Dictionary of words

When we posted my previous article on another resource, it was rightly noted in the comments that translating jokes is not the easiest work. And I thought: really, maybe I'm starting to "lynch" with too complicated things? After all, to convey the humor of the original in translation, to keep a play on words and so on. - not an easy task. Well then. This time we will talk about simple, I would even say, fundamental concepts not only of the localization of games, but also of any text. This spelling and punctuation.

It would seem that they write us properly in school. Exam in Russian, all in one form or another and passed. And in general, the unchanging requirement in any job in the field of localization is impeccable knowledge of Russian. Then, forgive me, where does all this come from ?!

Let's start with spelling. Yes, there are typos. There are even those that are not detected by automatic spell checkers. For example, “tsya” and “tsya” in verbs, at the sight of which, in every grammar nazi, a furious butt hurt begins and the desire to burn everyone with napalm. By the way, you should distinguish between a mistake and a typo. When in the text together the words "beloved" we see "relieved" - this is clearly a typo. Well, the performer did not hit the right key. But when we have an “ingredient” instead of an “ingredient”, this is already a mistake. The person simply does not know how to spell the word.
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I can understand when we are dealing with a major MMORPG, in which there are hundreds, or even thousands of pages of text, and it is very easy to miss a couple of spelling errors or typos. But when we face some kind of casual toy, the full passage of which is spent from 8 to 12 hours, and the mistakes begin after the second minute in the game - this is already beyond my comprehension.

But as they say, fewer words, more deeds. I think the screenshots will be much more convincing than words.









Ok, if you can still fight with spelling errors, the same spelling checker in MS Word or Excel, then punctuation is a delicate matter. I would even say, for some publishers, this is aerobatics, almost unattainable height. The rules for the separation of participial and extraparticular revolutions, introductory words, punctuation in complex and complex sentences ... And I don’t even touch upon the rules of setting dashes, colons and semicolons, only one comma. Rather, their something just sometimes not enough ...

And one more batch of screenshots.









Actually, the problem is indicated. The question is not even who is to blame and what to do. With this, just everything is clear: to do at least an elementary automatic verification of texts before loading into the game. Here I would like to give one sensational, very illustrative example. Once upon a time, the super-popular game "Happy Farmer" was watched by Vladimir Zhirinovsky. Guess what he paid attention to? Right! For mistakes: “Good game, right. Grow a garden, steal from a neighbor. But why not check literacy? "Seed", "confirm", where did you learn such words? I wanted to play, but I can't stand mistakes. Correct. A good idea.

So why "can not test literacy"? Good question, but it is more rhetorical. And by the way, in the game, errors were corrected with time.

In the end I want to give simple recommendations. Before loading texts into the game it is trivial to check them with the help of Word tools. Perhaps the program will not catch all the errors, but at least it will not plant your seed. Or give the texts for proofreading to specialists - then surely not a single comma will fall out.