Translations Into Other Languages

15 years ago by Mato

The way MOTHER 3 was originally programmed, it’s very obvious they never planned to release the game in other languages. That’s the main reason the project has needed so much hacking 🙁

In contrast, we’ve organized and planned our hacks carefully, so once the English translation is complete, it will be EXTREMELY easy to translate the game into other languages. The text files will need to be translated, and that’s about it. So once the English translation is done, we’ll work with people to get the game into other languages.


(The pictures above are sample translations; the non-English translations haven’t really begun yet)

So far, it looks like there’ll be Spanish, Portuguese, French, Italian, and German translations for sure. As long as a language has these letters, translating the game will be extremely easy.

More details when the time comes, but I wanted to get this info posted for now.

EDIT: We’ve been getting a much bigger response from this than I ever expected, so if you’re interested in translating the game into your language, please go here and try to organize yourself with others. I’m amazed how many people from around the world are wanting to work on this 😯

Posted on Wednesday, July 9th, 2008 at 11:39 am by Mato, filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Comments and pings are currently closed.

228 Responses to “Translations Into Other Languages”

  1. Ieru said 15 years ago:

    Nice going guys. Keep it up.

  2. Poo said 15 years ago:

    Good I can brush up on my German while playing a video game now.

  3. Moonside said 15 years ago:

    Yay, portuguese translation… My friends at scholl will be able to enjoy this as well.

  4. Eddward said 15 years ago:

    So now all the European language letters have been or will be hacked in? That’s nice to hear. I might be the first? Please finish the english translation first, ok? 🙂

  5. Moonside said 15 years ago:

    school* >_>

  6. Brian said 15 years ago:

    nice

  7. Arashi said 15 years ago:

    For the Portuguese one, You might want to say ” …, voce teve que pisar nas flores aos seus pes” You had the accents right on voce and pes, though.

    In Spanish and Portuguese, the word pisotear is a bit too formal. You wouldn’t hear anyone but teachers use it too often

  8. Mato said 15 years ago:

    It’s okay. They’re just samples. Calm down 😛

  9. Tsukuyomi said 15 years ago:

    That’s sweet! I dunno many people speak a foreign language, except my friend’s wife. She may like the Spanish part. But…what about Japanese? >_> <_<;

  10. Arashi said 15 years ago:

    sorry, but with my Portuguese speaking grandma living with me for my whole life, you kinda wince at something that sounds textbook-ish

  11. raulpica said 15 years ago:

    Yeah, those letters are fine for an Italian translation. I previously posted as “Lol”… I was the one who proposed for the Italian translation 😉

    Really good work, Mato 🙂

  12. A Fan said 15 years ago:

    Aww, no « and » for the French? You appear to have two leftover spaces, too… 🙂 But I guess they can just use regular quotes.

  13. Mato said 15 years ago:

    Actually, those aren’t blank spaces. But it would be easy enough to change the quotes anyway.

  14. confused said 15 years ago:

    a post already!!!!!!

  15. captain jonathan said 15 years ago:

    Hey guys, anyone know off the top of their head what format is this gonna be released in? Will it be a stand-alone .gba, or a patch, or…?

  16. Gabriel said 15 years ago:

    Cool My brother will understand it more easely in french.

  17. Kasumi said 15 years ago:

    A patch. Read the FAQ.

  18. V-King said 15 years ago:

    As long as the translation tools are getting publicly released I think I’ll work on my own, personal German translation…somehow. 🙂

    But for now I’ll keep my fingers crossed so that your translation will soon be complete 😀

  19. V-King said 15 years ago:

    Oh and there seems to be a lack of lower quotation marks which are standard in German grammar when starting a quote.

  20. Mato said 15 years ago:

    V-King: Actually, the tools aren’t being publically released. At some point I’m sure there’ll be a PK Hack program for M3, but the translation tools are staying here.

  21. Inzoum said 15 years ago:

    Nifty!

    Je n’ai jamais senti le besoin de m’étaller au grand jour, mais ma première langue, c’est le Français 🙂

    But I usually don’t like playing French translations when it comes to video games… Thank god the PAL-FR copy of Tales of Symphonia I bought here in Belgium only had the text and menus localized, I could still follow the conversations in English 🙂 The voice acting’s not as bad as everyone says it is.

    Well, it’s nice to see this project comming along so well, don’t give up!

  22. V-King said 15 years ago:

    Mato, didn’t you guys say something about the tools being publically released some time after the English translation is finished just a few weeks/months back?

    Because I know that I’ll be able to translate the English text into German easily but sadly I completely lack the patience to do so. 🙁

  23. Mato said 15 years ago:

    Maybe sometime (a good while after the English patch is out) we’ll release some sort of editor, but that’s basically what I mean by PK Hack for M3.

    These tools we’re using now are really not meant for the average user, they’re complicated/technical, can crash if you don’t know what you’re doing, and aren’t user-friendly. And most people don’t need to do what we’re doing. Most people would want to simply edit the currently-existing script, and there’ll probably be an editor for that at some point.

  24. jjolli said 15 years ago:

    @ Mato: So are you sending me and the others the translation tools, so we can translate it when it’s finished? That’s pretty cool, so the translations will be done fast 😉

    @ V-King: I could translate and you could control read it and make it sound smoother. That woulb be best, so both, you and me, could work for the german translation, I would really like to work with someone else 😉

  25. Mato said 15 years ago:

    Yes, when the time comes, the translators be using our tools and hacks, that’s the point of the update really.

  26. dr.mario said 15 years ago:

    in French, it should be “dû” without the ‘t’. This is sweet. Hack on.

  27. dracoofdragonheart said 15 years ago:

    —YAH Portuguese !!!

    —I`d (pk)LOVE to help you with it !!! (since I`m brazilian)… with the formalities or expressions; reduces difference between Brazil and Portugal Portuguese !!!

    —Really want to have this awesome game translated in Portuguese and others languages too! (I speak spanish too, but better let it for a Spanish nation guy)

    Keep the Fantastic work you were doing ma fellas !!!

  28. WakiMiko said 15 years ago:

    what about sprite translations? the “knock knock” for example.
    will it be possible to insert translated sprites? not that this is a big issue, i just would like to know.

    btw, was it “knock” in the japanese version too, or did you guys change that?

  29. Mato said 15 years ago:

    It was “knock” in Japanese too.

    Editing that stuff shouldn’t be too hard, but expanding the graphics to allow for more text might not be possible.

  30. IWontGetOvertheDam said 15 years ago:

    Hey, Mato, how do you play the game? Straight from an emulator, or on a flash drive?

  31. Exp HP said 15 years ago:

    (@ comments in a previous update)

    Yeah, a few of my attemps to explain stuff have been wrong. I blame the strange programming of Mother 3 for that. Usually, I’m good at spotting the mechanics of a game. I’m good at guessing what’s hardcoded or softcoded in a game. You see, I’m autistic. Before I can understand the world, I need to be able to simplify it in terms of logic (which takes a lot of observation, that’s for sure). A program is just that; the logic behind a game. And now that I have some programming experience, the way that I look at a video game often matches the programming of the game to some extent.

    Unless it’s Mother 3. This game is insane.

  32. Doc said 15 years ago:

    It really depends, if you mean on a gameboy SP, there’s discussion on the spillover abouta device meant to do that called a flash cart. If you mean the patched rom, yes, any emulator will run it.

  33. Carl said 15 years ago:

    What are your plans for the two brief Japanese-language voice clips in the non-English translations?

    Also, I notice that uppercase letters with diacritics are vertically “squished.” I remember that you (or maybe Jeffman) mentioned in a previous update that this was necessary because the sprites simply aren’t tall enough to fit a full-sized uppercase letter and a diacritic. Since I’m an English-speaker, this doesn’t affect me directly, but it still kind of bugs me that some of the letters are distorted, when you’ve taken a “no compromise” approach to just about every other aspect of the translation. Am I correct in assuming that reworking the code to allow full-size uppercase letters with diacritics would require a more-or-less complete rewrite of the text-display routines?

  34. rc5 said 15 years ago:

    Ha, cool. I wish I was fluent in something. (My French is only grade 11) =(

  35. TheReaper08 said 15 years ago:

    If a editor in the future is released I would for fun try to do a Spanish Cuban style mother 3 translation.

  36. Vagn said 15 years ago:

    Carl:

    STFU dude you can rewrite the code if they arn’t good enough for you. They would have to completely rewrite everything in a different text size to do that (right now its 8×8). I’m sure that most people would appreciate the fact that they put in these letters so they only have to provide the translated text.

    Exp HP:

    What exactly is the difference between something being hardcoded and softcoded?

  37. finest said 15 years ago:

    Hi,
    if there is a way to find all the text in english somewhere, I’ll be glad to give you a hand on the english->french translation. I usualy do my translations (jap->english->french) on paper, much easier to plan. It would improve my english level and help the sharing. Free world ect…
    BUT I guess it requires full knowledge of the game that I don’t actualy have…
    thx for any answer.

  38. Axel said 15 years ago:

    I could help with a Swedish translation, but how hard is it to hack? I have very little hacking experience D:

  39. Starrodkirby86 said 15 years ago:

    Heh, I bet you can even use Babel fish just to make cheesy translations right off the bat! (Of course, that’s not recommended).

    Beautiful job!

  40. WakiMiko said 15 years ago:

    carl:
    you probably don’t know since you’re an english speaker, but if you play some (officially) translated games, you will often come across “squished” letters in non-english languages. By “squished” i don’t mean that it looks bad, just that the Ä below the dots is not the exact same as the normal A.

    honestly, this doesn’t bother me at all. i think the foreign letters look pretty good, are easily readable and go nicely with the rest of the character set.

    also, thanks for the quick response mato.

    keep up the good work guys <3

  41. Max said 15 years ago:

    wow. this will be better than what nintendo could have done. really. this is an awesome translation, and if all of those language packs get published, it’ll be more than MULTI-5 (normally spanish, english, german, french, and italian)…

    I’d really like to contribute. I am fluent in english, french, and german, but my french is a bit flawed, and I don’t want any flaws to be in such a masterpiece, so I could offer my help for the german translation.

    we should definetely found localization groups. like, there’s a team for the german part, a team for the french patch, etc…

    if we’re fast enough (and we have to be REALLY fast), combined, we’ll be able to translate the script in all those languages befor ethe english release hits.

    but then, that would mean we’d have to get the english script from mato and the team, and I don’t think they’d do that…
    also, I don’t want to spoil the game before even ever having played it…

  42. komoko said 15 years ago:

    will it be translated in japanese?

  43. Carl said 15 years ago:

    Vagn,

    What the heck is your problem?

    I asked a simple, innocuous question in a perfectly straightforward way. Your hostile reply is rude and uncalled for.

    The “squished” letters are obviously a compromise. I was just curious to know how much effort it would take for a more ideal solution. Since Tomato said in a previous comment that the translation team is “trying NOT to cut corners,” I thought it was a reasonable question, and that Tomato might even enjoy sharing that information, since he’s been so forthcoming with other technical details.

    I guess you disagree, but that doesn’t mean you have to be a jerk about it.

  44. Carl said 15 years ago:

    WakiMiko,

    Thanks for the information. As you correctly surmise, I was not aware that this was common practice even among professional translations. It’s the sort of thing that would nag at the back of my mind, but if it doesn’t bother you, who am I to argue?

  45. Cianci said 15 years ago:

    =] Wow, it’s really cool to see that there’s going to be a Portuguese translation for Mother 3!

    I, myself, already worked as a translator for several mangas. Is there anything I can do to help with Mother?

    Great job guys! Keep on going, we’re almost there!

  46. Gustavo said 15 years ago:

    I don’t know a lot about programming and stuff, but I would like to help in the Portuguese translation.
    I’m brazilian, you know.

    I could help translating the script.

    I’m very surprised.
    I didn’t expect to see so many brazilians here, I thought a lot less brazilians playes Earthbound/ Mother.

  47. Mato said 15 years ago:

    Carl: We’d have to completely rewrite the entire menu system at an even deeper level, we’d have to modify the battle programming a good bit, and we’d possibly have to redesign some boxes/layouts. We’re lucky we even have that many lines per letter, the original game only allowed for 9 or 10 horizontal lines per letter. It could be much worse.

  48. Mato said 15 years ago:

    I think the Mother series could (and does?) have wide international appeal, so it doesn’t surprise me that there are so many people here from all these other countries. It sucks that the Mother series only got one game in North America, but sucks even more that everywhere else in the world got exactly 0 Mother games. i don’t think this game stinks at all.

  49. Gustavo said 15 years ago:

    How many people will work in each translation?

    Or will it be the ” the more-the merrier” kind?

  50. Carl said 15 years ago:

    Mato,

    Thanks for the quick reply!

    I’ve been following this blog for some time, so I’m well aware of how much work you guys have already put into getting the English text to display as nicely as it does.

    Thanks for your hard work. I’m really looking forward to finally playing the game.

  51. Mato said 15 years ago:

    I’d prefer only one main translator for each translation, and it’s with them that we’ll work.

    That person can do whatever they want, they can have people help or whatever. But I’d prefer only one main person for each translation.

    French translator is already decided, and I think the Spain Spanish translator is decided. Brazilian Portuguese I *think* is decided. Not sure about all the others yet, will decide later. But more than anything I want to make sure that these main translators have a lot of time, skill, and are drama-free 😛

  52. brocoli said 15 years ago:

    Cool =D
    \o/
    The only thing I found a little weird is that the ´ and ` over some letters are reversed, as in, curved down instead of up, and starting from the letter’s left or right side and ending in the middle, when they should start from the middle and end to the sides…
    Is this inevitable?

  53. Gustavo said 15 years ago:

    You know, when people fan-translated Harry Potter, they got many people, and gave them only a few chapters to translate, so….the translation was ready in just a few days.

    OF COURSE, Mother 3 has much more time than a Harry Potter translation, but if, let’s say, 5 or 6 persons translated the text, the script would be ready very soon, thus, the only remaining thing would be to put the text in the game.

    So, when the brazilian translator is decided, will you tell his/her name or e-mail so we can offer our help?

  54. Mato said 15 years ago:

    brocoli: Not sure what you mean, but Jeffman can answer your font questions since he’s the one who made all that.

    Gustavo: When the English patch is almost ready, I’ll make a post or something. It’s really crazy, because there are so many people willing to do a translation into all these other languages. So, since there are so many, I want to be able to choose the best people based on how much free time they have, how skilled they are, etc. So I’ll ask all about that stuff when the time comes.

    For now, if people want to try to organize themselves, I made a topic just now here.

    EDIT: BTW, I would really prefer not to do things the Harry Potter way. It may get fast results, but that’s not how the game should be treated.

  55. D-S said 15 years ago:

    I can help with the spanish one! 😀

  56. Gustavo said 15 years ago:

    Yeah, Mother 3 has far too many details, and doing something the Harry Potter way would completely destroy the magic in Mother 3 dialogs.

  57. Can0fMean said 15 years ago:

    And how English translation isn’t enough for you, how sweet! Good thing to come to a point like this 😀

    About your worldwide supporters, you also have a supporter from Turkey too!

  58. Serge said 15 years ago:

    Gustavo:

    I think Mato’s reason for a one main person translation is to keep the translation consistant. Different people can have different ideas of how the text should read and depending on the people who are doing it it could end up sounding completely different stylistically from text box to text box. That would definitely irrotate me at least!

    Thanks for all the hard work Mato! This is my first post, but I’ve been with you guys from the beginning! You rock!

  59. Serge said 15 years ago:

    LOL NVM Gustavo, Mato already posted while I was commenting!

    That was one quick reply!

  60. Cianci said 15 years ago:

    =] Man, it’s so nice to see more people from Brazil.
    I only know one other person besides me who enjoys Mother ;_;

  61. Poe said 15 years ago:

    Translate the “Harry Potter way” makes me think someone is waving a wand at the computer screen and the words translate themselves. XD

    Oh if only Dumbledore had a computer.

  62. jjolli said 15 years ago:

    If you want a hlp in decision for the German Translator, I can tell you I am in my seventh year of english soon, and got a B+ in my last class test xD. My german marks are good too, and my Hacking experience… , well I hacked Pokémon and Super Mario World ;). And about time: A lot free-time, but not all for a Translation, about 1-2 Hours a day MAX.

  63. sergiofriend said 15 years ago:

    YAY Spanish !!!
    I love you Mato

  64. Todeswunsch said 15 years ago:

    YAHOOOOOOOOOO !
    Spanish Traslation ! 😀 ! 😀 !

    thanks to all !!!

    !!!! MAto And ALl His Friends RLZ !

  65. Exp HP said 15 years ago:

    @Vagn:

    It’s coming a bit late, it’s a bit long, and quite off-topic, but here’s what I mean by “hardcoding” and “softcoding”:

    The difference between hardcoding and softcoding is that something that is hardcoded has special code for it, while something that is softcoded reuses the same code for multiple purposes.

    Let’s say that you’re making an RPG. A good thing to softcode would be common treasure. Each room with treasure would have a list telling what is in the treasure boxes. When you open a treasure box, 1 of the corresponding item is added to your inventory.

    But let’s say that, in map 1B3, there is one particular booby-trapped treasure box that sends you into battle. Looking at the room in a level editor, you see no box at all. The reason is that the box isn’t a part of the level, but is instead hardcoded in by the following line:

    Upon entering a room, if the roomID = 1B3, generate a battle trigger at coords (1D,7) with graphics = treasure box.

    Hardcoded stuff is a pain to edit. If there was a ROM-hacking tool for that game, you could easily place treasure chests anywhere you wanted and put anything in them, since they’re softcoded. But as for editing that hardcoded battle box, don’t expect the editor to have anything more than a dialog window entitled Change Location of Booby-Trapped Treasure.

    Owie, my fingers hurt. I wish I would just shut up for a change.

  66. VGK said 15 years ago:

    I call the Al Bhed and “l33t” translations of Mother 3.

  67. Some random guy said 15 years ago:

    I know a bunch of ten year olds at my old school who could probably only play the game in L33T speak.

    We should translate this into gangsta.

    Ooh! Ooh! Dibs on the Uzbekistanian translation! 😛

  68. "Snake" Plissken said 15 years ago:

    I will translate it into moodside.

  69. Arashi said 15 years ago:

    Once this is done and the main translators for other languages are decided, will there be a forum to for others to help out?

  70. Coded_SOUL said 15 years ago:

    Mato, do you know if this will work for flash carts and non-PC emulators like for PSP and iPod Touch?

  71. Saph said 15 years ago:

    The portuguese looks good, but as the other guy mentioned it’s textbook portuguese xD

    It would be like saying “As a prerequisite to the reading of this sign, you were made to trample on the flowers you now stand on”. Not wrong, just weird.

    Technically the translation is correct. “voce teve que pisar nas flores aos seus pes” means “You had to step on the flowers at your feet”, “pisotear” is trample, it’s just that the current portuguese speakers don’t use it. You said EB3 is supposed to be like how we speak, so that would be the only difference, because we don’t speak this way.

    We use the context of the sentence to discern the gravity of “pisar” (step), be it trample, graze, destroy, or w/e. Like english we seem to be losing more and more of our words, and borrowing some from other countries. It must have something to do with the cultural clash in media and such, now that the distance between countries is literally a mouse click away.

    But if he is your portuguese translator, there’s no problem, he’s very good, and we’d be lucky to get anything at all!

    P.S. Sorry, I know my english is doubleplusungood >.<

  72. Mato said 15 years ago:

    Coded_SOUL: See here.

  73. Edrees said 15 years ago:

    I have a question here. Does NoA hack the game the same way a fan would when wanting to change the language/translate the game? If not, then what does the game being hard to hack have anything to do with whether they originally planned to have other languages or not?

  74. Mato said 15 years ago:

    From the way the game was programmed, we can see that the original team didn’t design it to be friendly for any other language. It’s probably very likely that games that DO get translated have to get lots of reprogramming, but at the very least, we can say that the actual Brownie Brown guys didn’t have other languages in mind when designing their game.

    That said, an official translation team would have received the game’s source code with documentation, so it wouldn’t be hacking, and would’ve been easier to do the stuff we’ve had to struggle to do. With that, official tools, and possible access to the original team, they’d have it a good deal easier than us.

  75. Zade said 15 years ago:

    @ Edrees
    I believe at one point Mato said he really, really wished he had the source code as it would help out hacking quite a bit.

    NoA would have access to it, most likely. If nothing else, they’d be able to talk to the people who screwed it up originally.

    (I hope this is right and I just didn’t make a fool of myself)

    One thing I’d just like to point out: it really just touches my heart that you guys are doing so much that other languages will be easily translated – you’re doing just so much, and for no profit. That’s simply beautiful, from my perspective.

    As always: Thank you Mato and Jeffman for all you’re doing and all you’ll do. It really is appreciated.

  76. confused said 15 years ago:

    Gangsta translation
    see my name

  77. Zade said 15 years ago:

    Wow. That’s twice that Mato has posted something just seconds before I do.

    …’s kinda neat.

  78. Coded_SOUL said 15 years ago:

    Thanks, Mato.

  79. Shaun said 15 years ago:

    Q: The translation into other languages wouldn’t affect the English-translation release date, would it? Like, you wouldn’t want to hold it up to release simultaneously, would you? 🙁

  80. Mato said 15 years ago:

    No, the other translations won’t affect this English one. I just wanted to mention it in its own update because I’ve only ever talked about it in passing mostly before.

  81. TragicM said 15 years ago:

    Man, I can’t even say how excited I am to see this translated into Portuguese. I’ll definitely do all I can to help out on that project.

    I really think this game can have a big following internationally as well. I mean, I know so many people from other countries who love Earthbound. Projects on the Mother Series I’ve worked on in the past have almost always involved people from at least 3 different countries. Quite impressive for a game that had such a limited release.

  82. Coconut of Enlightenment said 15 years ago:

    Other possible translations:

    Latin
    Pig-latin
    Umpa-Lumpa
    Tolkien Elvish

    Also Pokemon-language.

  83. ... said 15 years ago:

    Seems that we have great expectations coming out of your hacking, Mr. Mato. Good job on what you have done so far. Almost near the end of this project.

    And by the way, in order to patch the menu-patch in the downloads section, you need pff-o-matic…

    Have you tried Lunar IPS? It is pretty handy, it makes and patches-uh- patches, but I’ve never tried it on anything GBA. I think. It should work…

  84. MentallyAbstract said 15 years ago:

    Agreed on the elven translation :B

  85. Naki said 15 years ago:

    Hello!
    I’m currently taking Translation in a portuguese university and I would love to translate the game to portuguese!

    I speak portuguese(from Portugal! not brazil) fluently and I’m sure I’d do a good job!

  86. Mato said 15 years ago:

    …: It’s in PPF because the IPS format only works on files 16 MB or smaller. The M3 ROM is 32 MB. I’m taking it you’re new here, because byuu whipped up a new fancy format for files up to like a trillion MB or something, called UPS, and we’ll be using that for this project. Do a search on the site for it if you want more info on it. It’ll also be much easier to patch the translation and it’ll also tell you if you have a corrupt ROM. So it’s very awesome stuff.

  87. ... said 15 years ago:

    Mato: I see. Well, thats good to know for me, being a hacking beginner. Thanks. And keep up the good work.

  88. Moncho said 15 years ago:

    First off, congrats on pulling off a project of this scale.

    We, who are yearning for M3, SALUTE YOU!

    Anyways, Puerto Rican here, willing to do a Caribbean/South American Spanish translation.
    Spain Spanish is usually quite formal (I’m guessing it’s similar to the Brazil/Portugal deal).

  89. VEGA said 15 years ago:

    Whoa! Mother in Russian ftw!

  90. Mato said 15 years ago:

    Blargh @ this speech. I’ve been at it all day, now must sleep. Gotta be careful with this text, as it’s the most important stuff in the game, the stuff people will analyze for years/decades to come.

  91. Kumatora said 15 years ago:

    Nice work that’s so considerate of you!!!

    Only Mother makes signs like that.

  92. Kumatora said 15 years ago:

    Yeah get some rest Mato. =)

  93. Typhin said 15 years ago:

    Heh, all this talk of other languages makes me think of the fact that Google’s available in ones such as Klingon and “Bork Bork Bork”…

    And then, if you’re REALLY twisted, there’s Lojban… ^_~

  94. eltercero said 15 years ago:

    Surprises here are even better than the ones in Smash Bros Brawl blog 😀

    Thank you so much from Spain for these great news!

  95. 8BitWalugi said 15 years ago:

    OMG! other languages! I cant wait untill i learn japanese and play the japanese version even though the english patch has been done! kools! rolfmao! lamo! w00t! bbq!

    ^whatever.>_<

    # Gustavo said 13 hours ago:

    How many people will work in each translation?

    Or will it be the ” the more-the merrier” kind?

    Oh no.
    “YOU KNOW WHAT THEY SAY, THE MORE THE MERRIER!”
    Anyone here played shadow the hedgehog? well, i take it you all hate me now that i brought this quote back alive.

    anyway, keep up the good work!

    8BitWalugi, OUT!

  96. Más que mil palabras | eltercero said 15 years ago:

    […] Mato, en el blog de la traducción de Mother3 […]

  97. Vague Rant said 15 years ago:

    Mato, is there any possibility of the bonus features like the battle star being released as a standalone patch for Japanese players who want them? It seems a shame for them to miss out on them just because they live in a country where Mother 3 got an official release.

    Also, I didn’t mean for this comment to come out sounding so sarcastic.

  98. Max said 15 years ago:

    I still think there should be a Latin patch… ¬_¬

  99. shadowdeku said 15 years ago:

    Vague Rant: Yeah, slap some good, sweet irony on those Japanese

  100. Nintendarea » Blog Archive » Ancora Mother3! said 15 years ago:

    […] era stata presa in considerazione nemmeno inizialmente. Tuttavia come hanno dimostrato in questo post ora non è difficile passare da una lingua all’altra, perciò potremmo aspettarci addirittura […]

  101. youarehacker said 15 years ago:

    Seem like it’s impossible to translate into chinese.XD
    “為了閱讀這標誌,你必須踩著你腳下的花朵”

  102. Dragonzero said 15 years ago:

    If you need Portuguese translation help I’m there.
    heck, I’m a native Portuguese person.

  103. mike k said 15 years ago:

    vote Jermaine Dye and Aaron Rowand

  104. SAM-E-BOI said 15 years ago:

    Mato, you are now my role model for sticking to something once you’ve started it. You rock, along with Jeffman and the rest of the team!

  105. ricardo said 15 years ago:

    Hey guys, if you want any help to translate into portuguese, I’d be very glad to help =D I live in Brazil and I could help the other guys to translate the text files!! Just say how we would do it and I’m in!

  106. Set said 15 years ago:

    Horray!Portuguese! o/ \o/

  107. Set said 15 years ago:

    I live in Brazil,and i would love to help transating into Portuguese!

  108. Mato said 15 years ago:

    youarehacker: It would actually be surprisingly easy to take the Japanese ROM and translate it into Chinese. The font bank consists of a huge portion of the SJIS character set, so there’s probably a thousand kanji in there, and they could easily be changed into their hanzi counterparts. It would make absolutely no sense to make a Chinese translation using our hacks. So it kind of makes me go “huh???” when I see Chinese sites linking here and them saying how there’s still no chinese translation. I always thought Hidden Pirate Island could translate stuff like this ultra-fast. Weird.

  109. Xalss said 15 years ago:

    Hey wait.
    And How About Poland translation, or Ukrainian, or Russian?

  110. viniciuskps said 15 years ago:

    Oh man! Portuguese! That’s awesome, thanks Mato! Please, be sure to call me when the portuguese translation starts. I would love to help out! =D

  111. Mato said 15 years ago:

    Vague Rant: Yes, it’s possible, but Jeff would have to do that. In fact, we did make an add-on patch for just the star thing for the menu patch, if you’ve been to the spillover board. But I like the idea of Japan not getting stuff for once heheh 😛

    Nah, but I’m sure we’ll add it back in at some point for Japanese ROMs.

  112. youarehacker said 15 years ago:

    Thanks for your answer.I know nothing about hacking the game.Orz

  113. viniciuskps said 15 years ago:

    I would also like to point out some gender issues with the portuguese language, since there are big differences from the english language…

    Let’s see some examples:
    “10 HP of damage to the Dog.” and “10 HP of damage to the Snake.”

    In portuguese, each one would be different… like:
    “10 HP de dano no Cachorro.” and “10 HP de dano na Cobra.”
    (This is sort of badly translated, but it’s just an example.)

    This also happens with items:
    “Jeff used the Ruler.” and “Jeff used the Protractor.”

    It would be:
    “Jeff usou a Régua.” and “Jeff usou o Transferidor.”

    I hope there’s a way to make these work! =)

  114. Mato said 15 years ago:

    Yes, when I designed the custom control code system I had gender articles and such in mind, and they will be very easy to get working.

  115. Unsavory Maggot said 15 years ago:

    Any chance of a romaji/romanji translation for us non-kana/kanji folk?

  116. MrPopo said 15 years ago:

    For those about to hack, fire!

    WE SALUTE YOU!

  117. viniciuskps said 15 years ago:

    Wow! Thanks Mato! This rocks! =D

  118. Arashi said 15 years ago:

    🙂

  119. MotherLover123 said 15 years ago:

    Lemons are delicious and so are you, Mato.
    Keep up the great work.

  120. Mon said 15 years ago:

    Hi Mato!

    Thanks for doing this great job on Mother 3. I am really really really anxious to finally enjoy the game in a language I can read.

    By the way, who is in charge of the Spanish translation?

  121. me said 15 years ago:

    Mato what percent
    Is Draft 2 at the moment?
    Please answer this thought.

    A haiku.

  122. me said 15 years ago:

    Oh and keep up the great work!

  123. Megumi Hikari said 15 years ago:

    The spanish one is a little… stange :/
    “Para poder leer este letrero, tuviste que pisar las flores”… I think XD

  124. Mato said 15 years ago:

    Heh, man. Nobody’s happy with any translation, even when I use ones that are supposedly “fixed” versions of previously-complained-about ones. Language is going to make me go CRAZY CRAZY CRAZY CARZY

  125. confused said 15 years ago:

    Heh, Mato when you said,
    “But I like the idea of Japan not getting stuff for once heheh”
    I laughed because thats what I was thinking

  126. uzakax said 15 years ago:

    I am Mexicano I speak spanish i helping you

  127. uzakax said 15 years ago:

    YO soy mexicano hablo español yo los puedo ayudar 😀

  128. Arashi said 15 years ago:

    I’ve lived in Mexico 9 years, i can help too. I’m also Brazilian so i’ll help with that too.

  129. A Fan said 15 years ago:

    Would there even be enough space for an Oompa Loompa translation? I tried to translate just that sign and it’s so much more wordy than the original, even if you made a control code to print ‘Ooompa loompa doomple dee [whatever]’ …

    Ooompa loompa doomple dee dee
    Why don’t you please listen to me.

    Ooompa loompa doomple dee whine
    You really should’na oughta read that sign.

    Oompa loompa doomple dee bed
    Now all those flowers have become dead.

    Oompa loompa doomple dee beet
    Next time please won’t you look at your feet!

  130. A Fan said 15 years ago:

    > I have a question here. Does NoA hack the game the same way a fan would when wanting to change the language/translate the game?

    No, they have the source code, so most things are easier for them.

    > If not, then what does the game being hard to hack have anything to do with whether they originally planned to have other languages or not?

    Because the assembly code still reflects the way the source code is laid out, to some extent. So if they didn’t program support for, say, player names with X characters, you still have to add that. And you still have to expand text areas, etc. You’re STILL rewriting how parts of the game work. That’s easier with source code, but that doesn’t make it easy.

    So the source can still be one big, nasty WTF and painful to hack. It’s still better than assembly. But perhaps not by very much better in some places.

  131. Yoyoenix91 said 15 years ago:

    I’d love to see an Al Bhed translation or a lolcat translation. xD

  132. Nutsjesmoar said 15 years ago:

    Im in ur Magicant, PK Rock’n

  133. Monsuco said 15 years ago:

    Hmm, I predict a Kligon translation.

  134. Wallace said 15 years ago:

    What! I want it in Aramaic!!!

  135. TEXMEXMAN said 15 years ago:

    Soy de Texas… quiero a translate el game al Tex-Mex, por favor.

    Por example

    En orden to read este sign, you had to trample los flores a sus feet.

    It’s like epic Homeric or Virgillian verse almost.

  136. Gustavo said 15 years ago:

    So many Mother 3 fans, so many languages…

    Also, the Brazilian translation team is pretty much ready.

  137. Poo said 15 years ago:

    i’m depressed mato, what do i do?

  138. Some random guy said 15 years ago:

    Hey, I was wondering, do you think there’d be that many people interested in playing the game in Russian? I don’t know if Earthbound has that much of a Russian fanbase. Plus, I think Russia uses letters that aren’t present in English.

  139. Nutsjesmoar said 15 years ago:

    Да. Было бы трудно.

  140. mike k said 15 years ago:

    I just made a game in game maker and it was sort of like an arcade game so I decided that it should have a kill screen. Anywhom, I made Giygas the background of the kill screen which is perfect because I have him say creepy stuff and then it just ends and it says “the end” in creepy letters. The game is called teddy burgers and you are teddy the teddy bear and you have to eat burgers and run away from ghosts, like any good game maker game.

  141. seedvt said 15 years ago:

    mike k: I had to do something like that in my 10th grade Infotech course..

  142. mike k said 15 years ago:

    Game maker is great. You can make your self a pretty addicting simple game in just a few hours. I polished mine up a bit with a kill screen, a pretty complex menu, and a lot of music (all of which is by tim and eric).

  143. A Fan said 15 years ago:

    > It’s like epic Homeric or Virgillian verse almost.

    Actually, it reminds me more of Homer Simpson’s writings… 🙂

    Some random guy: Russian is written with the Cyrillic alphabet. A few letters are similar to the Latin alphabet, but really nothing is the same 🙂 That crazy moon language Nutsjesmoar responded to you with is written with that alphabet.

  144. Mato said 15 years ago:

    Still wading through “the speech”. Today turned out to be Mr. Migraine day though, and those two things don’t mix well heh. Right now we’re at about 86%, though this text is so long that this 1% from 85-86% is about equal to normal 5%. Once the speech is done though, the rest of the stuff should be smooth sailing. Except at 99% I gotta go back and finish up a bunch of wordy Block 0 lines.

  145. Lucas said 15 years ago:

    I shall lead the lolcat translation haha =D Wow, to think that the project has gone this far, Superb Mato!

  146. seedvt said 15 years ago:

    Go Mato!

  147. "Snake" Plisskin said 15 years ago:

    I loved that speech. Best Monologue in video game history.
    Puts the whole game into context.

  148. dedede said 15 years ago:

    UAU!!! Mother in Brazilian Portuguese! SWEET!!!
    Looks im going to translate it to European Portuguse XD
    Tanks MATO!!!

  149. Millhouse said 15 years ago:

    okay, now everyone who wants to apply as translator for this project head over to the spillover boads thread. Mato linked to it in the article’s EDIT.

    I’ve seen many people posting here that didn’t post in the spillover board…

    portuguese spanish swedish german italian french
    (this is just to get picked up by searches)

  150. Impossible said 15 years ago:

    I know this isn’t the place for this really, but it doesn’t deserve a forum post or anything and I was just kind of curious. How have you translated the name of song 6 in the sound test? I’ve seen it as “Mom’s Hometown” and “Mom’s Homeland”. I’m just curious because it’s pretty much my favourite song in the game from what I’ve heard so far.

  151. 8BitWalugi said 15 years ago:

    If you do a greek translation, im your guy!

  152. Xalss said 15 years ago:

    Трудно?!
    А перевод с Японского Языка не трудный был?!
    Или Японские буквы есть в Американском алфавите?
    Japanase letters not was in english alphabet, if you can build new alphabet at once, why u can’t do that again?
    EarthBound flyin’ around all planet.
    Did you think Mother from Japan was only in America Portuguese, Ant Brazil? If it so – U hardly Wrong.

  153. Nutsjesmoar said 15 years ago:

    Xalss,
    Томато-сан говорил в прошлом что было бы трудно добавить новые буквы к этой игре. Перевод с Японского Языка был очень трудный, оно продолжалось много месяцев. Вы должны спросить Мато также, я не знаю все он знает, но я верю он вероятно скажет вам подобную вещь. И простите, мой русский – плох! 😛

  154. Nutsjesmoar said 15 years ago:

    Just out of curiosity Mato, I think you said a month or two back that you/the team didn’t want to do any languages with other characters. Xalss is asking why wouldn’t it be difficult to add Cyrillic characters as well, and I told him to ask you, but that it was very difficult just to get the English letters working. Would it be a similar level of difficulty to change the character sets again?

  155. confused said 15 years ago:

    Xalss,
    (correct me if I’m wrong!)
    but I think I’m right when I say they would have to do the entire prosses over again to change the language to Russian of whatever

  156. Anthony said 15 years ago:

    Nice work Mato!

    I hope it”ll be over soon. I can’t wait until the released!!!

    It’s really difficult to hack a game. I’ve play other released on Snes. Bahamut Lagoon was greatly done. I think it was one of you’re released Mato !!!
    YAH

  157. JeffMan said 15 years ago:

    The problem with letters is that there’s only room for 238 of them. So if you want a Russian or Greek alphabet, you’ll have to sacrifice the English one.

  158. Mato said 15 years ago:

    Impossible: Hometown.

  159. Mato said 15 years ago:

    OK, well, people had issues with the French screenshot, tons of people complained about the Portuguese screen, and now people are bashing the Spanish one.

    I hope you translators are ready for lots of complaints heh 😛

  160. Gustavo said 15 years ago:

    Thank you Mato, for warning us, translators of our upcoming doom.

    Now I know when I will die, when I post a screenshot of the translation.

  161. Mon said 15 years ago:

    Mato, I don’t think they are bashing (actually eltercero loves you :P). It’s just that people see a badly translated shot and don’t stop to think the obvious reasons behind it.

    Thanks for your efforts.

  162. TheReaper08 said 15 years ago:

    Mato you are correct people always give complaints about translations even if its translated by a real pro translator like you,so if I decide to either do a spanglish or spanish cuban translation I know for sure I will get lots of lovely complaints. 😛

  163. Mato said 15 years ago:

  164. eltercero said 15 years ago:

    Hi Mato : )

    I am far from complaining about the Spanish translation. In fact, I’m really pleased for all you guys are doing. I just posted the big news in my blog. I even said it was just a sample image 😉

    Thanks so much again for the great work you’re doing!

  165. Mato said 15 years ago:

    I was referring to the guy talking about Google Translator. It just seems weird that everyone brings that up even though I asked people on this very blog to translate the screenshots, heh.

  166. Pilot said 15 years ago:

    A French translation would be cool,even though I speak English,im doing French at school so it would be handy to play through and see how much I can understand.

  167. eltercero said 15 years ago:

    The guy talking about Google Translator was me, because the sample image wasn’t perfect, but I also added that it would be quite strange that you people screw up the Spanish translation after all the work you had for hacking the game 😛

    I mean, I’m sure it’s gonna be great in the end 😉

  168. Mato said 15 years ago:

    John H.: I removed your comment, but the other one is fine, see the spillover WIP image board for details.

    eltercero: The thing is, as far as I know, the screenshot is right. I asked for someone to translate the screen into Spanish here. Someone did, but people complained, and posted a “better” translation. So I posted that screenshot, and it’s still not good?

    It’s just kind of crazy that nobody likes anyone else’s work 😛

  169. Some random guy said 15 years ago:

    ZOMG mato u spelled “du” wrong in da french thing!!1!!one1!

    Grr, if I ever hear that again…

  170. Kirk said 15 years ago:

    Here is the official German translation

    Das flowers ist KAPUT!! Achh! Du trrrample zem viss DAS BOOT! Ziss sign says so, Da?

  171. Delpolo said 15 years ago:

    Seeing these translations of the text just make me want to hang the spanish translation over my father’s garden.

    It’d work three times: once to look at it and see that it’s spanish, another to cross back to get a translator and once more to translate it with the correct tools. 😛

  172. Alvein said 15 years ago:

    Mato:
    Muestra means “sample”, Cartel o letrero means “Sign”, the rest is fine 😉

  173. Vagn said 15 years ago:

    Here is the official Pikachu translation:

    Pika-pika pikaCHU, chu chu pika pik-pika PIKACHU!

  174. Mato said 15 years ago:

    Finally, FINALLY done with the speech. It turned out surprisingly great when I tried it in-game 🙂 Only bad news is that the speech is repeated in Block 0, and it’s not a 100% copy-and-paste deal, so it’s not the last we’ve seen of it. We’ll see it again at 99%.

  175. DeepFriedAsian said 15 years ago:

    Man, this is great! For some reason the whole fan community coming together like this makes me feel all tingly inside…

    Good luck on the other languages and the final translation!

  176. Exp HP said 15 years ago:

    Wow, it’s been a long time since I’ve seen one of those windows.

    w00t!

    Huh, that’s a lot more lines since the last one. That is some text . . . up to 282 lines long.

  177. dr.mario said 15 years ago:

    The problem with Spanish is that everyone thinks their own dialect is the only right way to say anything… which creates a nightmare for anyone trying to make a general Spanish translation.

  178. eltercero said 15 years ago:

    @Mato, it’s ok, translations arent a exact science. Even in the same country (Spain), some people would translate it one way or another 😉

    But, as Alvein said, “Muestra” sounds strange, at least for Spanish from Spain, maybe Drü is from South America, I don’t really know 😛

  179. dr.mario said 15 years ago:

    Way to go, Mato! 1000 lines left to go!

  180. Some random guy said 15 years ago:

    Yes! 86%! W00T!

  181. Zade said 15 years ago:

    So The Speech is like a special boss?

    You’ve almost beaten it, but at the last moment it escaped, forcing you to go through the last parts of ‘the game’ only to find The Speech ready and well-prepared for the Final Percent?

    …nifty.

  182. Mato said 15 years ago:

    Maybe this should show how much of a difference there was between normal text and that speech text 😛

  183. Zade said 15 years ago:

    Wow! Very nice!

    Less than 1000 lines to go! Woots!

  184. gBev said 15 years ago:

    Less than 1000 lines to go! So close now, Mato!

  185. Coconut of Enlightenment said 15 years ago:

    Yet more possible translations:

    Klingon
    Binary
    Irish Gaelic
    Ebonics
    And last but not least: girl.

    Good luck, I know how hard it is to translate ANYTHING, much less a video game, into girl language.

  186. "Snake" Plisskin said 15 years ago:

    6663 am I the only one who sees this

  187. Redlandsman87 said 15 years ago:

    Fantastic! Almost there, Mato. ^^b

  188. Zeruel 21 said 15 years ago:

    I know that the translation into other languages is a long way off, but you may want to keep some notes on the original text to help the other translators. Things that people who don’t know japanese should know, like formality and cultural references.

  189. "Snake" Plisskin said 15 years ago:

    I seem to remember mato saying that he was doing some thing like that

  190. Mato said 15 years ago:

  191. Exp HP said 15 years ago:

    …he’s on fire again, I repeat, Mato is on fire again.

  192. Mato said 15 years ago:

    It’s gonna be a lot of work but I’m gonna try to get over 90% before I sleep. I hope nothing crazy complicated gets in the way. Some repeated text would be nice right about now 😛

  193. Arashi said 15 years ago:

    awesome. 900 lines left.

  194. Adam said 15 years ago:

    You Rule!

  195. kevindubrow said 15 years ago:

    You’re great Mato…its just starting to hit me that I am going to play another Mother game soon.

  196. Dr. Meat said 15 years ago:

    12% left… the end (of draft 2, anyway) is in sight. Fantastic.

  197. Some random guy said 15 years ago:

    Holy crud…I guess it is a big difference between speech and…whatever you’re doing right now.

  198. Zade said 15 years ago:

    That’s some impressive speed there! Nice, again!

  199. "Snake" Plisskin said 15 years ago:

    Hey Mato you can be done by tomorrow if you forsake everything in your life:
    First of all who needs to eat
    Second of all who needs to sleep
    Third of all who needs to work
    forth of all who needs to Breath

  200. "Snake" Plisskin said 15 years ago:

    I have done any of these for over a year

  201. "Snake" Plisskin said 15 years ago:

    not done

  202. Alato said 15 years ago:

    Very nice, as always.

    And, I’m not used to seeing European French. lol
    I speak Canadian French. Although, I mainly speak English, so I’m alright.

  203. Impossible said 15 years ago:

    So Mato’s current translation rate is 0.5%/hour. If he just keeps it up for the next 24 hours straight…

    Thanks for answering my question as well, Mato.

  204. themaskedmuffin said 15 years ago:

    wow mato. this is incredible.

    keep on truckin’

  205. Retro Hippie said 15 years ago:

    behold, the almighty tomato fuhrer! *salute!

    I will pay 1,000 pounds of nazi gold for your moving picture game!

    This will advance my country further into the what we call… The golden era!*Salute!

    (good work)

  206. Jay6 said 15 years ago:

    Mato has other work to do other than just translating, so it’d be impossible for him to work 24 hours straight.

  207. Aaron said 15 years ago:

    What are you going to name the Rhino/Rocket chimera? A Rhinocerocket I hope. 🙂

    Oh, and “Cattlesnake” is ingenius. 🙂

  208. "Snake" Plisskin said 15 years ago:

    Jay6: I was only joking

  209. Zade said 15 years ago:

    @ Aaron

    On the translated (I believe translated by Mato in fact) Mother 3 World page on Starmen.net it’s just listed as Rhino Rocket, while the other chimeras have their wicked awesome names. Dunno if that is confirmation or whatever, but it seems likely to me it won’t be smushed together.

  210. VGK said 15 years ago:

    Rhino Rocket?

    pfft.

    Aaron’s “Rhinocerocket” is genius.

  211. "Snake" Plisskin said 15 years ago:

    I hope Mato didn’t die working so fast.

  212. Mato said 15 years ago:

    Some repeated text coming up soon, hopefully that’ll help a bit.

    Rhinocerocket is cool, the problem is there’s a version later on that’s like an upgraded version called “Rhino Booster” or something like that, I forget exactly.

  213. Carbon Blob said 15 years ago:

    Your a machine!

  214. Kirk said 15 years ago:

    When I grow up, I wanna be juuuuuuuuuuust like Mato 😀

  215. "Snake" Plisskin said 15 years ago:
  216. Aaron said 15 years ago:

    How about RhiNOS? :B

  217. Dr. Meat said 15 years ago:

    You’re crazy, Mato. Be careful not to overheat.

  218. "Snake" Plisskin said 15 years ago:

    I will not sleep until mato reaches 90%

  219. Redlandsman87 said 15 years ago:

    Neither will I. ^^b

  220. SEAN said 15 years ago:

    I can help translate it into Japanese.

  221. Kirk said 15 years ago:

    SEAN is so funny
    Saying he can translate it
    back to what it was

  222. Lucas said 15 years ago:

    I’m not going to sleep either till 90%…..*yaaawwwn

  223. Creature201 said 15 years ago:

    How about the “Rhinocerocket” and the “Boostoceros”?

  224. A Fan said 15 years ago:

    > Rhinocerocket is cool, the problem is there’s a version later on that’s like an upgraded version called “Rhino Booster” or something like that, I forget exactly.

    Then have a Rhinocerocket and Rhinocerocket Booster? 🙂

    There are rocket boosters as well as booster rockets, after all.

  225. Quelthalin said 15 years ago:

    Somebody might be able to come up with some recognizable aerospace project to jumble with “rhino” and still maintain the rhinocerocket name for the first one, or an alternative form of propulsion. As long as it’s something related to rocketry or space people will still understand. Although, the only thing I can come up off the top of my head is “rhinoscram”.

  226. "Snake" Plisskin said 15 years ago:

    I am still up. At least for now

  227. "Snake" Plisskin said 15 years ago:

    I am still awake

  228. "Snake" Plisskin said 15 years ago:

    happy