Just saw Chinese translation of Crab King

[xxXolot]

On 9/14/2022 at 11:10 AM, Falkenpelz said:

I know zero Chinese, and hearing people explain some of the translations here, I am now really curious: Someone care to explain, what the literal translations of stuff like merms or cookie cutters mean? Or how pun names like bearger and dragonfly are translated?

• 魚人 (Merms): basically just "fish man", or "fish folks", if you ask people to translate "merman" most will translate to 魚人 as well.
• 餅乾切割機 (Cookie Cutter): translates to "cookie cutting machine", which I find it really stupid, because not only is it too long, this monster is a fish, not a machine. I suggest translate to 切餅魚 (Cookie Cutting Fish) or 切餅鯊 (Cookie Cutting Shark) depend on if dev think they are fish or sharks, it's like giving Pokemon Chinese name.
• 熊獾 (Bearger): translates to "bear badger". I think it's kinda like 熊貓/貓熊 (Panda) which literally translate to "bear cat" or "cat bear".
• 龍蠅 (Dragonfly): translates to "dragon fly", because the boss look like a dragon and a fly. in this sense the dragonfly meaning in the name is lost because the Chinese word for dragonfly 蜻蜓 isn't in there. If they want to keep the pun they can do 蜻蜓龍蠅, which translates to "dragonfly dragon fly" (lol), which again is like giving Pokemon Chinese name, but I think 龍蠅 (dragon fly) is cool and accurate enough.

[BezKa]

30 minutes ago, xxXolot said:

think they are fish or sharks,

They are neither. They're most likely some form of crustaceans.

[goatt]

5 hours ago, Falkenpelz said:

he literal translations of stuff like merms or cookie cutters mean? Or how pun names like bearger and dragonfly are translated?

according to wiki and popular dst chinese website:

merms - 鱼人 - fish-like human

cookie cutters - 饼干切割机/者 - cookie/biscuit cutting machine/entity

bearger - 熊獾 - bear meles, or 灌熊 - shrub bear

dragonfly - 龙蝇 - dragon (fruit)fly

 

I think dragonfly is a mistranslation, it should be 龙蜻蜓, which is directly translated as "dragon dragonfly" with the original pun in it. 龙蝇 with 蝇 (fly as in fruitfly) is wrong.

[xxXolot]

19 minutes ago, goatt said:

I think dragonfly is a mistranslation, it should be 龙蜻蜓, which is directly translated as "dragon dragonfly" with the original pun in it. 龙蝇 with 蝇 (fly as in fruitfly) is wrong.

I kind of disagree with this because Dragonfly physically looked more like fly that has dragon property, which 龍蠅 quite perfectly described what it is. And It's more of a 蒼蠅 (Fly), not 果蠅 (Fruitfly) anyway. In that sense 蜻蜓 (dragonfly) really is more of an optional pun that's really fun to have but can be left out.

[goatt]

1 hour ago, xxXolot said:

I kind of disagree with this because Dragonfly physically looked more like fly that has dragon property, which 龍蠅 quite perfectly described what it is. And It's more of a 蒼蠅 (Fly), not 果蠅 (Fruitfly) anyway. In that sense 蜻蜓 (dragonfly) really is more of an optional pun that's really fun to have but can be left out.

I won't disagree. And I'm not saying "dragonfly" is Klei's original intention. Maybe their original intention was "fly" rather than "dragonfly".

But if it's not, if it was indeed "dragonfly", yet you currently think of it as "fly", then the translation has had very good effect in misleading you into thinking it was a fly. And it was a quite a mistranslation.

On another thought, judging from the drawing, subjectively, Dragonfly has a long tail just like real life dragonfly. But (fruit)flies have a round bottom.

Just trying to guess the original pun.

But if my guess is correct, it would mean it has mislead many Chinese players.

[xxXolot]

3 hours ago, goatt said:

yet you currently think of it as "fly"

To be fair I have never actually played the Chinese version either and I have never looked at Chinese version of DST gameplay lol... And I have always thought the art of Dragonfly makes it more of a Dragon-fly instead of Dragonfly probably because of the tiny flapping wings instead of long wings. My impression of the dragonfly insect is always on how fast they zipped through air in a split second, stop, zip again, so the constant moving Dragonfly boss never really strike me as a dragonfly and I did think it was more fly-ish.

Edit: Oh, and also the mouth! The way Dragonfly suck up ash looked like a fly too!! The mouth of real dragonfly insect look a bit more mantis-like to me.

Only today I googled for what it is in Chinese because Falkenpelz asked and I thought 龍蠅 was pretty cool.

[goatt]

2 hours ago, xxXolot said:

To be fair I have never actually played the Chinese version either and I have never looked at Chinese version of DST gameplay lol

My bad

[-Variant]

9 hours ago, BezKa said:

They are neither. They're most likely some form of crustaceans.

While the DST ones are very Crustacean looking visually, they are still based off Cookie Cutter Sharks, which I think is always something to consider when it comes to naming and translations!

[goatt]

54 minutes ago, -Variant said:

While the DST ones are very Crustacean looking visually, they are still based off Cookie Cutter Sharks, which I think is always something to consider when it comes to naming and translations!

I think it would be very straight forward to name cookie cutters if that fact is known. I'm guessing the cookie is the cookie-like boat, right?

[Falkenpelz]

8 hours ago, goatt said:

I think it would be very straight forward to name cookie cutters if that fact is known. I'm guessing the cookie is the cookie-like boat, right?

I didn't actually know that there is a real animal named this way, makes it even funnier. Similar to antlions, which are a real thing and even create traps in sand for their prey, just like Antlion creates sinkholes. Only, they are bugs and of course not actually lion-ant-hybrids, that's the joke.

And yes, I'm pretty sure the joke on cookie cutters is, that they cut out pieces of your boat like your average Christmas cookie cutter, so you get some morbid creatures with cute names.

[goatt]

@Fufuji Hi, just got a new translation improvement. Wonder if you got time to let the translation team know.

 

I think this is what cookie cutters are based on

13 hours ago, -Variant said:

While the DST ones are very Crustacean looking visually, they are still based off Cookie Cutter Sharks, which I think is always something to consider when it comes to naming and translations!

Cookie Cutting (cc)

Maybe it should be 切饼鲨 (cc shark) or 切饼鱼 (cc fish), but based on its shape. It can also be 切饼虫 (cc worm/bug) or 切饼豚 (cc dolphin). Because "cutter" doesn't specify what specie it actually is, I think it's ok to be creative and call it "worm", "fish" or “dolphin", despite it was originally based on shark (shark is a lot bigger like Rockjaw, plus, sharks don't live in pack like cookie cutters). What do you think? Anyways, they are all better than calling it 切饼机 (cc machine).