Kirov is (hoping to be soon) online!

[Kirov]

Hello folks,

the ordeal was long, but I finally made it and passed my sworn (English-Polish) translator exam!  This was really crazy, the bar is actually quite high, the pressure was immense (the Ministry of Justice and all), but I did it. I hope to be more active here again! The only issue is, I still need to sort out a bunch of things and projects I suspended several months back, and I need to look for a job as I quit mine 2 weeks ago. Please be patient with me, I see there was a lot of discussions old and new around, I need some time to catch up. For now, I'm gonna see what's up with my games, then I need to play some SMAC and refresh my memory (I didn't want to think too much about SMAC not to lose my focus), and then I think I'm good for some new games. 

Take care, people!

[Buster's Uncle]

This is good news - I'd wondered why you were so quiet lately, and missed you.

[Kirov]

Thanks, I missed you too. Basically what happened was several months' worth of learning, training and pressure. I was afraid SMAC would drag me away from other duties. On a few occassions I did kill some time playing Europa Universalis 3, though. Cool game! But now I'm looking forward to playing some SMAC.

[Buster's Uncle]

About that translating business...  Did you see that scient is looking for translators?  (I imagine that a Polish version being available wouldn't hurt the chances of the Polish forum coming back to life.)

[Kirov]

Do you mean translating entire SMAC? Frankly, there are parts of the game that would either need complete make-over or just sound plain ridiculous. A long time ago I saw some Polish fan attempt at translating SMAC, bent to make it as literal as possible, and it sounded so hilarious I didn't even bother to contact them. Polish is more structure-oriented and lacks this flexible, on-the-fly awesomeness of English. Some languages are just more conservative. The main problem would be names of bases - all of them cool, thoughtful and witty in English, but Polish just wouldn't swallow "Gaia's High Garden" or "Laborers' Throng" without raising eyebrows or making people (me) snicker. Or for example "drones" - if we use the same word as for bee drones, it just won't sound right ("people can't be drones, silly!"). You'd have to go with "rebels" or "prols" or something more in line with dictionary. And don't even let me started about noun declination (we use seven cases)... I don't want to hurt my precious SMAC, and any translation to Polish would have to be plastic surgery. More or less botched.

And what do you mean about Polish forum coming back? Was it ever up? Again, I was hardly interested in the Polish civ community, although I know there was/is some. I just couldn't think what they could possibly give me that I couldn't find among the international community like 'poly or here. And struggling with English is no excuse for not joining AC2, at this point it's your bad if you don't know English and everyone can expect you to learn it.

[Buster's Uncle]

[shrugs]  Still, a so-so translation would draw more fans than no translation, and I'd suggest running everything through an online translator to turn a lot of typing into a proofing job.  ("Proles" sounds right to me, BTW.)  More fans playing a Polish version would still mean more fans who can get by in English, and that's potentially a bigger pool to draw here to AC2, where there's more activity.

That kind of reasoning is why we have Spanish and French folders - not to be self-serving, but I couldn't care less about the fans who will never talk to me using up our bandwidth; but some who have decent English but wouldn't sign up at an all-English forum might for a spot where they can kick it with their co-lingual homies and then later get interested in the rest of the site and come out to post in English and entertain me.

That last sentence calls into question whether I speak credible English.

My impression is that the Polish forum's pretty dead, but the body's not cold and it used to be fairly active.  Dan knows more about it than I do.

[Kirov]

Well, I'll be honest - I've been thinking about translating SMAC for more than a decade. It's just I could never find a way to make it good without a complete make-over. And I'm afraid I wouldn't go with a so-so translation, it's just... disrespectful to the faction leaders. No, it's either good or I don't even start.

Although I go to great lengths to make my Polish translations polished and nice to read, I'm not too good at translating stuff like wordplays or puns. And some expressions in SMAC are so English-only that it'd give me a lot of headache. You can't just render "Weather Paradigm" and call it a day, paradigms can't be objects (to be constructed) and it doesn't sound good. "Weather station" would be more like it, but then you lose something in translation... Similarly with bases - "Gift from God" doesn't sit well in Polish, the pattern "adjective noun" is more in order ("Tsiolkovsky Institute" is perfect, for example).

Let me think about it, currently I'm too busy with RL stuff anyway, looking for job/clients and there is one huge yet-to-be-finished translation project I also do for free. Maybe if I could find another compatriot to help... I have honestly no idea how many Polish folks are out there still playing/interested. Did someone check how much text is to be translated? In characters/pages? Separate CAT software is probably needed for non-txt files.

That last sentence calls into question whether I speak credible English.

  I don't expect them to read Chaucer, but setting up games, basic diplo and discussions like "me love boreholes" don't require any sophistication. Not everyone here is Anglo-Saxon, but we do well enough to share our passion, so my advice to Polish SMACers would be to get over their shyness barrier and just start posting in English already.

I can try to register in some Polish civ communities and see if there's any feedback. Who's Dan? I don't believe I've met him yet.

[Buster's Uncle]

A small thing I would be delighted to do to help is discuss shades of meaning and such on bits you find troublesome.  I would think that would help a lot with finding the right word, discussing with a fluent and widely-read native speaker.

And you've mentioned awkward-seeming names of Hive bases twice - for that shouldn't you google Chinese stuff in Polish and get a feel for how Chinese phrases translate?  That stuff sounds strange translated into English, too; it's what gives translated Chinese its characteristic Chinese tone.

Also, we have two Chinese speakers who might advise on that, one of them scient.

my advice to Polish SMACers would be to get over their shyness barrier and just start posting in English already.

I can try to register in some Polish civ communities and see if there's any feedback.

You should definitely do that.

We'd even be willing to make a Polish folder and put you in charge, if it would make a difference.  Given time and Poles, some of them would come out and talk to me.

 

Who's Dan? I don't believe I've met him yet.

sisko.  He can get by in a lot of languages, as you know.

[Kirov]

A small thing I would be delighted to do to help is discuss shades of meaning and such on bits you find troublesome.  I would think that would help a lot with finding the right word, discussing with a fluent and widely-read native speaker.

And you've mentioned awkward-seeming names of Hive bases twice - for that shouldn't you google Chinese stuff in Polish and get a feel for how Chinese phrases translate?  That stuff sounds strange translated into English, too; it's what gives translated Chinese its characteristic Chinese tone.

I wasn't aware an English native speaker would find any SMAC names odd. Could you tell me more about that? My take was that English is more sponge-like and will accept a lot in terms of neologisms and derivations, like nouns can be freely derived from verbs and vice versa ("to facebook").

Still, with Polish it is not so. I could probably use a Polish writing-oriented fellow more than a Chinese consultant. For example, "In Laborer's Throng I've bult Weather Paradigm" sound gibberish in Polish, no matter how many air quotes or footnotes you throw in. Of course, by now we're used to it as SMACers, but try saying "In Union Jack I've completed Maxwell's Demon" and see what happens. It's more meth addict's stream of consciousness than anything else. There's quite a number of SMAC names like that - even "Voice of Planet", also Angels' base "Shadow Sprawl", Aki's base "Mu Crescent". I mean come on, mu crescent? I don't know how it sounds for you, but for me it's just giving a dictionary to a hungry dog and picking up the shreds it didn't eat. I do understand the rule Aki base names are derived from, but it doesn't make it sound any better. Not when translated, at any rate.

I'll have to think how I'd tackle such issues.

We'd even be willing to make a Polish folder and put you in charge, if it would make a difference.  Given time and Poles, some of them would come out and talk to me.

I want to help, but I was hesitant to commit as I didn't want to let anyone down. I can't promise any regular time per week or so, as a freelancer I never know how much I'll have on my plate in a while (and just recently I was gone for 4 months). I'll try to be of some use if need be, though.

[Buster's Uncle]

Let me think about it and get back to you.  I will say that that right there's a reason to recruit more Poles...

-Isn't it the middle of the night there?

[Kirov]

5:20 AM. God I hated working office hours. Good night!

[Buster's Uncle]

'Night.

[Earthmichael]

When you get your work and such squared away, I would like to play another game with you.  Just let me know...

[Kirov]

When you get your work and such squared away, I would like to play another game with you.  Just let me know...

I sure remember about our game! The thing is, with you not only I need to warm up, but if we are to get back to the Vets, I need to analyze the map and your gameplay (mainly base setting) via EG. Although I was ahead with energy by some margin, your industrial output was significantly bigger than mine and I stood no chances. Maybe I can't give you any challenge after all... We'll try and see.

[Earthmichael]

I was not suggest continuing our previous game.  I was suggesting a new start. 

Sure, analyze the Vets map, our previous game or some of my AARs to figure out my style, and then we can go again.  I am sure you can give me a good game.  I think you just got off to a difficult start because you did not have experiece with the map.  One thing I did was start a 4 player game on the Vets map where I played all 4 factions, and tried a few different strategies, to decide what I thought worked best.  That was one of the reasons I was confident that beelining to IA was more important than getting Recycling Tanks.  You should try a game or two solitare on the Vets map and then you will have a pretty good idea what works well and what does not.

I think once you get the map down, we are going to have a very close game!