Grammatical/Linguistic Study of Suikoden V

[dragonmasterx]

Possible spoilers in future posts.

Let's make note of any text that has odd, questionable, or outright improper grammar. Or anything else of the sort.

I'll start:

Clay Guardian S3 - Casts 'Clay Guardian' on enemies
This scroll only has an effect on allies, not enemies.

Head Chef: You and Lady Sialeeds, off on that long journey .. I haven't served you two in ages.

This is the first thing the head chef of Falena Castle says. The two periods are in the center rather than in the bottom. I don't even know how to type that. Is anyone familiar with the usage of those two dots?

I noticed location and character names that show up in the dialogue boxes appear in a different color. I don't recall these fancy colors in the Japanese version, so they must be unique to the US version.

[Geddoe]

the only colored names I have noticed are when you hear the name for the first time, after that they are normal colors.

[dragonmasterx]

Spoiler for initial encounter with Kyle









Kyle - You know, the part about the Prince being 'as good as dead...'

In Japanese, the misheard word wasn't "dead". It was more like to "kill" or "korosu."

飼い殺し/kaigoroshi (n) keeping a pet till it dies, keeping a useless person on the payroll

So basically, the word with the definition above was translated as deadwood.

In Japanese, kaigoroshi and koroshi sound somewhat alike. So they had to pick words that sound alike in English, which ended up being deadwood and dead.

Obseqious Noble - Of c-course not! Not 'as good as dead'! 'About as good as deadWOOD,' he said...


Notice that exclamation mark is outside the quotation mark? I was always taught to place punctuation marks inside quotation marks. Maybe that's British style?

Also, doesn't it seem like there's an abundant usage of single quotations, but not double quotations? Isn't that more of a British style? Perhaps it means the translator(s) and/or editor(s) were educated in British English.
---
Initial Encounter With Lymsleia







Pick "just pipe down, will you?"

Watch the "?????????????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

I wonder if that's supposed to be improper grammar.
---
"Sacred Games" is pretty loose translation of 闘神祭/toushinsai. Here are the EDICT definitions of the characters involved in this compound word:
闘う 【たたかう】 (v5u) to fight, to battle, to combat, to struggle against, to wage war, to engage in contest, (P)
神 【かみ】 (n) god, divine, holy (P)
祭り 【まつり】 (n) festival, feast, (P)
---
Whoops, my mistake about the colored character and location names. They're in the Japanese version too; just checked right this moment.
---
In the beginning scene, Georg says something like "ah shaddap" to which Sialeeds says "ugh, what a rude Queen's Knight, right Georg Prime."

Well in Japanese, Georg Prime didn't tell her to shut up. He said

やめんか、気色悪い
yamen ka, kishoku warui
Stop it, you're making me sick/creeping me out/scaring me.

[Angelis_Taleria]

Trust me, I've taken note of the grammatical mistakes! Periods instead of commas?! This is unacceptable!

[Darkillumina]

Honestly would this be Suikoden without the grammatical errors and shoddy translating? I think it's part of the charm =)

[dragonmasterx]

Trust me, I've taken note of the grammatical mistakes! Periods instead of commas?! This is unacceptable!

If you get the chance and it's not too much of a hassle, please transcribe the specific "mistakes" and make note of who said it and at what point in the game. That way, we can all see the "mistakes" for ourselves firsthand.

[Angelis_Taleria]

Hehe, I'm on it, Hsing.

[dragonmasterx]

Obseqious Noble - Of c-course not! Not 'as good as dead'! 'About as good as deadWOOD,' he said...


Notice that exclamation mark is outside the quotation mark? I was always taught to place punctuation marks inside quotation marks. Maybe that's British style?

Here's a good link to explain the fascinating phenomenon of placing punctuation outside of quotation marks:
http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-pun1.htm

[dragonmasterx]

After meeting Limsleia and leaving the room:
Kyle - Come on. You're both so beautiful. Well, 'cute,' in your case -- but how could I possibly choose

This time, the punctuation is inside the quotations. Isn't this an inconsistency in punctuation?
---

Head Chef: You and Lady Sialeeds, off on that long journey .. I haven't served you two in ages.

This is the first thing the head chef of Falena Castle says. The two periods are in the center rather than in the bottom. I don't even know how to type that. Is anyone familiar with the usage of those two dots?

Actually, I think that's just two dashes --. It's just really small, so I thought they were two dots.

[Zury_Talbourne]

Commas and periods always come before quotation marks. Question marks, exclamation points, etc. come afterwards, unless they're part of the original quote. Examples:

Did you just say, "I'm not sure where to put this question mark"?

Did you just ask, "Where does this question mark go?"

"Shut up," he explained.

"Shut the hell up!" he yelled.

I can't believe he pulled me out here just to "move my car"!

And so on.

BTW, those single quotation marks you're referring to are actually double quotation marks; that font just puts them close together.

[dragonmasterx]

Commas and periods always come before quotation marks. Question marks, exclamation points, etc. come afterwards, unless they're part of the original quote. Examples:

Did you just say, "I'm not sure where to put this question mark"?

Did you just ask, "Where does this question mark go?"

"Shut up," he explained.

"Shut the hell up!" he yelled.

I can't believe he pulled me out here just to "move my car"!

And so on.

I browsed through some grammar sites and found proof of that; I guess you're right.

source: http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/ ... quote.html

Put a dash, question mark, or exclamation point within closing quotation marks when the punctuation applies to the quotation itself and outside when it applies to the whole sentence.

Philip asked, "Do you need this book?"

Does Dr. Lim always say to her students, "You must work harder"?

Sharon shouted enthusiastically, "We won! We won!"

I can't believe you actually like that song, "If You Wanna Be My Lover"!

---

大河の如き慈愛と太陽の如き威光をあまねく示さんがために！
Taiga no gotoki jiai to taiyou no gotoki ikou wo amaneku shimesan ga tame ni!
Let our mercy, as deep as the Feitas, and our authority, as powerful as the sun, be revealed to the entire word!

That's an important line because it's repeated many times throughout the game, and in the Premium DVD, SakiyamaD, King, and Miura say it in Japanese out loud in unison.

So I figured some may be interested in alternate translations:
SARS Trailer Translation:
In the name of compassion as wide as the rivers, and glory as luminous as the sun.

The translation I thought up on my own when first seeing it in the Japanese version of the game:
To show far and wide, kindness great as the River, power great as the Sun!

[HolyPaladin]

Trust me, I've taken note of the grammatical mistakes! Periods instead of commas?! This is unacceptable!

The commas look like bigger periods while actually periods are smaller than the commas.

[Oppenheimer]

Kyle - You know, the part about the Prince being 'as good as dead...'

In Japanese, the misheard word wasn't "dead". It was more like to "kill" or "korosu."

飼い殺し/kaigoroshi (n) keeping a pet till it dies, keeping a useless person on the payroll

So basically, the word with the definition above was translated as deadwood.

In Japanese, kaigoroshi and koroshi sound somewhat alike. So they had to pick words that sound alike in English, which ended up being deadwood and dead.

Obseqious Noble - Of c-course not! Not 'as good as dead'! 'About as good as deadWOOD,' he said...


Notice that exclamation mark is outside the quotation mark? I was always taught to place punctuation marks inside quotation marks. Maybe that's British style?

Also, doesn't it seem like there's an abundant usage of single quotations, but not double quotations? Isn't that more of a British style? Perhaps it means the translator(s) and/or editor(s) were educated in British English.

Single quotations are also prevent in early American literature. But, perhaps that's before they fully broke away from British ways of doing things.

I have to say deadWOOD is actually a good translation of the situation considering that the concept in the japanese version doesn't really localize very well. However, deadweight might have been even better.

Edit: Also, when you already have a quotation, putting single quotes inside of it is appropriate. Such as in Anne Rice's book "Interview with a Vampire" all of the quotes are with single quotations when Louis is telling the story because he is actually being quoted the entire time. Since the nobles are in fact speaking their single quotes inside their quotes is acceptable.

For example:
"I said to her 'Shut up!' and she ran away," he explained.

[dragonmasterx]

ミアキス「あら、こんなところにちぢれマイマイが・・・」
リムスレーア「ええい、黙れっ！！そなたっ！！またしてもわらわをたばかりおったなっ！！」

After winning the first duel in the game, Limsleia and the Prince are talking. Miakis comes in and comes the Prince a "chidiremaimai," which is some kind of monster in the Suikoden series. Does anyone know what this monster is called in the US version?

In that bit of text in the US version, I don't think the monster name was translated. I only recall Miakis calling the Princess a "pug-nosed tomboy."

And here's the Japanese thread about the matter, if you can read Japanese(I had trouble at first understanding why Miakis all of a sudden blurted out a monster name, so I asked there):
http://otd9.jbbs.livedoor.jp/gensosuiko ... 11&range=1

One guy commented that the "chidiremaimai" word was used in Suikoden 2: Nanami's hair style resembled one of those monsters.

---

At the Sacred Games:

Ferid: Would you like to meet him?
-I'd love to!
-Sorry, not interested.

The latter choice in Japanese is more like "Nah, I'm not interested in men."

Pick the bottom choice, then Ferid laughs and says something like "HAHAHAHAHAHA! Looks like Kyle's been influencing you." This makes little sense unless you know what the original Japanese was.

I'm guessing they just wanted to avoid potential trouble, possibly with the Entertainment Software Rating Board.

---
Morning after returning from Stormfist, Prince can tell Georg, who is using polite language,:
-Um, you're kind of creeping me out.
-Nothing.

王子殿下「背中がムズがゆい」か「おはよう」
In Japanese, the top choice would be "is your back itching?" This point here was localized rather than translated.
---
First arrival at Raftfleet:
I didn't get the exact line, but the "idiots" was definitely plural.
Lun - you idiots, this is not the time to give up, pop!

That should be singular, it seems to me like a misinterpretation on the translator(s) and/or editor(s) part, since Japanese is unclear about singular/plural.
---
Log, Lunn cleaning barfish in the backroom of Raftfleet:
Kisara: Hmph! I don't think I care for your attitude! How about I add another 200 fish to your pile?

That sentence seemed awkward. I don't remember what it was in Japanese, I'll have to pay attention to that sentence on my next playthrough of the Japanese version.

[Qbwpij]

Pick the bottom choice, then Ferid laughs and says something like "HAHAHAHAHAHA! Looks like Kyle's been influencing you." This makes little sense unless you know what the original Japanese was.

I was wondering what in the heck he was talking about... I was like, "Huh?"