Vol/51 No/4 2012AUGUST/SEPTEMBERTheLinguist19CREATIVE TRANSLATIONcoin' or 'You have won a bronze coin'. Yet thissyntax is not going to work in manylanguages. For instance, in Spanish Hasganado una oro monedais incorrect; oroshould appear at the end and be preceded bya preposition: Has ganado una moneda deoro. Since the syntax has been programmedinto the game and cannot be altered, in a caselike this it would be useful to translate the firststring as Has ganado una moneda deandleave the last cell empty, or just with a fullstop. However, this is only a very basicexample and challenges of this type can bemuch more difficult to solve.To make matters worse, concatenation canbe combined with variables to create everytranslator's nightmare: _#T1 _#T2 _#T3, where_#T1 is an adjective, _#T2 a weapon nameand _#T3 a type of ammo. This might result in'Infallible lacerator bullets'. Here, the translatoris dealing with both gender issues and syntax.In order to avoid many of these issues, thereis a case for games localisation companies toget involved in the process earlier and assistdevelopers with internationalisation, ie,creating a product as culturally neutral aspossible. Early involvement can help flag uppotential issues sooner, give translators moretime to put their questions to developers, andassist in sim-ship (simultaneous shipping of thegame across territories). But it is not without its drawbacks: earlyinvolvement means that the game code hasnot been finalised and therefore that thesource language is likely to undergo manychanges. Those constant updates can bedraining and time-consuming for the translator,even with the use of an online system thatflags up changes and allows for translations tobe updated in the cloud.Testing timesOnce a game has been fully localised, it goesthrough a quality assurance process known aslinguistic testing, or localisation testing.Testers should check the game thoroughlyand see all the text in it, before reportingmistakes such as typos, missing accents, textthat overflows its allocated space etc. Theyshould also check that the translators haveused the platform-specific terminology, asmost of the hardware components arecopyrighted and have approved translationsthat have to be followed to the letter. For thatreason, it is important to use professionaltesters with a keen eye for detail, who knowexactly how to look for mistakes in the game.For players to engage in the action, theoriginal feeling of gameplay must bemaintained, but this can suffer as a result oftight translation deadlines. It is not uncommonfor games to be split between three or fourtranslators per language, especially when theycontain tens of thousands of words. Even ifthere is an editor to oversee the whole project,it is quite easy for the game to lose some of itsstrength and flavour as there isn't usually timeto unify differing translation styles.Secrets and embargoesGames companies are extremely protective oftheir products, and the translator often has towork without having seen the product at all,despite signing all the necessary confidentialityagreements. Some clients go so far as toprovide only the game title and the platform itwill be played on. Fortunately other clientsprovide a bit of background information and,if the translator is lucky, the design documents.This lack of information becomes an acuteproblem when attempting to translate stringsof words. When faced with a single word, withno context at all, it may be impossible todetermine gender and number, whether theword (eg 'pause') is a verb or a noun, or evenwhat the word means. 'Bat' in a hidden-objectgame could refer to an animal or a baseballbat, for instance. Similarly, it can be hard tomake the right choice in a dialogue if thetranslator is unsure who the character is talkingto (formal/informal, singular/plural, feminine/masculine). The translator may not even knowwhether the game will be dubbed or subtitled.Another common problem is the lack ofspace on screen. Languages such as Spanish,French and German tend to be 20-30 percentmore verbose than English, so it can be hardto stick to the character restrictions, whichoften only take into account the length of thesource language version. This is especially trueif the game is developed in Japanese.On mobile phones even less text can beaccommodated, yet these games havebecome very popular. Somehow the translatorhas to find a way of conveying the meaningof the original without using indecipherableabbreviations -abbreviating 'Sound options'to 'Sound' rather than, say, 'S. op', wherethere is space for just five characters.Endless variablesVariables are used often in games and canpose endless problems. These are codes thatwill be replaced by terms or values, forIt may be impossibleto determine gender,whether the word is averb or a noun, oreven what it meansinstance 'You have won a %d'. In manylanguages, this simple sentence has to betranslated differently depending on thegender of the object that replaces '%d'. Inthe case of a car the translation in Spanishwould be Has ganado un (coche); for a coin,it would be Has ganado una (moneda). Acommon strategy is to use a colon: 'You havewon: %d'. It can be trickier if the variable isreplaced by a name -for example 'Welcome%d' (Bienvenido/a%d). In this case, thesentence could be rewritten in a neutral wayto avoid gender issues: 'Hello %d' (Hola%d). Fortunately, some developers are starting tointroduce code that allows the translators tocater for gender and number variations.Otherwise, a little creativity is better than usingbrackets to cover the different alternatives (asin Bienvenido(a) %d).Concatenation can be even morecomplicated. In the games localisationindustry, this means combining severalseparate strings to form a sentence. Thetranslator might find themselves having totranslate the following table:EnglishSpanishYou have won a Has ganado una goldorosilverplatabronzebroncecoin.moneda.When combined, the results will be 'Youhave won a gold coin', 'You have won a silver

TAKE TWO An advert from BMW's 'Joy is'campaign in English and German20 TheLinguistAUGUST/SEPTEMBERwww.iol.org.ukCREATIVE TRANSLATIONBill Maslenoffers an insideaccount of advertising transcreation Creative translation - sometimes referred toas 'transcreation' - is hard. It's hard for all thereasons you know, and for a lot of othersbesides. First, there's the work itself. Itdemands intellectual application, an ability tothink laterally, a good sense of rhythm andeuphony, and a penchant for getting excitedabout stuff. Even when the stuff isn't veryexciting. Second, there are the clients. Theydemand speed, flexibility, a willingness topull rabbits out of hats at the very lastminute -and consistently top-quality work.Creative translation is not for everyone. Iknow many experienced technical translatorswho recognise this and systematically avoidit. Why is the work so different? Surely themain criteria are the same? Like a technicaltranslator, a creative translator should be awareof three things before starting a project: itsobjectives (aims, intentions); target readership(audience); and target medium (usually media).The differences lie in the specifics. Is the textpromoting a product or service, or the brandas a whole? Is it adhering to the client's brandvalues or deliberately breaking with them andtaking an edgier approach? How does thisaffect the choice of language and tone?Some of these questions are cleared uponce you know whether the campaign is B2B(addressing businesses) or B2C (addressingconsumers). As a creative translator you shouldknow exactly who the client is attempting towoo, and exactly how. The 'how' may not bewhat you were expecting. As David Bellosremarks in his thought-provoking book Is Thata Fish in Your Ear?:1'Translation always takesthe register and level of naturally written proseup a notch or two. translators are instinctivelyaverse to the risk of being taken for less thanfully cultivated writers of their target tongue.' This tendency can be a problem. The clientmay want rough and tough, and many verycapable translators find this kind of stylisticelasticity difficult to achieve. Good creativetranslators must be willing - must activelyMaking it ad updesire - to experiment with language, playwith unfamiliar constructions and idioms, andraise, lower or contrast registers. And aboveall, they must be willing to focus a sensitive,attuned ear on the language used by a client'starget audience. Thus research is just asimportant for a creative translator as it is for atechnical specialist - more so, in fact, becauseit should cover a vast range of intangibles,such as tone of voice, idiomatic idiosyncrasiesand regional/dialectal variations.Many of the most gifted creative translatorsI know are 'family' people - they try out theirgrasp of idiom on their nearest and dearest,or on friends and neighbours. They readwidely, and rake carefully through the web forthe latest, greatest terms or phrases thatcharacterise a particular market segment.They are also consummate researchers whowill go to any lengths to track down obscurereferences, to make sure not only that they getthe translation right, but that the copywriterwho wrote the source text also got it right.The consummate professionalTypically, a source text arrives with no brief, noexplanation and no context. This is an endlesssource of moans and drones at translationconferences. But this negative responseoverlooks a positive opportunity: this is yourchance to look like the consummateprofessional -by asking the right questions.Many translators, and even translationfirms, will do almost anything to avoid askingquestions of clients, perhaps because theyare anxious not to lose the client'sconfidence. The reality is utterly different.Whether the client is a corporate marketingdepartment or a communications agency, thefirst point of contact is likely to be a juniormember of the team, often a freelanceproject manager who knows little about thecreative underpinnings of the project.But that's ok. There's always one person forwhom the creative aspect is critical: theCreative Director. To work your way up thechain of command, ask intelligent questionsof your junior contact (about intention, targetaudience, target media, etc). They won't havethe answers, and you will soon be transferedto the Creative Director or to the copywriterwho wrote the original text. At first, the Creative Director may beimpatient and irritable, but this is where yourprofessionalism has a chance to shine. Neverjust ask a question (eg, 'this passage is veryunclear, can you explain?'); always suggest anintelligent solution as well.What you're looking for is a brief. Thereare three kinds: 1A campaign brief, covering the overallgoals of the campaign (your project usuallyforms part of a greater whole)2A creative brief - a more detailed documentthat focuses on the concepts and messagesthat will be used to attain these goals3A copy brief, specifying what this particulartext is intended to achieve and how.In the old days, agencies rarely embarkedon a campaign without some kind of formalbrief. Such is the speed of moderncommunications that nowadays briefs areoften neglected completely, or exist in apurely oral form that can be tweaked andrefined as the campaign takes shape. Today's creative directors are confronted bya vast, increasingly fragmented range ofmedia through which they can (indeed must)communicate their messages. Decidingwhere to focus their creative energies - and