Hi there.

Let me first introduce myself as this is my first post here. I'm Inari, also known as "Souris cornue" on french forums. I'm mainly active on Wiwiland, which some of you might know about. I'm modding Morrowind since 2005, throughout a big saga of complete mods, featuring new guilds, new lands, new items... Well, lotta new things.

I've been modding only under the french version but now I've been able to release most of my work, I feel like doing an other step by translating them for all of you, non-french speakers.

Ok now maybe I should tell a bit more about my work... Or you'll end thinking I'm sooo boastful and that I didn't make anything. Well, no.

I'm working on the Rahj saga since 2005 and these are the mods that granted me some popularity on Wiwiland. Well, what is Rahj ? It's a trilogy of mods, each of them roughly equivalent to Bloodmoon in terms of size and quests. I'm working on the 3rd one nowadays, the 1st has been released a big while ago, the 2nd is under test on Wiwiland before release.

There's a http://morrowind-rahj.xooit.fr/ following Rahj saga, both in french and english so you should understand it correctly.

I started translating Rahj I. This mod adds an island southeast of Vvardenfell, mainly inhabited by Argonians believing into Rahj's myth. There's an epidemy out there that transforms Argonians into agressive beasts, spreaded by reptilian daedras (clannfears, daedroths and ogrims), that's why those creatures are then called Daedrargonians. This part offers a main quest that should last as long as Bloodmoon's one. Besides to this, you have a new guild, consisting in nightmare-hunting. Actually, you become able to enter nightmares (as in the game Alundra on Playstation), where you will witness strange things and landscapes (just as actual nightmares sometimes ), and where you'll have to find a cure. This makes a guild roughly equivalent to any other standard guild with a single guildmaster (Morag tong, east empire company, and so on). There are also a few secondary quests. In this 1st mod, you make a short meeting with Rottamers, a humano?d rat race.

Rahj II is linked to the 1st one. You come back to Elnagor (the isle where the scene takes place), and your Argonian friends are having new problems. Again a big main quest featuring Rottamers, your main ennemies there. No guild, but more secondary quests, and some more nightmares to visit and modify. Rahj III takes place in an other new isle, northeast from Vvardenfell. It is no longer linked to Rahj I and II but is preferably played after those. You'll meet, through a big main quest, the Rottamers in their native city, and you'll have to help relationships between them and other inhabitants from the isle, Itkev?saari.

http://morrowind-rahj.xooit.fr/t25-Galerie-screenshots-MGE-MGE-screenshot-gallery.htm

As you can see, my english's ok but not perfect, so when I'll have to deal with tests of english-Rahj I-version, I'd be very happy if a native english speaker could help me clearing remaining mistakes. If you feel like helping we with that when the time will come, feel free to send me a PM or to post here.

If you care to give some help, the only thing I need is some proofreading, as I'm not a native-english-speaker.Please PM me if you care to help.

Thanks for reading !

Looks good!
I'm sure many if us will be happy to help translate and test your mods.
:)

First, welcome to the forums!!! Thx for translating your mods. As large quest mods have become very rare here, this is a nice gift!!! I've been on wiwiland several times, but as I speak no french, it was rather trial and error zapping through the pages, LOL!!! Is there any video of your mods on youtube yet?


Greets, TheDaywalker!!! :rock:

Thanks for answers and support !

Well, for videos, I've always wanted to do one, I tried using Gamecam but my computer is quite limited for a good trailer... I should get a new computer really soon, before the end of the translations, so I might make one. Honestly, I'm considering to do so since a big big while now !

As for the translation in itself, it can be quite quick, and that's why I'm doing it now. Rahj I has been something like 2 years of work, translation should be far less since the mod is already complete. Considering that, it'd be sad not to offer it to you, non-french speakers !

Wow, thanks for taking the time to cater for us English-speakers. As TheDaywalker says quest mods are always most welcome and these look like they're covered in awesome-sauce!

You're welcome dears. Don't worry, I promise this saga already had a big success on french sites, and you'll get it soon.

I'm done with all "little" translations, so only scripts and dialogues remain. There are many, but I should do that quite fast. The only thing is my unperfect english which will let some mistakes... :/ I'll need some native english speaker to test the mod with me to correct as many mistakes as possible. I'll test quests myself to check if there are no broken topics with translations, which would prevent dialogues from working correctly.

Well, you could always use Wrye Mash to export your dialogue and then load it up in Open Office's Writer program with the http://www.languagetool.org/ extension set to US English. That at least would pick up typos and some grammar.

Hey folks. I've lost a save at a time cause ESP Friendly Converter crashed, taking the save into oblivion... No worry, I did the work again, a bit better since I respected the typo of English Version more.

So I'm still in the business ! All objects, regions, NPCs, creatures, etc... are done. Remains Dialogues, Scripts, and I'm currently working on the journal.

First chapter received a lot of tests and good reviews on its french version, so I keep translating that one. Second one still has to be tested, and I prefer to clear most of the bugs on a single version (french one) instead of having to correct two if I translate while bugs remain...

Rahj I will be offered with an Animated Grass Mod such as Vality's one. You can see how it looks like on http://www.morrowind-rahj.com/2010/01/herbes-animees-pour-rahj-i.html (Vurt's AI trees on those screenshots). It's a new custom even for french version, but as there's nothing that can be bugged in it, and nothing to translate either, both french community and you should get it quickly (as soon as the english translation of the mod is done).

I'm still looking for a couple of native-english-speakers testers (at least one). The mod has no bugs, is interesting to play (at least I hope, but I've been told it is ), is quite big (roughly like Bloodmoon), I'd just like to have a minimal mistakes amount... So if someone feels like testing the mod's dialogues and journal (checking hyperlinks for the quests to work meanwhile), just send me a PM, it'd be very grateful from you ! You have some time, I'm not done with the work for the moment.

Catch you later !

As noone sent any PM, I'm reconsidering my help need... ^^

Well, first, I promise guys, this mod is something big, it's just not an average quest mod. I'm translating it cause the french version is 90% of the work, so a translation is worth being done.

I need help not cause I'm lazy (I'm working a lot on it), but cause my english's not perfect. And I don't want to spread a mod that's full of mistakes : my french version has a high text quality and I'd like the english one to be in the same way.

I don't even ask you to test the mod, but just to read texts (dialogues and messageboxes in scripts), and to submit better sentences or words. I mean, I'm sure what I did has sense so you can understand, but I'm also sure native-english speakers will see lotta better ways to say what I intend to...

You'll find the script messageboxes at the http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0ASk8sn1Edf4-ZGdzaDdra25fMWhxZmc5OGZw&hl=fr. Please just read and give feedback, feel free to contact me with your modifications.

As you can see I'm done with script and the journal is soon ok. All hyperlinks have been translated with confirmation from TESAME so I'm pretty sure the dialogs will work fine (as long as they don't get any conflict with an other mod). But be sure I'll make tests. By the way I've got a question, is there any patch for english version that fixes EnableTeleporting and DisableTeleporting ? Rahj needs them to work properly... In french we have the PNOG which is required for Rahj, I'm pretty sure you've got some mod that fixes it too...

Thanks for reading and helping. Be sure it's worth it !

English is not my mother tongue, either, but I can't leave a fellow modder in the lurch, can I? Here's http://www.mediafire.com/?tmtkamyzwz3: There were a couple of occasions where I would have liked to know the context (e. g. with the first MessageBox: "lacerated" implies "torn apart with claws." If those wounds were afflicted by a blunt weapon, "bruised" or "swollen" might work better), but most of it was clear enough.
Sadly, I'm too tied up with other projects to make a long term commitment to Rahj's translation, but I'll be happy to help out with a few things from time to time. Out of interest: how many dialogue entries need to be proofread?

A note to anyone asking himself/herself if this mod might be worth their time: judging from those MessageBoxes, Rahj has an interesting story. So break your silence, and offer to proofread a portion of it! :icecream:

Hello Inari,

I was having a look around your site (I speak enough French to understand most of it, although I'm afraid I speak very little) and I must say it looks wonderful I'm very glad you're taking the time to translate this: it seems like it will be a wonderful addition to the quest mods we already have.

I had a look at the edited message boxes bhl uploaded. For not being native speakers, you two have done a wonderful job! Just a few minor things, word order things that were probably more nitpicking than anything else. Being english myself, http://www.mediafire.com/?u3mv4tdxjxm. From what I can see there, I can wholeheartedly agree with bhl: it seems to be an interesting story indeed.

I can't promise that I'll be able to proofread everything for you (January is always a hectic month for me), but as it stands I should be able to help out with at least some of it, if you'd like.

Either way, eagerly awaiting the chance to play this,
Skye ^_^

Edit: I downloaded it myself to check the download worked, and found something I missed. Whoops! Uploaded the fixed version.

This looks AWESOME, I'm looking forward to it! :foodndrink:

I don't know a thing about scripts, but I am a native English speaker, and I'd be thrilled to look over the non-technical translations (dialogue, journal entries, etc). I can't promise I'll get to test it in-game immediately (still working out the kinks with a new wide screen monitor), but if it only requires reading through things in the CS, that's no problem at all.

Edit: I forgot to add that I'm thrilled this is getting translated. There were screenshots of this mod in another thread and it looks amazing! :twirl:

Thanks a lot people, your words warmed my heart and gave me even more motivation ! I've downloaded all your fixes/suggestions for scripts and I'll sort everything out to get the best parts from it, so as the mod "sounds" as good as possible.

And guess what ? I didn't drop the work ! When I say I didn't, I really didn't. The journal is completly translated now ! And you have this here for proofreading : http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0ASk8sn1Edf4-ZGdzaDdra25fMjl4Z3pqbmhz&hl=fr.

Thanks to you who help, the translation could be out very quickly. I won't dare to say a real date, but within two weeks or even less, it can be done.

Please note I'm doing my best not to ask much from you : I'll do all tests by myself (the mod is pretty much the same than french version so major bugs are already fixed), only thing I need is proofreading. And what you do is great. Ah, just if I can ask something more, use a few colors or bold letters when correcting... Something which allows me to see a bit more what's still correct. Or if you prefer, delete anything that's fine, and just leave the fixed sentences.

I'm now starting a few elements I forgot, such as books or faction's level names. Then I'll do dialogues results so as the mod works properly, and I'll finish with dialogues, the biggest part but I sure won't drop as you help me.

Cheers and thanks again !

Hi Inari,

glad to hear that you've continued to work on this I can only imagine how long this must have taken you to translate - it took me a couple of hours just reading through it and making a few changes! So I really appreciate the effort you're putting into this, and I'm really looking forwards to being able to play it ^_^

I had a go at editing some of the journal entries for you; unfortunately, it's quite late here, so I won't be able to get it all done tonight. http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0ATtwyYqY1IkaZGRoajZxcGtfODJmbTU4ZmNmcA&hl=en is what I have done so far; bold is my changes, and italics is used for the notes I occasionally added if I wasn't sure about something.

If someone else would like to have a go at the remaining entries, that would be great; if not, I should be able to get them done for you tomorrow

Good night!

You're doing a big big job for me, thanks a lot Skye. I'm working a lot on the dialogs now, since everything else is done and I just have to fix what you suggest me. Oh, and people, if you want to help me getting the texts corrected, please try to do different parts... That'll be easier for you too. For example, I'm done with the scripts now, don't care again about it.

I'll post dialogs in differents parts, I mean, for example : A-H topics, I-M, N-S, T-Z. Plus Greeting somewhere (soon terminated).

Thanks again for the time you offer me... I won't disappoint you !

Edit : Ok, looks like I've svcked a bit more on that part... I feel sorry for all those mistakes. At least the proofreading is far from being useless. As for protectors, Skye, they are actually protectors, their main role is to protect the village and that's why I called them this way.

I fixed everything with what you submitted me. I just hope I'm not making you waste too much time... Well, so I edited to Google Doc so as to remove the part you did, if someone wants to do some follow up, then things won't be done twice.

We'll have a matter concerning topics, I thought, if there are parts you modify where something is an hyperlink, it can make some problems. For the journal, this is not a big matter, but for dialogs, I'll underline hyerlinks. This way, you will just modify them if really needed, I mean, if it's really grammatically wrong.

Ok, some news concerning English version of Rahj saga.

Skye is giving a great help and work on Rahj I (EN) is really going a good way, letting imagine quite a soon release. After Rahj I, of course, Rahj II should be translated. I'll just fully test the French version once more before, since correcting two different plugins will double the work later.

Actually, as Morrowind players tend to be less and less, I think it's really time to think "international", and thus to translate my mods. And not only mods, that's why I'm thinking to a double version of Rahj's blog too : french/english. My idea is not fully grown but what is sure is I won't drop french as this is the basis of my mods and current blog readers are mostly french. So at the moment, I'm trying a double version of articles. I'll try to translate as many articles as I can and to find a way for it to look good and to keep separated info on french/english work (which I won't do at the same time, you can imagine). You will thus be able to follow the work on Rahj III which is still under creation.

Anyway, once a french version will be out, the translation can be done "quickly" and the english one can be done in the follow-up. It's not like starting a new mod from zero.

So I give you the blog's URL once more : http://www.morrowind-rahj.com/

Just translated two articles for a quick try at the moment : http://www.morrowind-rahj.com/2010/01/saga-rahj-en-anglais-du-nouveau-english.html and http://www.morrowind-rahj.com/2010/01/herbes-animees-pour-rahj-i.html. I'm not sure of how I will want things to look like, so any suggestion is warmly welcomed. Please note my english is not perfect and I'm definitly not gonna give Skye or anyone else more work with blog's proofreading. It'll stay like that, with my own little mistakes, so please just forgive me.

Now I will post (flood?) a bit less here, and you'll be able to follow the work through the blog.

Any people willing to give a little help with translation are welcomed to post here, or to send me a message.

I will keep doing my best for you to benefit of Rahj saga.

Cheers!

Hey...

Work has been slowing down as I don't get enough proofreading. So I'm bumping the topic a bit, for you to know that motivation's still here, that I'd like to give my mods to all of you, but that I still need a bit help... as I don't want to offer you a mod full of language mistakes.

If interested, pm/mail me, check the blog in my signature if you want some more info... Hope to get some contact! Thanks in advance.

Sorry about that. I have gotten the first 5 pages done from what you sent me, but lost my entire hard drive this weekend to a virus. It's up and running again, so I should have the rest done by the end of the week at the latest.

If you want to send me more, I'll be happy to start on the next set as soon as I finish what I already have.

Can I send the .txt file back to you as a .doc?

Thanks a lot dear! Proofreading is all I need, and I know there's a ton of work with that only... I'm sorry to ask for this but I don't feel fine enough with english to work alone on that translation.

You can send the file back as a .doc, a .odt, a .txt, a .rtf... whatever you want. Oh, no .mp3, at least. Don't feel sorry, I wasn't talking bad about you when I said "not enough proofreading", I know there a many topics to read...!

For the rest, I might send books first : I have journal almost done, if you do greeting and then books, only dialog topics will remain. I'll try to find other persons to help a bit, as this is quite a big work anyway, and I don't want to ask too much from someone...

Thanks again. I hope I'll be able to offer the mod soon!

If I might make a suggestion: when translating, especially a project like this with a lot of action words and detailed descriptions, the context and meaning of the text is often lost.
To help counter-act that, if you were to add notes around particular areas giving the mood, impression, meaning, etc, a more accurate translation (respecting the nuances of language and better translating the meaning as well as the words) could be done. It would also make things faster, not having to go back and forth, asking what a particular line is supposed to mean.
From reading your posts, your English is easily good enough to get most of the point across, and with a few notes as to what is supposed to be said, I think the rest of the text could be translated pretty quickly.

IF you don't understand what I mean, here's an example with the first few lines of the Google Docs journal:


Now, just using that text, I would clean it up like so:

With Morrowind's made up words (Daedra, recall as a verb, etc) there are some that don't follow the usual rules in English.

However, if you look at this bit:

It could be translated a couple different ways. Do you mean the quest will be hard because Pespharha corrupted the shrine, or the quest will be hard (has become harder) since the point in time when Pespharha corrupted the shrine?

I don't know if I'm making any sense (I usually don't ), but there are some meanings that could be better translated if you provided side-notes, because they aren't always obvious from the text itself. Having the context and your original meaning would make for a more natural translation.

Another example:

Cleanup:



Edit: You may want to take a look at this:
http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AdluffkFk8FeZGhrODVuYnRfMTUxZjlyaDZzZHM&hl=en
I translated the first few entries, to try and show what I mean. Red color coding means that section could mean more than one thing, and needs clarification before it can be translated. Orange is a personal note, usually meaning the English needs more work. Green is when a word appears to have been used incorrectly, and a similar word should be used instead. Hope that gives you an idea of what I mean.

Interesting. Thanks! I don't feel myself really svcky in english but I know I'm not perfect. Unfortunatly, this isn't my mother tongue, and double downside of my method is that I never played English Morrowind (more for 10 minutes I mean). So I didn't know, for example, that Daedra were using the plural with no S. Moreover, in french, they do.

So I hope such mistakes will be forgiven if some remain. ^^ To be honest, this translation is not made in my own interest, as I won't even play it. it's just for you Morrowind fans, just as I'm a modder who already made big things, and now it'd be a shame not to give a second little effort to translate...

About side-notes, sure it'd be better. In general, if someone wants to proofread a bit for me, I try to explain and answer questions as soon as there are some... I mean I'm always there to explain something uncertain from notes reading. It's already a bit sad since the storyline will be mostly known by these persons when they will play the mod.

Thanks for advices!

Your English is very good, actually, and there were a few sections that didn't need translated at all. Some of the verbs, though, were technically correct but not necessarily the best one for that meaning.


If you send me your username on Google Docs, I can share that file with you (I'm not familiar with Docs, so I don't know exactly what to do). Or you can copy my edited version back to your account. It looks like collaborating on Docs would make the translation much easier, and you could answer questions as they were edited in. Given the length of the journal, I'd say it could take a day or two to translate completely (it's already in good shape, which saves a lot of time).

Skye did a big part of the journal recently so that part is not to one to get translated now (still I saved your advices which are interesting of course). Don't waste your time on it, if you wanna give a bit help, I'll take out some dialog entries I did... or books.

Still, yeah, GDocs is cool when working on a project with some people!

You could try making a folder on GDocs and using the Construction Set's export function. Just export all your books, dialogue, and journal, upload, and translation could be done in a short time using docs. When everything has been translated, save it from Docs and use the CS's import function. As long as the formatting doesn't get broken, that should work.