Exult Forum

Hello, all! I just saw the Serpent's Isle in French page and, as an aspiring tri-lingual, would kill to see U7 in Spanish. Does a Spanish version exist already? If not, would anyone be interested in helping me create one? Is there any interest out there at all? I wouldn't say that I'm fluent yet, but I can damn well try my best, no?

Paladia Dragon

I believe U7: Black gate - Spanish already exists, but Ultima 7: Serpent Island Is just waiting for a bilingual to pick up the job

Cool beans. This'll be a great way to learn Spanish?

You will need someone who actually has fluent spanish, like me.

Well, I would say I'm on the cusp of fluency. I've studied the language for seven years and can read/write it very well, but my speaking skills are decidedly sub-par. Which is why I'm going abroad;)
Once I get back from Ecuador in January, I think I'll set up some sort of website and start with this.. I'd really like to see it happen.

I'd be glad to help with technical information if you require it.

Artaxerxes

Black Gate and Serpent Isle both already have spanish translations, as far as I know.

But wouldn't those localized versions be decidedly rare these days?

Ultima VII have already official Spanish translations but without the expansions Forge of Virtue and and The Silver Seed

They were developed by Erbe sotware back in 1992 I think. The only way to get it is that you try to find the "Pack Ultima", which contains Ultima VIII in spanish too (without speech pack, and before the latest patch existed)


There is also an unofficial translation by Dantoine of Ultima VII including Forge of Virtue

What would be really cool would be to implement translations within Exult itself, so that you can choose - without having to have separate installations of the game.

I'm no programmer, so I don't know if that is doable or not.

I'd like to help if you're doing anything with Exult in spanish, and yes as Natreg has pointed out, there are official spanish translations for TBG and SI (without the add ons).

I don't think that should stop anyone from doing another translation - undoubtedly they can do something better and more consistent than the original. Plus, it is a good way to learn about the system, making more people ready to develop expansions.

I can help to make the translation,

Spanish as first language

Chuckles' game might be a tough one...

I have the Erbe Software's official spanish translation. The pack includes U7:BG, SI and U8. However, having played the original english versions of all those games, I can say the translation of BG is quite horrible. They mistranslated many phrases, often by doing literal translations that just don't make any sense in spanish. The SI and Pagan translations were quite better, I recall.

Anyway, the BG translation was wrong to the point of being hilarious. Remember when you double-clicked a beer keg and your companions urged you to close it saying:

"Turn it off!"

They amazingly mistranslated that into:

"Se acabó tu turno!" (that means "Your turn is over!")

And that is only one of many more. It was great fun trying to guess what were the thinking on each mistake... So it wasn't a bad purchase after all...

heh, The worse about the translation was the translated names: like Mikail as miguelito hehehe

Or worse yet, they didn´t have Ñs so they translated Spider as Culebra (which by the way is some kind of snake )

translating or not translating names is always a big issue the translators have to decide on.
We had a discussion about this with the SI-French translators once.

E_Jim, did you ever finish U8/Spanish? We've had reports that it's not
possible to get past one particular section, due to bugs in the dialogue not
allowing you to select a critical conversation option. (IIRC)

Darke

the bug of spanish u8 is to get the tear of seas from devon. You don´t have that option, or so I have heard from some friends. Never finished that version myself

it is indeed a hard call. KK decided to translate Moonshade to Ombrelune and I must say I like it. We've had to translate Skullcrusher and Spinebreaker as well and I think that Stefano caught an accent on the e and a couple other things.
I don't think it is good to translate every proper name, but you have to use your jugement. Whenever a reference is made to something a frenchman wouldn't normally get, I think it is good to translate it.

For instance, in the movie Back to the Future I, when Marty's mother looks at his cloth tag (when he is in the past), it says "Pierre Cardin" in French (which is 1: a very french sounding name, 2: a known brand in France and 3: possible to find on a cloth tag since the brand is for clothing), while in English it says "Calvin Klein", which even though they _do_ make clothing, in the 80s they wasn't probably as popular/known as it is now in France. So in this case it made perfect sense to translate the name.

Artaxerxes (back from vacations)

I really have to disagree on the Back to the Future bit. As it clearly takes place in the US, that french tag makes no sense at all

I think I've seen "Pierre Cardin" clothing in the US, but it might not be a brand that a teenager would be likely to wear.

It depends on whether you want a completely localized game, or just translated text. Choose one and don't waver (or do things on a case by case basis, if you're going to change any proper names then feel free to change them all, I think). Possible exceptions are for cultural jokes, and some things just have to be changed (and others can stand no change).

Well, I could help a bit in the translation, I am a native spanish speaker, and I'm not only interested in that, but I want to have an ancient greek translation as well

As you see, learning a language with ultima 7-8 is a great experience: it's easy and extremely fun. Some people comment about my english, althrough it's not a neat english, is a very good one when you say that it's an 80-85% Ultima learned. I never took an english class 'till 3 years ago (highschool), and they have not taught me anything I didn't already knew.
So, I'd like to help in correcting the translation, so more people like me can learn a different language that can benefit them in the future. And, of course, I will see with some people if they can translate part of the game to ancient greek, having an invaluable learning tool.

- Manuel