Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[-Stef-]

I played some games IRL yesterday and we played two games which included our Dutch version of Dark Ages.
My friend tried to make an engine going around certain cards which failed miserably and I won one with a Silk Roads slog and one with a Gardens slog.
Not playing on Goko, I still don't really know these cards by heart, but I started wondering about them anyway.
They didn't make too much sense and were really hard to get going.

Checking the English version on DS.com, it turned out they made some horrible mistakes translating.
Urchin in Dutch is called "Straatjongen". It gives you +1 kaart, +1 aanschaf. (+1 card, +1 buy). The english version gives you +1 card, +1 action.
The Dutch version is really hard to activate.

Rogue in Dutch is called "Schurk". It's not that impressive in English already, but the Dutch version is a lot worse. The "other" is missing: "If there are any cards in the trash costing from $3 to $6, gain one of them. Otherwise, each other player reveals the top 2 cards of his deck, trashes one of them costing from $3 to $6, and discards the rest."
That was really strange, his Rogue destroyed his own silver, the next turn he could get it back, and I was saved for two turns without doing anything.

I tried to find anything on this on the web but came up empty. So I have some questions:

• Did they correct this in later prints? Anybody else who owns "Donkere Middeleeuwen"? Did you notice the same mistakes?
• I'm not sure if Donald ever made a ruling about bad translations, but how should we execute these cards in the future?
• Back at home I'll probably just take a pen and correct them, but what in a tournament setting? (Dutch National Championship is coming up, and we'll play with Dutch cards)

[Ratsia]

Back at home I'll probably just take a pen and correct them, but what in a tournament setting? (Dutch National Championship is coming up, and we'll play with Dutch cards)

I guess the best course of action is for you to contact the organizers. Assuming they are not some arbitrary party that does not care about gamers at all (which would be odd, since they are organizing the tournament), they should be happy to issue an explicit ruling stating that the tournament will be played with the original correct rules. Maybe you could even volunteer to provide a list of corrections needed for the Dutch print.


The Finnish national championships are also coming soon, and I heard DXV will (somehow) provide the kingdoms used there... It will be solely Dark Ages + the base set; we've always used just two sets and have already covered the earlier expansions. I guess I should follow my own advice above and check whether the Finnish translation is correct or not.

[Davio]

Hmm, I own a Dutch copy of DA, but haven't checked the translations closely.

Will have a look: My copy has the same errors with Urchin and Rogue.

Regarding other translation errors: The Dutch version of King's Court doesn't say "you may" which is quite important.
And I'm sure there are others which I've now forgotten. I believe Donald has commented on the German version and said that you should just go with the original rules if in doubt.

Maybe you should point out these errors to the organization of the Dutch Nationals and make sure we're playing the way it's intended. On the other hand, I don't think we'll be playing with Dark Ages. Last year it was only up to Prosperity in the finals, I believe, or not even that, just Seaside.

[florrat]

I have spotted the mistake on Urchin, too. But I missed the error on Rogue.

Also, Madman (Krankzinnige) has an error: it says that you may return this card to the Madman supply pile. This means you can also play a Madman for +2 Actions only, but without returning it.

[Jeebus]

It would be horrible to play with mistranslated cards like these as written. When hosting tournaments in Norway, I always try to use only English cards. In my view it's the only serious way of doing it.

The first edition Norwegian translation of the base game had a couple of awful translation errors. Thief said you may trash the other players' Treasure. And Gardens had "Action - Victory" as type because the translator thought it would make the rules easier if all Kingdom cards were Action cards, so that he didn't have to use the term "Kingdom" in the rulebook. When Intrigue got translated, I helped out, correcting a host of minor and some major mistakes. So far no more sets have been translated. Most people play games with English text/rules here in Norway anyway.

[yudantaiteki]

There was some thread about a badly translated edition on BGG (I think), and someone recommended playing with the rules as translated just so everyone would be on the same page and wouldn't have to refer to English stuff.  But Donald X responded and said the English rules are the real, official rules and you should use those instead.  Obviously you can house rule anything but Donald's opinion was that you should use the English, not the translations.

[Asper]

As the "dutch" is in parentheses, i'll just throw in the most terrible german translation to date, also from Dark Ages.

"Prozession" is Procession, and it's mostly the same. It only lacks one word. In the german translation, Procession says "Nimm dir eine Karte, die genau eins mehr kostet" (Gain a card costing exactly 1 more) instead of "Gain an ACTION card costing exactly 1 more". Of course this makes it possible to Procession Witch and gain a Gold after that. Even worse: They repeated the mistake in the manual and even added an example turn in which a "Herzogtum"(Duchy) is gained with Procession. Not to mention they used it to replace the sample turn part of the english rules where Procession fails to gain an Action card costing 6$.
Worst, you can't notice the error on your own, as nothing implies translation problems. Only thing is an Errata on their german web page...

Others are: Watchtower, Smugglers and Possesion all mention "buys or gain" instead of "gain", Native Village does not mention you being able to look at your mats content, Chancellor and Scavenger "discard" your deck, KC has no "may", Thief does "discard" stolen treasures to your discard pile (not gain them) and Walled Village wants exactly one other action in play (not 0-1). All cards with setup rules lack those (they are in the manual) and Duration effects are divided by a stroke. Also manuals that don't know what they are talking about, most noticeable example is Trader. Obviously they didn't know gain always (when not tradered) happens after buy, and as players, we didn't before Hinterland...

[AJD]

Obviously they didn't know gain always (when not tradered) happens after buy, and as players, we didn't before Hinterland...

(Actually I think we did—it's in the Prosperity rules as an aside comment for some interaction with Mint, isn't it?)

[AJD]

Obviously they didn't know gain always (when not tradered) happens after buy, and as players, we didn't before Hinterland...

(Actually I think we did—it's in the Prosperity rules as an aside comment for some interaction with Mint, isn't it?)

Well, the Prosperity rules say "if you buy a Mint with Royal Seal in play, the Royal Seal will be gone before you can use it to put Mint on your deck," which implies that gain happens after buy but doesn't state it outright.

By the way, is it no longer possible to read the rules pdf on the RGG website? When I clicked on it it automatically downloaded, instead of opening in my browser like it used to.

[Asper]

Obviously they didn't know gain always (when not tradered) happens after buy, and as players, we didn't before Hinterland...

(Actually I think we did—it's in the Prosperity rules as an aside comment for some interaction with Mint, isn't it?)

With "we" i meant me and my family. But you are right, it's there (though i forgot that Royal Seal also makes that "gain or buy" mistake). Honestly, when i originally read that, i didn't think about it. I thought it was just a random decision. The rule that you can chose what to do first if two things happen at the same time here came with Hinterlands, too.

The rule book actually made a severe distinction in german between "gain" and "buy", claiming that "gain" happens only during your action phase. They didn't correct that until Hinterlands.

[Davio]

Maybe it's a good idea to add a Wiki article listing all mistranslations.

[Schlippy]

The german rulebook also tells you to put one of the Silvers you gain with Beggars reaction into your hand.

[Jeebus]

Others are: Watchtower, Smugglers and Possesion all mention "buys or gain" instead of "gain"... Obviously they didn't know gain always (when not tradered) happens after buy, and as players, we didn't before Hinterland...

The rule book actually made a severe distinction in german between "gain" and "buy", claiming that "gain" happens only during your action phase. They didn't correct that until Hinterlands.

Not the most horrible mistake. (Except they made the mistake of thinking it would be a good idea to "correct" the original rules.) But then Royal Seal and Trade Route should also say "buy or gain".

[eHalcyon]

Others are: Watchtower, Smugglers and Possesion all mention "buys or gain" instead of "gain"... Obviously they didn't know gain always (when not tradered) happens after buy, and as players, we didn't before Hinterland...

The rule book actually made a severe distinction in german between "gain" and "buy", claiming that "gain" happens only during your action phase. They didn't correct that until Hinterlands.

Not the most horrible mistake. (Except they made the mistake of thinking it would be a good idea to "correct" the original rules.) But then Royal Seal and Trade Route should also say "buy or gain".

What do RS and TR say now? Aside from a few edge cases, saying" buy or gain" is redundant. It only needs to say "gain", and that's how the English versions are worded.

[Asper]

Others are: Watchtower, Smugglers and Possesion all mention "buys or gain" instead of "gain"... Obviously they didn't know gain always (when not tradered) happens after buy, and as players, we didn't before Hinterland...

The rule book actually made a severe distinction in german between "gain" and "buy", claiming that "gain" happens only during your action phase. They didn't correct that until Hinterlands.

Not the most horrible mistake. (Except they made the mistake of thinking it would be a good idea to "correct" the original rules.) But then Royal Seal and Trade Route should also say "buy or gain".

For example we once had the situation where somebody bought a Farmland with Watchtower as the only card in hand. So reveal WT, trash Farmland, trash Watchtower, gain Duchy.


Here is a complete(?) list of all card that are wrong in german:

Thief, Chancellor, Pirate Ship, Possession, Venture, Bishop, Kings Court, Forge, Tournament, Trusty Steed, Scheme, Procession, Dame Natalie, Ironmonger, Scavenger, Hermit, Urchin, Walled Village;
Also: Watchtower, Smugglers, Royal Seal ("gain or buy" instead of "gain"), Native Village (does not mention you may look at cards on the mat) and all Durations (unnecessary stroke). All cards with setup Rules, like Young Witch, Trade Route, etc. lack those.

I think Donald already knows about the first part and already passed that information (Thanks, Donald). They were listed here before: http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=5799.msg162582#msg162582

Part after the also is my addition. I'm shocked how many it are...

[yudantaiteki]

If the translators aren't prepared for the unusually precise wording on Dominion cards, it's easy to see how these mistakes can arise.

I vaguely remember some other BGG thread where someone said that in one language the translator was confused by the "Do X.  If you do, (then) Y" wording and translated it as "You may do X.  If you do, (then) Y."  Considering even some native English speakers want to interpret the "if you do" as implying a choice whether to do X or not, that's not a surprising mistake.

[Davio]

I have no problem with translators choosing the wrong synonym, okay I do have a problem, but it's a minor one.

For "Forge" the Dutch translator chose the word "Vervalsen" which translates back to the verb "to forge - to falsify, counterfeit, etc", not the noun forge, meaning smithy. One look at the image on the card and you can see what the correct one is. I'm disappointed by their laziness, but I can live with it. "Familiar" is translated too literally to "Oude Bekende" which translates back to "Somebody that I used to know".

I have a bigger problem with translators reinterpreting the rules and getting it wrong. You would expect a higher quality from an item you paid €40 for.

But let's not forget: The English isn't perfect to start with. "When" is a highly ambiguous term. Does "when you gain" mean "immediately before", "during/as" or "after"? In Nomad Camp's case it means "as you gain", in Watchtower's case it means "after you gained".

It's a card game of Magic-esque complexity though so all of this was to be expected by local publishers. I just don't think the translators are gamers who know both English and Dutch (although they should have consulted them!), but rather people who know English and Dutch and happen to land this translation job.

[Asper]

I have no problem with translators choosing the wrong synonym, okay I do have a problem, but it's a minor one.

For "Forge" the Dutch translator chose the word "Vervalsen" which translates back to the verb "to forge - to falsify, counterfeit, etc", not the noun forge, meaning smithy. One look at the image on the card and you can see what the correct one is. I'm disappointed by their laziness, but I can live with it. "Familiar" is translated too literally to "Oude Bekende" which translates back to "Somebody that I used to know".

I could name some card... names... that are not really well translated in german. For example, Mining Village and Shanty Town are Bergwerk (Pit/Mine) and Armenviertel (Slum) in german, and therefore lack the Village/Town vibe. I guess they just didn't get the idea that all +2Action cards should have that. Also the rebuild family always has "bau" as a suffix (Anbau, Umbau, Neubau, Nachbau...), which works nicely for most of them - not for Altar, of course, but again, nobody could expect that.

I have a bigger problem with translators reinterpreting the rules and getting it wrong. You would expect a higher quality from an item you paid €40 for.

But let's not forget: The English isn't perfect to start with. "When" is a highly ambiguous term. Does "when you gain" mean "immediately before", "during/as" or "after"? In Nomad Camp's case it means "as you gain", in Watchtower's case it means "after you gained".

It's a card game of Magic-esque complexity though so all of this was to be expected by local publishers. I just don't think the translators are gamers who know both English and Dutch (although they should have consulted them!), but rather people who know English and Dutch and happen to land this translation job.

I don't know... Many of the mistakes in german at least were avoidable. You couldn't expect Tunnel to give Chancellor trouble ("You may discard your deck"), and Thief have a problem with Cache ("Discard stolen cards to your discard"). But things like writing "Card" instead of "Action Card" are really stupid errors... "When" works nicely in german, if they wouldn't have exchanged "When you gain" with "When you buy or gain" every time. Luckily it doesn't matter as often as it does with Procession - you can't play that card with new players or such that insist in playing the card as printed. I just today noticed we played Tournament wrong for years because they changed "Each player may reveal a Province" with "You may... If you do... Each other player may...". That sucks.

[Synthesizer]

"Prozession" is Procession, and it's mostly the same. It only lacks one word. In the german translation, Procession says "Nimm dir eine Karte, die genau eins mehr kostet" (Gain a card costing exactly 1 more) instead of "Gain an ACTION card costing exactly 1 more". Of course this makes it possible to Procession Witch and gain a Gold after that. Even worse: They repeated the mistake in the manual and even added an example turn in which a "Herzogtum"(Duchy) is gained with Procession. Not to mention they used it to replace the sample turn part of the english rules where Procession fails to gain an Action card costing 6$.
Worst, you can't notice the error on your own, as nothing implies translation problems. Only thing is an Errata on their german web page...

Mistranslations are one thing; translating stuff is difficult, people make mistakes. translating +action as +buy (in OP) is a pretty big one though...

But coming up with whole new sections of rules... Who OK's adding stuff to the rules rather than just translating 1-to-1? I would imagine that a translator would check this kind of thing with the game designer? Yet, I can't imagine Donald X. approving this... EDIT: I put this last bit in a question in the "interview with Donald X." thread, I think that's a better place for it.

[Asper]

For "Forge" the Dutch translator chose the word "Vervalsen" which translates back to the verb "to forge - to falsify, counterfeit, etc", not the noun forge, meaning smithy. One look at the image on the card and you can see what the correct one is. I'm disappointed by their laziness, but I can live with it. "Familiar" is translated too literally to "Oude Bekende" which translates back to "Somebody that I used to know".

I'm not sure whether it has to do with the verb or noun. When i looked up forge (verb), it also was translated to "form" and whatever the english verb for smithy is.  It comes from a card family where the card names usually are verbs, after all. Not that it would invalidate your point. I find that familiar thing far more embarrassing.

I remember they translated Loan to Lohn in german, which translates back to wages/pay. They stated in the manual that they did it deliberately because they thought it "fits better", and honestly i think it isn't that bad. At least, wehen you look at the picture, Lohn still makes sense. It was just totally unneccessary...

[GendoIkari]

But let's not forget: The English isn't perfect to start with. "When" is a highly ambiguous term. Does "when you gain" mean "immediately before", "during/as" or "after"? In Nomad Camp's case it means "as you gain", in Watchtower's case it means "after you gained".

I thought this had been settled. "When you gain" means after the gain is completed and the card is in your discard pile. Nomad Camp does not happen "when you gain", despite incorrectly using those words.

[Davio]

What would be the correct words for Nomand Camp then?

[-Stef-]

The funniest mistake they made translating to Dutch actually has nothing to do with the cards, but with the order they're in.

I've read some examples of overly enthusiastic translators above, but the opposite isn't exactly golden either. Somehow they managed not to realize cards were in alphabetical order in the rule book and in the boxes. So they kept the English order, and now when I want to look something up, I always go like "hmmm.... Grensdorp.... that's a Border Village in English, starting with a B, so it's probably very early".

And you'd think that if they don't get it right on the first expansion, they'd surely fix that with the next. But no ... only one chance left.

[florrat]

What would be the correct words for Nomand Camp then?

Something like "Nomad Camps are gained to the top of your deck". Its functionality is the same as cards gained with Mine, Develop, Tournament etc. changing the location to which a certain card is gained. This makes the wording on the card reasonable, since it resembles the wording of those cards.

[Davio]

The funniest mistake they made translating to Dutch actually has nothing to do with the cards, but with the order they're in.

I've read some examples of overly enthusiastic translators above, but the opposite isn't exactly golden either. Somehow they managed not to realize cards were in alphabetical order in the rule book and in the boxes. So they kept the English order, and now when I want to look something up, I always go like "hmmm.... Grensdorp.... that's a Border Village in English, starting with a B, so it's probably very early".

And you'd think that if they don't get it right on the first expansion, they'd surely fix that with the next. But no ... only one chance left.

Well, that would have meant that they would have to create their own inserts as the English one has sizes big enough to fit Gardens and Rats etc.