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Stravagante!

A pocket-sized RPG of whimsical fantasy adventure! · By Penflower Ink

French translation (WIP)

A topic by miawtthias created Oct 31, 2023 Views: 144 Replies: 1
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Hi!

I'm slowly trying to translate parts of Stravagante! in french. I have started with location names from the Setting Pamphlet. Here's what I came up with so far. If anyone wants to help you're welcome!

Note: english is not my native language and I'm not a professional translator (I'm actually a science teacher)

1. Witchfinger woods: one of the hardest to translate in my opinion. The literal translation would be "Bois des doigts de sorcières" which sounds very bad. The best I came up with is "Bois des charmes griffus" where "charme" refers to both a type of tree and a magic spell,  and "griffu" means clawed because I imagine a forest of bare trees with the branches looking like a witch fingers.

2. Towerview: another difficult one.  I have thought about "Beffroi" and "Belvédère" but they are just building names and feel a bit too common. I also thought about "Surplomb" which means ovehang and sounds more like an old french medieval name to me. Still not sure about this one.

3. Belch Mountain: "Mont éructant" or "Montagne éructante" which both means belching mountain. "Mont" is more common than "Montagne" for major moutain names so I prefer the first.

4. King's Stride: "La foulée royale" which means the royal stride. It sounds more like a city name than "Foulée du roi" which would be a more literal translation.

5. Watchtower of Scrith: "Phare de Scrith" which means lighthouse of Scrith because "tour de guet/tour de garde" doesn't sound as intimidating and it's in the middle of the bay. I made the choice to not translate the names of the demi-gods even if Scrith is a bit difficult to pronounce in french.

6. Addingtown: "Compteville" (Count town) not great but feels like a town name.

7. Lacrimose River: "Rivière Lacrimose" just sounds good in french too.

8. The Deeping Gate: "Le Portail des profondeurs" (Portal from the depths)

9. Marshes of Misery: "Marais de la misère" (swamp of misery) doesn't sound great but "Marécage de la misère" is worst. Not sur with this one again.

10. Blesshaven: "Havre béni"(blessed haven)

11. Weeping Cliff: "Falaise des sanglots" (sobs cliff) sounds a bit more dramatic than "Falaise des pleurs"

12. Tall Timbers: a simple translation would be "Grand-bois" which sound good but "bois" is a very generic term for wood so I thought about "Grand-Breuil" or better "Haut-Breuil" because "Breuil" is common in french town names (at least in my area) and it means copse (according to the wiktionary). "Haut-bois" is out because it is the name of a musical instrument. I leand towards "Haut-Breuil" but maybe it sounds a bit too classy for a small village.

13. Warden's Rock: "Roche du gardien" or "Rocher du gardien", the first sounds better to me.

14. Spellfont Academy: "Académie de Sort-fontaine"(spell fountain academy) I tried finding a name with "source" instead of "fontaine" but it did not sound good. "Sort-fontaine" sounds a bit like Clairefontaine which is known to be the base of the French National football academy.

15. Quickroot Forest: "Forêt de Vive-Branche" (Quick branches forest) the french term for root is "racine" but I could not find something that sounded good with this.

16. Croak River/Lake: "Rivière/Lac Croâ" not as good as the original name because "Croâ" is just the call of a frog or toad so we loose the meaning of dying. 

17. Frogport: "Port-Grenouille" would be the literal translation but I prefer the sound of "Port-Rainette" ("Rainette" is a species of tree frog)

18.  Orchard Hill: "Colline du verger" (literal translation)

That's it for now, let me know what you think!

Developer

This is really impressive work, thank you for doing it! :D
With the names you are having trouble with, or don't like the sound of in French, feel free to use words that sound better to you while still conveying the general vibe. With place names I would rather they feel good to say in the language than be literal translations and sound clunky.