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Japo

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German translation
« on: February 03, 2016, 09:48:04 pm »
+4

It's not possible to register at the German Dominion forum anymore. So I bringing up the German translation of kingdomcards in this forum again.

When I read Donald's post about how he told the artists to draw more women I was impressed (because it's unusual). The more I was disappointed when I saw the eagerly awaited German rule book. They had ignored all the women in the pictures and just used male forms for all cards except Swamp Hag (I was not surprised though because that's how they did it with previous expansions. But with the many women including the female travellers it's even more obvious).

Now it's like this: All German Dominion cards have male job titles except from: Witch, Sea Hag, Young Witch, Fortune Teller, Duchess, Princess, Swamp Hag and the female knights (right?).
So judging from card names in German we have a Dominion full of men, a nice looking princess (or duchesses) and quite a few women with evil/magical powers (+ 5 female knight cards). Let's assume that Witch, Sea Hag, Young Witch, Duchess, Princess, Swamp Hag and the female knights have female names in English as well. That's why they are female in the German translation. But what about Fortune Teller? As far as I can see it's the only card that has a gender neutral name in English but was translated with „Wahrsagerin“ instead of „Wahrsager“. Why did they do that? What does that tell us about gender stereotypes?

In the English forum market squire was calling using female names "artificial gendering“. I call it „correct translation“. This was my answer: "Baker" in English means "Bäcker" or "Bäckerin" in German. You don't know if the baker is male or female. So if you translate it you have to have a look at the context which in this case is the art. If the art shows a woman* you have to translate "baker" as "Bäckerin".
By the way: isn't language „artificial“ anyway?

In the German forum marktlehrling (market squire) started a poll (Thanks for bringing it up in the German forum). He asked: „Hättet ihr lieber weibliche Kartennamen?“ [Would you prefer female card names]

Option 1: Ja - wo eine Bäckerin gemalt ist, soll auch Bäckerin draufstehen.
Option2: Nein - ich sage doch auch nicht "Brötchen bei der Bäckerin holen"

This is not a neutral way of asking the question. It's not a contradiction to say "Brötchen beim Bäcker holen" if you want to tell someone that you are getting some rolls at a bakery and still translate „baker“ with „Bäckerin“ when it comes to Dominion cards.
So far there is one vote for option 1 and four votes for option 2. I can't vote as I'm not registered. Some of the forum users wrote that they don't really care or find that there are more important things to think about. But obviously they voted against using the female form. To me it looks like the German forum is dominated by male users and so is the group that helps the publisher with the translation (correct me if I'm wrong). I still don't get why not just use the female names if it's not important.

I wanted to write more and answer to more statements but right now I'm too tired.
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Awaclus

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Re: German translation
« Reply #1 on: February 03, 2016, 11:03:01 pm »
+2

You don't know if the baker is male or female. So if you translate it you have to have a look at the context which in this case is the art.

You're not buying 10 copies of the same person, the art is just an example of a Baker that you could possibly be buying. I don't speak German, but as far as I know, translating it as Bäckerin would imply that there are no male Bakers in Dominion while translating it as Bäcker does not necessarily imply that there are no female ones, so it makes sense to pick the latter option.

Dunno why they translated Fortune Teller as Wahrsagerin though.
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Re: German translation
« Reply #2 on: February 03, 2016, 11:19:15 pm »
0

You don't know if the baker is male or female. So if you translate it you have to have a look at the context which in this case is the art.

You're not buying 10 copies of the same person, the art is just an example of a Baker that you could possibly be buying. I don't speak German, but as far as I know, translating it as Bäckerin would imply that there are no male Bakers in Dominion while translating it as Bäcker does not necessarily imply that there are no female ones, so it makes sense to pick the latter option.

Dunno why they translated Fortune Teller as Wahrsagerin though.

All Fortune Tellers are ladygirls, obviously
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Japo

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Re: German translation
« Reply #3 on: February 04, 2016, 06:30:31 am »
0

You're not buying 10 copies of the same person, the art is just an example of a Baker that you could possibly be buying.


Have you ever imagined a female baker when you heard the word "Bäcker" (or the Italien word for a male baker)? I haven't. The male word is not "neutral". The female word is as good (or bad) as an example for all possible bakers as the male word.
And the art in Dominion is pretty small. When I play I never really look at the pictures. It's more that I remember colours and shapes. Baker is a good example. It took me quite some time until I even realized there was a woman in the picture (actually it was when a male friend I was playing with announced he was buying a BäckerIN).
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kn1tt3r

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Re: German translation
« Reply #4 on: February 04, 2016, 07:30:43 am »
0

I actually think it's more about the description of the general profession and not really about the specific person in the picture. That's why I think "Bäcker" is not only fine, it's in fact better than "Bäckerin". Because "Bäckerin" would limit the card to the female gender, the masculine form "Bäcker" does not (like it or not, the generalized form is almost always male).
Maybe it would have been better to call it "Bäckerei" (bakery) in order to address the profession rather than the person, but that's probably too much of an alteration.

One exception of this whole generalized gender business is Fortune Teller > "Wahrsagerin". In this case I think it was on account of the stereotype fortune teller just being female (crone in occult tent with crystal ball and stuff).
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Awaclus

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Re: German translation
« Reply #5 on: February 04, 2016, 07:36:21 am »
0

You're not buying 10 copies of the same person, the art is just an example of a Baker that you could possibly be buying.


Have you ever imagined a female baker when you heard the word "Bäcker" (or the Italien word for a male baker)? I haven't. The male word is not "neutral". The female word is as good (or bad) as an example for all possible bakers as the male word.
And the art in Dominion is pretty small. When I play I never really look at the pictures. It's more that I remember colours and shapes. Baker is a good example. It took me quite some time until I even realized there was a woman in the picture (actually it was when a male friend I was playing with announced he was buying a BäckerIN).

Finnish also has gendered job titles a lot of jobs (many of which actually originate from the -in suffix in German), and the female ones are only ever used when you want to put particular emphasis on the person's gender. For instance, I think I'm more likely to imagine a female teacher when I hear the male word for teacher. I know this is not quite the case with German, and I'm not sure to what extent it applies to German (because I still don't speak it), so I was basing it on market squire saying that the male word is the default.
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kn1tt3r

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Re: German translation
« Reply #6 on: February 04, 2016, 07:56:39 am »
+1

The male word is not "neutral". The female word is as good (or bad) as an example for all possible bakers as the male word.

Maybe the male word is not exactly neutral, but it can be used as such. The female one can not.
It's a thing called "generic masculine". I'm aware that it is widely and controversly discussed, but it actually can be used if a) the gender is not known, b) the gender is not relevant, or c) both genders are addressed.

So, I hear you, and I understand that all this is very "male biased", but that's the way it is. It's evolving I guess (which is good), but currently there is mostly a generic masculine, and very rarely a generic feminine (which also exists, but for other and fewer cases).
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WanderingWinder

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Re: German translation
« Reply #7 on: February 04, 2016, 07:59:16 am »
+3

I think part of your problem is that the primary language of many (most) people on this board has, by-and-large, gender-neutral nouns. Now, the board is not demographically typical, and probably has a lot more people with experiences with those languages (including quite a number of native speakers). (I will also note that you make a comment about the German board being mostly male - this board is WAY heavily male; I am not sure what difference that is going to make here, but it's something that's true).

But English is very low on gendered nouns, and even though I've studied languages with them, it's always a bit difficult to wrap my head around. True, though, something like "Baker" is a little different. We have some examples, though, and in general it seems that using the "male" word, at least for us (again, I don't know German), is closer to neutral than using the "female" word, while not really being totally neutral. The examples which spring to mind are "waiter" and "actor". You will get "waiter" used to describe both men and women sometimes, even though "waitress" is also a word. More to the point though, "actor" is often used to describe women who act, or even just one woman who acts, even though "waitress" is also definitely a word that isn't incredibly strange. On the other hand, I've never heard "waitress" refer to a man, or "actress" refer to a man. Again, I don't know how much this is worth, but there you go.



Perhaps the bigger point, though, isn't so much that people disagree with you. Maybe even they agree, it could be done better (though, what specific suggestion do you have?). The thing about "this doesn't matter much to me" comes in though. It doesn't matter that much to most people, in terms of, sure I agree, but what do you want me to do about it? The big point is, we would have to go pretty far out of our way to try to make any kind of change, and the incentive to do that isn't there.

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Re: German translation
« Reply #8 on: February 04, 2016, 08:05:11 am »
0

You're not buying 10 copies of the same person, the art is just an example of a Baker that you could possibly be buying.


Have you ever imagined a female baker when you heard the word "Bäcker" (or the Italien word for a male baker)? I haven't. The male word is not "neutral". The female word is as good (or bad) as an example for all possible bakers as the male word.
When I hear the word "Bäcker" i think about a male baker because all bakers i know are male. If I hear the word "Friseur" I definitely think about female haircutters.
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Japo

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Re: German translation
« Reply #9 on: February 04, 2016, 09:06:42 am »
+1

Perhaps the bigger point, though, isn't so much that people disagree with you. Maybe even they agree, it could be done better (though, what specific suggestion do you have?). The thing about "this doesn't matter much to me" comes in though. It doesn't matter that much to most people, in terms of, sure I agree, but what do you want me to do about it? The big point is, we would have to go pretty far out of our way to try to make any kind of change, and the incentive to do that isn't there.

I started this discussion in the English forum because I can't register in the German forum. Mainly I want to adress the German forum members who support Altenberger with the translation. I thought they might be more open for a discussion (as they know about Donald's effort tfor the visibility of women) than the publisher. My suggestion is to use female job titles when there's a woman in the picture.
I won't deny that I was hoping for at least a little support but I understand that it's difficult if you don't speakt German and you don't care about the German edition.
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Awaclus

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Re: German translation
« Reply #10 on: February 04, 2016, 09:13:36 am »
+1

My suggestion is to use female job titles when there's a woman in the picture.

How is the picture at all relevant? You are still not buying 10 copies of the same person.
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Donald X.

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Re: German translation
« Reply #11 on: February 04, 2016, 06:17:56 pm »
+5

My suggestion is to use female job titles when there's a woman in the picture.

How is the picture at all relevant? You are still not buying 10 copies of the same person.
I am pretty sure that if we had a card called Policeman and showed a woman, people would think it was a mistake. At the very least they'd think we were awful. And we're just not doing that, in English, even if there's a chorus of voices saying how totally fine it would be.

It's hard to know how these things go in other languages, and they change over time. I am comfortable saying "you guys" to refer to a group of men and women; maybe in a few decades that will sound sexist, like "he" does now.
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pedroluchini

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Re: German translation
« Reply #12 on: February 05, 2016, 06:56:26 am »
+1

I am pretty sure that if we had a card called Policeman and showed a woman, people would think it was a mistake. At the very least they'd think we were awful. And we're just not doing that, in English, even if there's a chorus of voices saying how totally fine it would be.

The card Hero shows a woman. Do English speakers commonly use the word "hero" this way? (Not a rhetorical question; I genuinely want to know. I always assumed that "hero" is male and "heroine" is female.)
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Donald X.

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Re: German translation
« Reply #13 on: February 05, 2016, 07:20:37 am »
+2

The card Hero shows a woman. Do English speakers commonly use the word "hero" this way? (Not a rhetorical question; I genuinely want to know. I always assumed that "hero" is male and "heroine" is female.)
"Hero" does not seem male to me, despite the existence of "heroine." Context may be relevant; it may be something that has changed over time, one way or another. Maybe people don't like "heroine" because of heroin. Maybe "hero" seems okay for women because it starts out "her." Man I don't know these things. But the plan was always for that line of travellers to be women, the prototype shows women on all of them, and no-one ever commented on it.

Okay my minimal research suggests that "hero" was once not gender-neutral but is now, and that "heroine" is now mostly used to mean a female protagonist.
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Re: German translation
« Reply #14 on: February 05, 2016, 10:39:04 am »
0

But contrary to that: I have never heard of a "superheroine" only a "superhero" so in that sense it is still neutral.
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GendoIkari

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Re: German translation
« Reply #15 on: February 05, 2016, 10:51:28 am »
+1

I agree with Japo completely. If you buy a card that has a female baker drawn on it, the card name should be the word for female baker. The fact that the few cards that are specifically female-named in German (Witch, Sea Hag, etc) clearly points to harmful stereotypes and sexism.
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Awaclus

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Re: German translation
« Reply #16 on: February 05, 2016, 11:35:02 am »
0

I agree with Japo completely. If you buy a card that has a female baker drawn on it, the card name should be the word for female baker. The fact that the few cards that are specifically female-named in German (Witch, Sea Hag, etc) clearly points to harmful stereotypes and sexism.

Do you seriously think you are buying 10 copies of the same person?
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Re: German translation
« Reply #17 on: February 05, 2016, 11:39:03 am »
0

What would we do if there were no images?
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Re: German translation
« Reply #18 on: February 05, 2016, 12:11:01 pm »
+3

We'd have Isotropic in text mode.
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Re: German translation
« Reply #19 on: February 05, 2016, 12:11:48 pm »
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Send us all a link to the German Forum, we'll all go vote to make Baker female.

How has no one suggested this yet?
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Re: German translation
« Reply #20 on: February 05, 2016, 12:41:12 pm »
0

Mainly I want to adress the German forum members who support Altenberger with the translation. I thought they might be more open for a discussion (as they know about Donald's effort tfor the visibility of women) than the publisher. My suggestion is to use female job titles when there's a woman in the picture.

We suggested some changes to Altenburger, but there wasn't much we could do about card names; they wanted to stick with their choices.
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Re: German translation
« Reply #21 on: February 05, 2016, 12:50:09 pm »
+2

I agree with Japo completely. If you buy a card that has a female baker drawn on it, the card name should be the word for female baker. The fact that the few cards that are specifically female-named in German (Witch, Sea Hag, etc) clearly points to harmful stereotypes and sexism.

Do you seriously think you are buying 10 copies of the same person?

No, I think I'm buying 10 copies of a card. A card that is represented by a picture of a person.
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Re: German translation
« Reply #22 on: February 05, 2016, 01:02:32 pm »
0

No, I think I'm buying 10 copies of a card. A card that is represented by a picture of a person.

Well, the card is neither male nor female. It's a piece of paper.
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Re: German translation
« Reply #23 on: February 05, 2016, 01:10:04 pm »
+1

No, I think I'm buying 10 copies of a card. A card that is represented by a picture of a person.

Well, the card is neither male nor female. It's a piece of paper.

Right, it's a piece of paper that is represented by a picture of a person. It's also represented by a card name. It's logical that the person the card is represented by would match the name the card is represented by. Like how when the card has a picture of a library, they name the card "Library". Or when it has a picture of a Baker, the card is named "Baker". Straight-forward and logical.
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Re: German translation
« Reply #24 on: February 05, 2016, 01:25:52 pm »
0

Right, it's a piece of paper that is represented by a picture of a person. It's also represented by a card name. It's logical that the person the card is represented by would match the name the card is represented by. Like how when the card has a picture of a library, they name the card "Library". Or when it has a picture of a Baker, the card is named "Baker". Straight-forward and logical.

When the card is represented by a picture of a female person and also represented by a female card name, it gives you the idea that all the things that are cantrips and give you one coin token (which is associated with baking) are female. If the card is represented by a picture of a female person and the default card name, it gives you the idea that some of the things that are cantrips and give you one coin token can be, for example, female.
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