Better german translation regarding eating servings or storing them in inventory

Translations for this game are generally bad, it seems. I've made several complaints on the norwegian forums about norwegian translations that are misleading, confusing or don't make any sense. I didn't get any replies from the gurus and nothing was done, so it doesn't seem to be a priority. I got so frustrated with the language that I play in english now.

I've worked as a translator myself, so I know that it's usually badly paid with horrible deadlines, which often results in sloppy work. But when giving proper feedback, I really hoped that it would give them an opportunity to fix the mistakes. Your feedback is really good, with suggestions and everything, so I hope they take it into account.

Aye, I also normally play in english, after many bad experiences with bad german translations in videogames ... happened just by chance that this time I played Sims 4 in german (new install, forgot to switch language from german to english)

I have the suspicion that the translators of Sims 4 only get shown a plain textfile with all the text strings to translate, but never ever get shown any explanation regarding to what the individual text strings actually do in game. Especially, since I have read about other complaints for the french and russian versions, about exactly the same 2 passages I am complaining about (with similar wording in russian and french)

Yes, that is my suspicion also. Lack of context makes it very hard to give text strings the right translation. There are several of the wordings that make it obvious the translators weren't given any context. Like when they've chosen the other meaning of "miss" when translating "miss work", so instead of miss out on work it interprets as "oh, i miss work so much". It's quite bizarre.

I guess I've just seen so many horrible German translations that Sims 4 seems good in comparison. I just don't know what it is with our language, that makes it seem impossible to translate :D
But I do agree nonetheless that "Eine Portion nehmen" and "Ein Gericht nehmen" aren't a good choice of words.

"Proteus42;15598213" wrote:
I have the suspicion that the translators of Sims 4 only get shown a plain textfile with all the text strings to translate, but never ever get shown any explanation regarding to what the individual text strings actually do in game. Especially, since I have read about other complaints for the french and russian versions, about exactly the same 2 passages I am complaining about (with similar wording in russian and french)

I actually have a tiny bit of experience about that. I've done the German translation of DramaticGamer's mod "Romantic Stargaze", and there were several passages where I had to ask for the context. Without that it's really difficult to properly translate something. At least he didn't use any puns (or I didn't get them :D ), those just can't be translated.

I've seen a lot of games localized for English speaking regions with bad translations over the years, so I feel your pain. Hopefully, the translation issues will be fixed as soon as possible...Hopefully, before they're memeified for the whole internet to see...

Possible suggestion for the DIY crowd (bilinguals who can/will translate)... ( @rosemow )

I'm not sure if this would help, but Deaderpool wrote this: DP STBL Editor, a Stand-alone STBL Text String editor for Windows.

Here's more:

This utility was designed primarily for helping people that need to do a lot of translations for mods like mod creators or translators. It has the capability of bringing the STBL file directly in from a package file, which should help translators who may not have experience using S4PE to extract the STBL files for the language they wish to update.

If it looks useful, the download and more info/docs are here: https://deaderpoolmc.tumblr.com/download/stbleditor

I'd love to know if anybody checks it out and finds it useful. Please tag me. :)

The translations have always been quite bad for all the Sims games which I have tried. So I have soon found out that it is much better to play them in English than it is to play them in Danish. But it is alas difficult for EA to solve the problem because the developers are Americans who can't speak all the other languages themselves. So instead EA has to pay professionally educated translators to make all the translations. But the problems with this solution are:
1. The translators aren't gamers and they can't be expected to be interested in the Sims games. Therefore EA probably just give them a list with all the texts in English and asks them to translate all the texts to the language which they are educated to translate them too.
2. The translators therefore translate all the texts without knowing how the texts will be used in the game. Therefore they often choose the wrong translation in spite of their professionalism.
3. EA then puts the translated texts into the game. But EA can't control the correctness of the translations and just has to trust the translators.

I remember when I first played the game, I got so mad at my sims for grabbing a plate and then shoving it up where no one can see it instead of eating. Since I had already noticed before that the sims in TS4 are much less willing to do what you tell them than in previous games, I thought it was a bug and was about to come here to complain... until I realised there's two different ways of telling a sim to grab a plate, only one of which means they're going to eat it while the other causes them to put it in their inventory. It makes sense now, but the translation is still under all pig. (<= Germans will understand. :p )

"Pancakesandwich;15609314" wrote:
I guess I've just seen so many horrible German translations that Sims 4 seems good in comparison.

Ooooh yes! Tomb Raider Legend anyone?
Original (English) version:
Zip: "It looks like the thing that Rutland was wielding!" (... or something along these lines.)
Lara: "Except that this is just a ceremonial copy." (... clearly referring to the artefact in her hand rather than what Rutland had, and now she's going to go after Rutland to get the real artefact.)

German:
Zip: "Sieht aus wie das, was Rutland hatte!"
Lara: "Ja, aber der hatte eine Kopie." (... Great, now German Lara is going to spend the next few chapters of the game chasing a copy of the thing she already has in her hands right now if this translation is to be believed...)

To be fair(?) the English version for those two actions doesnt really make much of a difference either.. They are "grab a serving" and "take a serving". I mean, that confuses native English speakers, let alone me, a non native speaker lol.
Only reason I can tell the difference is cuz "grab a serving" exsits far longer than the other one and it means grab to eat.

Better French translation would be great too, actually we have the exact same sentence for grab and take a serving, same problem with the snuggle and hug interaction with toddlers.
End up pretty confusing.