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last summer I translated manalink into french, my mother tongue, for my little nephews, who are a bit young for english.(had to hook them up to that game.... after all they had to spend their cash on cards too ! )
actually I found it quite entertaining to play in french, and I'm translating the lattest Constructed csv. + the different contextual menus...those I can find
Am I the only one who translated the game ?
since it seems that despite the numeral humbleness of this comunity we have a remarquable variety of nationalities that are represented.

The original game I bought years ago has been in german. With the first Manalink patch everything was changed to english. I prefer Magic in english because in german most of the card names are stupid or badly translated.

I agree with Juzam im a spanish player and translated card names sometime sounds dumb, not to mention the errata on some of them like the archers from mirage exp. who does 4 damage to a creature or recently from m10 the jackal who doesnt attack or block. i really prefer english magic.

I have both English and Spanish versions of the game. Spanish version is half-translated; things like the command box (the one in the middle of the screen with the "done" button) remains in English. I do not recommend it. Besides, I feel more comfortable playing Magic on its native language. In fact, I can't recognize 80% of the cards in spanish when I read their names.

When Spells of the Ancients was released we had awful translation into Russian CDs on our piracy market . I don't know how fantasy terms sound in other native languages but in Russian when you translate something like Elvish glory or Battlegrace Archangel it sounds a bit weird or even idiotic %). But in English it's ok, i think this effect comes from the idea that non-native languages give some more freedom to our imagination.

The thing I hated most in the german version had been that cards that does not exist in german in original had also been translated. For example cards from alpha to unlimited the power nine. The Ancestral Recall was translated with "Ruf der Ahnen" when I remember correctly. Terrible...

Ruff der Ahnen.... woaw that kicks some serious ass !
well I managed to get a Geistesblitz once, and I was very happy.

actually some french translation are a bit clumsy like for a very long period of time they would translate a lot of spells with something that would translate to "according to"
so Orim's Chant, was Chant according to Orim
when you see it once, you think the translator wanted to give a little flavor, but when you see it ten times in the same set, you feel they didn't do their homework.
But I like the old cards in french, they had some quotes from classic french litterature like Hugo and Baudelaire they sounded so much better than the stupid quotes from the innane storyline they got now.

mathusalem wrote:Ruff der Ahnen.... woaw that kicks some serious ass !
well I managed to get a Geistesblitz once, and I was very happy.

actually some french translation are a bit clumsy like for a very long period of time they would translate a lot of spells with something that would translate to "according to"
so Orim's Chant, was Chant according to Orim
when you see it once, you think the translator wanted to give a little flavor, but when you see it ten times in the same set, you feel they didn't do their homework.
But I like the old cards in french, they had some quotes from classic french litterature like Hugo and Baudelaire they sounded so much better than the stupid quotes from the innane storyline they got now.

I'm rusty on French. How would Orim's Chant be properly translated, and what did you see? I would have guessed La chante d'Orim, or something like that.

" Chant d'Orim" would have been a good translation indeed
but instead we got "Cantique selon Orim" which reads clumsy and cumbersome. "cantique" is Ok, but "selon" is clearly a translation mistake.
edit : another horrifying example is Redwood treefolk, they completely forgot that we have a word for Redwood, that redwood are actual trees (and the original art actually shows a very Big redwood Chap). so instead of having something like "Sylvins de Sequoias", they translated Redwood by "Boisrouge" .....

Here in Italy the things aren't so better : they switched the names of Mana Drain and Power Drain, for example. So, the Revised Power Drain is "Risucchia Mana" and Mana Drain is "Risucchia Potere" |(.
But one of the best translation mistake in the italian cards is about Magma Mine from Visions. It was translated into "Miniera di Magma", which means a place where you can actually dig out lava !

I don't know if it's just an urban legend, but didn't some of the foreign versions of Time Walk translate into 'target player loses their next turn' and get misinterpreted as that player actually loses the game their next turn, rather than that the caster gets another turn? :p

I don't know much French either (native english speaker here), but something like Chanson d'Orim (Song of Orim) is probably the closest I could do with my limited knowledge of it.

aww1979 i think is just an urban legend cuz magic didnt get translated until 4th editon i guess.

No, I know Legends and maybe The Dark have foreign versions, so it was earlier than 4th ed, but yeah, you gotta go back even earlier for Time Walk :p

aww1979 wrote:
I don't know much French either (native english speaker here), but something like Chanson d'Orim (Song of Orim) is probably the closest I could do with my limited knowledge of it.

That's a very interesting case, where we can dwell in the wonderfull realms of Semiology : "Chanson" is a song not a chant, as in a pop song or a folk song, Imagine Orim with a banjo going "lalala !". it somewhat lacks Gravitas doesn't it ? "Chant" is more formal, it is what you sing in Churches and in Operas, so it is more appropriate to describe something with such magical power.

Edit : the first french version of MTG was revised. our famed black bordered 3rd edition with dual lands and all. I know the spanish had them as well at least. Italy had at least Legends and the Dark in Italian.

mathusalem u r correct i asked some friends about it and they told me revised had spanish cards. still no ones remeber about "pierde un turno" (loses a turn).