Will of Iron translation

[joschlumpf]

Yesterday I get my hands on the new DA-Comic and wondered why they managed to translate it that fast (things like Batman usually take up to 6 month), but soon after I started reading I knew why.
The translation is a joke, and a bad one too.
 
Here starts a little rant, for people who want to dive into the subject deeper:

Some might remember the older books like the first Gaunts Ghosts or the DoW-trilogy which translate chapter names (who don´t remember the struggles of the Blutraben* on Tartarus) as well as weapon and armour names (the powerful Schmelzer² and the terrifying Chaos Vernichter³)
While it is understandable that someone not into the subject don´t recognise proper names like Dark Angels, if everything is written in capital letters as it is popular in comics, and translate them, the translation of the Emperor gave me the rest. It seems that the leader of the Imperium is not longer our beloved Imperator but the, from the christian church crowned, Kaiser.

/end of rant
 
To all that, you could say it was a lazy translator who didn´t want to google five minutes, but in the short summary on the backcover of the comic, they translated it correct! And the same publisher already brought us three comicbooks from 40k, all with lesser mistakes.
 
Do other languages have the same problem or is it common, that things just get translated? 
Am I the only one you can´t read books like this?
 
 
 
*Blood Ravens 
²Melta
³took me three month and until today I am not sure if they mean Terminator there....

[Kenzaburo]

As someone who has done some translations, especially for our beloved hobby, this really seems weird. BL, for example, prefers to work with people, who are not only capable of translating texts from english to other languages, but who are also aware of lore and background. There's also glossaries for lore and IP.

 

Since we are talking comics under a separate publisher, things might be different there. They will be working with different translators and have different standards. But, and this is me talking as a layman, since there's so many important terms to the IP, there should be some obligation in place for the publisher, to check these. The last time I saw the Emperor translated as the "Kaiser" was in the first german edition of Ian Watson's Space Marine.

 

Long story short is: Yes, you are absolutely right, that this doesn't seem right and I wouldn't be all too happy reading stuff like this. What I can tell you is, that you won't see this kind of shenanigans with BL and GW proper. With licensing partners, there seem to be some differences.

 

Also: When you mentioned a chaos vernichter, I first thought of a defiler. But you might be right and it could well be a terminator. Which makes it even worse.

[joschlumpf]

The new books are all translated by BL/GW themselves and are quite good, but even in the old ones, translated by Heyne (a big publisher in Germany), I never read anywhere "Kaiser" xD 

 

To the Defiler. In german it is named Geißel, therefore I didn´t even thought about it. Also as far as I remember it was a humanoid enemy, brought down with lasgun fire. I love the Ghosts for being the best soldiers the Emperor has but "killing" a defiler with just lasguns seems a little over the top :D

[Isengrin]

The new books are all translated by BL/GW themselves and are quite good, but even in the old ones, translated by Heyne (a big publisher in Germany), I never read anywhere "Kaiser" xD 

Then you've never got your hands on the first edition of Space Wolf, which was full of wonky translations like Gottkaiser for Emperor or Bolzenpistole for Boltpistol. 

[Kenzaburo]

 

The new books are all translated by BL/GW themselves and are quite good, but even in the old ones, translated by Heyne (a big publisher in Germany), I never read anywhere "Kaiser" xD 

Then you've never got your hands on the first edition of Space Wolf, which was full of wonky translations like Gottkaiser for Emperor or Bolzenpistole for Boltpistol. 

 

Yup, the farther you go back, the wonkier it gets. In the aforementioned Space Marine by Watson, Imperial Fists were translated as Kaisergrenadiere. 

 

While not being the official translation, Gottkaiser is basically okay, even though it sounds a bit dune-ish. 

[joschlumpf]

 

 

The new books are all translated by BL/GW themselves and are quite good, but even in the old ones, translated by Heyne (a big publisher in Germany), I never read anywhere "Kaiser" xD 

Then you've never got your hands on the first edition of Space Wolf, which was full of wonky translations like Gottkaiser for Emperor or Bolzenpistole for Boltpistol. 

 

Yup, the farther you go back, the wonkier it gets. In the aforementioned Space Marine by Watson, Imperial Fists were translated as Kaisergrenadiere. 

 

While not being the official translation, Gottkaiser is basically okay, even though it sounds a bit dune-ish. 

 

 

Yeah, I am kind of too young to know pre-3rd-edition-things :P

And I understand that the old books had problems with translating, being a niche product and not well known back than. But now with that amount of fanbase, lore and overall merchandise a big publisher like "Panini" shouldn´t make such mistakes.

 

On a side note, I really love the word "Kaiser" but it just doesn´t fit with 40k (imo)

[Isengrin]

Yeah, well, I actually miss the old custom of translating some names into an appropriate German equivalent or a made up term that sounds German (or less english), like Seuchenmarines-Plague Marines, Kyborg-Obliterator, or Cybot-Dreadnought. Stuff like that has its place and if newer publications pick that up again and do it well I'd be all for it, especially since I find using English plural instead of the German plural and similar issues very grating. I haven't seen the comic though, so I don't know if it's really that bad.

 

But I agree, translating Emperor just doesn't fly with me, same as any legion or chapter name.

[joschlumpf]

Totally agree with that. Some of the old translations have their places.

I will always call my babies Cybots and also say Scriptor instead of Librarian. xD

Some things just sound/work better, be it personal likings, habits or just different cultures.

 

What I can´t stand are translations were you have to think about, what they could mean (like Kaiser, Vernichter, etc...)  or if they can´t figure out what it is so they just use the false article das before looking it up (das Rhino instead of der Rhino).

Maybe that´s a little overreaction from my part, but my brain is strange and everything that interuptes it makes my feel uncomfortable and I will think about this little mistake for hours and can´t enjoy the reading....(yeah my mind is  up )