No rush, no product, no profit. 
Iād have to agree with the OP. There are a few attributes and whatnot that were obviously google translated, and copypasted in. They make zero sense. Itās quite obvious that some of the people working to translate are doing so merely for the rewards, which can be dangerous and make things worse.
Translators should be rewarded, but I am not sure if with beta keys is the right way of doing it.
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Well I followed the IMC Guide using Google Translateā¦ I did my hardest to manually change the text to readable english but some are so out of context
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You canāt just rely on google translate. There are 2 ways to properly translate, with the latter being the obviously preferred but harder to find method.
#1. Cross reference multiple translation tools/sites (Google, Babelfish, etc) as well as cross referencing official English if applicable AND Korean and if needed other languages. You then find the translations that make the most sense (likely a mix of them all) and then make it all make sense and fit into the sentence(s) and storyline. <-- This is the most likely to happen. It helps if you can type Korean or know some Korean off hand.
#2. Native Korean speakers translate the game. Often times this is the quickest and most accurate, however they must also have an Excellent understanding of English so that they can turn their blatant translations into something that makes sense. <-- This one is much harder to find, but when you find people that are willing to help out with this method, it can be very helpful.
I for one use method #1. It may not be the most ideal, but I have gotten very skilled at it. I also know some Korean and can type it 100%.
Lastly, you have method #3 which is just a blatant copying of translations off of Google Translate. Ultimately this will require the translations to have to be COMPLETELY re-doneā¦ There is no fixing messed up gibberish translations. They must must must be re-done properly. All you are doing by following method #3 is slowing down the actual translation process.
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Translators are not expensive. It says a lot that they are not willing to pay at all for one, and itās clear that we are going to get some poor quality translations because of it. Itās quite disturbing that such a highly skilled profession is considered to be trash not even worth a wage in the gaming community these days. I wonāt be supporting a game that does not support my career, and I definitely wonāt donate my time to make others money that donāt even respect my profession.
Maybe you guys will remember this post from an actual game translator when you are playing and 1 item has 10 different names, or when you canāt find an NPC because itās spelled differently on the quest page than it is on the map, or when you just canāt figure out what half of your skills do.
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I see a few people posting that think the quality of the translations do not matter. You think what is most important is to get the game spat out quickly. I think that is a terrible attitude to have. It is frustrating to have unclear and inconsistent text in a game. You should not want a āhalf finishedā product to rush out and get a bad reputation.
It is disturbing that these machine translations are just being posted into game without check just because people want a beta key. Even if people come back and try to figure out the correct context later, it just causes things to become lost in between multiple translations.
It will be sad to see a game with such potential get pushed through its last leg of development like this because of low budget and no subscription money to look forward to.
You donāt have to worry about the larger AAA company, since they will hire proper translators, otherwise they will get a lot of flak from the gaming community. You can see the list of translator in their credit roll.
This issue is usually with smaller publishers, where they will ask existing employees to help with translations after the GMsā current task is completed. In fact, all the GMs and other employees would often nag their boss to just hire a translator instead. They rarely have any time to spare. If the employees do know the actually language, they have a higher pay then the other employees, but the company tend to underpay and overwork their employees. This is why GMs are usually replace every 3-6 months, with their customer support being crappy. It takes at least 6 month of training to start being competent.
Whether or not they hire a translator for the game depends if they are porting the game or not, but there will always be a group of fans translating the game long before it is ported to another region.
I use to work with a group of friends translating the text in Dream of Mirror Online way before game publisher license and port the game. To our surprise, we found them taking our translation directly. Well we didnāt complain, since weāre happy they are willing to port the game to English and have people working full time continuing the translation.
I see some translator even do translation of novels as a side. They do 1 free chapter a week, and if reader wants more, they have to donate a certain amount for more chapter release. Well itās not always 1 chapter, some chapter is divided into parts. In short, it depends on the number of word counts. This is mostly with Chinese translators, as Korean and Japanese translator often do it for free and rely on donations. Of course the other reason is because they enjoy the novels themselves too.
For example, you can look at these sites for similar examples:
http://www.wuxiaworld.com/
http://www.risingdragonstranslation.com/
https://bingnovels.wordpress.com/
http://thyaeriatranslations.com/
So far, Iāve mainly donated money to SkyTheWood, so that he or she can purchase the new volume. Mainly because they are my favourite novels to read.
This. Itās amazing that IMC is so insanely cheap (or maybe just poor?) that they cannot or will not afford even one translator. A single competent translator could do the work of 200 github users and do it well rather than giving us broken insane translations with no consistency.
If they want this game to do well overseas they need to make it the best product they can. Part of that is correct and consistent translations.
Iām thankful to the github users for their work, but I still have to say: shame on IMC for even having a community translation project.
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@ ignoranceforu
You forgot the third kind, the one that do word for word translation with dictionary, and gradually learning the language. In fact, many newcomer to the novel translation scene work this way. This is also why some translator will create tutorial videos teaching the language as well =p
For Korean machine translation, I use the following for cross reference:
And use the following for word for word translatioin:
With this to help out:
Of course I only do it for translating Korean Light Novels.
I thought you had to be tested and invited to be a translator, because the REAL translators deserve their rewards, the people using google translate donāt
I guess since Iāve self taught myself Korean over time as Iāve done translations, I have already done that part, but my Korean isnāt the greatest. Either way, people work how they want to work, but ultimately stuff needs to be done right. If we keep encouraging people to make half assed translations then itāll take twice as long just to re-trace our steps and fix the broken translations up.
Well let me start by saying: I dont know much Korean, but I always do great translations for github. I fixed the translation someone posted a few replies back(the one that means shit). It was my pull request that fixed it, and Iāve also read some translations that left me āwtf is this ā ā ā ā ā. What I do is(for skills): Check videos of the skills TO SEE WHAT THEY DO->try different translators to get an idea of what the text is trying to say->rephrase the text myself so its understandable by english speakers.
I agree, some of the archer skill descriptions were ridiculous.
My friend saw this while I was playing and said āBoth Handsbow sounds like a bounty hunter name.ā Lmao.
Some of these translation errors are gold.
Translators are expensive, programmers are expensive, servers are expensive. This game is FREE. How much money do you think this company actually has? Hell the portion of IMC thatās even actively working on this version of the game is at most 8 people. Businesses will cut corners wherever they can. Thatās just reality. So donāt go getting an attitude when they try to outsource something that can save them money in the long run that they can spend on something else. The translations will be better in time for release, just chill out.
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Incorrect translations produced by google translate arenāt exactly translation, I donāt know why anyone would think thatās acceptable. The game is freeā¦ lol you act like theyāre not going to have an item shop to make $$$
I hope they keep āBoth Handsbowā
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I did notice a few poor translationsā¦ I remember a part in the crystal mines when you move close to a wall and you āhear the sound of lubricantā. And itās talking about hearing the sound of machines, since youāre trying to fix a rusted air purifier. And a lot of things were worded in ways that someone speaking English wouldnāt word itā¦
guess i should start translating.
lol being korean finallly helps LOL
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(sigh)
I joined the English-to-Spanish translation group, and while some DID get some keys, I wasnāt counted among the lucky ones.
Still, I find it reasonable that OP requests to stop giving rewards after watching such half-assed job at translatingā¦