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Author Topic: German translation  (Read 22721 times)

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Asper

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Re: German translation
« Reply #50 on: February 06, 2016, 10:07:11 am »
+2

I think it's worth pointing out that german is a language where every noun has a gender. "Spieler" (player) is male. If you wanted the Guilds rulebook to use the female form, you couldn't just replace "she" with "sie". To be grammatically consistent, you'd be forced to also replace the word "player" with something else. As i pointed out before with Baker, "Spielerin" feels like it intentionally excludes male players, while "Spieler" includes everyone. You can argue why female has to be a special, more restrictive variant of the male version, and i agree it's an issue, but it's an issue that has grown historically and has been mixed with grammar, making it part of the language itself. This still doesn't mean Altenburger couldn't have used Spielerin, but it would have taken a bit more from them than just "stick to the original".

On the other side, take the word "Person"(person, obviously), which is grammatically female in german. "Ich bin eine Person" can be said by people of either gender with no issue at all. Using it to translate the word player, the entire rulebook could have been grammatically consistent using the female pronoun exclusively, and i personally don't think it would have been noticeable even. The only problem is that "person" sounds a bit remote and doesn't mean quite the same as "player". Still, it's a solution i'll keep in mind for myself.

The problem with "Spieler", to some degree, is that it exists in two variants, and one of these is the default. Unlike "Person", "Spieler" actually implies a slight statement about gender. By using the default, you include more people, but some of them feel like they are only half-included. On the other hand, by using the female version, you make a statement, but you also actually include only half of the people. Both aren't ideal.
« Last Edit: February 06, 2016, 10:08:55 am by Asper »
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werothegreat

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Re: German translation
« Reply #51 on: February 06, 2016, 10:24:41 am »
+1

What's wrong with "Spieler(in)"?  And then use "er/sie" throughout the text.
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market squire

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Re: German translation
« Reply #52 on: February 06, 2016, 10:47:38 am »
+3

Sorry that I dont check the forums too often.

i personally never heard of a german rulebook (for a game not exclusively aimed at girls) that did this.

The Swiss game "Anno Domini" has female gender pronouns in its rulebook. But that's the only example I know, and maybe this kind of thing is handled differently in Switzerland.
Also Andrea Meyer's "Bewitched Spiele" have female gendered rules (e.g. "Frigiti"). Although it is just her self-publishing company, she has a pretty good reputation in the German boardgaming world.

What's wrong with "Spieler(in)"?  And then use "er/sie" throughout the text.
Rulebooks are not fun to read for people anyway. This would make it even harder to read.




I totally think this is a serious question! Thanks Jabo for opening this discussion. In the poll in the German forum I implied to ask the question neutrally, just recapping the most important arguments for both sides (pictured gender = name's gender // irrelevance of gender for a job). Both arguments are viable from my point of view. When we had to make a decision, I rather tended to the generic masculine solution. I think having a male name and then a female picture would be better because it would underline that gender is not important for these cards.

But after Donald's comment, I rather tend to the female names solution for the new cards:

The whole idea that "a baker can be male or female, we just depicted one that happened to be female" is not how people actually respond to the cards. When Baker is female, players feel like all 10 Bakers are female. The fact that a baker can be male doesn't matter; these ones are all female.

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Asper

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Re: German translation
« Reply #53 on: February 06, 2016, 05:34:49 pm »
+1

As we are currently complaining about Dominion translation anyhow: Royal Carriage in german tells you to "re-resolve" the card, not to play it, and Summon has no "if you do" to make it whiff with Watchtowered cards. It's like nobody even asked me to read over them. Seriously, i could make a living from proof-reading menu cards or boardgame rules.

Intrigue was the only Hans-im-Glück Dominion game that didn't have at least one mechanical mistake in it, and i'm relieved that much was improved with the new versions translated by Altenburger. It pays that they talk to fans, so in general i think there's hope.
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werothegreat

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Re: German translation
« Reply #54 on: February 06, 2016, 06:41:35 pm »
0

Royal Carriage in german

Sc0UT was uploading German scans of the cards to the wiki for a while, but he only put up Base and Intrigue.  Would you mind helping him out?
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Asper

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Re: German translation
« Reply #55 on: February 06, 2016, 08:20:15 pm »
0

Royal Carriage in german

Sc0UT was uploading German scans of the cards to the wiki for a while, but he only put up Base and Intrigue.  Would you mind helping him out?

Sorry, i can't see myself doing that. Too little use for the community, too much time for me. Plus, my Scanner stinks.
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GendoIkari

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Re: German translation
« Reply #56 on: February 07, 2016, 09:16:13 am »
0

Was the person who felt like no one would even notice a male or female?
You are trying to treat something positive as negative? No-one would notice, meaning, people who might scream at them for being so awful as to use "they," would not actually notice. Not, "no-one would notice because it's all just a joke hey why are we even changing this, bros before hos."

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-post-drops-the-mike--and-the-hyphen-in-e-mail/2015/12/04/ccd6e33a-98fa-11e5-8917-653b65c809eb_story.html

I think Gendo was poking fun at "they" used in "They felt like no-one would even notice" possibly being a singular "they". Or you noticed that joke and made one of your own? I don't know. The post above is confusing me a bit.

Yeah, it was just a joke response because "they" happened to be used in a sentence while discussing the use of the singular "they".
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sc0UT

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Re: German translation
« Reply #57 on: February 07, 2016, 11:27:35 am »
+1

Royal Carriage in german

sc0UT was uploading German scans of the cards to the wiki for a while, but he only put up Base and Intrigue.  Would you mind helping him out?

I'm busy at the moment, new job, new city, new people, ... Help would be appreciated. ;)
In theory, I can scan and uplaod all the cards but Prince in the long term.
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Japo

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Re: German translation
« Reply #58 on: February 08, 2016, 03:15:28 pm »
0

i personally never heard of a german rulebook (for a game not exclusively aimed at girls) that did this.

The Swiss game "Anno Domini" has female gender pronouns in its rulebook. But that's the only example I know, and maybe this kind of thing is handled differently in Switzerland.


The rulebook for Haggis does it too: http://www.bambusspiele.de/download/haggis.pdf
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Japo

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Re: German translation
« Reply #59 on: February 08, 2016, 03:33:41 pm »
0

I'm glad we had this discussion. I think that most of us agree that gender issues should be paid attention to when translating the cards.
So what are we going to do next? Who will talk to Altenburger? And who does the translation?
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Awaclus

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Re: German translation
« Reply #60 on: February 08, 2016, 03:50:36 pm »
+1

I think that most of us agree that gender issues should be paid attention to when translating the cards.

If so, most of you are wrong.

Gender issues really don't enter the picture unless the source culture has vastly different norms regarding genders than the target culture (for example, if you're translating a modern western source text into a target culture where it is highly unusual for women to have a job). In that case, you have to consider if you should change the meaning of the text to match the target culture's expectations, keep the original meaning but explain in a translator's note how the text should be perceived differently considering the cultural differences, or keep the original meaning and expect the target audience to know about the cultural differences without the need to modify or explain anything.

If you're translating a modern western source text into another western language, such cultural differences aren't there, and you should only focus on delivering the most accurate and the most readable translation. Otherwise you're doing an awful job at translating the text.
« Last Edit: February 08, 2016, 03:52:02 pm by Awaclus »
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Re: German translation
« Reply #61 on: February 08, 2016, 04:15:05 pm »
0

If you're translating a modern western source text into another western language, such cultural differences aren't there, and you should only focus on delivering the most accurate and the most readable translation. Otherwise you're doing an awful job at translating the text.

I agree with you.  There appear to be two issues at hand here: 1st is whether using a gender-specific pronoun makes the translation more or less correct, and 2nd is whether the cultural expectation of using a male pronoun as gender-inclusive is valid in the first place.

The English language really needs more gender-neutral pronouns.

I look at it like this:  Why is it considered more OK for a woman to dress up in a more traditionally masculine fashion than for a man to dress in a more traditionally feminine fashion?  My experience has been that if women dress something closer to what a man would wear, that is frowned on a whole lot less than a man who goes out in drag!  SHOULD it be that way?  I don't know, but culturally it's just different.  I guess it's similar with pronouns...there's just something different about using a feminine specific pronoun that makes it decidedly feminine as opposed to neutral, whether it should be that way or not.
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pedroluchini

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Re: German translation
« Reply #62 on: February 09, 2016, 03:41:36 am »
+1

The English language really needs more gender-neutral pronouns.

That's weird. For me, the main takeaway from this thread is the opposite: modern English already has an unusually high degree of gender-neutrality built into it (at least among Western European languages), as evidenced by how difficult it is to translate from English to German/French/Italian/etc.
« Last Edit: February 09, 2016, 03:43:05 am by pedroluchini »
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Asper

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Re: German translation
« Reply #63 on: February 09, 2016, 06:05:23 am »
+3

The English language really needs more gender-neutral pronouns.

That's weird. For me, the main takeaway from this thread is the opposite: modern English already has an unusually high degree of gender-neutrality built into it (at least among Western European languages), as evidenced by how difficult it is to translate from English to German/French/Italian/etc.

Well, english has always an implication about gender depending on the used pronoun (if you use the classics). You could argue that for languages using grammatical gender, this is not the case, as pronoun and actual gender need not necessarily be connected. It's a two-edged sword. On the other hand, 'they' in english allows for gender neutrality without effecting your options for nouns, making it a lot more flexible in that regard. You can be accurate, gender neutral and grammatically consistent in english without losing clarity.
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Awaclus

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Re: German translation
« Reply #64 on: February 09, 2016, 07:19:13 am »
+2

Well, english has always an implication about gender depending on the used pronoun (if you use the classics). You could argue that for languages using grammatical gender, this is not the case, as pronoun and actual gender need not necessarily be connected. It's a two-edged sword. On the other hand, 'they' in english allows for gender neutrality without effecting your options for nouns, making it a lot more flexible in that regard. You can be accurate, gender neutral and grammatically consistent in english without losing clarity.

Well, the singular they is very rarely used when referring to someone whose gender is known, which can cause problems. For example, if you translate a text from Finnish to English, most of the time you'll be fine because you can just translate "hän" into the appropriate gendered pronoun, but sometimes, especially in poems and short stories, a character's gender is most certainly known by the character who refers to them, it's just never revealed to the audience (comparable to how sometimes there are English love songs that can be sung to both genders by both genders because the characters are just called "me" and "you" — it doesn't necessarily have to be a great mystery or anything like that). In those situations, it wouldn't be entirely accurate to translate it as they, because it would feel like the character is going to great lengths to hide the other character's gender, which was probably not intended in the source text. Obviously, the gendered pronouns have the problem of being gendered. So either way, simply because English usually differentiates between the genders, it's not really possible to translate texts from more gender neutral languages into English without introducing content that did not exist in the source text.

The solution to this would be to start using the singular they more often even when the person's gender is known. I think that in Japanese, for example, even though gendered pronouns exist, because the gender neutral pronouns are also more widely used than "they" is in English, this problem is much less of a problem. Such a change would take a very long time, though.
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Re: German translation
« Reply #65 on: March 08, 2016, 08:38:58 am »
0

http://www.starcitygames.com/article/32523_Lets-Talk.html

This Magic article reminded me of some of the issues discussed in this thread.
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King Leon

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Re: German translation
« Reply #66 on: March 17, 2016, 06:35:30 pm »
0

I understand the different opinions regarding the gender-specific translations. But I also feel, that it has to start with the English names. I always associate "Witch" with a female and "Wizard" or "Warlock" with a male person. For the next cards I expect more neutral names like "Sorcerer" or "Mage" which will make the translation much easier. On the one hand "Hexe" (witch) is never female in German and a "Hexer"/"Hexenmeister" (enchanter/warlock) is never female, on the other hand a "Magier" (mage) may be male or female, while a "Magierin" is explicitly female. Another example was already mentioned: A "Krankenschwester" is always a female nurse, male ones are "Krankenpfleger", while "Pflegepersonal"  (nursing staff) is gender-independent. (Out of topic: Is there actually a female counterpart to "Jack of all Trades/Traits")

As long the cards show that a person may be female, I am okay with the generic masculinum. However, the card only show a woman, I feel that it is even more discriminating to use the female form. Peddler's German name ("Hausierer") is also used for criminal doorstep agents which try to force people to subscribe newspapers or buy overpriced useless things. The card name "Hausiererin" would explicitly refer the female peddlers, only the female ones.


So what about the idea, to show either two persons (a male and a female person) on the SAME card or using two different images for a card (5 male and 5 female per pile)? The suggestion to drop persons entirely (e. g. Bäckerei/Bakery is no option, because persons definitely belong to Dominion.
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Donald X.

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Re: German translation
« Reply #67 on: March 17, 2016, 06:44:52 pm »
0

So what about the idea, to show either two persons (a male and a female person) on the SAME card or using two different images for a card (5 male and 5 female per pile)? The suggestion to drop persons entirely (e. g. Bäckerei/Bakery is no option, because persons definitely belong to Dominion.
I do not imagine we will ever double up on art to address this translation issue.

I am generally against showing two people on a card named for one person, because then, which one is them? If I had been called on to judge a sketch of e.g. Woodcutter, I would have said, no dude, that's Woodcutters.
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Asper

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Re: German translation
« Reply #68 on: March 17, 2016, 07:09:02 pm »
0

I understand the different opinions regarding the gender-specific translations. But I also feel, that it has to start with the English names. I always associate "Witch" with a female and "Wizard" or "Warlock" with a male person. For the next cards I expect more neutral names like "Sorcerer" or "Mage" which will make the translation much easier. On the one hand "Hexe" (witch) is never female in German and a "Hexer"/"Hexenmeister" (enchanter/warlock) is never female, on the other hand a "Magier" (mage) may be male or female, while a "Magierin" is explicitly female. Another example was already mentioned: A "Krankenschwester" is always a female nurse, male ones are "Krankenpfleger", while "Pflegepersonal"  (nursing staff) is gender-independent. (Out of topic: Is there actually a female counterpart to "Jack of all Trades/Traits")

As long the cards show that a person may be female, I am okay with the generic masculinum. However, the card only show a woman, I feel that it is even more discriminating to use the female form. Peddler's German name ("Hausierer") is also used for criminal doorstep agents which try to force people to subscribe newspapers or buy overpriced useless things. The card name "Hausiererin" would explicitly refer the female peddlers, only the female ones.


So what about the idea, to show either two persons (a male and a female person) on the SAME card or using two different images for a card (5 male and 5 female per pile)? The suggestion to drop persons entirely (e. g. Bäckerei/Bakery is no option, because persons definitely belong to Dominion.

This post confuses me. Could it be that you wrote "female" on several occasions where you wanted to write "male"?
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King Leon

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Re: German translation
« Reply #69 on: March 18, 2016, 01:02:39 am »
0

This post confuses me. Could it be that you wrote "female" on several occasions where you wanted to write "male"?
Sorry, I am not a native English speaker. As far as I see, all instances of "female" are correct. Which part did you not understand?
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Asper

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Re: German translation
« Reply #70 on: March 18, 2016, 05:18:52 am »
0

On the one hand "Hexe" (witch) is never female in German

However, the card only show a woman, I feel that it is even more discriminating to use the female form.

I'm not sure about the second one. Either you mean "It's wrong you use the male form if a female is clearly depicted" or "if the picture is female and you use the female form, that discriminates against men because they are not even implicitly included".
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King Leon

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Re: German translation
« Reply #71 on: March 18, 2016, 04:40:14 pm »
+1

On the one hand "Hexe" (witch) is never female in German
Sorry, I meant that a "Hexe" is always female in German.

Quote from: Asper
I'm not sure about the second one. Either you mean "It's wrong you use the male form if a female is clearly depicted" or "if the picture is female and you use the female form, that discriminates against men because they are not even implicitly included".
I meant nothing of both. If the picture shows a woman and the card's text explicitly refers a female profession description, it delivers the impression, that there are only female bakers and peddlers in the Dominion world. If the card has a generic name, it's more like: There are bakers of any gender and the art shows a female one for example. I remember somebody already noted exactly these thoughts in this thread.
« Last Edit: March 18, 2016, 04:43:16 pm by King Leon »
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Re: German translation
« Reply #72 on: March 19, 2016, 05:25:42 am »
0

Yes, that was me, but Donald kind of convinced me here:
The whole idea that "a baker can be male or female, we just depicted one that happened to be female" is not how people actually respond to the cards. When Baker is female, players feel like all 10 Bakers are female. The fact that a baker can be male doesn't matter; these ones are all female.
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Japo

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Re: German translation
« Reply #73 on: July 14, 2016, 02:46:49 pm »
+2

Good news: Someone from Altenburger finally answered my request:
Quote
vielen Dank für deine Nachricht. Bei der Übersetzung der deutschen Karten für Dominion Empires haben wir die Illustrationen stets beachtet und den Kartennamen ggf. als weibliche Version benannt. So wird es in Empires bspw. auch eine „Ingenieurin“ geben.

There will be female engineers (Ingenieurin) etc. in German Empires.
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