Translation

Translation is the act of making a given work accessible in a language other than the one it was originally created in. In the context of visual novels, this means localizing text (dialogue, images, fonts, and menus) and possibly recorded voices.

Machine translation

Machine translation (sometimes shortened to MTL or MT) refers to the use of software to automatically convert one written language to another. This is considered a poor quality way to handle translation for entertainment, since machine translation tends to improperly translate tone, complex ideas, figures of speech, and other literary nuances. It can, however, be useful for translating manuals and documentation. Popular machine translation services are DeepL and Google Translate. The quality of the machine translation varies among languages, topics and writing styles.

While machine translations of VNs may be poor quality on their own, they might be usable as a draft that a human could edit into a proper translation. These manual revisions must include preserving the scripting, including in-line variables integrated into dialogue or narration. MTL may incorrectly attempt to translate these items, when they in fact must be left exactly as-is for the visual novel to run properly.

Process

If translation begins before the VN is finished in the source language, changes in the source text might require (sometimes large) revisions to the translated product. Even in the case of simple additions to the source text, the additions in one part of the source might change how readers would perceive a different part of the story. And that might change how those are best translated.

As a result, it is generally considered best practice to finalize the narrative (including editing and proofreading) before beginning translation. In the case of VN jams, time constraints might require starting translation before writing is complete. In that case, it would be useful for the translators to have access to a summary of the parts that haven't been written yet. Also, if something gets edited in the source language after it was already translated, it usually needs the translation to be edited too. Sometimes even typo fixes can need this, if the typos had caused the translators to misunderstand the text.

The translators read the VN in the source language, and research relevant topics if they need to. While researching, they might create topic-specific glossaries or other resources for themselves (and their teammates, if any) to use.

While translating text, translators might also need to know other things than the lines they're translating, such as who is saying them to whom, and how they're supposed to be saying the lines. Some developers might give translators and |voice actors the same information.

After a first draft of line-by-line translation is completed, it is proofread. Two different types of proofreaders are commonly used for translations:

• Someone who checks that the target text means the same as the source text. This is typically another translator who did not work on the first draft.
• A speaker of the target language who reads the translation to look for typos and clumsy wording, but doesn't necessarily understand the source language.

In some cases, particularly in the case of professional translation, there might be proofreaders of both types (usually one of each).

Challenges

• Differences in cultural knowledge. Speakers of different languages typically come from different cultures, which means they are familiar with different cultural references. Translating these references, especially if they are paired with visuals, can be very difficult.
  • Unit conversions, such as feet/meters, Fahrenheit/Celsius, and miles/kilometers.
  • References to media such as TV shows, celebrities, or other parts of culture that are not commonly known by speakers of the target language.
  • Objects, food, or cultural practices that are not commonly known by speakers of the target language. These are especially difficult to deal with if (a) they cannot be easily swapped out with something else, especially if they appear in visuals, and (b) there isn't enough time to explain what they are to the audience in the translated version. A classic example of this problem is from the English localization of the original Pokemon anime, where Brock is holding some onigiri (rice balls), but calls them jelly donuts instead.
• Ambiguity. Often, if something is ambiguous in the source text, it must also be ambiguous in the translated version. Grammar differences can make this complex.
  • Gendered/non-gendered language. Take, for example, the English source line "You're so smart!" (referring to the player, whose gender is customizable). A Spanish translation could choose to display "¡Qué listo eres!" if the player is male and "¡Qué lista eres!" if the player is female, but this can be an involved process for the scripter to implement. Gender neutral alternatives, such as "¡Qué inteligente eres!", may exist, but they sometimes come across as awkward or forced in the target language.
  • Formal and informal language. For example, some languages use different words for "you" depending on the relationship between the speaker and listener. Also, some languages distinguish between talking to one person or to a group of people.
    • Sometimes, changing the way one character refers to another becomes a point of conversation in the story. This is especially relevant, and complex, in Japanese to English translations. Cultural nuances about referring to someone by their first/last name & with various honorifics can be very difficult to intuitively translate. Some games solve this by leaving honorifics intact (ex. "Aya-chan").
  • Pronoun systems in general can vary. Some distinguish singular and plural, others don't; some distinguish gender on one or more pronouns, others don't; some distinguish between a "we" that includes the audience and others don't.
• Puns and wordplay can be quite challenging to translate, especially if they refer to the visuals on screen, since images might be harder to replace than text. Puns may also rely on the sounds of two or more words in the source language, which may be difficult to maintain in the target language.
• Poetry, where the way the text not only needs to convey the same message but must also use a poetic style. Different languages might have different criteria for what poetry should be like (for example, English poetry usually rhymes).
• Space constraints. Text might have to fit inside the size of a textbox or speech bubble, which might force some compromises if the text would normally take up more space in the target language than in the source language. Some textboxes might be resizable or support scrollbars, making this less of an issue.
  This also applies to UI: in English you could make a history button smaller by calling it Log instead of History, but in a language that doesn't have such a short word for that meaning, the button will probably need to be bigger. Depending on how the UI is made, this could cause bugs such as buttons overlapping or text going off the edge of the screen. Such bugs can happen even in the source language if the engine gives players a font size option but the developers didn't test the game at larger sizes than the default.
• Subject knowledge of translators. For example, a visual novel about a tailor might mention different ways of sewing things and different items of clothing. These don't necessarily make the plot hard to follow if you are unfamiliar, but translating them properly requires knowledge of the topic. If a group of people is working together on translation, they might keep a document or other way to keep track of the topic information they collect.
• Consistency among multiple translators. If a group of people are working together on translating a VN into the same language, they might need to coordinate things so that they can keep different parts consistent with each other, and they might need to proofread each other's part of the work.
• Localization of visuals. Sometimes it might make sense to modify images to better suit the translation, although that creates more work for the artists. If the font used for the source language doesn't properly support the target language, replacing the font might be necessary.

Resources

• Wikipedia's article about translation
• Ren'Py's documentation on translation
• Naninovel's documentation on translation
• Visual Novel Maker's documentation on translation
• MysteryCorgi's tutorial on implementing translations in RenPy