Like 発売, 読み込む invites misreadings, here with the 読 character. I believe it can mean “read” in certain contexts, but it is more often translated as “load” as in “load saved data.” The most frequent pattern is 読み込み中, which is generally translated as “Loading…”.

発売 is a sneaky little compound that isn’t unique to the game industry. You see it all over the place, notably on posters for goods that aren’t being sold yet. The reason I say it’s sneaky is that pesky little 売 hanging around. Yes, 売 means “sell,” but the translation of 発売 should almost never incorporate the word “sell.” In terms of kanji categories, it falls into the V + DO category and literally means something like “start sales”; hence, the correct translation is “release” or “launch.” The most frequent usage is X月Y日発売, but you’ll run into the passive form 発売される・された quite often when translating marketing material for game companies.

敵 (てき) is a relatively straightforward term – it means enemy. The one thing to keep in mind is that occasionally it can refer to another human player rather than an in-game enemy; in this case, “opponent” is a more appropriate translation than “enemy.”

An interesting compound using 敵 is 無敵 (むてき), which is the Japanese word for “invincibility” and should never be translated as “no enemies.” A frequently used, non-idiomatic four character compound is 一時無敵 (いちじむてき), which means “temporary invincibility.”

Thanks to next-gen game consoles, the Internets, and really comfortable couches, arcades have gone the way of the dinosaur in the US. Sure, there is still the occasional arcade game, but these generally play secondary roles at movie theaters or shopping malls. There are very few “game centers” especially compared to Japan. Street Fighter 4, probably the most anticipated arcade title in a while, wasn’t even released in arcade form in the US.

Because arcades are so popular in Japan, and because the games and game-related material (manuals, installation guides, etc.) still occasionally get translated, it’s important to know the word 筐体 (きょうたい), which refers to the housing in which the game resides. Companies generally prefer that this gets translated simply as “cabinet.”

Every game translation results in the translation of a game manual. Video game companies will sometimes farm out manuals to a second translation company, which makes sense. The game itself is complete, and the manual isn’t all that important relatively speaking, so you can have a smaller, cheaper company do the translation using the in-game text as reference.

Not that the translation is easy. There is more terminology (button names, controller names, error messages) that needs to be in line with company protocol, and you’re put in the position of having to explain a game (the whole point of a manual) often without having played or even seen it.

Because explanation is the central goal of a manual, some of them are basically a list of what you can and can’t do within the game. One phrase that you see in nearly every manual is 〜することができる. This is the simplest form of the potential tense. The normal potential tense (食べる→食べられる, 飲む→飲める) would be perfectly acceptable here, but these manuals need to be simple so that kids can read them easily. The normal potential tense can be confusing due to the fact that it overlaps with passive for some verbs, and this pattern also works easily with compound verbs (確認, 使用, 保存).

Combine this with the Japanese language’s high tolerance for repetition and redundancy, and an inexperienced translator can end up with something like this:

You can check your items with the A Button.
You can attack enemies with the B Button.
You can move the character with the +Control Pad.
You can pause the game with the START Button.

Yikes. I mean, those are perfectly acceptable translations of these kind of phrases (which all look something like, Aボタンでアイテムを確認することができる), but when you take a step back, look at the sentences together, and think about how they will be presented on the page, it’s immediately clear that “You can X” is a very poor translation. The best way to deal with these sentences is to cut off 〜することができる all together. “You can check your items with the A Button” becomes “Check your items with the A Button.” Simple, clean, and easy to understand.

This rule shouldn’t be applied blindly. The main point here is that while it’s important to keep the Japanese in mind, it’s more important to keep the final English product in mind. This isn’t literary translation – no one is going to be comparing the English with the original, unless you make a giant, embarrassing mistake.

Just more proof that your English composition can be more important than Japanese comprehension.

This is a term that is translated consistently in nearly every video game. 操作(そうさ) means “controls.” It’s a combination of 操る(あやつる) and 作る(つくる). 操る means “to control a device/vehicle/something.” It can be translated flexibly as “pilot,” “drive,” and “operate.” 操作 can be translated this way, too, but only when it refers to an in-game character operating/controlling/piloting something. In most cases, 操作 refers to the actual human player “controlling” the video game with an input device. 操作方法(ほうほう) is a common section of video game manuals and almost without exception should be translated as “Controls.”

So you want to translate video games, eh? Well, first I’d strongly suggest that you pursue translation in other fields. Patents pay well. So do contracts. And they’re both easier to translate than video games. Yes, the startup requirements are a little bit higher. Both fields have large amounts of terminology that a translator needs to know in both Japanese and English as well as unique ways of writing. But once you’ve mastered these, you can be a Translation Terminator – line that shit up and knock it the fuck down. The phrases will become more and more familiar, and you’ll be able to do efficient, accurate translation in a field that will always have a huge demand.

Games on the other hand require the c-word – creativity. Games lie in an area between literature and technical writing; there are terms that you need to know and keep consistent, but you also need to be creative and flexible with your English. Perhaps that’s why so many people want to do game translation? People blinded by the sexiness of video game translation (a sexiness that wears off the first time you say, “I translate video games.” *adjusts nerd glasses*) fail to realize that creativity takes time, has a larger supply, and often requires you to read extremely poorly written Japanese and make sense of it.

So you still want to translate video games? Well, I tried my best. Don’t say I didn’t warn you. I’m starting a new category of post today where I’ll try to introduce some lingo from game translation. Hope it’s interesting/helpful. Let me know if there’s anything you’d like to read about.

Be still my fluttering fanboy heart! Chrono Trigger DS?!

(Via Kotaku.)