Poor Localization of Japanese Computer Game Leads to Fan Website Pointing Out Translation Errors

Poor translations and localization are unfortunately common within business.

There are plenty of examples of bad translation, illegible fonts, cultural differences and localization fails that illustrate how important it is to get it right when it comes to language.

Just think of IKEA’s workbench named FARTFULL or KFC’s slogan being localized for the Chinese market as ‘eat your fingers off’.

Approaching the language used in a product, marketing campaign, social media messages, website, etc all impact the users experience. If you haven’t understood their language and culture, it will show through and cause problems.

This is exactly what has happened to the makers of the computer game Persona 5. An English-speaking fan, namely Conner Krammer, along with other players of the game, has launched a website completely dedicated to pointing out localization errors in the game.

The website, ‘Persona 5: Phantoms of Translation: How Atlus fails fans of a landmark JRPG’, is not only a clear and concise overview of some of the problems with the English version of the game but more importantly to those working in the translation, localization and copy writing fields highlights a) what is important for users and the need to invest in localization resources and b) the damaging consequences when things go wrong.

“This isn’t the 1990s, when localization was still young and errors were endemic. Nor is Persona 5 a small game, or an insignificant one.”

Is the Translation That Bad?

According to the website, it is…

“The baseline for any translation is this: readers of the translation should receive the same experience as readers of the original, as if the original creators had written it natively in both languages.

Persona 5’s English localization does not meet this standard. Readers are receiving an inferior work containing awkward language, mischaracterization, grammatical mistakes, and outright translation errors.”

Examples are shown on the website along with simple to understand explanations as to why and how the problems have occurred and mistakes made by the localization team.

example poor localization

Consider the website a fantastic little tutorial in getting localization right, albeit a computer game in this case.

Some of the questions it answers include:

How does “translation” differ from “localization”?
What does good translation look like?
Why did Atlus release such a flawed translation?
Why aren’t more people complaining?
Can you show me what’s wrong?

If you want a great case study on how poor localization and translations can impact a business or its product, this is one for 2017.

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