Pokemon Terms in Spanish

[Gastronely]

Hey, it's me again with some translation shenanigans.

 

So, you know some common terms that exist in the Gaming world. Tank, sweep, Cleric, you catch my drill. However, there's a catch, and that is because those terms are sometimes related exclusively to the English language. Things like Set-up, stall, support moves are not that common in the Spanish language, because, if you try to translate them, then all the sense made in the sentence is lost. For example: "all you need is set up and take him down". If you were to read this line normally you would think "oh, so i have to use a bunch of boosting moves and utility moves". But, if you tried to read this sentence translated, it loses all sense: "todo lo que necesitas es prepararte y derrotarlo", because now Ame says basically that you need to prepare yourself and beat him. That doesn't make a lot of sense. That's why I'm asking you this. If you may have an accurate translation for these words specifically, not just an adequate translation, it's more like a word, or a phrase that fits into the battling context of Pokemon, please tell me, especially about these terms:

"Set up" (I'm referring to as moves like Swords Dance or Toxic Spikes, moves that you can "stack" to be beneficial in battle)

"Sweep"

"Support moves"

"Stall" (basically what Toxapex does 24/7)

"Utility Pokemon"

"Wall" (as in "That stupid fat blob walls everything)

These are the ones that come to my mind, but if you have any suggestions, feel free to drop them down below. Thank you ^~^

 

Edited June 18, 2020 by Gastronely

[LightingZeno]

Hola, voy a intentar ayudar pero hay algun termino en el q no he reparado nunca la verdad (no se si esto deberia estar escrito en ingles o español la verdad)

 

Set up. Me lo salto porq no estoy familiarizado con este termino

 

Sweep. Si te digo la verdad entre mis amigos es muy comun hablar de un pokemon q actua como "sweeper" o hablar de "sweepeo"(cuando usas danza dragon por ejemplo), sin traducir el termino en sí.

Como substantivo "sweeper" trata de reflejar que el pokemon se emplea para acabar rapido con rivales, asi que yo creo que lo mas preciso seria tratarlo con algo que refleje esto, quizas, algo como "liquidador" podria servir. 

 

Support moves. Lo traduciria simplemente en este caso por movimientos de apoyo porque la verdad es que en este caso creo que ambos terminos son similares, sino iguales en ingles y español.

 

Stall. Como estilo de combate yo lo traduciría como manipulacion del terreno la verdad.

 

Utility pokemon. Yo usaria algo como pokemon versátiles o pokemon adaptables a distintas estrategias/estilos de combate.

 

Wall. Como substantivo (tanto el pokemon como la estrategia de este) yo usaria simplemente, muro, pero en lo referido a verbo como en el ejemplo que pusiste yo creo que usaria simplemente soportar o resistir.

 

Cleric. Lo traduciria como curandera o sanadora,  o lo que suene mas pro jajajajaja

 

Lamento no ser de mucha ayuda, pero espero al menos haber dado ideas...

Edited June 18, 2020 by LightingZeno

[Gastronely]

Yep, you definitely gave me some ideas, thank you so much. If anybody else has some ideas, specially relating to "Set up" (moves like Dragon Dance or Spikes that can be "stacked" to produce beneficial results), I would be really, really, really thankful.

[Mercury]

Para Pokemon con movimientos especiales siempre es bueno que sepan Paz Mental, ya que incrementa el Ataque y Defensa Especiales; lo recomendable es que tambien tengan un valor de defensa y velocidad altos, para asi al usar dicho movimiento, puedan durar mas en batalla y tener mejores resultados

[Lugruf]

First of all, thank you very much for translating Reborn. I know of people who could not play the game because they were not confident enough in their English to be able to enjoy such a text-heave game, so it is great that this is getting done.

 

Now, this said, the main problem with these terms is that you are trying to translate words that only exist in English. For many games, since all the metagame discussion happens entirely (or at least mostly) en English new words are created that only exist in that language, and so they do not have a translation to other languages. If we take "sweep" as an example (and simplifying things a lot because both "sweep" and "barrer" have a bunch of meanings but I don't want this example to go on forever), we could say that apart from the usual meaning of "Clean an area by brushing away dirt or litter", sweep has an additional meaning as something like "to KO all the remaining pokemons of the opponent with a single pokemon, which will usualy be faster than them and KO them with a single hit". This second meaning does not have a translation in Spanish, because such a word does simply not exist. So, long story short, you're in a field of eggplants XD (For the totally lost: the fact that the translated sentence doesn't work is actually the joke).

 

So, what can you do?

 

First, you have the easy solution proposed above by LightningZeno, of just not translating the word, and you use "sweeper" and "sweepear" and whatnot. This does the work, and although I think it's completely fine to find such a phrase in a casual conversation or a forum, the fact that it will go to the dialogue of the actual game I like it less. It reads like lazy translation, and it can be off-putting. Another risk of this technique is that people who rely too much on it end up overdoing it, and making up anglicisims for words that actually exist in the target language, or falling in false friends. Proof check well your translations to not end up writing something of the likes of "librería de javascript" or "gobierno conservativo". It is nevertheless a possible solution that can get the work done.

 

Sor some words you can get away with clarifying what you mean with context or examples. Let's take as an example, "all you need is set up and...", and the translation that didn't work, "todo lo que necesitas es prepararte y...". If you just add something like "todo lo que necesitas es prepararte con movimientos como Danza Dragón o Paz Mental y...", it's crystal clear what you mean. Everybody knows Dragon Dance and Calm Mind, and should be able to make the abstraction to what they have in common, so it works.

 

Another thing you can do is to try to assign new meaning to already existing words. This may need some obvious context the first times, but it can work. Going back to the sentence above: "all you need is set up and sweep". If you go to the RAE's dictionary, you actually find that the eighth meaning of "barrer" is "Vencer de forma contundente a un adversario." For example, "El Barça barrió al Madrid en el partido del sábado". It's not an exact match, but you can make that work. "todo lo que necesitas es prepararte y barrer (a su equipo)" can actually work acceptably well. The good thing of this is that once you have introduced the term and made the reader familiar with it, you can actually use it more without being so worried about the context because the word will start carrying the meaning on its own at some point.

 

It may also be a possibility to try to find a Spanish speaking competitive pokemon community to see how they actually speak, and just use the terms they use. Although this will most likely take you to solution one.

 

So, in conclusion, the problem is hard, and probably whatever you do will feel unnatural for some and will leave someone unhappy. Translating is hard and translating words that only exist in one of the languages even harder. As in all good translation, you will probably need to go case for case deciding what is best for that exact situation, considering the context and the information that has already been given to the reader, so there is probably no exact match for each word that you can substitute always and have it work. I wish you the best of luck, I hope the ideas I give you above provide you with tools for the task and I am looking forward for the final result.

[Gastronely]

You're absolutely right. I was thinking of using anglicisms for a moment, since many pokemon communities also use those to talk, and it's perfectly normal. But as you said, that can be seen as a lazy translation (since that's the very core of the anglicism concept). That's why we tried to adapt some words, actually, there were several sentences that said something like this: "puedes barrer con el equipo contrario" or (in the case of the set up) "mejora tus estadísticas en combate para vencerlo". I think we can work out with those for a moment. Thank you all for your responses, and if you want to collaborate, feel free to PM me or @Fernan100tifiko at any moment ^~^.

[Climowitz]

"Set up" Ok for this term, i believe you are looking for a translation that means a preparation of some sort, so i would go with Preparacion o Configuracion (As a noun)

"Sweep" Sweep should be translated as "Barrido" a sweeper is commonly used in spanish as the english word, A Sweeper is a "Barredor".

"Support moves" I would translate this one as "Movimientos de Utilidad" or "Movimientos de Soporte".

"Stall" To stall would be translated as "Retrasar" or "Hacer Tiempo".

"Utility Pokemon" This could be simply said as "Soportes".

"Wall" I think this one is used as a Tank in other games, so i wold go wiht "Tanque".