Difficulties in anime/game translation | Based on Idolmaster translators 

Im@s translators are good people. They deliver when Bandai Namco is just too afraid to go global. And where the heck is MLTD anime adaptation? It has been 500 years! 🥺

Ex.) Japanese → English 私(watashi)→ I 私(watakushi)→ I あたし(atashi)→ I あたい(atai)→ I うち(uchi)→ I 自分(jibun)→ I 妾(warawa)→ I わっち(wacchi)→ I 僕(boku)→ I 俺(ore)→ I おら(ora)→ I 我(ware)→ I わい(wai，Y)→ I わし(washi)→ I あっし(asshi)→ I 吾輩(wagahai)→ I

The Nagasaki final boss named Kogane is in the house and ready to ruin the translator's day.

Wow, I did not expect a translation channel for an Idol game to teach me so much about Japanese dialects.

Kudos to all translator who provides translations/localizations. Language is deeply rooted in the culture, so without understanding the culture, it's hard to understand the language sometimes. Interpreting the Japanese quirks into the target language is both hard work and creative endeavor. I mean, how do you even translate/localize "yoroshiku onegaishimasu"

Hi, a member of starlit season fan translation team here. Translating Ranko almost gave me brain aneurysm since i pretty much had to translate her lines twice with both her chuuni-speak and her "normal" kumamoto dialect lines. Your description of ranko talking like a JRPG final boss was spot on since i just had to pull up random bullshit from JRPG games to get some of what she is saying. The hardest part is probably having to research Norse lore for some of her dialogues.

This is why when it comes to Im@s translations, Korean is one of, if not THE best languages you can read in. The ways Korean translators (both official and unofficial) incorporate the different ways of speech in many different ways, such as through similarities in culture and nuances in speech, the impression of the dialects, and et cetera. An example of this is Nao or Emi's Kansaiben being translated to the Gyeongsang dialect not just because it is one but also because those areas share many similarities in terms of the overall impression and how the people tend to be, but this isn't always the case (seen in Sae, where it's translated with another form of speech). Another example of this is Tomoe's Hiroshima dialect being translated to the Jeolla dialect. Even Yoshino's speech is able to be translated pretty smoothly because Korean also has forms of speech that roughly correspond to the overall feel of -deshite and sonata. Korean producers are also quite numerous and are probably the most dedicated producers outside of Japan, and this leads to active translation and ways to improve them. If you know Korean but not Japanese, I highly suggest using Korean translations for Im@s over other languages, whether that may be fan translations, patches, documents, or official translations.

And then how do you translate characters who speak English but speak it wrong lmao. Rui like Roco, will just use a lot of random English in his sentences and sometimes the phrases he uses are kinda just wrong, which for a former English teacher is very funny to think about

Juri is a tomboy... But she used "Atashi", very cuteeeee

Translators in general are a blessing to have and have always been throught the history of humanity 🙌 while i do work as one for spanish-italian as a part time i cant imagine putting the 1000% effort these colossus put in there, specially when translating stuff like Asian languages or something completely different from latin languages. Appreciate y'all

As a person who once participated in the translation of the manga, my respect.

As an idolmaster translator, I can say, that it´s easier to do, when you have at least a basic grasp of how japanese works generally. I myself translated 3 whole playthroughs of Imas2 and nearly all stuff for platinum stars and stella stage. And some stuff from Starlit season as well. And I learned it just by myself without ever having a professional lesson or so. Japanese isn´t a language, you can translate word by word. When translating a communication scene, just get a grasp of what is being said and think of, how this communication would run in your native language(German/English in my case). It´ll make it way easier to translate. For dialects, I can say, that they speak differently, but the writing is nearly always the same. And if a line is created too free in japanese, then translate it free in english too. Or you have the luck, that the idol explains it by herself like Hibiki, when she says some Okinawa words.

This was wildly entertaining and equally informative!!

A console translator's worst nightmare is dealing with the character limit of a game's text box. Regardless of how many translators or machine translation you do, the text box is the final boss that gatekeeps how much text you can display to your reader.

I normally play Deresute raw as I have a decent grasp of Japanese. Though some of Asuka's chuunibyou jargon during her events is impossible to understand. At least Ranko slips into normal speak time to time or has "subtitles".

as a foreign idol fan w/ a knowledge of a lot of weird/confusing modern J-Idol jargon (推ししか勝たん etc) I can't wait to get better at my JP skills and lend a helping hand. Keep up the awesome work!

Man that was so entertaining, I always wanted to translate commus and level up dialogue on starlight stage so I always would screenshot text... well others that come to mind - Anna mochizuki, ryo Matsunata, and Karen ninomiya

こんな動画があったとは...活動応援してます！

The Chinese iM@S translators have it much easier than their English counterparts, because their language(s, it can be more than just Mandarin) is much more 'divisive' than English when it comes to dialects and accents. I have seen Cantonese and Minnan only Chinese words or zhuyin slipped into Mandarin translations, just because the Hong Kongers and Taiwanese could hehe.

Great video

This is a very interesting video to watch, as a person still learning japanese lol. Very educative. Btw, what about Ami and Mami? I've seen some translators at MLTD discord servers complaining about them being hard to translate too lol.

I remember when I still had an iPhone and I spent $50 on the iOS port of Shiny Festa. That was..... certainly a decision I made.....

I know a bit of JP and occasionally casually play shinymas, this was fascinating!

">starlit patch... hard at work..." > spreadsheet last updated 3 months ago.. yeah sure

Yoshino doesn't speak in Kagoshima dialect, just uses old words and speaks slowly. Kagoshima dialect falls under the Kyushu dialect umbrella and is probably harder to hear than Nagasaki dialect. Watch the anime Drifters for a feel of Kagoshima dialect, as Toyohisa uses it (still pretty light, though).

riamu is such a pain to translate😂

BRASIL CAMPEÃO DO MUNDO

Blood boil with love ❤

Layla slips up the most i think, but it would be a bit easier since she's so quiet lmao

13:06 I guess this is more directed to Bamco's character designer team and not the translators, but it always makes me angry for some reason, because in russian, Anya is shortening for Anna, not Anastasia (that would be Nastya)

I HATE SLOW TALKING CHARACTERS I HATE SLOW TALKING CHARACTERS I HATE SLOW TALKING CHARACTERS

I know this is obvious (or/and actually dumb) but, I use Google Translate (GT) to translate most of Starlight Stage text, commu and dialogue since that's the only dependable way I could understand the game and characters. We know that GT is still not accurate when it comes to Japanese translation, which I have to rephrase the sentences and words myself in English (not my first language) to properly understand them. Sometimes I have to guess and assume parts of their speeches when GT don't work on some text. Like what mentioned in the video, all those characters with dialect, chuunibyou and mixed languages are impossible for GT to translate. It literary can't detect the dialect words and resulted in funny/weird translations. I have trouble understanding Sae the most so far in the main story. Ranko is still fine since there's the actual Japanese for her dialogue. Felt like I should've continue my self-study on Japanese years ago so that I'll be able to understand them more without translator.

FYI: for some reason, subs ain't working for me

Bandai could at least try tho..

I know this video is about 2 months old at this point, I just wanted to ask as someone who is currently learning Japanese. Are the team of subbers self taught, learnt in a language school or a mix of both? Or perhaps some have been brought up with Japanese as a language they've learnt all their life? As someone who should be attempting N5 or N4 sometime in the future next year, I'm a lil curious on the base level before trying to attempt translations or joining groups that do translations.

自分 doesn't necessarily mean "myself" its use changed in the "recent" years. Now it's being used just like 私 and the likes. Nothing special about it

My solution - learn Japanese. Enjoy the games in its full glory.