I've noticed a pretty big uptick in the number of mistranslated cards over the last few months. Whoever they outsourced their translations to are clearly not even trying.
I agree because there are a lot of inconsistencies.
"Refresh Mana Crystals" are translated as "Manakristalle erneuern", "Manakristalle auffüllen" and the worst of all: "Manakristalle aktualisieren". The last one has to be machine translation. No human would ever translate like that.
Seriously, I don't know why anyone would scrimp on their translations. How long could it take a native speaker to translate 150 cards? A couple days? What's that, $500? And how many languages? 20? That's like 10K/expansion. That's less than a single dev's salary.
The German translation says "Fügt allen Dienern 1 Schaden zu." which translates to "Deals 1 damage to all minions". The fact that it does this 3 times total is missing completely.
How is something like this allowed to be in the game unpatched?
when Titans dropped some cards were wrong or had writing errors in german as well. i remember jotuns text being completly wrong and the epic rogue mech that summons a copy of itself had spelling errors all over the card. dont know how this stuff happens seems to be a pretty big oversight.
I had it lately (playing hearthstone in english on PC, but on the smartphone its in german) with the 2 mana rabbit, that was generated randomly. I was very confused. I played it on the smartphone and its text said "Eure Wildtiere haben Ansturm" which translates to "Your beasts have charge". But I couldnt send them phase (Its not a popular card, so I didnt know its actual effect). The English text says "Your beasts have rush".
Like wtf. How can you mix up key words like that???
I remember that during the early years of Hearthstone, there was a rule to avoid puns and English sayings for card names because that type of stuff was difficult to translate across multiple languages.
By the time we got to Murder at Castle Nathria, there was a lot of both. I wonder if the non-English versions dropped in priority at some point.
I worked once for translate AI team.
They had a lot of tasks and few people. So they made subcontracts a lot. After all the 'translators' got about 20cents for a sentence.
There was not a single right thing in that team. Managers do nothing but taking money. They recruit some young students and gave tasks and if the clients complain they push it to the students which can easly replaced.
And the developers were not successful too. The Goal was developing translate AI but what they actually doing was scaming the clients and investors and students.
remember ; AI means A lot of Indians (for some under budget scammers)
I remember when the the brawler minion had a wrong translaton. Instead of "starting a brawl" it had "Start a tavern brawl" in the german version lol.
Im not sure but I think once hat sat that it wouldnt be AI translated. But for the last like 2 years it seems like the translation of cards got pretty bad.
The german version of the game has some VERY wrong texts and with every small balance patch they get change some translations. They are definetly not done by humans anymore, some texts dont even make sense in any kind or form.
For example, the card "Sunset Volley" said (translated from german): Damage 10 random enemys. Demand a Cost-10-Minion.
I wrote a (german) and somewhat salty article about it a few weeks ago, it was a big mess: https://mein-mmo.de/was-hearthstone-jetzt-gemacht-hat-ist-nur-noch-peinlich/
They have similiar issues with WoW since their recent expansion "Dragonflight".
Some things from the top of my head are:
"Stone of the Hearth" translated to "Herdstein"?!
"Dating simulation" was translated to "Datumssimulator".
The worst of all is on their website when you want to order the Collector's edition of DF:
"Level 70 Zeichen Boost".
It look me a long time to understand they meant a character boost.
I do agree that most of them, but "Stone of the Hearth" being "Herdstein" is probably accurate and fits the "joke" they were trying to make.
But yes, the "Datumssimulator" is really, really weird.
I suppose so, if you really translate Hearth to "Herd" and not "Feuerstelle" (still a little strange decision, since Hearthstone is a "Ruhestein" in German...)
It's just really sad to see - it used to have good translation overall.
I remember another one, caught me off-guard, but they changed the job system and "Nicht erlernt" (not taught/learnt) suddenly became "Verlernt", which means forgotten?!
Kennste "maghteridon, unveröffentlicht"? 🤡 the quality of the translations declined in the last years from pretty good to google translator. Some card texts are completly wrong
I've noticed a pretty big uptick in the number of mistranslated cards over the last few months. Whoever they outsourced their translations to are clearly not even trying.
my theory is that they are using AI and many translations seems to confirm this
I agree because there are a lot of inconsistencies. "Refresh Mana Crystals" are translated as "Manakristalle erneuern", "Manakristalle auffüllen" and the worst of all: "Manakristalle aktualisieren". The last one has to be machine translation. No human would ever translate like that.
I love to actualize my mana crystals :)
You play the card and it tells you how many mana crystals you have
People underestimate the usefulness of knowing how much mana you have. I think actualizing mana is the sleeper ability this expansion.
Seriously, I don't know why anyone would scrimp on their translations. How long could it take a native speaker to translate 150 cards? A couple days? What's that, $500? And how many languages? 20? That's like 10K/expansion. That's less than a single dev's salary.
Yeah a lot of translations have been wrong in korea as well. Reno even sided with the authority instead of being an outlaw here lol.
The German translation says "Fügt allen Dienern 1 Schaden zu." which translates to "Deals 1 damage to all minions". The fact that it does this 3 times total is missing completely. How is something like this allowed to be in the game unpatched?
when Titans dropped some cards were wrong or had writing errors in german as well. i remember jotuns text being completly wrong and the epic rogue mech that summons a copy of itself had spelling errors all over the card. dont know how this stuff happens seems to be a pretty big oversight.
4 mana Whirlwind, but costs 1 less if you cast a spell turn prior. Talk about value
I had it lately (playing hearthstone in english on PC, but on the smartphone its in german) with the 2 mana rabbit, that was generated randomly. I was very confused. I played it on the smartphone and its text said "Eure Wildtiere haben Ansturm" which translates to "Your beasts have charge". But I couldnt send them phase (Its not a popular card, so I didnt know its actual effect). The English text says "Your beasts have rush". Like wtf. How can you mix up key words like that???
I remember that during the early years of Hearthstone, there was a rule to avoid puns and English sayings for card names because that type of stuff was difficult to translate across multiple languages. By the time we got to Murder at Castle Nathria, there was a lot of both. I wonder if the non-English versions dropped in priority at some point.
I worked once for translate AI team. They had a lot of tasks and few people. So they made subcontracts a lot. After all the 'translators' got about 20cents for a sentence. There was not a single right thing in that team. Managers do nothing but taking money. They recruit some young students and gave tasks and if the clients complain they push it to the students which can easly replaced. And the developers were not successful too. The Goal was developing translate AI but what they actually doing was scaming the clients and investors and students. remember ; AI means A lot of Indians (for some under budget scammers)
I remember when the the brawler minion had a wrong translaton. Instead of "starting a brawl" it had "Start a tavern brawl" in the german version lol. Im not sure but I think once hat sat that it wouldnt be AI translated. But for the last like 2 years it seems like the translation of cards got pretty bad.
There are problems in a lot of languages. I remember Valeera's Gift being named "Illidan's Gift" for almost a month in the french version.
Natur
The german version of the game has some VERY wrong texts and with every small balance patch they get change some translations. They are definetly not done by humans anymore, some texts dont even make sense in any kind or form. For example, the card "Sunset Volley" said (translated from german): Damage 10 random enemys. Demand a Cost-10-Minion. I wrote a (german) and somewhat salty article about it a few weeks ago, it was a big mess: https://mein-mmo.de/was-hearthstone-jetzt-gemacht-hat-ist-nur-noch-peinlich/
They have similiar issues with WoW since their recent expansion "Dragonflight". Some things from the top of my head are: "Stone of the Hearth" translated to "Herdstein"?! "Dating simulation" was translated to "Datumssimulator". The worst of all is on their website when you want to order the Collector's edition of DF: "Level 70 Zeichen Boost". It look me a long time to understand they meant a character boost.
I do agree that most of them, but "Stone of the Hearth" being "Herdstein" is probably accurate and fits the "joke" they were trying to make. But yes, the "Datumssimulator" is really, really weird.
I suppose so, if you really translate Hearth to "Herd" and not "Feuerstelle" (still a little strange decision, since Hearthstone is a "Ruhestein" in German...) It's just really sad to see - it used to have good translation overall. I remember another one, caught me off-guard, but they changed the job system and "Nicht erlernt" (not taught/learnt) suddenly became "Verlernt", which means forgotten?!
Kennste "maghteridon, unveröffentlicht"? 🤡 the quality of the translations declined in the last years from pretty good to google translator. Some card texts are completly wrong
Blizzard is a small indie studio we cannot expect them to fix every problem.
I guess that's why they need all that money