Your opinion on national languages translation quality

[pickelhaube]

Hello!

I would like to discuss one aspect of Napoleon TW, voice acting and general translation of your nation soldiers "talks".

I am talking about response to orders, various random phrases and so on.

Being russian myself I am kinda dissapointed in what I hear from russian soldiers in game. Starting from ridiculous "Yes, sir!". Whoever invented that russian soldier of napoleonic era would call his commander "sir"? It seems also for example cossacks dont call themselves cossacks of course and plenty of other similiar "mistakes".
But I could live with that.

What I really cant forgive is terrible, horrifying voice acting. Those... people, lets call them like that, who recorded voices for russians soldiers sound just insanely wrong. I can close my eyes, listen to that voice and say "I dont believe its a soldier".Trust me people, its bloody voice of 25-year old not successful annoying salesman, absolutely unfitting and ruining atmosphere of battle.

Its upsetting that CA allows really lousy work on their product, because people who did such crapjob with voice acting and translation dont deserve a cent, they just spoil game experience.

I understand english and some german and voice acting for germans and british seemed more convincing and authentical for me.

It would be very intersting to read opinions of people who listen to soldiers in their motherlangauge (French, German, English, Turkish, etc) and hear if voice acting and talks are good enough.

[TTorpedo]

I can relate to that. Portuguese seems to suffer the same mistakes.
I´m glad they went to the trouble of adding the faction languages, but the English are a world a part from the Portuguese version.
The same "Sir" crap, and bad voice acting. The overal aprouch seems to be a Teatrical over pitched character - it sounds like bad singing. No way like a soldier/ sailor.

I still cannot understand wats the word my units say when o click them/ move it sounds like "retirada" = Redrawing!! and of course with the theatrical approach " Redraaaaaawiiinnng"

Like said still good to ear my language on a Game but there is definitely room for improvement

[Cardinal Roland]

I know what you mean. I have only a small amount of Russian myself but it is enough for me to understand that the Russians are not well catered for in the game.
I have to say that I am very pleased with the English voice as it does get the right feeling in it and the speaker is good at being suitably urbane.
My one real bug bear came when I was playing as Napoleon in his Italian Campaign and every time I clicked on a French unit it shouted back - ''Pour le Roi'' I would have thought that it was a bit late to be ''For the King'' as they had lopped his head off a few years previously.
It is ultimately a small part of the game but a bit more diversity would be better. For example every Nation seems to cry out its own translation that the enemy are trapped ''Like rats in a cage'' this comes out in French as ''Les Rats en cage'' not very French and if a native French speaker was used he would be able to advise a better phrase.
Perhaps they can patch these later as it would be fun to hear different Nationalities speak in their native tongue saying accurate things. Still its just a small thing.

[♔ brucedickenson♔]

When I play NTW I wish I could speak more languages to enjoy these features more

[Blarni]

Count yourselves lucky: the Danish troops are speaking Swedish....
This sort of thing, alongside incorrect flags, does strike me as rather unnecessarily sloppy. When you consider the vast populations of each featured nationality in London alone you'd think finding native speakers would be just as easy as getting non-natives to do it phonetically (and poorly). Unless of course the voice talent is from Australia - as it so blatantly was in RTW....

[pickelhaube]

Thank you all for replies!

Its a shame portuguese voice acting is not nice too. I agree of course that it still very pleasant to hear in game many different languages, definately adds a lot to atmosphere. If only job was done better...

Blarni Please explain, are danes in NTW absolutely identical to swedes? Like, no difference at all in voice acting and things they say?

[Stavroforos]

The Danes aren't a major faction, and they weren't a major faction in ETW, so they don't get their own unique voices. Same reason for example that there aren't any Greek voices, or Sicilian voices, etc.

The English voice acting is fine. The French ain't bad, but they kept in the ETW things. It seems odd that republican revolutionaries are saying "For crown and country."

[Graphic]

It seems odd that republican revolutionaries are saying "For crown and country."

They even made that mistake with U.S. units in ETW.

"I'm going to attack this damned British stack in the name of the republic....for crown and country!"

[Nanny de Bodemloze]

They even made that mistake with U.S. units in ETW.

"I'm going to attack this damned British stack in the name of the republic....for crown and country!"

you misheard...they are yelling "for TOWN and country"...they are fighting for their 1806 subscription rates, rather than the OUTRAGEOUS 1807 subscription rates.

You are welcome for the clarification.

[Kavryelh]

It is ultimately a small part of the game but a bit more diversity would be better. For example every Nation seems to cry out its own translation that the enemy are trapped ''Like rats in a cage'' this comes out in French as ''Les Rats en cage'' not very French and if a native French speaker was used he would be able to advise a better phrase.

As in fact "Ils sont faits comme des rats !" clearly sounds better.

[moveable nu]

French is not my native language, but I'm pretty competent with it. While I can understand the lines and they sound believable, they don't sound particularly idiomatic. While "They are done!" literally translates to "Ils sont faits!", I doubt you'd hear a French soldier saying it. That said, I think that the French agents were very well done (the "Comment puis-je vous aider?" of the French gentleman (How may I help you?) sounds particularly convincing).

Another anomalous holdover from ETW in the French dialog is the acknowledgement "Pour la couronne, et le pays!", which means "for crown and country". It seems to me that, for the most part, CA merely wrote lines for the British and translated them into the appropriate languages (see the generic gentleman's line: "Ah, a place of learning and culture," for example).

[SunofVich]

I heard from somewhere that the dutch voice overs sound like a french person was trying to speak dutch. And the Ottoman Turkish was kinda screwed up as well.

[Kavryelh]

French is my native language, and as far as I know, I kind of speak well my own language.
I may not assure that a French soldier from the begining of the XIX° century would say that, but I am pretty sure that "Like rats in a cage" would become "Ils sont faits comme des rats" in modern French.
As "For crown and country" would become "Pour le Roi" or "Pour l'Empereur" or "Pour la France" or "Pour la République", depending if the current government is a monarchy (first), an empire (second), or a republic (fourth). The third one is a bit generic I guess.

[garudamon11]

i heard mamelukes speak arabic , its good to see them speak arabic really cause i expected them to put ottoman turkish , but they still need improvement cause they say some weird stuff like ( line up retards ! ) and ( this is sucky , we are getting hit ! ) and ( sir ! im injured ! )

[JCR]

German voices are terrible, and basically the same as in ETW.
The first mistake is that they are too english with "Sir" and "Sergeant" and so being kept.
Sergeant would actually be fine, only not pronounced english, but french.
They simply translated the english speech without paying any attention to time period.
Either the people who recorded the voices in the first place thought this was a game where it was only possible to play as Great Britain or they simply didn't care.
So now the prussians say "sir" in a german sentence...
Also only one voice for every character on the battlefield and the phrases mostly sound too detached, even things like "aaah, his brains!".
For example "square" in NTW is called "rechteck" (literal translation), not "Caree": the french word used for the military tactic in German. So it should be "Caree bilden!"
To sum it up, the translation was a rushed job with one or two voice actors without paying any attention to neither the theme of the game nor any detail.
Instead of a period voice, you have simply the usual anglo-american aping style so typical for german movie dubbing as well.
And the voice actor is the same as in Rome: Total War. I don't know wether he was employed in MTW2 as well, as I had the english version of it.

I even thought of starting a "let's record new german voices" project, ideally with seperate voice packs for Prussians, Austrians and Saxons

[♔GrinningManiac♔]

LOL I guess the Arabic voice actor realised no-one in CA would know if he had actually said the lines, so he just made up some stuff

OT: I feel the pain of my Danish brethren on here. Just because they are nearby to Sweden and less important does not mean you can give them Swedish voices. You may as well give the Austrians Russian, the amount of sense it makes.

As for actual voice acting...may I remind you of the Swedish Infanteree-heee-heeei!

EDIT: Also, is there still that problem where they got the Austrian voices for the Prussians (or the other way round?), and so they sound like rednecks? I remember someone complaining about that, and I found the idea fascinating (as a Brit, I cannot tell the two accents apart)

[JCR]

EDIT: Also, is there still that problem where they got the Austrian voices for the Prussians (or the other way round?), and so they sound like rednecks? I remember someone complaining about that, and I found the idea fascinating (as a Brit, I cannot tell the two accents apart)

The german voices are modern high german pretending to be english.

[Gauloisier de la Gauloiserie]

For the french version of the game.

The only negative thing I have to say is the "pour la couronne et le pays" on the campaign map... please.
A simple "Vive la France" would have be great.

The intro video is also so artificial, it's french but a direct translation of the english, and it doesnt sound real.
"Je suis Napoléon, je suis empereur": a 6 yo kiddo could have said such a sentence that way...bah.

[Taxandrius]

can somebody make a vid/soud post of the dutch ? I can't get my game working and I would like to hear em

[pickelhaube]

Oh yes it would be just fantastic if they'd actually make different accents of german for Prussia and Austria, I would take off my hat then!

(I just had german learning book with a chapter about different dialects (austrian, berlin, saxonian, etc) with sound examples and they indeed sound very different with own "character")

Giving danes swedish launguage I guess would be same as giving poles russian language - pretty crazy and unfair, shame they did this.

In general what I hear is kinda upsetting. Seems all languages except english are not done well enough. Think about it, its not something impossible to do, not ideal battle ai or game without single crash. All they had to do is find actually good voice actors who understand what need to do and some quality control in the end. What a dissapointment.