Villigers lose dialogue flavour between languages

[Lavulin98]

Did anyone notice that sometimes the villagers seem duller as you change languages? I often play in Mandarin and English and I feel some of the personalities are lost in translations. Anyone else saw smth similar?

Also I am very disappointed to report that if you send a letter to a villager in one language, when you change the language system again, the letters are simply deleted. If you sent them gifts, they won't display them at all. So be careful when changing languages if you sent villagers smth valuable.

 

[moonolotl]

That sucks! im learning Portuguese and Japanese and i was thinking of changing my language to either of them to practice, but i guess now i might just stick to english

 

[Lavulin98]

That sucks! im learning Portuguese and Japanese and i was thinking of changing my language to either of them to practice, but i guess now i might just stick to english

I wouldn't worry too much about Japanese, since it was programmed for the Japanese market. Its still worthwhile to change the language for studying, since the grammar is okay, but if you are proficient in both languages, it does sound better in one language then in another.

 

[Leela]

I've found that the Italian translation somewhat relies on the player's preconceptions of other languages to convey personality. I've mostly noticed this with the normal villagers—I can't have a conversation with them without them throwing in a French word. I've also seen smug villagers use Spanish words but I can't verify if this happens a lot.

This might be something very common for Italian speakers which I'm unaware of being a native English speaker, but it just came across as a little strange to me; it would be more understandable if it showed a general trend of French words entering Italian, but it seems to be concentrated in the normal villagers, making it more of a personality thing. Especially because to an English native, snooty villagers are more likely to want to use French words, but I know that's more a cultural difference than a fault with the Italian translation.

 

[InkFox]

I didn't know you could change language ! I might switch to Mandarin or German then (though I might not survive the latter, pretty sure my level of understanding is too shabby to play a game in German), I don't have enough occasions to practice these days.
My game's in French and the translated dialogues sound ok to me, but I'll switch a bit between languages to see what it's like. But the dialogues losing flavour from one language to another doesn't surprise me at all, it is often the case, whether it is in games, literature, movies or whatever, so I try to stick to the original language whenever I can.

 

[InkFox]

I just switched my game to mandarin for about half an hour, definitely sounds more childish than the French version to me, that's really weird haha. I have yet to play the game in English, so I dunno how it is for you but yeah, Animal Crossing in mandarin doesn't feel the same.
Still, I might keep switching languages every so often, it's a good way to practice.

 

[Aardbei]

I've found that the Italian translation somewhat relies on the player's preconceptions of other languages to convey personality. I've mostly noticed this with the normal villagers—I can't have a conversation with them without them throwing in a French word. I've also seen smug villagers use Spanish words but I can't verify if this happens a lot.

This might be something very common for Italian speakers which I'm unaware of being a native English speaker, but it just came across as a little strange to me; it would be more understandable if it showed a general trend of French words entering Italian, but it seems to be concentrated in the normal villagers, making it more of a personality thing. Especially because to an English native, snooty villagers are more likely to want to use French words, but I know that's more a cultural difference than a fault with the Italian translation.

It was the same thing in New Leaf and I can tell you that all the French and Spanish words used by normal and smug villagers are not used in the Italian language or by Italian people in real life

Post automatically merged: Apr 16, 2020

That sucks! im learning Portuguese and Japanese and i was thinking of changing my language to either of them to practice, but i guess now i might just stick to english

Unfortunately the game cannot be set in Portuguese

Post automatically merged: Apr 16, 2020

Also I am very disappointed to report that if you send a letter to a villager in one language, when you change the language system again, the letters are simply deleted. If you sent them gifts, they won't display them at all. So be careful when changing languages if you sent villagers smth valuable.

This is terrible ! I remember in Wild World I was trying things, with my game set into French I was sending letters in Italian and English but I would also write random letters that didn't mean anything in any language, just to see how the villagers would respond. And it turned out that they responded that they didn't understand what I wrote with the random letters letter, but they responded normally to my letters written in a foreign language

That's so sad if now the letters are simply deleted
Even the letters in our mail boxes would be deleted ?

 

[Leela]

It was the same thing in New Leaf and I can tell you that all the French and Spanish words used by normal and smug villagers are not used in the Italian language or by Italian people in real life

Post automatically merged: Apr 16, 2020

I'm glad it's not only me wondering what's going on with this translation what a strange decision. It makes me appreciate the English dialogue a bit more, even if it can still be repetitive.

 

[DJStarstryker]

Remember too that a lot of it has to do with the quality of the translating/localizing team and the editors. There can sometimes be multiple ways to translate the same sentence to get the same meaning across, but one version can sound more wooden and stilted, while another sounds like natural language.