Questions regarding the french translation of "Invasion from the Unknown"

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Markowoko
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Joined: June 6th, 2022, 12:12 pm

Questions regarding the french translation of "Invasion from the Unknown"

Post by Markowoko »

Hello,

About... a month or so now I started working on french translations for the UMC Project Ethea (Invasion from the Unknown, After the Storm and their shared Naia library). As a bit of history, AtS and Naia, though they were largely imperfect, already had working french translations when I played the campaigns earlier in the year, IftU on the other hand had nothing yet. Which is why I ended up trying my hand at it, both to refurbish AtS and Naia, and to create the ItfU translation from scratch myself.
Time passed, I spent about 10 hours on Naia before replaying IftU and writing its translation over the course of... about 2 weeks and 80ish hours, translation that I finished 3 days ago now before taking a break.
Both are still unfinished, between the streamlining I have to do to match the translations with french mainline Wesnoth (mostly punctuation, usage of capital letters,...), between Naia and the campaigns (matching names and stuff), my usage of past tenses, maybe some rewrites for translated names too, and finally the extensive rephrasing I have to do to shift away from very literal translations to more pleasing to read text, needless to say, I still have a lot of work ahead of me.

BUT
There are things for which I would like some help and opinions about the campaigns' writing, and more specifically how I should write relationships, so spoilers ahead regarding the story of IftU.
Spoiler:

Ironically enough, my main other issue is finding a good title for ItfU. Unlike "After the Storm" which can easily be translated into "Après la Tempête", very literal and no additional thought required, "Invasion from the Unknown" has a bit more room for interpretation and I'm not entirely sure if "L'Invasion de l'Inconnu" is the best title choice.
As a matter of fact, in Naia, ItfU was referred to as "L'Obscure Invasion", which means "The Obscure Invasion", a translation choice I didn't agree with because despite obscurity being capable of sharing a similar meaning with the unknown, it also blatantly spoils elements of the story unlike "Unknown". Nevertheless, that choice was made by the previous translator and I can understand why to a degree, I also feel like "L'Invasion de l'Inconnu", despite being the most correct translation in a literal sense, lacks... something in french, something I can't quite put my finger on.


That's about it. Big thanks to anyone who might be willing to help.
I will also be linking the PO files for both Naia and IftU if someone wants to see the current state of my work or make suggestions on how to improve it.
Attachments
L'invasion de l'Inconnu trad fr.zip
IftU fr PO file
(290.02 KiB) Downloaded 73 times
Naia fr.po
Naia fr PO file
(105.11 KiB) Downloaded 38 times
gnombat
Posts: 682
Joined: June 10th, 2010, 8:49 pm

Re: Questions regarding the french translation of "Invasion from the Unknown"

Post by gnombat »

Markowoko wrote: May 24th, 2023, 8:27 pm As a bit of history, AtS and Naia, though they were largely imperfect, already had working french translations when I played the campaigns earlier in the year, IftU on the other hand had nothing yet.
Older versions of the campaign did actually have a French translation - it's likely very much out of date but you might want to take a look at it to see how the previous translator handled things.
demario
Posts: 131
Joined: July 3rd, 2019, 1:05 pm

Re: Questions regarding the french translation of "Invasion from the Unknown"

Post by demario »

Salut Markowoko, I had a quick look at your translation and it looks like you succeed in reaching very high quality, so don't worry: you did a good job already.

You said you tried to apply the rules used in mainline French translation (some of them are described here). I would highlight the required use of the "espace insécable" before punctuation [?!;:].

About questions specific to the campaigns, I can't help as I haven't played them (but your translation makes it sound very interesting). You can try to send your questions to the French translation mailing list. To subscribe, send a mail with "subscribe" subject to wesnothfr-request@lists.tuxfamily.org, then reply to the confirmation mail. The main focus of the list is mainline translation but there is no rule that I know of that forbids talking about UMC. This is a low traffic list though, so don't be in a hurry for an answer. ;)

Thanks for your contribution at improving the experience of French speaking players !!!

Markowoko wrote: May 24th, 2023, 8:27 pm Ironically enough, my main other issue is finding a good title for ItfU. Unlike "After the Storm" which can easily be translated into "Après la Tempête", very literal and no additional thought required, "Invasion from the Unknown" has a bit more room for interpretation and I'm not entirely sure if "L'Invasion de l'Inconnu" is the best title choice.
Synonymes de impénétrable
inaccessible, dense, inabordable, serré, touffu
énigmatique, hermétique, insaisissable, mystérieux, secret
incompréhensible, hermétique, indéchiffrable, inexplicable, inintelligible, insondable, obscur, sibyllin, ténébreux, abscons (littéraire), abstrus (littéraire)
I like "insondable" as it gives a feeling of something buried down ("from the Unknown").
Last edited by demario on July 2nd, 2023, 12:39 am, edited 1 time in total.
newfrenchy83
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Re: Questions regarding the french translation of "Invasion from the Unknown"

Post by newfrenchy83 »

Perhaps the term"L'Invasion mystérieuse" would be a good translation of "Invasion from the Unknown" to underline the mysteries around the invaders (military means, hierarchy etc..)
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lhybrideur
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Re: Questions regarding the french translation of "Invasion from the Unknown"

Post by lhybrideur »

I like "L'Invasion mystérieuse" proposed by newfrenchy83.
I was also thinking about "L'invasion depuis l'inconnu", but I do not know if it fits the campaign as I have not played it.
Markowoko
Posts: 6
Joined: June 6th, 2022, 12:12 pm

Re: Questions regarding the french translation of "Invasion from the Unknown"

Post by Markowoko »

gnombat wrote: May 24th, 2023, 9:00 pm
Markowoko wrote: May 24th, 2023, 8:27 pm As a bit of history, AtS and Naia, though they were largely imperfect, already had working french translations when I played the campaigns earlier in the year, IftU on the other hand had nothing yet.
Older versions of the campaign did actually have a French translation - it's likely very much out of date but you might want to take a look at it to see how the previous translator handled things.
I could probably give it a look. At the very least it could give me insights, much like the initial version of Naia I modified. I'm not sure where I can find them though considering the Project Ethea repository only contains the latest iteration as far as I'm aware, maybe from the add-ons page for BFW 1.12 and before?
Markowoko
Posts: 6
Joined: June 6th, 2022, 12:12 pm

Re: Questions regarding the french translation of "Invasion from the Unknown"

Post by Markowoko »

You said you tried to apply the rules used in mainline French translation (some of them are described here). I would highlight the required use of the "espace insécable" before punctuation [?!;:]. You're sometimes missing them. I did some edits to try to clarify the use of capitalization used in French translation and put them in attachment. The changes are in fuzzy state.
Thanks a bunch for that, I will admit that I've mostly been going from I could see in-game regarding that matter instead of searching for the actual rules. :lol:
I like "insondable" as it gives a feeling of something buried down ("from the Unknown").
I like the idea but I feel like "insondable" might be a bit too esoteric of a word for a title. I might go back and include it somewhere in the actual text though, it's definitely a strong alternative word to avoid repetition or flat out describe certain situations.
By the way, fun fact. It might not be apparent at first glance but if you really pay attention, you'll notice that the quality of my writing steadily improved as I progressed. I do believe that I have a strong grasp on french in the first place, but I definitely had to dig deeper and deeper in my vocabulary as I went on, all the more reason for me to do subsequent drafts to equalize that quality throughout.
Markowoko
Posts: 6
Joined: June 6th, 2022, 12:12 pm

Re: Questions regarding the french translation of "Invasion from the Unknown"

Post by Markowoko »

lhybrideur wrote: May 25th, 2023, 2:24 pm I like "L'Invasion mystérieuse" proposed by newfrenchy83.
I was also thinking about "L'invasion depuis l'inconnu", but I do not know if it fits the campaign as I have not played it.
I did indeed consider this possibility, but I just don't like the word "depuis". It can be used as a translation of "from", but I much prefer using it as a translation of "since" which shifts the meaning of that linking word from location to time. Maybe my brain is weird but it keeps bothering me.
newfrenchy83 wrote: May 25th, 2023, 11:56 am Perhaps the term"L'Invasion mystérieuse" would be a good translation of "Invasion from the Unknown" to underline the mysteries around the invaders (military means, hierarchy etc..)
I actually really like this one, it might be exactly what I was looking for !
gnombat
Posts: 682
Joined: June 10th, 2010, 8:49 pm

Re: Questions regarding the french translation of "Invasion from the Unknown"

Post by gnombat »

Markowoko wrote: May 30th, 2023, 9:00 am I could probably give it a look. At the very least it could give me insights, much like the initial version of Naia I modified. I'm not sure where I can find them though considering the Project Ethea repository only contains the latest iteration as far as I'm aware, maybe from the add-ons page for BFW 1.12 and before?
The .po file can be found here:

https://github.com/project-ethea/Ethea-i18n/blob/master/Invasion_from_the_Unknown/fr.po
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