{
    "version": "https://jsonfeed.org/version/1",
    "title": "Translating wor(l)ds",
    "description": "",
    "home_page_url": "https://localization.it",
    "feed_url": "https://localization.it/feed.json",
    "user_comment": "",
    "author": {
        "name": "Alain Dellepiane"
    },
    "items": [
        {
            "id": "https://localization.it/interview-for-80lv.html",
            "url": "https://localization.it/interview-for-80lv.html",
            "title": "Who we are and what we do",
            "summary": "<header class=\"single-header gh-canvas\">\n<div class=\"single-excerpt\">Past projects, the challenges of Cuphead and the future of translation in a quick interview we did for a trade portal",
            "content_html": "<header class=\"single-header gh-canvas\">\n<div class=\"single-excerpt\">Past projects, the challenges of Cuphead and the future of translation in a quick interview we did for a trade portal</div>\n<figure class=\"single-media kg-width-wide\"><span style=\"color: #02192b; font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, 'Segoe UI', Roboto, Oxygen, Ubuntu, Cantarell, 'Fira Sans', 'Droid Sans', 'Helvetica Neue', sans-serif; font-size: 1.42383em; font-weight: bold; letter-spacing: -0.54px;\">Please introduce yourself. What do you do? What languages do you translate the projects to? What projects have you localized?</span></figure>\n</header>\n<div class=\"single-content gh-content gh-canvas\">\n<p>Hi, I'm Alain from <a href=\"http://gloc.team/?ref=localization.it\">gloc.team</a>, a small boutique service specialized in English to Italian video-game translation.</p>\n<p>Since 2008 we have been involved with over 500 projects, from the PES to Resident Evil to Dead or Alive and many more.</p>\n<h3 id=\"how-did-you-get-into-the-world-of-localization\">How did you get into the world of localization?</h3>\n<p>In 2003 I was hired as localization employee number two at Rockstar Games, where I tested and edited over 20 games like Max Payne 2, Red Dead Revolver, GTA San Andreas, etc.</p>\n<p>I went independent after two years. In 2007 I moved to Tokyo for a Square-Enix project and I've been freelancing from here since.</p>\n<h3><figure class=\"post__image\"><img loading=\"lazy\"  src=\"https://storage.ghost.io/c/32/e7/32e7e75a-e0c3-435c-a0c8-ef555e1b4dfa/content/images/2021/05/wp1838919-grand-theft-auto-san-andreas-wallpapers-1-1--1--1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1000\" height=\"750\" data-is-external-image=\"true\"></figure></h3>\n<h3 id=\"what-were-the-most-memorable-and-the-most-difficult-projects-you-have-worked-on\">What were the most memorable and the most difficult projects you have worked on?</h3>\n<p>There really are two types of localization projects.</p>\n<p>Projects in simultaneous shipping (sim-ship for short) get translated while development is ongoing. AAA series like PES cannot afford to complete the game, then wait for us to give a nice look at it, then have us work for three months.</p>\n<p>Instead, we are given the texts as soon as they're ready -often when the game isn't even working yet- and told to translate \"in the dark\", using questions, experience and imagination to nail the meaning of the text.</p>\n<p>In this space, Forza Horizon was a lot of fun thanks to its in-game radios, while you can't beat the sheer epicness of translating the whole Fist of the North Star saga for Ken's Rage 2!</p>\n<p>Post-gold projects (as in \"<a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_release_life_cycle?ref=localization.it#RTM\">after the gold master</a>\") are more similar to how you would picture translation. Since the game is done, we are free to play it at length to check things, and sometimes we're in charge of testing too, so our control is much stronger. This used to be typical of Japanese games and, more recently, indie titles.</p>\n<p>Projects like <em>Dragon Quest VI </em>and <em>FTL: Faster than Light</em> fell into this category and were an absolute joy.</p>\n<p>So, depending on what comes our way, we're either industrial-cutting a jungle of words or carefully pruning one little bonsai. But it's always challenging and memorable in its own way.</p>\n<h3><figure class=\"post__image\"><img loading=\"lazy\"  src=\"https://storage.ghost.io/c/32/e7/32e7e75a-e0c3-435c-a0c8-ef555e1b4dfa/content/images/size/w1000/2021/05/VMAfov-1--1-.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1000\" height=\"563\" data-is-external-image=\"true\"></figure></h3>\n<h3 id=\"how-did-you-become-the-team-responsible-for-the-localization-of-cuphead-how-was-the-process\">How did you become the team responsible for the localization of Cuphead? How was the process?</h3>\n<p>We handled Cuphead for <a href=\"https://www.riotloc.com/?ref=localization.it\">Riotloc</a>, a multilingual agency that also took care of other languages and the implementation.</p>\n<p>Process-wise, it was the perfect post-gold project. We played a near-complete build (with cheats!), then we translated the (fairly short) text with our three-persons team, and finally I carefully tested and edited the localized build myself.</p>\n<p>In order to brainstorm some great names for the bosses we also partnered with <a href=\"http://dacosconfetti.com/?ref=localization.it\">Daco's Confetti</a>, a copy-writing team which -among other things- co-created Kinder Joy's games and character design.</p>\n<p>We really went full-on polishing that text but -if you followed the development of that game- you'll know that we had plenty of time!</p>\n<h3 id=\"the-game-is-heavily-inspired-by-late-1920s-%E2%80%93-1930s-cartoons-were-there-any-translation-difficulties-related-to-this-aspect-of-the-game\">The game is heavily inspired by late 1920s – 1930s cartoons, were there any translation difficulties related to this aspect of the game?</h3>\n<p>Cuphead had one fatal flaw, in that it tapped into a sense of nostalgia our audience couldn't share.</p>\n<p>Keep in mind that the face of the twenties and thirties in Italy isn't Felix the Cat or Betty Boop. It's Benito Mussolini. Not only American cartoons were forbidden at the time, we couldn't really make any 1920s references at all, since that was literally the <em>Fascist Era.</em></p>\n<p>So our translation taps into post-war nostalgia instead, more specifically the style used in <em>Topolino</em>, the extremely popular Italian version of Mickey Mouse Magazine.</p>\n<p>So while Americans playing Cuphead remember their old cartoons, Italians remember the comic books of their childhood. But they smile all the same.</p>\n<h3><figure class=\"post__image\"><img loading=\"lazy\"  src=\"https://storage.ghost.io/c/32/e7/32e7e75a-e0c3-435c-a0c8-ef555e1b4dfa/content/images/size/w1000/2021/05/860638-1--1-.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1000\" height=\"563\" data-is-external-image=\"true\"></figure></h3>\n<h3 id=\"what-do-you-think-about-the-necessity-of-localization-in-general-can-it-be-replaced-by-machine-learning-and-neural-networks\">What do you think about the necessity of localization in general? Can it be replaced by machine learning and neural networks?</h3>\n<p>Since most people on this site are into graphic design, allow me to turn the question to you. Could the work of a designer be replaced by AI?</p>\n<p>I guess the answer is \"not really\", because machines have no creativity.</p>\n<p>Working in Photoshop adds a level of automation unimaginable in the era of ink and paper, but it's still at the service of a human's vision.</p>\n<p>Computers may well be able to stretch a line, fill up a shape or even clone an area, but they cannot come up with the general concept. Or at least, not in a way that's interesting and appealing.</p>\n<p>Translation is the same.</p>\n<p>Some parts of translation are indeed mechanical, like those Photoshop features. We already have software that records our translations for us and lets us reuse them when needed. A neural network can definitely tap into that data, spot a pattern and interpolate upon it.</p>\n<p>Given factual, non-ambiguous content like -say- weather forecasts, these system can already work almost unattended.</p>\n<p>What people forget is the creative side. When I'm translating a game, I'm not just flipping a dictionary to see which word A matches word B. I'm effectively a co-writer, adding my own creative spin to it.</p>\n<p>No software will ever look at Cuphead and say \"<em>You know how we can keep the fun here? Turning this twenties cartoon into a forties comic book</em>\".</p>\n<p>Hell, it's arguable if another translator would have come up with it. It was <em>my </em>creative solution to make it fun. That's what you really hire me for, and there's no model for that.</p>\n<h3><figure class=\"post__image\"><img loading=\"lazy\"  src=\"https://storage.ghost.io/c/32/e7/32e7e75a-e0c3-435c-a0c8-ef555e1b4dfa/content/images/size/w1000/2021/05/1423015-1--1-.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1000\" height=\"563\" data-is-external-image=\"true\"></figure></h3>\n<h3 id=\"how-does-one-become-a-part-of-the-game-localization-world-what-can-help-aspiring-game-translators\">How does one become a part of the game localization world? What can help aspiring game translators?</h3>\n<p>There's a bit of a catch-22 situation going on where people won't hire you until you have experience, but you can't build any until you land a project.</p>\n<p>To help with it we ran multiple game localization jams in the past. There will be one starting in July on itch.io and another at the end of the year. Give a look to <a href=\"http://locjam.org/?ref=localization.it\">locjam.org </a>for details!</p>\n</div>",
            "image": "https://localization.it/media/posts/1/sf3-min2.png",
            "author": {
                "name": "Alain Dellepiane"
            },
            "tags": [
            ],
            "date_published": "2021-05-25T22:30:00+09:00",
            "date_modified": "2026-06-03T22:39:52+09:00"
        },
        {
            "id": "https://localization.it/colpo-di-stato-translating-history.html",
            "url": "https://localization.it/colpo-di-stato-translating-history.html",
            "title": "Colpo di Stato - Translating history",
            "summary": "<header class=\"single-header gh-canvas\">\n<div class=\"single-excerpt\">How we translated and adapted the historical board game \"Colpo di Stato\" for English audiences",
            "content_html": "<header class=\"single-header gh-canvas\">\n<div class=\"single-excerpt\">How we translated and adapted the historical board game \"Colpo di Stato\" for English audiences</div>\n<figure class=\"single-media kg-width-wide\"></figure>\n</header>\n<div class=\"single-content gh-content gh-canvas\">\n<h2 id=\"doing-it-wrong-for-the-right-reason\">Doing it wrong (for the right reason)</h2>\n<p> </p>\n<blockquote>\"You never, 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳 translate in your target language\"</blockquote>\n<p>That was the very first guidance I ever had as a translator, and that was before I even translated a single word, at uni. That is the way of infamy.</p>\n<p>But when we were tasked with translating <a href=\"https://www.wearemuesli.it/colpodistato?ref=localization.it\">We Are Müesli's \"Colpo di Stato\"</a>, we faced an impossible challenge: finding a native Italian to English translator A) able to juggle some 𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺 deep Italian culture (we'll get to that) B) with enough gaming knowledge to juggle some very delicate mechanics (ditto) C) on an indie budget</p>\n<p>So we reversed priorities. Yes we would brave anathema and translate it ourselves, with our very Italian team. But most of the time and resources would actually be in the review, so that we can have a veteran like <a href=\"https://twitter.com/HProtagonista?ref=localization.it\">@HProtagonista</a> and give her all the means to cleanse our sin</p>\n<h2><figure class=\"post__image\"><img loading=\"lazy\"  src=\"https://storage.ghost.io/c/32/e7/32e7e75a-e0c3-435c-a0c8-ef555e1b4dfa/content/images/2021/05/colpo1.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" data-is-external-image=\"true\"></figure></h2>\n<h2 id=\"local-flavor\">Local flavor</h2>\n<p>\"Colpo di Stato\" is a game about Italy in the Seventies, which doesn't sound like much until you consider that A) Italy is NATO's aircraft carrier in the Mediterranean B) Italy had the largest Communist party outside the USSR. Cold war <em>crazy</em> there</p>\n<p>How crazy? Take far-right terrorists, the CIA, masonic lodges, old Nazis and neo-Fascists, industry and media moguls, the Mafia and the Ministry of the Interior. And now imagine that they were all involved in the same coup attempt: <a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golpe_Borghese?ref=localization.it\">The Borghese Coup</a></p>\n<figure class=\"post__image\"><img loading=\"lazy\"  src=\"https://storage.ghost.io/c/32/e7/32e7e75a-e0c3-435c-a0c8-ef555e1b4dfa/content/images/2021/05/colpo2.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"768\" height=\"317\" data-is-external-image=\"true\"></figure>\n<p>On one hand this is a dark page of history. On the other this is a time when secret services had two clandestine units unaware of each other. Like Spy VS Spy, but they're both black. It's all so grotesque that <a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_Want_the_Colonels?ref=localization.it\">THEY MADE SATIRICAL MOVIES ABOUT IT</a></p>\n<p>For Italian players, the game is a tile in this mosaic of references. The details may be surprising, but the people involved, their goals and the tragicomic ways it panned out are part of the cultural background. But our English audience knew NOTHING about this.So while the content side of the project was obvious (convey this slice of Italian history in a faithful and meticulous way) the formal side was a challenge: how do we ease the audience in without smothering the gameplay underneath?</p>\n<p>Some elements could be conveyed through equivalence. For example, the game features real texts by fascists and free-masons, both of which write 𝘩𝘰𝘳𝘳𝘪𝘣𝘭𝘺. So we mirrored their clunky wording and syntax to maintain that feeling. But other concepts just had no equivalent.</p>\n<p>So we unpacked some, using the generous space on the cards to turn a cryptic <em>repubblichino</em> into <em>follower of Mussolini to the bitter end of the (Nazi-led) Republic of Salò</em>. We left some as flavor like the <em>pizzino</em> notes of the Mafia. And we cut others like Rome Palaces names.</p>\n<p>Needless to say, striking a balance was far from easy. But even as our Googledocs filled up with notes, edits and counter-edits, we knew that we could count on a final judge to make the last call: testing.</p>\n<h2 id=\"the-proof-is-in-the-pudding\">The proof is in the pudding</h2>\n<p>If you have access to the creator of your game NOTHING compares to have them play it for you. We first did that for Super Rude Bear Resurrection simply because <a href=\"https://twitter.com/AlexRoseGames?ref=localization.it\">@AlexRoseGames</a> was already on Twitch. Perfect reference/familiarization in just a few hours</p>\n<figure class=\"post__image\"><img loading=\"lazy\"  src=\"https://storage.ghost.io/c/32/e7/32e7e75a-e0c3-435c-a0c8-ef555e1b4dfa/content/images/2021/05/colpo3.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1024\" height=\"544\" data-is-external-image=\"true\"></figure>\n<p>For Colpo di Stato, testing was vital because analog games are <em>fragile</em>: they rely entirely on players grasping the rules and applying them correctly. Miss something and there will be no computer to guide you: the game will just break apart.</p>\n<p>And this was a riddle game too, so we had to walk a fine line between explaining well enough to let players follow along but not explaining too much and give the solution away.</p>\n<p>Luckily, <a href=\"https://twitter.com/WeAreMuesli?ref=localization.it\">We Are Müesli</a> and our <a href=\"file:///C:/Users/alain/Downloads/HTT/blg/www.localization.it/2020-04-18-the-italian-job/livellosegreto.it/%40kenobit/index.html\" rel=\"noreferrer\">Fabio Bortolotti</a> could meet in Milan and playtest the first draft together. It was a grueling three days process but we're proud of how it helped not only the localization but the original itself (translation is a brutal stress-test for any text!)</p>\n<p>After a few more editing rounds by <a href=\"https://twitter.com/HProtagonista?ref=localization.it\">Jessica Chavez</a>, it was time for the simplest and most nerve-wracking test of all. Handing over the game to the lovely <a href=\"https://twitter.com/Maisykuv?ref=localization.it\">Maisy Hatchard</a> and friends and just letting them 𝘱𝘭𝘢𝘺. Shut your mouth, cross your fingers and hope they'll get to the end...</p>\n<figure class=\"post__image\"><img loading=\"lazy\"  src=\"https://storage.ghost.io/c/32/e7/32e7e75a-e0c3-435c-a0c8-ef555e1b4dfa/content/images/2021/05/colpo4.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1280\" height=\"720\" data-is-external-image=\"true\"></figure>\n<p>And to the end they got, almost perfectly. And gave us the perfect feedback</p>\n<blockquote><em>\"It's like a Tarantino movie: you are never sure about what's going on but you are WAY too intrigued to stop\"</em></blockquote>\n<p>And yes, Italy's past indeed makes for a brilliant dark comedy. It turns out some things are really found in translation :)</p>\n<p>/Fin</p>\n</div>",
            "image": "https://localization.it/media/posts/2/colpo-min1.png",
            "author": {
                "name": "Alain Dellepiane"
            },
            "tags": [
            ],
            "date_published": "2020-04-18T22:35:00+09:00",
            "date_modified": "2026-06-03T22:50:13+09:00"
        },
        {
            "id": "https://localization.it/neocab-translating-the-cyberpunk-future.html",
            "url": "https://localization.it/neocab-translating-the-cyberpunk-future.html",
            "title": "NeoCab - Translating the (Cyberpunk) Future",
            "summary": "<header class=\"single-header gh-canvas\">\n<div class=\"single-excerpt\">How we evolved the Italian language for a cyberpunk setting",
            "content_html": "<header class=\"single-header gh-canvas\">\n<div class=\"single-excerpt\">How we evolved the Italian language for a cyberpunk setting</div>\n</header>\n<div class=\"single-content gh-content gh-canvas\">\n<ul>\n<li>By <a href=\"https://twitter.com/fabiobortolotti?ref=localization.it\">Fabio Bortolotti</a></li>\n<li>Translation <a href=\"https://twitter.com/glocteam?ref=localization.it\">gloc.team</a>, editing <a href=\"https://twitter.com/HProtagonista?ref=localization.it\">Jessica Chavez</a></li>\n</ul>\n<p>I'm a video game translator, and I love my job. It's odd work, sometimes stressful, sometimes bewildering, but it always provides interesting and inspiring challenges. Every project brings new words, slang, and cultural trends to discover, but translating also forces me to reflect on language itself. Each job also comes with its own unique set of problems to solve. Some have an exact solution that can be found in grammar or dictionaries, but others require a more... creative approach.</p>\n<p>Sometimes, the language we’re translating from uses forms and expressions that simply have no equivalent in the language we’re translating to. To bridge such gaps, a translator must sometimes invent (or circumvent), but most importantly they must understand. Language is ever in flux. It’s an eternal cultural battleground that evolves with the lightning speed of society itself. A single word can hurt a minority, give shape to a new concept, or even win an election. It is humanity’s most powerful weapon, especially in the Internet Age, and I always feel the full weight of responsibility to use it in an informed manner.</p>\n<p>One of my go-to ways for explaining the deep complexity of translation is the relationship between gender (masculine and feminine) and grammar. For example, in English this is a simple sentence:</p>\n<blockquote>“You are fantastic!”</blockquote>\n<p>Pretty basic, right? Easy to translate, no? NOT AT ALL!</p>\n<p>Once you render it into a gendered language like Italian, all its facets, its potential meanings, break down like shards.</p>\n<ul>\n<li>Sei fantastico! (Singular and masculine)</li>\n<li>Sei fantastica! (Singular and feminine)</li>\n<li>Siete fantastici! (Plural and masculine)</li>\n<li>Siete fantastiche! (Plural and feminine)</li>\n</ul>\n<p>If we were translating a movie, selecting the correct translation wouldn't be a big deal. Just like in real life, one look at the speakers would clear out the ambiguity in the English text. Video game translation, however, is a different beast where visual cues or even context is a luxury, especially if a game is still in development. Not only that, but the very nature of many games makes it simply impossible to define clearly who is being addressed in a specific line, even when development has ended. Take an open world title, for example, where characters have whole sets of lines that may be addressed indifferently to single males or females or groups (mixed or not) within a context we don't know and can't control.</p>\n<p>In the course of my career as a translator, time and time again this has led into one of the most heated linguistic debates of the past few years: the usage of the they/them pronoun. When I was in grade school, I was taught that they/them acted as the third person plural pronoun, the equivalent of the Italian pronoun \"essi.\" Recently, though, it has established itself as the third person singular neutral, both in written and spoken English. Basically, when we don't know whether we're talking about a he/him or a she/her, we use they/them. In this way, despite the criticism of purists, the English language has brilliantly solved all cases of uncertainty and ambiguity. For instance:</p>\n<blockquote>“Somebody forgot their backpack at the party.”</blockquote>\n<p>Thanks to the use of the pronoun \"their,\" this sentence does not attribute a specific gender to the person who has forgotten the backpack at the party. It covers all the bases. Smooth, right? Within the LGBT circles, those who don’t recognize themselves in gender binarism have also adopted the use of they/them. Practically speaking, the neutral they/them pronoun is a powerful tool, serving both linguistic accuracy and language inclusiveness. There's just one minor issue: We have no \"neutral pronouns\" in Italian.</p>\n<p>It's quite the opposite, if anything! In our language, gender informs practically everything, from adjectives to verbs. On top of that, masculine is the default gender in case of ambiguity or uncertainty. For instance:</p>\n<ul>\n<li>Two male kids &gt; Due bambini</li>\n<li>Two female kids &gt; Due bambine</li>\n<li>One male kid and one female kid &gt; Due bambini</li>\n</ul>\n<p>In the field of translation, this is a major problem that often requires us to find elaborate turns of phrase or different word choices to avoid gender connotations when English maintains ambiguity. As a professional, it’s not only a matter of accuracy but also an aesthetic issue. In a video game, when a character refers to someone using the wrong gender connotation, the illusion of realism is broken. My colleagues and I have been navigating these pitfalls for years as best we can. Have you ever wondered why one of the most common Italian insults in video games is \"pezzo di merda\"? That's right. \"Stronzo\" and \"bastardo\" give a gender connotation, while \"pezzo di merda\" does not.</p>\n<p>A few months ago, together with the Gloc team, I had the pleasure of working on the translation of Neo Cab, a video game set in a not too distant future with a cyberpunk and dystopian backdrop (and, sadly, a very plausible one). The main character is Lina, a cabbie of the \"gig economy,\" who drives for a hypothetical future Uber in a big city during a time of deep social unrest.</p>\n<p>The story is told mainly through her conversation with the many clients she picks up in her taxi. When the game’s developers gave us the reference materials for our localization, they specified that one of the client characters was \"non-binary\" and that Lina respectfully uses the neutral \"they/them\" pronoun when she converses with them.</p>\n<blockquote>\"Use neutral pronouns or whatever their equivalent is in your language,\" we were told.</blockquote>\n<p>I remember my Skype chat with the rest of the team. What a naive request on the client's part! Neutral pronouns? It would be lovely, but we don't have those in Italian! So what do we do now? The go-to solution in these cases is to use masculine pronouns, but such a workaround would sacrifice part of Lina’s character and the nuance of one of the interactions the game relies on to tell the story. Sad, no? It was the only reasonable choice grammatically-speaking, but also a lazy and ill-inspired one. So what were we to do? Perhaps there was another option...</p>\n<figure class=\"post__image\"><img loading=\"lazy\"  src=\"https://storage.ghost.io/c/32/e7/32e7e75a-e0c3-435c-a0c8-ef555e1b4dfa/content/images/2021/05/neocab.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"750\" height=\"422\" data-is-external-image=\"true\"></figure>\n<p>Faced with losing such an important aspect of Lina’s personality, we decided to forge ahead with a new approach. We had the opportunity to do something different, and we felt like we had to do the character justice. In a game that's completely based on dialogue, such details are crucial. What's more, the game's cyberpunk setting gave us the perfect excuse to experiment and innovate. Language evolves, so why not try to imagine a future where Italian has expanded to include a neutral pronoun in everyday conversations? It might sound a bit weird, sure, but cyberpunk literature has always employed such gimmicks. And rather than take away from a character, we could actually enrich the narrative universe with an act of \"world building\" instead.</p>\n<p>After contacting the developers, who enthusiastically approved of our proposal, we started working on creating a neutral pronoun for our language. But how to go about that was a question in itself. We began by studying essays on the subject, like Alma Sabatini's Raccomandazioni per un uso non sessista della lingua italiana (Recommendations for a non-sexist usage of the Italian language). We also analyzed the solutions currently adopted by some activists, like the use of asterisks, \"x,\" and \"u.\"</p>\n<ul>\n<li>Siamo tutt<em> bellissim</em>.</li>\n<li>Siamo tuttx bellissimx.</li>\n<li>Siamo tuttu bellissimu.</li>\n</ul>\n<p>I’d seen examples of this on signs before, but it had always seemed to me that asterisks and such were not meant to be a solution, but rather a way to highlight the issue and start a discourse on something that's deeply ingrained in our language. For our cyberpunk future, we wanted a solution that was more readable and pronounceable, so we thought we might use schwa (ə), the mid central vowel sound. What does it sound like?</p>\n<p>Quite familiar to an English speaker, it's the most common vowel sound. Standard Italian doesn’t have it, but having been separated into smaller countries for most of its history, Italy has an extraordinary variety of regional languages (“dialetti”) and many of them use this sound. We find it in the final \"a\" of \"mammeta\" in Neapolitan, for instance (and also in the dialects of Piedmont and Ciociaria, and in several other Romance languages). To pronounce it, with an approximation often seen in other romance languages, an Italian only needs to pretend not to pronounce a word's last vowel.</p>\n<p>Schwa was also a perfect choice as a signifier in every possible way. Its central location in phonetics makes it as neutral as possible, and the rolled-over \"e\" sign \"ə\" is reminiscent of both a lowercase \"a\" (the most common feminine ending vowel in Italian) and of an unfinished \"o\" (the masculine equivalent). The result is:</p>\n<blockquote>Siamo tuttə bellissimə.</blockquote>\n<p>Not a perfect solution, perhaps, but eminently plausible in a futuristic cyberpunk setting. The player/reader need only look at the context and interactions to figure it out. The fact that we have no \"ə\" on our keyboards is easily solved with a smartphone system upgrade, and though the pronunciation may be difficult, gender-neutrals wouldn't come up often in spoken language. Indeed, neutral alternatives are most needed in writing, especially in public communication, announcements, and statements. To be extra sure our idea worked as intended and didn't overlook any critical issues, we submitted it to a few LGBT friends, and with their blessing, then sent our translation to the developers.</p>\n<p>Fast forward to now, and the game is out. It has some schwas in it, and nobody complained about our proposal for a more inclusive future language. It took us a week to go through half a day's worth of work, but we're happy with the result. Translation isn't about mechanically replacing a word for another, it's a creative endeavour, and sometimes it can afford to be somewhat subversive. To sum up the whole affair, I'll let the words of Alma Sabatini wrap things up:</p>\n<blockquote>Language does not simply reflect the society that speaks it, it conditions and limits its thoughts, its imagination, and its social and cultural advancement. <br><br>— Alma Sabatini</blockquote>\n<p>Amen to that</p>\n</div>",
            "image": "https://localization.it/media/posts/3/neocab-min-11.png",
            "author": {
                "name": "Alain Dellepiane"
            },
            "tags": [
            ],
            "date_published": "2019-10-15T22:41:00+09:00",
            "date_modified": "2026-06-03T22:42:08+09:00"
        },
        {
            "id": "https://localization.it/ftl-faster-than-light-mind-structures.html",
            "url": "https://localization.it/ftl-faster-than-light-mind-structures.html",
            "title": "FTL: Faster Than Light - Mind structures",
            "summary": "<header class=\"single-header gh-canvas\">\n<div class=\"single-excerpt\">How we adapted Subset Games' FTL: Faster Than Light and played with context to make effective names despite harsh space limits",
            "content_html": "<header class=\"single-header gh-canvas\">\n<div class=\"single-excerpt\">How we adapted Subset Games' FTL: Faster Than Light and played with context to make effective names despite harsh space limits</div>\n<figure class=\"single-media kg-width-wide\"><span style=\"font-size: inherit;\">Faster Than Light is a well praised space-exploration game, and possibly one of the fathers of the \"roguelike-like\" genre. And father is a fitting term because it came out a whopping six years ago in 2012. You know, the year of the original </span><a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Walking_Dead_(video_game)?ref=localization.it\" style=\"font-size: inherit;\">Telltale's Walking Dead</a><span style=\"font-size: inherit;\">.</span></figure>\n</header>\n<div class=\"single-content gh-content gh-canvas\">\n<p>It also never had an official translation until now, which means that for six long years people either played it in English or through a (characteristically) hyper-literal fan translation.</p>\n<p>So, when we were tasked with translating it a few months ago, we thought how to please those hardened fans, and immediately bumped into two main issues</p>\n<h1 id=\"troubling-words\">Troubling words</h1>\n<p>The first issue was the main game currency: <em>scrap</em>. The English term is quite flexible since it can both refer to discarded metal (\"<em>we sold it for scrap</em>\") and to a generic fragment of something (\"<em>I wrote on a scrap of paper</em>\").</p>\n<p>But the only Italian equivalent (<em>rottame</em>) really isn't. Like the term <em>wreckage</em> in English, not only it mostly echoes metal, but is usually uncountable. You see yourself collecting some wreckage, but you trade \"three <strong><em>wreckages</em></strong> for two rockets\".</p>\n<p>The second issue was weapons.</p>\n<figure class=\"post__image\"><img loading=\"lazy\"  src=\"https://storage.ghost.io/c/32/e7/32e7e75a-e0c3-435c-a0c8-ef555e1b4dfa/content/images/2021/05/FTL1.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"961\" height=\"775\" data-is-external-image=\"true\"></figure>\n<p>Since the main play area is the diagram of the ship, the fine people at <a href=\"https://subsetgames.com/?ref=localization.it\">Subset Games</a> (rightly) chose to devote most of the screen to it, squeezing the weapons in a tiny control panel at the bottom of the screen.</p>\n<p>And since English words are usually short, they didn't have much trouble in getting by with six characters for their names (on one or two lines, depending on type)</p>\n<p>But words in romance languages like ours are usually ~20% longer (we slot in a lot of vowels) and no matter how hard we tried, a direct translation simply wouldn't fit until we reduced it to a letter soup like \"Las P. II\" or \"Las. C. I\"</p>\n<p>One big benefit of being a team is that choices like this don't fall only on one person. The term \"work by committee\" has a bad image, but there's a lot of merit in shaping the trajectory of a project through different and even diverging views. And we agreed that a straight translation would not work here, that sticking to the letter of the word was less important than building something with good internal logic and structure.</p>\n<p>It made sense for the fans to keep a lens on each word to be sure they were well understood, that no liberties were being taken with the source material. But, as professionals, our duty was to raise our sight high enough to see how those words were fitting together.</p>\n<p>And to do that, we needed Gestalt.</p>\n<h1 id=\"e-pluribus-unum\">E pluribus unum</h1>\n<p>Quick, what do you see in this picture?</p>\n<figure class=\"post__image\"><img loading=\"lazy\"  src=\"https://localization.it/media/posts/4/FTL2-2.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"484\" height=\"413\" sizes=\"(max-width: 48em) 100vw, 768px\" srcset=\"https://localization.it/media/posts/4/responsive/FTL2-2-xs.jpg 300w ,https://localization.it/media/posts/4/responsive/FTL2-2-sm.jpg 480w ,https://localization.it/media/posts/4/responsive/FTL2-2-md.jpg 768w ,https://localization.it/media/posts/4/responsive/FTL2-2-lg.jpg 1024w ,https://localization.it/media/posts/4/responsive/FTL2-2-xl.jpg 1360w ,https://localization.it/media/posts/4/responsive/FTL2-2-2xl.jpg 1600w\"></figure>\n<p>If you answered \"<em>A puppy school!</em>\", congratulations, you just experienced Gestalt.</p>\n<p>The world around us is so complex and detailed that it would be unmanageable for our brain to process each single detail. Luckily for us, it doesn't.</p>\n<p>In this case, without even realizing, you glanced at one of those four-legged animals, deduced it's a dog, sub-categorized it as a puppy, inferred that those around it would be puppies too, confronted their position as a group with that of the blackboard, drew a parallel with the stereotypical picture of kids at school, looked at the \"lesson\" and confirmed: it's a puppy school.</p>\n<p>You went from a random assortment of rug, fur and wood to an abstract metaphor in a few tenths of second because you mentally simplified the picture in concepts and groups. You didn't check all the details: you don't even know how many dogs are there, you just leaped to the concepts.</p>\n<p>Now, while Gestalt is mostly a graphic design concept, I find it very helpful in describing the conceptual work behind game terminology. After all, if our goal is to teach these new, complex, often counter-intuitive virtual worlds, why not following the patterns of our real world?</p>\n<h1><figure class=\"post__image\"><img loading=\"lazy\"  src=\"https://storage.ghost.io/c/32/e7/32e7e75a-e0c3-435c-a0c8-ef555e1b4dfa/content/images/2021/05/FTL3.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"715\" height=\"750\" data-is-external-image=\"true\"></figure></h1>\n<h1 id=\"back-to-our-game\">Back to our game</h1>\n<p>As mentioned above, we were on the fence for aesthetic reasons: clumsy metaphors are bad and shortenings are worse. But had it been just for that, pleasing the fans could have been reason enough to accept it as jargon.</p>\n<p>But the main push was Gestalt. This is a somewhat abstract game where most things are never shown on screen. Case in point, the four game \"currencies\" (fuel, missile, drone parts, scrap) only appears as this set of icons and names. That is all you get.</p>\n<figure class=\"post__image\"><img loading=\"lazy\"  src=\"https://storage.ghost.io/c/32/e7/32e7e75a-e0c3-435c-a0c8-ef555e1b4dfa/content/images/2021/05/FTL4.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"775\" height=\"158\" data-is-external-image=\"true\"></figure>\n<p>In this perspective, translating \"5 scraps\" as \"5 wreckages\" isn't just awkward (something we could survive with) but breaks this group of currencies from \"<em>things you can scavenge on board of a ship</em>\" to \"<em>things you scavenge, plus shipwrecks for some reason</em>\".</p>\n<p>We needed something else. Since the core meaning we were looking for is that of a small piece of something, we took a cue from the setting and imagined that these ships were built with interchangeable elements: modules.</p>\n<p>And with that, it all made sense again: scrapping a ship for <em>modules</em>, using <em>modules</em> to upgrade your ship, trading <em>modules</em> at the next station. Nice and smooth.</p>\n<p>Similarly, making a straight translation of weapons and then fitting them into the six character we had left us with random names and terms scattered around, with no structure in sight. How would you know that \"Heavy\" is stronger than \"Double\" if there's no space to say \"laser\"?</p>\n<p>With Gestalt: when you see <strong>Laser &gt; Phaser &gt; Maser &gt; Scorcher &gt; Driller</strong> side by side, you can infer that they are related (by proximity), that they are ray weapons (by similarity), and that scorcher/driller have opposed effects (by symmetry). They can be simple six letter names because Gestalt is working from the outside to structure them in your mind.</p>\n<p>Needless to say, this is not exact science. Naming the weapons Laser 1, Laser 2 and Laser 3 would give the maximum legibility, but would also kill all flavor, so you need to keep enough \"real world\" randomness in there to keep things interesting.</p>\n<p>And that's the game Italian players of FTL can play from today onwards. A game where you collect modules and drone chips and shoot phasers and masers. A painful compromise that can't make everyone happy but, in our opinion, still the best game Italian players can have. Even if you hate it.</p>\n<p>Thank you for reading!</p>\n<h2 id=\"links\">Links</h2>\n<p><a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1qdyszaeTU&amp;ref=localization.it\">Gestalt - The Parts and the Whole</a> - Gestalt in video</p>\n<p><a href=\"https://twitter.com/alain_invasion/status/1045781141813256192?ref=localization.it\">Original Twitter thread</a> - Thanks to everyone who shared and commented</p>\n<p><a href=\"https://subsetgames.com/ftl.html?ref=localization.it\">FTL Advanced Edition</a> - Great game, now in Italian :)</p>\n</div>",
            "image": "https://localization.it/media/posts/4/FTL1.png",
            "author": {
                "name": "Alain Dellepiane"
            },
            "tags": [
            ],
            "date_published": "2018-10-23T22:54:00+09:00",
            "date_modified": "2026-06-03T23:16:00+09:00"
        }
    ]
}
