Dialogues in the Witcher Edited in English Versions

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A lot of the dialogue text is out in the English versions and it doesn't seem to be for crudity as was the case with some model reskins (e.g. dryads being made more modest). In fact, it looks more like losses in translation. In a way, this confirms my opinion of the developer's claim of "professional translation" - those guys are Poland's main and leading publisher of games and while nearly every box carries the label of, "professional Polish translation made by CD Projekt," the reality is that it leaves much to be desired, to the point of disappointing and embarrassing lexical confusion (office and authority, lieutenant and colonel, those are not quite pairs of synonyms).

From wiki:

Localization variations
All the female portrait cards shown after Geralt's "conquests" were retouched to a more modest standard for the US release version. The in-game Dryad was also reskinned so her hair covered more of her body in this release.

Colorful dialogue between characters was cut in the English releases — not merely the US release — especially through shortening of dialogue. Writer Sande Chen has disputed claims by fans that this was due to the sometimes crude language, but that it happened due to losses in translation. Proof reader Martin Pagan that noticed this during his work has theorized that it may have been done for voice acting cost savings, especially since much crudity remains and it also normally happened through shortening of dialogue, even in cases where no major crudity was involved.

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So they've actually managed to mistranslate the dialogue, make it more bland, and keep all the crudity in? That's impressive.

For once (just once) I'd like to see an official video game translation that's not laughable. I know, translating isn't easy, but all they'd need really is someone familiar who's native language is English (or whatever the target language is) to read through the translated script and make sure it actually makes sense. There was a French adventure game some years ago that was translated (and dubbed) into English. The translation was awful, and the voices made it atrocious.

 

I guess that's what happens most of the time. I've heard that the German translation of Vampire: Bloodlines was terrible. I've only been able to properly compare 1 translation - that of Heroes IV (one of the few games I've seen a Bulgarian version of) - and it wasn't exactly impressive.

By the way, are there any chances that an unofficial patch may restore some of the original graphical content?

 

Nothing surprising here, especially concerning the US version. Everything has to be "modest" there it seems.

 

Yup, the language of the characters in books is often a very realistic dialect of mercenaries or thugs. It's not worse than realistic, but realistic it well is. I can see very well why the game should be 18+, although the books seem to aimed at teenagers more like. Even if they tend to be a bit like 18+ films. Maybe they have it easier because they're books.

 

I appreciate the dialog. The crude language and funny sexual comments fit in well in a tavern scene. The adult content makes the game a lot more playable for me even if I do have to make sure that my 9 yr old son isn't around when I'm talking to driads.