#1
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The notes section originally had:
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#2
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I noticed the opening and ending themes have full titles. Google Translate says "Opening theme "war and even invite you. "" and "Ending theme "Between sleep and dream ...""
Can anyone give a more proper translation? |
#3
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Fixed some minor track lengths, changed "Fandalia" to "Fandaria" and "Traddonoa" to "Tradnor" as those are what were used in the English release of the first game. I also added Arrangement to the classification because the tracks that were sequenced in the game have significantly upgraded synth here. I know it's been discussed at length about what to do in this situation but without any clear conclusion, so I just decided to look at Final Fantasy XII's entry and copy what was done there.
On another note, damn, I am seriously impressed with how good the synth quality is on this album, especially for it being released in 1998. It's not totally realistic but still sounds more than acceptable even by today's standards and really a lot better than some more recent and more high profile titles. And to think, Windows 98 didn't even come out until the following month! |
#4
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Is the English subtitle an official one? It doesn't seem the game was released overseas.
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#5
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No, it's something I picked up from one of the people working on the fan translation of the game. I kinda figured it might be useful to have there since previously, and currently in some other places out on the Internet, it had been translated as "When the Gods Abandoned the Earth", which appears to be less accurate. Running it through Google Translate produces something unintelligible as well, so I thought a (to the best of my knowledge) more correct translation would be worth adding as an alternate title.
I think it'd be helpful to do that for other albums that have untranslated Romaji in their titles, and I think some already have that. I agree with the policy of using Romaji in the absence of an official translation, but this can also lead to not knowing the meaning of the name of the game whose music you're listening to, even if the tracklist and credits/notes are translated and understandable in English. Is putting a translation as the bottom alternate title an acceptable solution? |
#6
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It most certainly is not. Translations, ironically, mean even less than all that "moonspeak", and it is precisely because of what they are. Romaji spam means almost as little. In both cases, the problem is that the context isn't being reinforced; the meaning doesn't have much of a point to it, and the whole idea of "foreign languages/cultures" is that their points are not known to you.
That's not even concerning titles and names, an even more terrifying case. These are static terms that are divorced and devoid of all meaning except whatever the creator had in mind; there aren't supposed to be any alternate forms unless the creator enforces their own. Wanting to know the "meaning" of a title is completely different from forcing a completely fabricated title (pretty much lying) on people. Within any title, all translations are completely useless and always mean nothing. I don't know why tracklist translations are valid while title translations are not, though I do know that only the names of legitimately localized products are considered. Even that is going a bit far... I'm not even sure if it's still necessary. I haven't bothered to look into how search works now. This is a topic that needs more love and attention, or at least "ignorant acceptance"... which seems to be all people will allow of themselves. Last edited by Despatche; Feb 20, 2014 at 09:56 PM. |
#7
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Alright, I'll bite.
I think you're well aware by now from the cold reception you get whenever you say these things that you're pretty much alone here. If anyone else among this site's userbase shares your opinion they've either not spoken up or I've missed it in all this time. The point of view that translations inherently have no value is one I've never encountered from anyone else; thankfully diplomats don't see things your way. Are you equally consistent in regards to other subjects, like never saying Christopher Columbus, always Cristoforo Colombo, his real Italian name? And you'd never suffer a "meaningless" translation of Война и миръ, so if you wanted to read the book you'd simply learn Russian or else never experience it at all, right? And students of the military must be taught Chinese to draw any wisdom from The Art of War? For that matter, are official translations covered under your statement "there aren't supposed to be any alternate forms unless the creator enforces their own"? If so, you probably shouldn't make an exception for them when they're virtually never written by the original author of the words and, indeed, there are many examples where official translations are less faithful to original meanings than unofficial ones. Like Final Fantasy XII, track 1: Japanese - "ループデモ" Romaji - "LUUPU DEMO" English [unofficial] - "Loop Demo" English [iTunes] - "Demo Movie" There are others, like 29, which is officially translated "Unrest", but the unofficial "Rebellion" suits the context of the game much better since it plays during a rebel attack on the Empire and the connotation of the word 'unrest' doesn't really fit well. I understand you're all about reprinting what's official and present with the product, but why should we who want good translations be deprived of one when the official isn't good? If it's worth having a translation, as someone official decided it was, why isn't it worth having the best translation the community can muster? Why shouldn't that be worth having when there isn't an official translation? And I'm curious, if you take such a negative view even on Romaji titles, how would you have people with non-Japanese keyboards search the database for an album we're looking for if the title is wholly Japanese? I wouldn't have thought that the value of getting a decent idea of a title's meaning would be controversial. Nor do I think your claim is correct that "the whole idea of 'foreign languages/cultures' is that their points are not known to you." It's not as though the title of this album or any of its music was conceived as a secret code to keep foreigners from understanding. I see no reason why anyone interested shouldn't be able to learn from this great compendium of information here, created with the intention of being primarily an English-language website mind you, what the name of a song is intended to convey, even if it is approximate. Never mind that some translations can in fact capture all the intended meaning, like much of this album with titles like "Highland Theme 1" and "Epilogue 5". Words are not more meaningful to someone in a language they don't understand than is a translation in one they do, and the purpose of this site is to archive and make information on music, much of which originates from Japan, more widely available in English. Obviously, however, you feel very strongly about your philosophy and I know no amount of debate is likely to change your stance on it. But if we all participated in a thread on this topic to give it the attention you think it deserves, I don't think your view would receive the love you think it deserves. |
#8
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I know this is a complete mess... it really is as complex an issue as both your post and mine make it out to be, and I find it hard to properly phrase all my thoughts and responses. Unfortunately, I can't seem to go any lower than size "1".
tldr: the source always trumps all else, but this is rarely respected. official translations are still great as alternatives, but unofficial study really should be kept to threads as "notes"... as study. --- I promise you, I'm not trolling, or out to make anyone feel bad for fun and profit; I'm here to tell the truth. I already feel bad enough... I hate it all just as much as anyone else could. But I know that it is a reality I cannot change; I can only help change what is being created now. I will maintain that my view "won't see the love I think it deserves" simply because people are not used to it. At this point, people are so conditioned to "accept opinion" that they see pretty much everything as opinion. But this isn't opinion, this is reality. This is how the system works, and noone can do anything about it once it's done, not even the creators. These are the rules that people created for themselves, and at some point they have to respect them. I don't have a problem with people understanding the meaning of something, because you can bet I look up words all the time to get an idea (key words here) of what I'm reading. That's what I have a problem with: people forcing these translations as "defaults" that should be respected over any original simply because those translations are in English, or in some cases simply because it's in Latin characters. I think it's fair to say that is wrong and very backwards by any metric. Meaning is all well and good, but it can't even be treated as an alternative, because it's not. Even then, when it comes to databases that are trying for some semblance of accuracy, anything other than the original source (whatever that source may be is irrelevant) is an alternative at best. I would and do not really have that much of a problem with noting possible romaji or possible translations, but the original source (what matters) is always being treated as an alternative to something that isn't even a name for the object, and something could easily be wrong by its own rules (as you've pointed out with the old translation for the subtitle of this album). The original source is not wrong (it's the original source) and whether it's wrong by its own rules (whether there's an error between game versus album) is irrelevant. Even as an English-based website, you simply cannot deny the Source. Quote:
And with those static works, it is likely that I would have to take what I can get. While you can understand something just by reading The Art of War, you're still missing the various contexts it was written in. It might not be possible to gain them anymore; I need to understand more about what The Art of War actually is and what it was meant to do in order to make that judgement. What I would like to do is not just learn Russian, but what that Russian actually means to speakers of it, specifically whoever wrote the work. When you're talking to someone, you should obviously use what they're familiar with; my only goal in that regard is to change what they're familiar with, because that's all you can do. But for the purposes of a database--let's say I made my own wiki or something--I most certainly would use whatever the exact source is, which means any company renamings are alternatives to the default they started with, any legal name changes of persons are alternatives to the default they were assigned at birth, and so on. Quote:
Anyway... we should be treating all these iTunes releases as reprints anyway, so unless it can be decided where they were being released first (I honestly don't know), you'd go by what region the company represents if the album is available there... pretty sure that all would be Japan for the purposes of most Final Fantasy albums, at least. Quote:
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As you can see, I obviously don't have a problem with "meaning". But you have to force things on people, because most of the time they have no idea how to care otherwise. If there was only ever kanji and kana in these autotagging systems (for audio files), there would only ever be kanji and kana in tags. Translation is really a part of "study"; you should use translations as an "aid" and make it very clear that they're "aids", hoping to reinforce whatever context can be gleaned simply from the original characters... at the very least, a person's opinion of cultures tends to get "triggered" just from seeing that culture's language. Again, if anything we know about how people work is true, you have to force things on people or else they will always say no to wanting it; somewhere, we are all indiscriminately afraid of "difference", regardless of whether or not that difference is good. You have to fight that, you have to go out there and discover the truth for what it is... and you have to learn about what that truth means, even if it's all something as simple as titles. (It's never as simple as titles.) Last edited by Despatche; Feb 21, 2014 at 07:47 PM. |
#9
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I know you're not trolling or trying to make anyone feel bad and that you're representing your view of the truth. I don't intend at all to align myself with the "all opinions are created equal and none are right or wrong" faction which sometimes shows up in debates. Taking an easy example, if someone were to say, "In my opinion, the Holocaust did not happen," that opinion is straight-up wrong, not just in my opinion but also factually.
No one is suggesting that the unofficial English translations are superior to the original and their status as defaults does not carry that implication. This site was founded by Secret Squirrel, in collaboration with others, purposefully to be primarily in the English language, including English tracklists and English notes, with forum discussion in English. In the absence of English translation, Romaji transliterations are used so those who don't understand Japanese can at least read and search for something. With nothing against or any prejudice towards people who speak other languages, English is just the language this site was to commonly use. This is reality, not opinion, and your vision of how this site should be, which is indeed your opinion and not an objective fact, is opposed to the creator's/creators' and owner's vision. It is not fair to say the purpose of the site – because you're really questioning one of its main reasons for existence – is "wrong and very backwards by any metric," as it's simply not by at least one: the system as it stands is very useful to a lot of people. I would also argue it's logically sound as well, though more minor improvements could debatably be made (showing English/Romaji and Japanese titles in search results?). We try to have quality translations and, in wiki spirit, if someone sees a way one could be improved they should make the change or discuss it. The source language is not denied, it's included, in fact, easily accessible. The bottom line of your position is not without merit but it is also not what this site is for as defined by the owner (not that the staff or the users seem to have much sympathy for your opinion either). I don't think I'm going too far with the reference to diplomats. I know they care about the quality of translation and so do I and a lot of others here. I was saying they don't view all translations as being inherently wrong or useless and that's a good thing or else the world would probably be a much worse place. Quote:
I agree that all official translations need to be covered here and I think we have a good policy on that: making them one of multiple English tracklists if there's reason for keeping another translation. I don't agree that "what is 'good' or 'bad' is irrelevant" because I believe accuracy is important, so a bad official tracklist should be included in addition to an improved one that does better at capturing the original. And I don't agree relegating translations to discussion threads would be the best option, "if people really do care that much about having 'meaning'," as it's an unnecessary complication that would not meaningfully improve the site for most people's purposes and would create a greater hurdle than simply clicking on the Japanese tracklist tab if that's what you want to see. Quote:
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Your assertion that people only have English or Romaji tags because of auto-tagging systems is flawed because those didn't exist when Japanese VGM came to the West. In the beginning, only Japanese tracklists existed for those albums, of course, and people took the initiative on their own to start translating them because they saw that as being valuable for their own use and for that of others. It's not a habit that we use translations, it's because we want to know as best as we can what the words mean. If we did what you suggest, or even took it farther and totally banned unofficial translations from VGMdb, there would still be translations on other sites. There would probably be a lot of complaining around here about their absence from the album pages as well. In reference to your thoughts on culture, I understand that people will sometimes use someone else's ignorance of their language to their advantage and I understand people frequently have knee-jerk reactions or deep biases against things that are different than what they're accustomed to. However, I find the suggestion that the words here are purposely intended to exclude foreigners from understanding, as if the author would be upset for an outsider to learn the meaning, to be quite outlandish. People often fall short of how we'd like them to be, but it would be very weird for it to go that far, especially when we're talking about a commercial product. |
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