbres maudites !

#6
<son>Tak

#7
Elan: Hé, pourquoi Belkar n’a pas été affecté ?
Roy: Vaut mieux pas y penser.
Belkar: Prems’ pour l'amulette.

0012: Comme Discours captivant, en plus soporifique (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0012.html)#1
Roy: Enfin, les escaliers!
Haley: Ouuuh, ce prêtre gobelin valait 1000 PX !

#2
Roy: Il est temps de descendre d'un niveau !
Haley: Il est temps de monter d'un niveau !

#3
Roy: Descendre d'un niveau? Mais on a déjà fait ça.
Haley: Bien sûr, et on le fait encore.
Roy: Pourquoi, y'a quoi si on monte d'un niveau ?
Haley: Plus d'attaques sournoises !

#4
Roy: Quoi ?? On va recevoir des attaques sournoises si on monte d'un niveau ??
Haley: Non, idiot, seulement moi.
Roy: Tu veux monter d'un niveau pour recevoir des attaques sournoises ?
Haley: Naturellement.

#5
Roy: Pas question. C'est trop dangereux. On descend d'un niveau à la place.
Haley: Descendre d'un niveau? On aurait pas, genre, besoin d'un vampire ou quelque chose pour ça ?
Roy: Hein ?

#6
Haley: De toute façon, qu'est-ce qu'on a si on DESCEND d'un niveau ?
Roy: Des monstres plus forts !
Haley: Tu veux descendre d'un niveau ET combattre des monstres plus forts ?
Roy: Bien sûr.

#7
Haley: Ça ne ferait pas plus de sens de MONTER d'un niveau avant d'affronter des monstres plus forts ?
Roy: Non, nous avons déjà fini ce niveau. Il faut descendre.

#8
Haley: Monter!
Roy: Descendre!
Haley: Monter!
Roy: Descendre!
Vaarsuvius: Aha! Ça c'est ce que j'appelle un niveau de magie!
Roy: N-I-V-E-A-U
Vaarsuvius: Hein?

#9
Roy: J'épèle un niveau.
Vaarsuvius: Mais tu es un guerrier, tu n'as pas ce qu'on peut appeller un niveau de magie.

#10
Roy: Je ne peux pas épeler? Est-ce une autre de ces boutades du genre «Les guerriers sont stupides»? Ça suffit, on descend d'un niveau.
Haley: On monte d'un niveau!
Vaarsuvius: Mais si on descend de niveau, je ne pourrai plus appeler mon niveau.
Roy: N-I-V-E-A-U
Vaarsuvius: HEIN?
Belkar: Vous voyez à combien de conneries on fait face parce que personne chez TSR n'a regardé le mot «niveau» dans le dictionnaire?

Hi, again just posting a combination of the translations already done by others, up to the dreaded strip of #12. Are there objections or corrections on stuff that could have been handled better?

[Onyavar]

0013: Intrigue en vue ! (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0013.html)#1
Roy: Les escaliers vers le bas. On s'approche encore de notre but.
Haley: Pourquoi n'as-tu pas simplement DIT que tu voulais descendre ?
Belkar: On a un but ?

#2
Roy: Bien sûr. Pourquoi tu crois qu’on est ici ?
Belkar: Ben je disais qu'on se balladait dans le coin, zigouiller des êtres doués de raison parce qu’ils ont la peau verte et des crocs et nous pas, puis prendre leurs trucs.

#3
Belkar: Quoi ?!

#4
Elan: Bien sûr qu'on a un but, Belkar. Laisse-moi te conter...
Roy: Et zut, c'est parti...

#5
Elan: Nous faisons une quête dans le sombre et profond donjon de Dorukan, une horrile abysse remplie de monstres maléfiques.
Haley: Et de trésors !

#6
Elan: Ils ont été créés par la liche démente Xykon, un mage mort-vivant fou et assoiffé de pouvoir.
Elan: Ouh, méchante liche !
Haley: Et ses trésors !

#7
Elan: Mais nous allons détruire ce Xykon et rendre au pays sa tranquilité.
<son>Snik snak !
Haley: Et ses trésors ! Heu non, ça n'a pas de sens, ça…

#8
Belkar: Cette idée de « tréso » m'intrique, j'aimerais en apprendre plus.
Durkon: Cømment tu ås fåit ce truc åvec les imåges, møn gårs ?
Elan: C'est mon nouveau sort de barde: Evoque exposition d'intrigue !


0014: Pourquoi Roy est toujours fatigué. (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0014.html)#2
Vaarsuvius: Sieur Greenhilt, j'ai le regret de vous informer qu’à une exception près, j’ai lancé tous mes sorts destructeurs.
Durkon: Øuåis, je suis presque å sec åussi, møn gårs.
Roy: Hum, OK, on va camper ici.

#3
Roy: V et Durkon vont dormir toute la nuit. Je prends la première garde. Haley, prends la deuxième.
Haley: D'ac!

#4
Haley: Hihi! C'est à moi, tout à moi! hahahaha!

#5
Roy: Un instant... réflexion faite, Belkar, tu devrais prendre le deuxième tour de garde.
Belkar: Merde!

#6
Belkar: Mouhaha! J'ai des problèmes émotionnels profonds! Meurs! Meurs! Meurs!

#7
Roy: Non! Heu… attendez, euh, pourquoi vous ne dormiriez pas, et on va laisser Elan…

#8
Gobelin: Salut, on vient pour tuer tout le monde ?
Elan: OK!
<inscription>Âne
<son>Boink ! Boink !

#9
Roy: *Pfff* C'est parti pour une autre nuit blanche...


0015: Soirée en famille. (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0015.html)#1
Roy: *WAHO* Imbéciles de compagnons même pas fiables…
Eugène: Roy... Roy...

#2
Roy: Quelqu'un m'appelle ?

#3
Eugène: Non Roy, je crie juste « Roy ! Roy ! » pour le plaisir.
Roy: Aaaah !

#4
Roy: Papa ?! Mais... Maman et toi, vous êtes morts…
Eugène: Ouais... C'est marrant, mais pour être fantôme, les conditions requises sont assez dures.

#5
Eugène: Maintenant, arrête de me regarder avec ces yeux ronds et écoute ça :
Eugène: « Le bouc fera volte-face, mouche celle qui vole »

#6
Roy: Quoi ? Je ne... je ne comprends pas.
Eugène: Bien sûr que tu ne comprends pas, c’est un présage.
Roy: Un présage ?

#7
Eugène: Grands Dieux, garçon, c'est une technique littéraire utilisée couramment pour créer de la tension en faisant référence à des événements encore à venir. Ils ne t’ont rien appris dans la fac de guerriers fantaisiste où je t’ai envoyé ?

#8
Eugène: Bien sur, ta mère voulait que tu sois un magicien, mais naan. J’ai du payer 40 000 po par an pour que tu puisses apprendre à faire des moulinets avec une épée géante.
Roy: Ça s'appelle une épée à deux mains, Papa.

#9
Eugène: Fiou. Bon, j'ai une partie de belotte avec des archontes ce soir, il faut que j'y aille.
Roy: Attends, Papa !

#10
Eugène: Souviens-toi, Roy : « Le bouc fera volte-face, mouche celle qui vole »

#12
Eugène: Et puis quoi, il n’y a pas de prêtres là où tu vis ? Ça te tuerait de Communiquer avec les morts de temps en temps pour nous dire comment ça va à ta mère ou moi ?


0016: Pesez vos mots. (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0016.html)#1
Roy: Tu te lèves tôt.
Vaarsuvius: Techniquement parlant, je ne dors point.
Roy: Bienvenu au club.

#2
Roy: Eh, V, tu t'y connais en esprits ?
Vaarsuvius: Mes connaissances sur les habitants de l'Au-Delà sont sans égal.
Roy: Je crois que viens d'être visité par un fantôme.

#3
Durkon: Un fåntøme ?
Durkon: RENVØI DES MØRTS-VIVÅNTS !
Roy: Aaah !
Vaarsuvius: Mes yeux !

#4
Roy: Durkon, on discute, c’est tout. Il n'y a aucun morts-vivant ici, rendors-toi.
Durkon: Øh, pårdøn.

#5
Vaarsuvius: Vous avez donc reçu une visite de l'Au-Delà ? Porteuse d'un message important, non ?
Roy: Oui, je suppose. Ça et une gronderie, aussi.

#6
Vaarsuvius: Mon expérience me dit qu’on devrait toujours tenir compte de ces messages d’outre-tombe. La façon dont les humains ont tendance à ignorer de tels augures me fait craindre le pire.

#7
Durkon: Un våmpire ?
Durkon: RENVØI DES MØRTS-VIVÅNTS !
Roy: Hééee ! Bordel, Durkon !
Vaarsuvius: Mes yeux !!!

#8
Durkon: Øh, pårdøn, pårdøn. C’est juste que je ne suppørte pås les mørts-vivånts. Çå ne se reprøduirå pås.
Durkon: Bøøøn… Je me recøuche, ålørs.

#9
Roy: BREF... Je pense que l'esprit était celui de mon père.
Vaarsuvius: Vraiment ? Dans ce cas, j’accorderais d’autant plus d’importance à ses paroles, car de tels signes sont rares.

#10
Roy: Je suppose que ça veut dire que lui et Maman sont là, à veiller sur moi, ce qui est plutôt cool.

#11
Durkon: Plus de gøules ?
Durkon: RENVØI DES MØRTS-VIVÅNTS !
Roy: Bon, là, ça suffit, tu exagères vraiment.
Vaarsuvius: Dieux de miséricorde, mes pauvres yeux inutiles !

[Jormengand]

Given that Fighter College, as the name of the place, is capitalised in English, I feel it should probably also be in the translation. Similarly, Morts should probably be capitalised as part of Communiquer avec les Morts.

I think. I could be wrong.

[Lissou]

Given that Fighter College, as the name of the place, is capitalised in English, I feel it should probably also be in the translation. Similarly, Morts should probably be capitalised as part of Communiquer avec les Morts.

I think. I could be wrong.

Just popping in to say that capitalization works differently in French, and generally speaking, less stuff is capitalized (notably, languages aren't capitalized, and only the first noun of a title is capitalized except for names. So technically it should be "L'Ordre du bâton" for instance, no capital B).

In the cases that interest us, I can't check the rulebook right this second (long story short, my husband is in the hospital and I've been pretty busy/stressed because of it) but if this part of the translation comes from a translation of mine, I'm confident I checked at the time and reproduced the name of the spell as it was. "Fighter College" could go either way. If it's the name of the school and there is only one of that name, it would be capitalized, if it's just saying it's a college for fighters (possibly one of several/many), it wouldn't be.

[Onyavar]

if this part of the translation comes from a translation of mine, I'm confident I checked at the time and reproduced the name of the spell as it was.

Credit where credit is due, I'm not translating anything here from scratch and never claimed that. All I'm doing is combining several old translations, picking the aspects of each that I prefer the most. (I may be wrong a lot. :smallwink: It is both to practice my meager skills in French, and hoping to get others to join the efforts (just like in the German thread). So thanks for the critique, Jormengard.

Lissou (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?85968-L-Ordre-du-b%E2ton-french-translation) did outstanding translations and even went all the way with color formatting and translating the titles. V's and Durkons speech I'm copying without even looking at them, she had very good ideas. The only reason why I'm checking everything against stiggur and bilbo_pengouin (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?5272-OOST-in-french/page2)is that their puns were more fitting in at least a few cases, and Lissou did her best to keep the translations short enough for fitting in bubbles - what sadly won't ever be done, really. And finally, I prefer to read things in Wombat's (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?338747-The-Transcription-of-the-Stick) transcript style. So forgive me when I'm actually posting the fourth translation of OotS in this forums.

Lissou, I don't know your husband, but my best wishes and regards to him and to you!

[Corneel]

0013: Intrigue en vue ! (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0013.html)#1
Roy: Les escaliers vers le bas. On approche encore de notre but.
Haley: Pourquoi n'as-tu pas simplement DIT que tu voulais descendre ?
Belkar: On a un but ?

#2
Roy: Bien sûr. Pourquoi tu crois qu’on est ici ?
Belkar: Ben je disais qu'on se balladait dans le coin, zigouiller des êtres doués de raison parce qu’ils ont la peau verte et des crocs et nous pas, puis prendre leurs trucs.

#3
Belkar: Quoi ?!

#4
Elan: Bien sûr qu'on a un but, Belkar. Laisse-moi te conter...
Roy: Oh, non, nous y voilà…

#5
Elan: Nous faisons une quête dans le sombre et profond donjon de Dorukan, une horrile abysse remplie de monstres maléfiques.
Haley: Et de trésors !

#6
Elan: Ils ont été créés par la liche démente Xykon, un mage mort-vivant fou et assoiffé de pouvoir.
Elan: Ouh, méchante liche !
Haley: Et ses trésors !

#7
Elan: Mais nous allons détruire ce Xykon et rendre au pays sa tranquilité.
<son>Snik snak !
Haley: Et ses trésors ! Heu non, ça veux rien dire, ça…

#8
Belkar: Cette idée de « tréso » m'intrique, j'aimerais en apprendre plus.
Durkon: Cømment tu ås fåit ce truc åvec les imåges, møn gårs ?
Elan: C'est mon nouveau sort d'Invocation : Exposition d’intrigue !


0014: Pourquoi Roy est toujours fatigué. (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0014.html)#2
Vaarsuvius: Sieur Greenhilt, j'ai le regret de vous informer qu’à une exception près, j’ai lancé tous mes sorts destructeurs.
Durkon: Øuåis, je suis presque å sec åussi, møn gårs.
Roy: Hum, OK, on va camper ici.

#3
Roy: V et Durkon vont dormir toute la nuit. Je prends la première garde. Haley, prends la deuxième.
Haley: D'ac!

#4
Haley: Hihi! C'est à moi, tout à moi! hahahaha!

#5
Roy: Un instant... réflexion faite, Belkar, tu devrais prendre le deuxième tour de garde.
Belkar: Merde!

#6
Belkar: Mouhaha! J'ai des problèmes émotionnels profonds! Meurs! Meurs! Meurs!

#7
Roy: Non! Heu… attendez, euh, pourquoi vous ne dormiriez pas, et on va laisser Elan…

#8
Gobelin: Salut, on vient pour tuer tout le monde ?
Elan: OK!
<inscription>Âne
<son>Boink ! Boink !

#9
Roy: *Pfff* C'est parti pour une autre nuit blanche...


0015: Soirée en famille. (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0015.html)#1
Roy: *WAHO* Imbéciles de compagnons même pas fiables…
Eugène: Roy... Roy...

#2
Roy: Quelqu'un m'appelle ?

#3
Eugène: Non Roy, je crie juste « Roy ! Roy ! » pour le plaisir.
Roy: Aaaah !

#4
Roy: Papa ?! Mais... Maman et toi, vous êtes morts…
Eugène: Ouais... C’est le truc, pour être un fantôme, les conditions sont assez strictes.

#5
Eugène: Maintenant, arrête de me regarder avec ces yeux ronds et écoute ça :
Eugène: « Le bouc fera volte-face, mouche celle qui vole »

#6
Roy: Quoi ? Je ne... je ne comprends pas.
Eugène: Bien sûr que tu ne comprends pas, c’est un présage.
Roy: Un présage ?

#7
Eugène: Grands Dieux, garçon, c'est une technique littéraire utilisée couramment pour créer de la tension en faisant référence à des événements encore à venir. Ils ne t’ont rien appris dans la fac de guerriers fantaisiste où je t’ai envoyé ?

#8
Eugène: Bien sur, ta mère voulait que tu sois un magicien, mais naan. J’ai du payer 40 000 po par an pour que tu puisses apprendre à faire des moulinets avec une épée géante.
Roy: Ça s'appelle une épée à deux mains, Papa.

#9
Eugène: Fiou. Bon, j'ai une partie de belotte avec des archontes ce soir, il faut que j'y aille.
Roy: Attends, Papa !

#10
Eugène: Souviens-toi, Roy : « Le bouc fera volte-face, mouche celle qui vole »

#12
Eugène: Et puis quoi, il n’y a pas de prêtres là où tu vis ? Ça te tuerait de Communiquer avec les morts de temps en temps pour nous dire comment ça va à ta mère ou moi ?


0016: Pesez vos mots. (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0016.html)#1
Roy: Tu te lèves tôt.
Vaarsuvius: Techniquement parlant, je ne dors point.
Roy: Bienvenu au club.

#2
Roy: Eh, V, tu t'y connais en esprits ?
Vaarsuvius: Mes connaissances sur les habitants de l'Au-Delà sont sans égal.
Roy: Je crois que je viens de recevoir la visite d'un fantôme.

#3
Durkon: Un fåntøme ?
Durkon: RENVØI DES MØRTS-VIVÅNTS !
Roy: Aaah !
Vaarsuvius: Mes yeux !

#4
Roy: Durkon, on discute, c’est tout. Il n'y a aucun morts-vivant ici, rendors-toi.
Durkon: Øh, pårdøn.

#5
Vaarsuvius: Vous avez donc reçu une visite de l'Au-Delà ? Porteuse d'un message important, non ?
Roy: Oui, je suppose. Ça et une enguelade, aussi.

#6
Vaarsuvius: Mon expérience me dit qu’on devrait toujours tenir compte de ces messages d’outre-tombe. La façon dont les humains ont tendance à ignorer de tels augures me fait craindre le pire.

#7
Durkon: Un våmpire ?
Durkon: RENVØI DES MØRTS-VIVÅNTS !
Roy: Hééee ! Bordel, Durkon !
Vaarsuvius: Mes yeux !!!

#8
Durkon: Øh, pårdøn, pårdøn. C’est juste que je ne suppørte pås les mørts-vivånts. Çå ne se reprøduirå pås.
Durkon: Bøøøn… Je me recøuche, ålørs.

#9
Roy: BREF... Je pense que l'esprit était celui de mon père.
Vaarsuvius: Vraiment ? Dans ce cas, j’accorderais d’autant plus d’importance à ses paroles, car de tels signes sont rares.

#10
Roy: Je suppose que ça veut dire que lui et Maman sont là, à me veiller, ce qui est plutôt cool.

#11
Durkon: Plus de gøules ?
Durkon: RENVØI DES MØRTS-VIVÅNTS !
Roy: Bon, là, ça suffit, tu exagères vraiment.
Vaarsuvius: Dieux de miséricorde, mes pauvres yeux inutiles !

Quelques remarques:
0013
#1 Roy: On s'approche instead of On approche
#4 Roy: I'd suggest Et zut, c'est parti... instead of Oh, non, nous y voilà…
#7 Haley: I'd suggest ça n'a pas de sens, ça... instead of ça veux rien dire, ça…
#8 Elan: I'd suggest C'est mon nouveau sort de barde: "Evoque exposition d'intrigue"

0015
#4 Eugène: I'd suggest C'est marrant, mais pour être fantôme, les conditions requises sont assez dures. instead of C'est le truc, pour [...] strictes.
#8 Roy: instead of épée à deux mains may I suggest espadon (https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Espadon_(arme)) (unless official D&D uses the term you mentioned).

0016
#2 Roy: Je crois que viens d'être visité par un fantôme instead of Je crois que je viens de recevoir la visite d'un fantôme.
#5 Roy: Ça et une gronderie, aussi in stead of Ça et une engueulade, aussi
#10 Roy: à veiller sur moi instead of à me veiller

[Goblin_Priest]

I thinks it's weird how by now several people (some even admitted not speaking French!) call something a bad or impossible translation. While I certainly don't understand each and every nuance in French, I do appreciate how difficult obstacles can be elegantly circumnavigated while still preserving some of the original's humour.

For example, I learned via OotS that "Ranch dressing" isn't about farm girl clothes :smallwink: That type of salad sauce is practically unknown in Europe. Translators sure won't skip the last panel of #802 because of it.

Anyway, it's great that a few people are still interested in helping or at least reading.

It brings me to try and combine the various translations of #1 and #2. Note that I just cobbled together the versions of Mayrax, Lissou (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?85968-L-Ordre-du-b%E2ton-french-translation) and bilbo_pingouin (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=529048&postcount=13), and that there may still be errors.


I (and clearly others) might be a purist/snob, but I absolutely despise translations/adaptations as a mockery of the original. A good piece of literature will have depth that is fundamentally tied to the language in which it was crafted. It's like removing someone's skeleton, and putting his flesh on someone else's skeleton. It won't be the same. And it'll probably be quite gruesome. In many cases, to the translator will have no choice but to provide his own material because the word play, for example, is simply impossible in the target language. That's like driving a hammer through the Mona Lisa and then patching the gap with crayons. Sure, you can provide "similar" humor, but it won't be the original humor, and you end up what is basically a rip-off of the original, and never "the original but in a different language", which is simply an illusion.


Just popping in to say that capitalization works differently in French, and generally speaking, less stuff is capitalized (notably, languages aren't capitalized, and only the first noun of a title is capitalized except for names. So technically it should be "L'Ordre du bâton" for instance, no capital B).

In the cases that interest us, I can't check the rulebook right this second (long story short, my husband is in the hospital and I've been pretty busy/stressed because of it) but if this part of the translation comes from a translation of mine, I'm confident I checked at the time and reproduced the name of the spell as it was. "Fighter College" could go either way. If it's the name of the school and there is only one of that name, it would be capitalized, if it's just saying it's a college for fighters (possibly one of several/many), it wouldn't be.

Which brings up another issue, regional dialects. Both the source material's, and the target's. The original author gets a pass on this, since it's his creation, but it'd be foolish to think that any target language, in this case French, is monolythic. The choice of words, the way the words are used, and how those words are spoken can greatly differ from region to region. There will be differences between, say, France, Belgium, Switzerland, and Québec. Or even between Paris and other parts of France. Sometimes, even the basics differ. Seventy, for example, would be "soixante-dix" (literally "sixty-ten" in most French countries, and "septente" in Switzerland. If stuff as basic as the numbers can vary from region to region, imagine the rest... And what seems "approriate" in one locale might seem awfully absurd in another. Especially since many translators fail to recognize their own regionalisms, in particular the snobbish kind who consider one of them (their own) to be "pure" or "standard".

Now, I'm not sure what they call stick figures in France, but in Québec, they are called "bonhommes allumettes", which literally translates to something along the lines of "match people". People would certainly look at you very strangely if you talked about "bonnommes bâtons". So right off the bat, you face a dilemma with the very title of the strip: what is the name supposed to represent? "Bâton" can be used for many of the cases where "stick" would be appropriate, except for "stick figure", so if the Order of the Stick refers to the fact that they are stick figures, which I believe it does, then translating it to "L'Ordre du Bâton" is already taking the project off-track.

Now, maybe that's how they actually say it in France, I don't know, but this highlights the regionalism issue if they do. Because while the original art will have regionalistic flavors, it can generally be fairly easy to grasp what those are, and then go along with it. But with a translation? You never know if those influences are derived from the original or inserted by the translator, which gives a patchwork result where it's impossible to get any solid frame of reference.

As for capitalization... it's somewhat more complex than that. In English, pretty much everything that isn't an article is capitalized. In French... I won't risk proposing actual rules, I'm hardly a grammar genius. But for example, one of the government agencies in Québec is the "Ministère de l'Éducation et de l'Enseignement supérieur". The first M is capitalized, I believe, solely because it was the beginning of the sentence (term taken loosely), and wouldn't have otherwise been. That's the government, so I assume they know the arcane rules of French grammar. A counter-example would the language office called "l'Office québécois de la langue française", which is a much more typical case where the only capitalized letter of the organisation's name is on the first noun. I'm pretty sure that for the Order of the Stick, the capitalization would indeed be a typical case of only applying to whatever word is used to translate "Order", and not on whatever word is used for "stick".

Edit: and just because a translation comes from the French SRD and is therefore "official", doesn't make it any less of a disgusting abomination. Case in point: Lich being translated to "liche". "Liche", for an undead, is a D&D creation, there was no such thing. However, "liche" is a real word, it means "lick". Not to mention the word was made feminine, it makes the confusion even easier. "Oh no, that evil lick!" is how the translation sounds like, until you force your mind to accept a made-up meaning for a real word.

A final note would be that adding special Norse characters does not add accent. Unless the reader is familiar with the Norse alphabet, it gives the typical French reader absolutely no clue as to how the character is talking, and just passes off as a cheap gimmick instead. It'd probably be more appropriate to give Durkon an alternate accent from the same language (like it is in English), for example by using Créole.

[hroþila]

Diacritics and special characters as a way to represent accents/foreign languages is a well-established practice in the world of comics. Astérix did it, for example (it also used a different typeface for different languages, which would be a good and elegant solution for Durkon too). In other words, they are perceived as signifying an accent, not as being a gimmick. The dwarves' faux Scots speech has connotations that aren't mirrored by Créole but which are similar to generic Nordic stereotypes.

No, a translation is not the original and it will reflect the literary preferences and qualities of the translator to varying degrees. So what? The alternative is no one reading anything that isn't in a language they have mastered, which is extremely snobbish and elitist, or provincial (if you don't see much of a need to read anything that wasn't written in one or two languages). For the rest of your post, you're not criticizing translation but bad translations, though, so, huh, yeah?

Also, it's totally common to translate into a particular dialect.

[factotum]

"Liche", for an undead, is a D&D creation, there was no such thing.

Couldn't they have used some old French word for corpse that is not used today? That's where the English "lich" comes from--it's an old word that means "corpse", which is why you have a "lychgate" in a church, that being the gate through which dead bodies are carried prior to burial.

[Onyavar]

Quelques remarques: [...]
#15
#8 Roy: instead of épée à deux mains may I suggest espadon (https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Espadon_(arme)) (unless official D&D uses the term you mentioned).
[...]
0016
#2 Roy: Je crois que viens d'être visité par un fantôme instead of Je crois que je viens de recevoir la visite d'un fantôme.


Thank you Corneel, I edited those translations and changed the things you pointed out. Is "Je crois que viens d'être" some idiomatic expression, without the "je"?

Regarding the bigsword/greatsword pun, Lissou suggested "épée géante"/"épée à deux mains" while pengouin suggested "grosse épée"/"grande épée". I went with Lissou since I trust her to have that looked up.


I (and clearly others) might be a purist/snob, but I absolutely despise translations/adaptations as a mockery of the original. A good piece of literature will have depth that is fundamentally tied to the language in which it was crafted. It's like removing someone's skeleton, and putting his flesh on someone else's skeleton. It won't be the same. And it'll probably be quite gruesome. In many cases, to the translator will have no choice but to provide his own material because the word play, for example, is simply impossible in the target language. That's like driving a hammer through the Mona Lisa and then patching the gap with crayons. Sure, you can provide "similar" humor, but it won't be the original humor, and you end up what is basically a rip-off of the original, and never "the original but in a different language", which is simply an illusion.

You're of course entitled to that belief, and since the translations are less comfortable to read without the original images, it is something worse than a rip-off.
Yet I think the translation is also more than a rip-off. Translators and translations exist for a good reason. Most cultural products have been translated at one point or the other, and I don't think you regard the Bible as a "rip-off" of it's Hebrew and Greek original - to make a real crass comparison. Can you only read Tolstoi in Russian, or enjoy Manga only in Japanese, can you only play D&D in English? Extreme purists may say "yes", but they need to learn all these languages.
What I want to say is that derivative works may miss something valuable of the original, but there may also be added something valuable. The intention I have here is "have fun reading my favorite webcomic in different languages".


[On regional dialects, dwarvish pseudo-norse and translation of "Order of the Stick"] I agree wholeheartedly to the notion that it this is the crux of the matter. The titular pun on stick figures is not translatable to any language I speak. "Ordre des Bonhommes" is ridiculous. In the German translation we could never come up with a fitting name, so the title is practically the only thing never translated.

The dialect problem has been noticed before. A lot.
In the Portuguese thread, the dialect topic was hotly disputed between Brasilians and European Portuguese, iirc. That would be the same for French dialects, as has been noted in this thread before. The earliest French and German translations were just abbreviating Durkon in some words, more or less random. There is also the "no dialect" approach (which completely misses the point in many later comics!). For the German stuff, we have even given Durkon two regional dialects aside from the Hochdeutsch: Bavarian and "Pott", the latter being a very brash manner of speaking in the Ruhr area. I've come to like those two regional variants, and I could like even more, if someone would only write them. "Pott Durkon" is especially hilarious and I wish the guy who has written him would contribute more.
That means, I also like Lissou's "easy cop-out" with giving him exotic norse characters. I wouldn't know how to speak it properly either, but I can vividly imagine Durkon speaking in oddly nasal, long vowels on the Ø and Å. It's much harder to write Créole (or Picardois/Chti for example), but if you'd like to contribute: text-only translation allows more than one style.


Going forward:

0017: Au fil de l’épée (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0017.html)#1
Roy: Je vais monter la garde pendant que Vaarsuvius et Jojo-la-Gâchette préparent leurs sortilèges.
Durkon: Héhé. Désølé.
Roy: Alors vous trois, les sournois, allez en reconnaissance et tout et tout.

#2
Belkar: Pourquoi 'faut amener Elan? Il est complètement inutile.
Haley: Il n'est pas inutile il est... à utilité réduite.
Elan: Merci Haley!
Haley: Tu t’enfonces, tu sais.

#3
Belkar: Bah! Elan, as-tu même une arme?
Elan: Bien sûr! J'ai une rapière.

#4
Belkar: T’appelles ça une arme ? Avec un truc aussi fragile, parler trop fort compte comme une tentative de Destruction d’armes !
Elan: Mais peux-tu faire ça, toi ?

#5
*gratte gratte gratte*

#6
Elan: Tadam!
<inscription>L'Ordre du Bâton est passé par là !
Belkar: Wahou, OK, c'était impressionnant.
Haley: Cool!
Trigak: Et ça rend la tâche de vous trouver plus facile!

#8
Belkar: On a raté tous nos jets de Discrétion et de Détection, c’est ça ?
Trigak: Oh oui.
Trigak: Quelque chose de bien.

#9
Belkar: BORDEL !
*brise!*

[Lissou]

Lots of interesting stuff.

I definitely agree about regional dialects. I'm from France and that's what I went with (in France both "bonhomme allumette" and "bonhomme bâton" are used, with the former being more common but the latter understandable, and required to be used to match the origin of the name in OoPC) but it would be perfectly reasonable to have different translations for different dialects, as is already the case with movie dubs for instance. I think the important thing would be not to mix and match them, which would just end up being confusing and make it more obvious that it's a translation. And a good translation looks like it's not a translation at all. You don't want it to be jarring enough to take the reader out of the experience.

I was surprised by your comment on liches. I'm not familiar with "liche" as a word to mean "lick". I assume it's a dialect variation of "lèche"? They're pronounced differently in France so that isn't a confusion I was aware of (although it makes for a possible translation of the lich/leech joke in one of the strips). This being said, with it being the official word, it would have to be translated that way regardless of the dialect.

[Goblin_Priest]

I definitely agree about regional dialects. I'm from France and that's what I went with (in France both "bonhomme allumette" and "bonhomme bâton" are used, with the former being more common but the latter understandable, and required to be used to match the origin of the name in OoPC) but it would be perfectly reasonable to have different translations for different dialects, as is already the case with movie dubs for instance. I think the important thing would be not to mix and match them, which would just end up being confusing and make it more obvious that it's a translation. And a good translation looks like it's not a translation at all. You don't want it to be jarring enough to take the reader out of the experience.

I was surprised by your comment on liches. I'm not familiar with "liche" as a word to mean "lick". I assume it's a dialect variation of "lèche"? They're pronounced differently in France so that isn't a confusion I was aware of (although it makes for a possible translation of the lich/leech joke in one of the strips). This being said, with it being the official word, it would have to be translated that way regardless of the dialect.

That's actually a fair catch for "liche". "Lèche" is indeed the proper spelling, and how I believe it is pronounced in France, but in Québec, it's pronounced (very strongly) as an "i" (phonetically, as "liche"). I hardly ever see it in text, so that's just my mind making the association between how I would read out "liche" (a word I suspect probably isn't in the dictionaries), and what other word I would pronounce exactly the same way, making it a homophone confusion issue.

For the special characters, it might be common practice among translations, but then again, I think I made my opinion about translations as a whole rather clear. If my critics apply only to "bad" translations and adaptations, I must be incredibly unlucky, because I can't think of a single English to French translation that did not make me cringe. Even on the rare occasions it's actually translated to my own dialect!

The choice of words, and the dialects they represent, are themselves reflections of the fantasy world created by the author. When I start seeing regionalisms like "zigouiller" (which is from Poitou, the internet tells me, and I don't really know where that even is though I suspect France), then suddenly the decor changes. Perhaps I find it particularly striking because the regionalisms appear to be much more different in French than English. A translator can very well tell the same story in a different tongue, but I persist in considering it is *not* merely the same work of art but accessible to a different public. Translation fundamentally changes the piece.


You're of course entitled to that belief, and since the translations are less comfortable to read without the original images, it is something worse than a rip-off.
Yet I think the translation is also more than a rip-off. Translators and translations exist for a good reason. Most cultural products have been translated at one point or the other, and I don't think you regard the Bible as a "rip-off" of it's Hebrew and Greek original - to make a real crass comparison. Can you only read Tolstoi in Russian, or enjoy Manga only in Japanese, can you only play D&D in English? Extreme purists may say "yes", but they need to learn all these languages.
What I want to say is that derivative works may miss something valuable of the original, but there may also be added something valuable. The intention I have here is "have fun reading my favorite webcomic in different languages".

Well, if serves to confirm my label as purist, I would indeed answer yes to most of that. I believe it already is established that only the Greek and Hebrew originals are truly "canon", as far as the bible goes. I don't really care for the bible, though, so I wouldn't bother learning those languages for it. I guess I would if I was some kind of religious zealot, however. Though I do know some Russian, not hardly enough to read Tolstoi, and Manga never really appealed to me anyways. My friends and I are all native French speakers, and we all play D&D exclusively in English. In general, though, I would not attempt to learn a language for a target work of literature, but rather look for literature that was conceived in a language I already am fluent enough in to properly appreciate the details. To me, reading a translation of War and Peace would be like contemplating on paper printouts of Picasso's art. If I want to appreciate fine art, I'll just go to the local museums to appreciate the real things.

[Seto]

Well, if serves to confirm my label as purist, I would indeed answer yes to most of that. I believe it already is established that only the Greek and Hebrew originals are truly "canon", as far as the bible goes. I don't really care for the bible, though, so I wouldn't bother learning those languages for it. I guess I would if I was some kind of religious zealot, however. Though I do know some Russian, not hardly enough to read Tolstoi, and Manga never really appealed to me anyways. My friends and I are all native French speakers, and we all play D&D exclusively in English. In general, though, I would not attempt to learn a language for a target work of literature, but rather look for literature that was conceived in a language I already am fluent enough in to properly appreciate the details. To me, reading a translation of War and Peace would be like contemplating on paper printouts of Picasso's art. If I want to appreciate fine art, I'll just go to the local museums to appreciate the real things.

I agree with you that, in the strictest sense, when you read Tolstoi in English, you're not reading Tolstoi. You're reading something written by the translator. But to say call it a disfiguration and say it's not worth reading, is grossly misjudging what translation is and what good translators can do. Of course literature is inseparable from the language it's written in, from its sounds, its rhythm. Good translators are entirely aware of that. Most good translators I know are also writers in their own right, with acute awareness of what makes a style. Which is why a good translation is as much a recreation as it is a transposition (without rewriting it in your own style of course, which requires self-awareness about your own writing that most writers don't have). Sometimes you have to choose between conveying rhythm or exact meaning, and you lose one of the two. Sometimes what the author says fits your language even better than theirs.
Long story short, I can see where you're coming from, and regrettably bad translations are plentiful, but translations can also be amazing works of art and I think you're not giving to good translators the credit they deserve.

[Lissou]

When I start seeing regionalisms like "zigouiller" (which is from Poitou, the internet tells me, and I don't really know where that even is though I suspect France), then suddenly the decor changes.

Poitou is indeed in France, but I would say that "zigouiller" would be understood anywhere in France. I'm from Paris and wasn't aware that it originated in Poitou specifically.


A translator can very well tell the same story in a different tongue, but I persist in considering it is *not* merely the same work of art but accessible to a different public. Translation fundamentally changes the piece.


Definitely. It's always going to be a different work. But the audience will be different as well, and that means that to some extent, the work should be different too in order to convey similar emotions. In Italian they say "traduttore, traditore" which means "translator, traitor" because translating something requires you to betray some of it. Even if for some reason the language was similar enough that the expressions were the same and the words were in the same order and so on, the sounds and their connotation would at the very least be different.

A translation will not be the same as the original, and in almost all cases will be inferior (there are very rare cases of translations that are considered better than the original, but they're so rare I can't even remember an example right now :P) but not everyone can learn every language, and some stories are good enough to warrant being told, even though it won't be as faithful to the original as one may want.

[Porthos]

(there are very rare cases of translations that are considered better than the original, but they're so rare I can't even remember an example right now :P)

Cowboy Bebop's dub into English is considered by many to be a masterpiece (both by material and by acting). Whether or not it is superior to the source is a matter of opinion. But at least I've heard that in the conversation. :smallsmile: