Will AI machine translation help fan translation game projects?

[SamanthaSamantha's icon]

BTW: Do you know what accounts for a shit ton of time and effort when making a translation? Script insertion!

Some systems are so hard and finicky to develop for that many translation teams end up having to program their own tools to get the translations to show up in-game or have to become walking thesaurus to account for hard character limits and other hardware/software limitations — some teams never get past this hurdle, while others burn out trying to clear it.

Having AI take control the translation while they work around to insert it can only be a good thing akin to licensing an engine for your game (just so you can focus on actual development) vs programming one from scratch yourself.

Just my two cents.

 

[Vardalis]

Pretty much agree with the general sentiment, yeah. It isn't ideal, and a human reviewed or edited MTL is always better, but it's better than absolutely nothing.

 

[JG509]

Considering how there isn't many alternatives about it, it's really the only choice for people that aren't already knowledgeable on Japanese, and that takes at least a couple of years of grinding it nonstop to happen as fast as possible.

The number of games that get the privilege of a full team working on it (or a one man army that takes care of everything at once) is minuscule in comparison to the ones that probably never will, these projects take an obnoxious amount of time.

Heck, I myself want to be able to take part on these projects, yet I lack the technical and language knowledge and that will remain like that for a time because the complexity of everything is just way too high. It's easier to make an original game at that point.

 

[X y b e r - S k u ll]

Generally, I don't have an issue with machine translations in principle, but like others in the thread; I'd obviously prefer an actual person to translate a game (assuming they do it honestly and as accurate as they realistically can make it) since sometimes machine translations can sometimes trip themselves up and make strange errors.

With the sheer amount of still untranslated games, manga, anime, books etc. and only a finite amount of people with knowledge or expertise in other languages, I suppose machine translations are perhaps a tool people are going to have to acknowledge sooner or later.

I guess the ideal solution in my mind is a machine translation, but with a human to proof read it and iron out any issues when it's done. You get the best of both worlds in that case.

 

[4C374552A1CA2638]

I'm fine with them as long as they've been proofread. It's understandable and unavoidable for the machine to miss cultural idioms or so on, but it's less tolerable when the translation gets confused on terms, the names of places or people, or even pronouns. Machine translations already have a reputation for being lazy, and putting out the translation without even a proofread pass brings it down to "did whoever that produced this even care?"

I'll also point out that official translations aren't always perfect, and fan translations can end up like this. Sometimes translations turn out great, sometimes localizing creates memorable lines or characters where there weren't in the original... sometimes you get disasters, both officially and by fans. Sometimes people throw a fit because things weren't translated the exact, specific way they wanted or "what's proper."

 

[Guinea]

If it ain't an MT then it simply ain't for me!

 

[YoshifreakZX]

Not going to sugarcoat things, I'm not a fan of machine translations at all and any time I see them, I ignore them and wait for a real translation.

 

[plaindillo]

I think the discussion or debate on them should remain open, but I do think that they aren't ideal ways for something to be translated, nor should it become a standard.

I do not think they're a crime against humanity, however. I think that if the team or person doing it has the resolve to output something of quality to their audience, that's commendable, and acceptable.

I just don't see machine translation as a way to make the end all, be all, final revision for a translation, or a "real" translation, unless the person or people involved can edit it with actual human translator knowledge. Ultimately a real human is going to be required to understand the intricacies or contexts of the languages or the source material. So, I say they're just okay.

 

[frankfelidae]

Not going to sugarcoat things, I'm not a fan of machine translations at all and any time I see them, I ignore them and wait for a real translation.

But what if the game never get a fan or oficial translation,for example do you know how many JRPG and Tactics RPG never have been released outside of Japan for that reason they are so forgotten and unknown and for that never are gonna be a translation team who take the times to translate the game and in the end the game remains in japonese forever.....

 

[Ikagura]

Machines cannot understand idioms nor contextual meanings.

 

[PrismRed]

Not a fan either, so instead of waiting until someone decide to translate a game, I decided to learn Japanese few years ago.

 

[Ikagura]

Machines cannot understand idioms nor contextual meanings.

I will add that maybe it could be useful for menu items (as they're more formal and informative than actual dialogues) just to help to navigate but that shouldn't replace an actual translation.

 

[shaggi shaggi]

Machine translations are good in general, but they have some problems. This won't happen to human translations. MT with human proofread will be perfect solution, but still MT is better than nothing.

 

[Princess Viola]

My problem with machine translations isn't necessarily the MT itself but the fact that, for a lot of fan translation groups, once something has been fan translated already, they won't bother picking it up to retranslate it.

So there's the risk that like a machine translation will be the only way to experience something (without learning the original language of course). And I think modern MT is decent enough at getting the general gist of what's going on these days, but it just still doesn't compare to a proper human translation that can actually translate idioms, jokes, wordplay, how characters speak, etc.

 

[SamanthaSamantha's icon]

Machines cannot understand idioms nor contextual meanings.

Actually, ChatGPT translated old letters for me with remarkable accuracy for our lingo!

 

[Aunt Sarah]

My big issue with them was that they were being uploaded here without being given the proper stamp of shame indicating they were slop hallucinations by the crazy billionaire robots stealing all our water, raising our electric bills, destroying the brains of our parents generation, and just generally making everything worse. So long as that filth is in the proper bin I can safely avoid smelling it.

My problem with machine translations isn't necessarily the MT itself but the fact that, for a lot of fan translation groups, once something has been fan translated already, they won't bother picking it up to retranslate it.

So there's the risk that like a machine translation will be the only way to experience something (without learning the original language of course). And I think modern MT is decent enough at getting the general gist of what's going on these days, but it just still doesn't compare to a proper human translation that can actually translate idioms, jokes, wordplay, how characters speak, etc.

It'll be what happened to all of the art sites. Lazy incompetent people declared themselves "AI artists", people who have never had a drop of artistic talent in their lives taking the easy way out then spamming their oddly shiny weird AI brain farts all over the place flooding the zone and pushing real art by real artists onto the fringes.

The same thing IS going to happen to the translation scene. Lazy people with no talent seeking glory will flood the zone and the real talented translators will by and large just give up.

I have no problem with machine translations and I fail to see why anyone would, either.

Yes, they are not perfect (God no), but the most vocal opposition seem to speak from a point of extreme privilege: they want an actual human being to do something long and hard for free and enjoy it themselves without pay while also refusing to settle for anything less or learning the language or tools themselves.

It's kind of weird.

That's a strawman fallacy. You can do better than that.

"When you assume you make an ass of u and me."

Lets argue what people actually say instead of putting words in their mouths to make it easier to feel better than/morally superior to them.

 

[CG4R12I4N]

What I got from most of the worthless meanderingsdiscussions of human vs machine translations is that the MTL itself isn't exactly the issue per se, but more on the quality of the translation produced. Which also happened a lot of times to human translation A FUCKING LOT, so I fail to see what's the problem besides the extreme bias involved.

So I honestly think the core of the problem is more about how the fantranslation scenes are just so miniscule and sparse that once people already see something being released firsthand, that product is all they care about. This means really bad for those actual lingo translators who prefer to do things by updates because people generally don't care much about their finished product patch and tend to judge by the first thing they can get. And it's even worse for the "lazy translators" who can only create vibecode tools and let the machine handle the rest because once it's being released to public, most people who would possibly want to help polish/check tend to lose interest entirely because they see no value in continuing such an endeavor, they feel like their self-worth is already being taken by the machine which already do things faster and easier anyway so why bother?

In the end there're just a lot of passion and ego needed and involved in the fantranslation scenes that honestly arguing the human vs machine thing is foolish in itself. Tools are never to blame, the users are. For every single bad raw output machine translations that make some cry and give up, there're also a few like Princess Crown and SRW Z2-1 that kickstart the good intention to make a better, more polished patch that can be enjoyed by most.

 

[YoshifreakZX]

But what if the game never get a fan or oficial translation,for example do you know how many JRPG and Tactics RPG never have been released outside of Japan for that reason they are so forgotten and unknown and for that never are gonna be a translation team who take the times to translate the game and in the end the game remains in japonese forever.....

I dislike machine translations no matter which kind of game it is.

 

[Ikagura]

The same thing IS going to happen to the translation scene. Lazy people with no talent seeking glory will flood the zone and the real talented translators will by and large just give up.

This is sad: every time there's something supposed to make our lives easier and better we're seeing a flood of snake oil salesman trying to scam people with said thing...

 

[SamanthaSamantha's icon]

Lets argue what people actually say instead of putting words in their mouths to make it easier to feel better than/morally superior to them.

You do realize that's exactly what you are doing, though, right? Regardless, I won't go to war on this sewer — you can have your opinion and I can have mine.

 

[Guinea]

MT's are here to stay. Forever.

You don't like MT's? Aww... look at you getting all upset because someone used AI to translate a game that came out 20 years ago... adorable.

 

[YoshifreakZX]

MT's are here to stay. Forever.

You don't like MT's? Aww... look at you getting all upset because someone used AI to translate a game that came out 20 years ago... adorable.

I dunno, some of us can't help but have higher standards when it comes to playing translated games, so...

 

[PSVitaForever]

I agree. And also, AI is probably getting better and better, so translations could also be better... and if someone who knows Japanese wants to take that AI translation and make it better, is welcome.
I haven't played MT translated games yet, because I have a huge backlog, but surely I would like to give a try to the Shining titles on psp and I'm glad they exist.

 

[Guinea]

I dunno, some of us can't help but have higher standards when it comes to playing translated games, so...

SGGG made me realize something. Our standards will never be fully met.

I wanted to play SGGG back when I was 20, seeing screenshots of it. Surely by the time I'm in my 30's, someone would have translated it...

Nope! They didn't. It was... the machines

Granted, I could've learned Japanese in all that time, but nah.

So basically, I don't hate 'em, and for those too lazy to learn another language, they're aigh't.

 

[ChronoCloud]

First of all, I know perfectly well that a translation, or anything in general, done by people is better than almost anything done by AI. The point is, I've been seeing people attacking machine translations..., with those tools where have translations of games that were never released outside of Japan.Its true that these translations leave much to be desired and have many weird lines, but they're practically the only way to enjoy gems that were never released outside of Japan(i know that learn japonese its a option but i tried and is very hard xd) like Telefang 2 or Super Robot Taisen OG Gaiden. Translating a game requires time and sacrifice, and often fans translations remain unfinished simply because these are people with lives who can't dedicate so much time and resources to something that won't bring them any kind of remuneration. So we need to stop attacking everything related to AI indiscriminately. It's preferable to use AI translations to break the language barrier until a fan translation appears one day, rather than simply never playing the game or playing it without understanding anything at all.

I actually think there's lots of fan fiction tuer translations that are worse than AI. I also think "translation" made by antieuropean bolshevics is pretty much just vandalism and is also worse than AI. AI gets better every day while bolshevics are getting worse, so it's inevitable that AI translation will be the best.

Post automatically merged: Jun 30, 2026

This is sad: every time there's something supposed to make our lives easier and better we're seeing a flood of snake oil salesman trying to scam people with said thing...

These so called "talented" translators call "dibs" on a translation (a ridiculous concept) and then don't touch the game for 20 years, then throw a tantrum when someone else shows up and does it on one year.