How many get a Point?​––Vocabulary skills essential for "game translation"––

　People tend to think that "translation only requires language skills", but word sense is also required.

　In some cases, it may be OK to translate a foreign language manuscript according to its meaning, but sometimes it is necessary to abandon the original meaning and use a literal translation.

　A typical example is game translation.

　Starting with the famous Romance of the Three Kingdoms series of games, recently, there has been an increase in the number of games originating in China being translated into Japanese and provided to Japanese users. This is called "Localization."

　I want to translate Chinese item names etc. into Japanese, but there are many cases where it is not acceptable to translation.

　At this time, based on the game's worldview and story development, we will need a sense of　free translation.

　For example, there is a sword item, and the Chinese name is "天下無双".

　At this level, I don't think there will be any problems with Japanese as it is "天下無双."

　So what about the "皇家礼砲"?

　There is no problem with the "皇家の礼砲" as it is, but depending on the game, there may also be katakana, such as "Emperor-Bazooka." What about more free translation, such as "天子の稲妻"?​

　As you can see, there is no right answer when it comes to game translation.

　It can be translated in many ways depending on the world view of the game and the situation in which the item is used.

　The key is to have a "good words sense" than language skills that in other words is improv comedy. There is no right answer.

　If you don't play the game regularly, you won't be able to think of good words.

　Many translators who are active in game translation are gamers, if you don't play games regularly, even if the content of the manuscript is simple, you won't be able to think of the words and it will be more difficult.