jayeless
jayeless
On Book Localisations for the US Market jayeless.net
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Miraz
Miraz

@jayeless I suspect we non-US types have a larger vocabulary because we’re exposed to so many other flavours of English. Re torch: when I was a kid I read Famous Five and Secret Seven and whatnot. I was utterly confused when one character used an electric torch because I had never come upon the idea of burning sticks as a torch. I imagined this torch with some kind of cord plugged in to somewhere. 🤷🏼

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In reply to
Cheri
Cheri

@jayeless Agreed! I loved international stories as a kid.

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maique
maique

@jayeless @Miraz Being from a country where English is not the official language I love reading, and listening, to all different accents and variations. Whenever I see a word I’ve never seen before (Southern Hemisphere is the main supplier of these), I enjoy trying to figure it out, before heading to the dictionary. Also agree with all the geography lessons I got from books, tv shows. One, somewhat related, thing I love about my country is subtitles on movies and tv. Hearing all those accents and languages was, and still is, a learning opportunity. No dubbing worked wonderfully for me.

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odd
odd

@Miraz I was very confused when hearing the term “torchlight” too, because of the Hardy Boys story “The flickering torch”, which of course was a torch with flames. But then again, (hadn’t I known) “flashlight” would have been a bit confusing too, because there are actual flash-lights available. @jayeless

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odd
odd

@maique Me too, we have always had subtitles, and I learned a lot even before we started with English lessons in 4. grade. Another great thing about it is that you can disagree with the translation! @miraz @jayeless

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maique
maique

@odd Don't get me started on the translations! 😇

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renevanbelzen
renevanbelzen

@maique You mean Bible translations from Ancient Greek and Hebrew, right?

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maique
maique

@renevanbelzen No, no. The Bible is a special one, no translations for me 😊

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jemostrom
jemostrom

@jayeless Yep, it's a bit weird that the US needs to redo everything in English. And I wonder if this carries over to design choices in applications. I was just going to complain that PodCaster only suggests podcasts in Swedish to me, none in English. I normally use Castro but I though I would check out PodCaster where I'm subscribed to three podcats, all in English, but PodCaster only lists Swedish podcasts.

In Castro I have probably around 50 podcasts and only perhaps 5-8 are in Swedish. Could the listing of "local" podcats be seen in the light of the US need for making US versions of everything?

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odd
odd

@jayeless Ok, I’ve been following up on posts down the thread, because those were the ones I noticed first. As to your original post: 💯% agree. No wonder there are people knowing almost nothing outside the local narrative. We need to move away from stereotypes and “Hollywoodizationized” stories.

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jayeless
jayeless

@Miraz Haha, the mental image of a torch with an extension cord attached to it made me giggle 🤣 But yes, I think you're right that outside the US we have more awareness of words that are used elsewhere.

@maique In Australia we don't really do dubbing either, actually (except in children's cartoons) and I prefer it that way too – although it doesn't stop most of us from completely sucking at learning any other language 🤣

@jemostrom You're right, I think those kinds of assumptions do affect app design. I know for the LONGEST time I used to get pissed off that Netflix wouldn't let me say I knew two languages. By default I'd have it on English of course, so it'd want to give me English-language dubs of everything, and then if I changed my settings for one show to watch in the original Spanish then the next time I tried to watch an English show it'd be dubbed in Spanish 🤯 It just seemed such an assumption that everyone only speaks one language (and wants everything dubbed into that language). I can't remember running into this problem recently but I know it was a serious pain for a while.

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josephaleo
josephaleo

@maique I read the Bible in the original Klingon.

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lmika
lmika

@jayeless Excellent post, and I agree with you completely. I'm a bit precious when it comes to English localisation that I ought to be, maybe because I'd prefer to keep the Australian lexicon that I grew up with around. But your point about localisation doing a disservice to the US market is a good one.

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