LLTVG:Manual of Style
The language of the wiki
You can use any pair of languages when making a translation. Heck, translate Romanian into Bulgarian if you want! But elsewhere on the wiki, it's best to write in English unless you're on a page where everybody reading will have at least some understanding of the language you're writing in. The reason is that English is the one language that almost everybody here will have in common: almost all of us have it as our native language, or have learned it, or are learning it.
Site guidelines
A bad translation is worse than no translation at all. We all make mistakes from time to time -- even legends like Ted Woolsey have done it -- so that's not a problem. but if you're not sure about your translation, you should get some assistance or wait until you're more confident in your abilities. Be especially careful about translating into a language that is not your native tongue.
Make your translation fairly literal. The idea here is to allow the reader to understand the original text, not to provide a polished translation to be read on its own. For example, if you're translating from Japanese to English, it's important that the reader can see the connection between the English and Japanese sentences. The Tiny Toons character Montana Max -- a spoiled, bratty kid -- would be unlikely to use a formal-sounding phrase such as "It is as you see!", but this really is the best translation of ご覧の通りだ！ because any other translation would obscure the connection between the Japanese and the English.
Do try to use the most idiomatic translation that does not obscure the meaning of the original phrasing. "Sensei" in a Japanese game should generally be translated as "teacher" (or "doctor", etc.), not "sensei", unless it's a martial arts teacher. Likewise, if a character says "Yuki-san" while talking to somebody named Yuki, it's fine to translate it as "you" if appropriate, since the reader is unlikely to get confused. Generally leave out -san, -chan, etc. from translations; the reader can see the honorifics in the original text. (If the choice of honorific is very unusual, though, make a translation note about it and explain how and why it's unusual.)
Generally, do not add swear words that were not in the original text. Some people have a tendency to, for example, translate "fuzakennayo" or "kutabare" as "fuck you!" even if it makes no sense in the context (such as in a child-friendly game). Don't be one of them.
Difficulty level
The more text a game has, the more you can assume a higher language ability. Playing a game like Mother 2 or Chrono Trigger would require quite advanced knowledge of vocabulary and grammar, while a game like Tiny Toon Adventures is nearly accessible to somebody who has just started Japanese, so long as enough annotations are provided.
For example, the "explanatory の" (a very common grammar structure in Japanese) might be appropriate to mention in a game such as Super Mario Bros. 3. However, if a player is going to work all the way through Zelda 3, he will probably already be well familiar with the use of "explanatory の" and it should only be mentioned when the usage is particularly nuanced (for instance, somebody might be surprised to see it in a sentence that doesn't look like an explanation). Just focus on the things the reader is likely enough to not know already (but, when in doubt, add an explanation anyway).
Errors in the source material
Just as in any other medium, video games sometimes have unintentional mistakes in their text. The question is, should you reproduce the errors or just correct them? The general practice here is to reproduce the original text verbatim, errors and all, and make note of the error in the annotations. Sometimes you might even be mistaken that it's an error at all; keeping the original text makes it easier for somebody to catch when this happens.
When translating to or from Japanese
Punctuation
Write an ellipsis like this: そうだけど・・・・
Never like this: そうだけど。。。。
(In fact, it's preferable to apply this rule for the original text, not just kana/kanjified text, even when the original text does not distinguish between the two forms, e.g. as in the NES version of Super Mario Bros. 3.)
When kanjifying or kanafying a game, feel free to use more punctuation if it may help readability. For example, many games don't use periods at the end of a sentence unless another sentence begins on the same line, but we prefer to always use them. Likewise, commas can be useful for separating adverbs (like 突然 or 無事) from the following word, especially if the adverb and the following word are both in kanji or kana.
Kanjified and kanafied text should put one space after exclamation points and question marks, but no space after periods and commas. (This is because exclamation points and question marks are centered, whereas the others are left-aligned, which provides enough space as it is.)
Kanjifying a game
Many Japanese games, especially on 8-bit and 16-bit systems, are written with no kanji. When this is the case, the text should be "kanjified" so the reader can see how the text might be written in standard Japanese. Kanjified text must be provided in addition to, not instead of, the kana text. The reason for kanjification is that the student may want to learn the kanji of any new words he learns. Alternatively, the student may want to test his kanji reading ability as he browses the text.
Additional kanjification is also OK for games that already have kanji but use very few. Kanjification is not necessary for games that have moderate kanji use even if the text doesn't use quite as much kanji as it could; there are probably better things to spend your time on.
When kanjifying a game, use as many kanji as possible provided that you do not use kanji that an educated native Japanese speaker would be very unlikely to use in that context. (For example, prefer おもちゃがある to 玩具が有る.) WWWJDIC marks many (but not necessarily all) words that are usually kana with "(uk)". But when in doubt, don't use the kanji.
Kanafying a game
When a game is written in a mix of kanji and kana, you should provide a "kanafied" version (in addition to the unmodified text) in order to make it easy to get the readings of the kanji.
When kanafying a game, place spaces after particles, never before. Place spaces after all particles except in cases like the の in かみのけ, where the particle has become part of the word. When more than one particle is used at a time, put a space only after the last particle. Do not place spaces before particles except in translations intended for absolute beginners.
Do not place a space before だ, です, etc. unless doing so makes the sentence easier to understand. (In particular, だ and だった when combined with the previous word can look like a verb conjugation. In that case, use a space.) Also place spaces after adverbs and adjectives. Place other spaces where they help readability (but consider using an interpunct for separating parts of a name: マイク・タイソン, not マイク タイソン or マイクタイソン).
Finally, do not apply these rules to the text of a game originally written in kana. Type the text exactly as it appears.
When translating to or from Chinese
When translating from Chinese (but not Cantonese), give both the Traditional and Simplified versions of the hanzi if you can. That way, someone who has learned only Simplified Chinese who is playing a game written in Traditional Chinese (or vice versa) can read it more easily.
Always use pinyin for romanization of Mandarin. Give the pinyin for every syllable; do not apply tone sandhi. For example, 你好 is nǐhǎo, not níhǎo. The rationale is that the student will need to learn the tone sandhi rules anyway; a student who has learned tone sandhi can automatically translate nǐhǎo into níhǎo in his head, but no student can look at níhǎo and automatically guess that 你 normally takes tone 3 (unless he already knows the word). If you're not sure what tone you should use for a compound word, consult MDBG or another CEDICT-based dictionary.
When translating Cantonese, use Yale romanization. As with Mandarin, do not apply tone sandhi.
When translating to or from Spanish
Always write accent marks. Even if the original text lacks them, it would be prudent to add them in (but be careful with those few words whose stress can vary by region).
When translating to Spanish, pay attention to spelling. Many people write things like "habeces" instead of "a veces", etc.; try not to.
