Category talk:Foreign-Language Editions

Foreign Editions

I noticed that Category:Foreign language products is specific to products originally published in a foreign language while Category:German edition is specific to translation of English works into German. Those distinction for Spanish do not seem to have been made. I plan to clean up the categories and (the capitalizations). However, I do think that the notion of Foreign editions does raise some important questions.

1) Do we wish to tag every product that has had a foreign translation with the respective foreign language edition tag? How helpful is such? Conversely, how much effort would that take? [I don't have a sense of how many products have translations or not, nor how many languages would be involved But if certain product have several different translations, the number of category tags could grow quickly.]

2) Do we consider an approach similar to that of List of BattleTech products in spanish and List of BattleTech Print Novels in Spanish which creates pages that summarizes the status of products that were translated into that language? Or alternatively do we only tag a product page with a 'German edition' category tag (or 'Spanish edition' category tag) if there is something notable about the edition (i.e. it deviates significantly from the source material or presents some useful feature)?

For the time being, I will simply conduct some basic organizational/cateogrical clean-up. But I would invite thoughts in response to these questions. --Dude RB (talk) 15:50, 26 March 2022 (EDT)

Follow-up: Processing this have given me a bit more perspective. I realize that part of the issue is that I don't have good sense as to the range of languages into which BattleTech products have been translated. So I should really ask

Question 0) How many languages have BattleTech products been translated into? Which languages have a substantial number of translated products?

The info on Sarna suggests a robust set of translations for German, a modest number for Spanish, and very little of anything else. Is that an accurate reflection of reality or is simply all that Sarna has cataloged thus far?

Note: The current category structure would give flexibility and allow us to use individual product tagging (i.e. the current approach for German) for the languages that are dominant in the translation space while using a list approach for those whose range of products with translations ar somewhat more modest (which may be everything else at the present). --Dude RB (talk) 23:15, 26 March 2022 (EDT)

For reference sake, here are portions of a Discord conversation related to question 0. This gives some leads for further research, so it seems noteworthy to record here.

dude.rb — 03/27/2022

I am examining the structure of the foreign language products/editions and the following question has arose “How many languages have BattleTech products been translated into? Which languages have a substantial number of translated products?”. FYI: Frabby raised a similar question over a decade ago on the BattleTech forum https://bg.battletech.com/forums/general-discussion/battletech-translated-into-how-many-(and-which)-languages/ . Note: Sarna currently gives detailed listings in regards to German and Spanish editions (which thankfully appear due to the in-depth labors of some editors focused on those areas). Is there a sense of (or resources for determining) the extent of BattleTech translations/works in other languages?

Frabby — 03/28/2022

Probably comes down to resources. As a German I could provide solid information on German BT products, as could Pserratv for Spanish.

But there is a language barrier. I know there's an italian edition. Over at the forum a Japanese edition was discussed that even has original fiction. I can’t read either language. I even have an asian edition of what appears to be Way of the Clans on my shelf but I’m unsure what language it even is. (Japanese? Korean?)

DarkISI — 03/28/2022

There are some translations to Russian, at least after the KS because there were Russion AGoAC boxes and a few KS books, if memory serves

GreekFire (ping with MUL issues) — 03/28/2022

Created and bulked up the French Editions page

I know there was stronger support for the French side of things back before the last official website crash, but my memory is too foggy to remember what exactly was translated there

Talvin — 03/28/2022

@Frabby I know someone who is studying abroad in Japan, if you DM me a picture of the script I can probably get it identified for you.

Frabby — 03/28/2022

Here you go.

-images redacted-

Frabby — 03/28/2022

@Talvin

Talvin — 03/28/2022

Chinese! I did an ISBN search, had to learn something about how ISBNs are coded, and then wound up at Taiwan's ISBN agency page. Looked up the ISBN (you have to convert it to new format first) and got a title that matches what is on the book. Ran that text through Google Translate, yep, it's Chinese!

-process redacted (see below for Talvin's summary)-

Frabby — 03/28/2022

Wow. I didn’t know there was a Chinese edition of BattleTech, and I had it on my shelf…

Talvin — 03/28/2022

Looks like the whole trilogy, if you search for that Author. I have not done any searches for other authors of that time.

dude.rb — 03/28/2022

That's a nice book, Frabby. Nice sleuthing, Talvin.

dude.rb — 03/28/2022

Greekfire, thanks for the French info. The publisher info also helpful as it gives some key search terms to dig further [For instance a search for "fleuve noir publisher" eventually leads to http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pubseries.cgi?4388]

dude.rb — 03/28/2022

DarkISI, thanks for the lead about Russian. BoardGameGeek has some info. the Russian publisher appears to be HobbyWorld. https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgameversion/524076/russian-edition

GreekFire (ping with MUL issues) — 03/28/2022

All of Fleuve Noir's stuff should be on Sarna; they only ever translated six books

I did just discover that MechWarrior 1st Ed was translated as well, which is pretty rad. I've never seen one in the wild

--Dude RB (talk) 13:06, 3 April 2022 (EDT)

Process for Editors to determine what language a book is in using ISBN

This came up in Wiki-Questions in the Discord Server when Frabby had a book in what he thought was either Japanese or Korean, he just knew it was Way of the Clans. As this process may be useful to other Editors in future, I am documenting it here. (Admins, if it belongs somewhere else, move it with my blessing, thanks.):

1. Old-style ISBN was 9571003220. Plug that into the US Library of Congress tool [1].
2. I got 9789571003221. Go to ISBN Org site and choose "Range Message (pdf sorted by prefix)" and generate. You will be downloading a PDF.
3. I took the first six digits: 978-957. It may be more or less than six. If you can get it hyphenated, do. Looking through that file, I found Taiwan. OK, that's plausible, it is definitely an Asian script (and definitely not Korean, Korean's script is very distinctive.)
4. Find Taiwan's ISBN agency page. Thankfully, has an English version available.
5. I get Title: 共和之路 Author: Robert Thurston原作 Publisher:尖端 I am definitely on the right path here!
6. Take 共和之路 to Google Translate and tell it to Detect Language. Chinese: "Republic Road". And there's the answer.

Hope this is helpful to someone else down the road.--Talvin (talk) 11:16, 28 March 2022 (EDT)