Translation Policy

I think you want English Localization Cleanup

About 15 years after I left Wikipedia, I was again pulled into the sticky issue called Detective Conan aka Case Closed... OK, this time, not the main work, but its Non Serial Movies.

For background, Funimation held—note, past tense—the ex-Asia license for the first 6 movies. Funimation issued DVDs of those (I have all of them), but eventually dropped the license some time in the 2010s. It is also true that in anglophone countries in Asia (which nearly solely means the Philippines), the Detective Conan title is used all the time, up to this point.

Now all Conan movies have their own pages in the Anime/ namespace (see Franchise.Detective Conan), but I wonder if:

1. The first 6 (i.e. the ones Funimation owned licenses) movies should use the Detective Conan title (as in now) or the Case Closed title?
2. When strictly referring to American voice actors to characters in these movies, should they be referred to by the Detective Conan title, or the Case Closed title?

Scientia et Libertas | Per Aspera ad Astra Nova

Obviously the American voice actors should have Case Closed on their pages, as that's the version of the work they did.

I had a dog-themed avatar before it was cool.

Do we have a policy / guidance for handling non-English quotes?

As part of the ever-growing RuPaul's Drag Race reality tv empire, we now have a number of international shows in other languages, with more launching later in the year.

These are streamed internationally in subtitled form.

The approach taken so far either uses the subtitles' dialogue in English (as with many other works, the subtitle often simplifies phrasing - or changes/loses some humor that doesn't travel well), then adds a note for the original...

...or uses the original, then adds a note for the English version (as seen here).

Are these suitable methods? If so, for the English language TV Tropes site, should the English language quote be the main one, with the original in the note?

Edited by Mrph1 on Jun 12th 2023 at 1:05:51 PM

We don't have a policy for that.

I had a dog-themed avatar before it was cool.

I asked that in ATT once for a mostly-in-English-with-unsubtitled-Spanish movie [1] and consensus was “Spanish quote with English translation in a note”. I don’t believe it’s officially written down somewhere.

Edited by Synchronicity on Jun 12th 2023 at 8:12:17 AM

Thank you!

In this case, we do have an officially subtitled English version, so not sure if we would approach it differently to a scenario where fans/tropers provided a translation.

I.e. for Drag Race we can quote the official English subtitles directly, even though the audio is Spanish or French.

Does that warrant putting English first for the English-language wiki?

Or is this a back to ATT moment...?

Edited by Mrph1 on Jun 12th 2023 at 2:28:07 PM

Taking this one back to ATT, as the thread's gone quiet. Hopefully we'll get some tropers commenting there or, ideally, coming here to to add to the thread.

For completeness, this is the proposal I'm posting on ATT for feedback:

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For the English-language wiki, we are primarily writing for an English-speaking readership.

With that in mind, when quoting foreign language works which have official English subtitles or dubbing (as opposed to fan translations or some kind of auto-generated subtitles), I'd suggest that:

• As a starting point, we always use the English version of the quoted text/dialogue
• Where appropriate, we note that the quotation was not originally in English. In many cases this may be something we can state just once per page, within the introduction, rather than repeating it for every individual quotation.
• If the English version of a quote is significantly different to the original - e.g. if idioms or puns are omitted or replaced - then it may be worth explaining the differences and including the original language on the page as well, but the English version should still be the primary one.
• If the English version is not significantly different to the original, there is no need to list the quote in both languages.

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(Personally, I'd be tempted to actively discourage the duplication of quotes by listing both languages every time - even if it's using notes to collapse/expand the foreign language version - but that's just me, and I'm interested to hear other tropers' views on that particular point)

I think this is a great idea. There are many pages that dont seem to care that this wiki is read by English speaking people and that no one will get the unstranslated quotes.

Discord: Waido X 255#1372 If you cant contact me on TV Tropes do it here.

- If something's been lost, then wicking Lost in Translation might be important for context between languages.

Good ideas you got, fyi.

Disambig Needed: Help with those issues! tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=13324299140A37493800&page=24#comment-576

Remind me how we treat titles of works with no international release. I prefer transliteration in native language because it's more future-proof, but I recall it's being brought up before.

TroperWall / WikiMagic Cleanup

I believe it was brought up that if a fan translated/unofficial translation is well known or is used a lot that it might be ok for us to use it.

Generally, I prefer to use the original title buut I plan on splitting up Ace Attorney Investigations when I have time. I think it makes more sense but I am not sure about using Gyakuten Kenji 2 for the second game (which still hasn't been localized outside of Japan).

EDIT: I thought it over and Gyakuten Kenji 2 seems to be the best option so I might do that.

Edited by MacronNotes on Aug 27th 2023 at 5:24:27 AM

Macron's notes

Considering the game was never localized, using the original name is fine imo even though Ace Attorney Investigations 2 is the logical successor name.

If a tree falls in the forest and nobody remembers it, who else will you have ice cream with?

This is one of the "unusual" fan translation cases. I'd prefer localizing it to Ace Attorney Investigations 2, because the name of the subseries is already localized, but the fandom uses both names interchangeably.

I had a dog-themed avatar before it was cool.

I know Pretty Cure has been a thorn on the site's side when discussing titles but Futari Wa has a dub and like it or its the latest localization. So its page should be Pretty Cure 2004 or something. And Kibou no Chikara ~Otona Pretty Cure '23~ has a localized name on Crunchyroll and its not that, its actually Power of Hope ~Precure Full Bloom~.

Discord: Waido X 255#1372 If you cant contact me on TV Tropes do it here.

That would be a much easier move than actually getting the Glitter Force moves done.

I had a dog-themed avatar before it was cool.

I dont understand why that is but I am mega happy to hear that.

Discord: Waido X 255#1372 If you cant contact me on TV Tropes do it here.

We have a new Welsh TV series that's being filmed scene-for-scene twice (not dubbed) and released in two languages, with two titles.

• Pren ar y Bryn (Welsh language) releases in the UK this month, and will almost certainly get English subtitles
• Tree on a Hill (English language) gets a UK release at some point in 2024, probably with international release also next year.

If they were simultaneous, I'd create Tree On A Hill now - but as it stands I'll be troping the Welsh version (partly based on subtitles; my spoken Welsh is not that good) and I'm wondering if the initial page should be Pren ar y Bryn?

Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 9th 2023 at 1:30:19 PM

Because the English title is already known, the page should be located there.

I had a dog-themed avatar before it was cool.

That keeps it simple and consistent. Works for me.

It looks like their previous series, Y Gwyll has the same issue - it's Hinterland in English, which is the prominent title on the page image, but the page itself is under the Welsh name and Series.Hinterland is a redirect.

Do we want to swap the page and redirect for that one, and update the page to use the English title first?

I think we have an existing "%%This is the English-language wiki..." comment that got drafted for some other pages where untranslated content crept in, which might be worth adding to both pages?

Yes, we should swap the pages. For all intents and purposes, the show is identical in both languages; it just happens to have been shot twice rather than shot once and dubbed later.

I had a dog-themed avatar before it was cool.

Directed here from Ask The Tropers. I'm looking at making a page for the German Detective Drama SOKO Potsdam, but there's a bit of a hangup with the title policy. The series has been running continuously since 2018 in Germany, but the first three seasons are available in English since 2023 on Walter Presents (via PBS in the United States) under the title Luna + Sophie: for some odd reason they decided to retitle it after the two main viewpoint characters, but they both left the series after season 3 wrapped in 2021.

So, since the series is ongoing in Germany and they only translated the first three seasons, should I go with SOKO Potsdam as the main title and Luna + Sophie as the redirect, or follow the normal rule of titling the page after the English title?

It's also part of a much wider SOKO franchise, isn't it? Not sure if that makes a difference, but if the others haven't been translated, the consistency would be nice.

If the series is still ongoing, it'd be difficult to accurately trope it with English title when it's licensed only partially.

TroperWall / WikiMagic Cleanup

,Both good points. I'll go with SOKO Potsdam as the main title.