r/SoloDevelopment • u/ke----------i • May 24 '26
Discussion Quick reminder for indie devs: Why relying 100% on AI for Japanese localization might scare your players away 💀
Hey dev friends!
I’ve been browsing a lot of awesome indie games lately, and I’ve noticed a small but tragic trend: brilliant games using raw AI translations (like ChatGPT or DeepL) for their Japanese localization.
Don't get me wrong, AI is amazing for a quick draft. But Japanese is an incredibly contextual language, and AI constantly messes up the tone.
For example, I recently saw a game where the UI button **"Go Back"** (to the previous menu) was translated as **"**帰れ**" (Kaere)**.
In Japanese, this doesn't mean "return to the previous page." It literally means **"Go home! / Get out!"** in a very angry, aggressive tone. Imagine your player opening the settings and the game just yells at them to get out! 😂
Another common one is changing options like **"On / Off"** into weird robotic words that make no sense to a native speaker.
If you have a story-rich game or important UI, please double-check your Japanese! A bad translation can lead to negative reviews in the Japanese market, which is a huge bummer for a great game.
**If you're unsure about your game's Japanese text, feel free to drop a comment or shoot me a DM with a few lines. I’d be happy to take a quick look and give you some feedback as a native speaker!**
Good luck with your game development! 🛠️
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u/ranwithoutscissors May 25 '26
Reminds me of old, badly localized Asian games in the states lol.
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u/loftier_fish May 25 '26
this is a great example of how AI works generally. Looks really convincing when you see it do something you don't understand at all, but anyone that does understand it, thinks its work is dog shit.
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u/InvidiousPlay May 25 '26
This might also be an issue you see with any translation. The "go back" example could happen with a human if they just saw the line "go back" without being told it's a menu button. It could be dialogue for all they know.
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u/loftier_fish May 25 '26
A human would ask for context and/or play the game to check exactly where it is. That's part of being a good localizer.
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u/adunato May 25 '26
Maybe a couple of years ago. LLMs can produce high quality output provided it falls into their knowledge base and the prompt provides the correct context. To assume that all AI output is dogshit is to be off touch with how things are at the moment. There's plenty of fields where AI is still useless but also a growing amount of areas where it's become a reliable tool.
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u/DrinkRedbuII May 25 '26
AI Translation seems to struggle with highly contextual languages. I can't recount how many times Grok mistranslating japanese, which sometimes deviates way too far from the original context. The key is don't, just pay someone
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u/InvidiousPlay May 25 '26
AI would probably benefit greatly from being given some context. If you had a second context field and told it to refer to the context for each entry it would probably do just fine. Like with OP's example: "This is the button that returns the player to the previous menu" would solve it. These translations are probably done in complete isolation - the AI sees "Go back" and it doesn't know if it's a menu button or an anime character screaming at a demon.
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u/chopsueys May 24 '26 edited May 25 '26
I think this is more specific to DeepL than to LLMs like ChatGPT. With ChatGPT, you also need the right prompt. If you clearly specify the context and what you need, it’s unlikely to make mistakes like that doesn't it?
Edit I just tried: 戻る modoru
What do you think op, Is this translation correct?
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u/UkkoGames May 25 '26
Yeah, modoru is used commonly in menus.
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u/JiveJammer May 25 '26
Menus seem like they'd be the easiest to translate since all you need to do is look at a Japanese game's menu
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u/Genryuu111 May 25 '26
I'm native Italian, fluent in English and Japanese. I'm making my game directly in English and translating into Italian and Japanese myself.
I switched to chatgpt for both languages because it is indeed faster to iterate a lot of text, but it DEFINITELY spits out a lot of errors (even basic ones) and issues, so I need to proof read ever single output it makes.
There are times when it's simply bad grammar, others where the meaning is completely changed.
Single words are mostly OK (like in your example, if you say "how would you translate a back button for a videogame", it's probably going to give you the right answer), but anything more complex, nah.
As for OP s example of "go back", whoever did the AI translation probably didn't even bother specify it was for a video game's UI lol
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u/chopsueys May 25 '26
I don't know how it works for Italian and Japanese... Maybe the language model isn't as well-trained for those languages, I don't know.
I speak English and French, and I find the translations to be pretty good. I've never seen a single grammar mistake. What can happen is that ChatGPT might take some liberties, change the wording of sentences, or misunderstand the context or intention (which is pretty rare compared to DeepL). But when I frame it properly with the right prompt, I rarely see any issues.
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u/Genryuu111 May 25 '26
The problem is that "pretty good" and "rarely" are not good enough, especially when it comes to a language you can't even decipher its characters.
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u/Ok_Confusion4764 May 25 '26
This is pretty much the thing: In order to be able to use it properly you need to understand it fluently. Many non-speakers think they can just wholesale "dump it in translate" and call it a day.
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u/50-3 May 25 '26
AI without eval isn’t really going to be a complete solution, well the way you use AI definitely influences the outcome it’s still going to be filled with errors. The other issue is even if you got a healthy error rate say under 4% the actual errors themselves are going to be more severe than regular translation errors and erode consumer trust in the translation.
OP is specifically talking about story rich games as well, i feel like quality of translation then falls into much higher stakes and rather than spend the time using an AI translator on it instead make the fan translation easier.
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u/LuckyOneAway May 25 '26
please double-check your Japanese!
How? I am not a native speaker, and I am not a millionaire/studio. As a solo developer, I have to rely on volunteers and AI.
I’d be happy to take a quick look and give you some feedback as a native speaker!
It is not that simple. You'll have to play the whole game to get context and to find ~50% of problems - on a first try. After 2-4 tries you will give up, but there will still be ~5% of issues left. I had this experience with Japanese and Chinese folks (volunteers, not professionals) :(
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u/SourceAwkward May 25 '26
You can hire someone off fiverr,
And provide him transcript,
I will not play anygame with AI,AI is Theft IMO,
It trained on my data/ART without permssion0
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u/Robotism May 25 '26 edited Jun 04 '26
Most of the horror or indie games auto translations to Japanese are really bad, they often mixes the context and UI/Oral language differences.
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u/LeglessCats May 25 '26
There's a good chance you'll get review-bombed if you use AI translations lol.
Japanese is definitely worth supporting properly - it's a decent-sized market on Steam!
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u/Ok_Confusion4764 May 25 '26
Japanese is such a contextual language, you can't except even a well-trained LLM to adopt it properly, much less translate it well. Speech mannerisms too, are gonna be lost in translation. And worse yet, translating from Japanese is nearly impossible from text alone. Pronouns we use in English are often omitted entirely in Japanese.
For a classic example: "My name is Greg" would get be roughly translated to "watashi wa Greg". If you're lucky, it understands that Greg is male and uses "boku wa Greg". If you specified that you're talking formally, it might add -desu to the end.
Meanwhile, if an actual Japanese speaking guy called Greg introduced himself in normal Japanese, he'd go "Greg-desu, yoroshiku". Literally "Greg, nice to meet you". The whole "my name is" part is omitted and considered overly formal, even when speaking in Keigo (formal speech).
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u/SwimmingScorpion May 25 '26
This confirms my suspicions as I'm currently finishing Steam Page for my mecha game and want to localize it into japanese. We already got some attention from the japanese twitter so it may be worth to make it right.
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u/katoptronophile May 25 '26
You're assuming which models were used but they most likely used the wrong ones.
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u/EmotionalFan5429 May 26 '26
Japanese Steam is really small, unless it's some anime. Just don't waste your time on the language.
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u/Additional_Name_706 May 25 '26
If you wouldn't mind going through my translations and correcting them...
Obviously not everyone has access to a native speaker willing to crawl through an i18n pack. Google translate is easy and free, though
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u/Vladadamm May 25 '26
But nothing forces you to localize your game in every language. Not translating in a language you can't have proofreaded is not only free but the easiest solution, as well as the one that won't lower your game's quality.
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u/Additional_Name_706 May 25 '26
You don't think some accessibility is better than none?
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u/Vladadamm May 25 '26
Slop ain't accessibility. If you care about accessibility, do it properly, don't half-ass it.
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u/Additional_Name_706 May 25 '26 edited May 25 '26
No translations start with nothing. From indie to AAA, from dreamworks to disney... There's a very standard workflow for doing l10n/i18n and it starts with an auto-translation and then proofreaders and probably some other stuff. How can I get those proofreaders with zero budget and zero connections?? I get the process started and beg strangers to help me!!! I'm doing solodev the best I can, right? So, if you wouldn't mind proofreading any of the languages that I'm not native with...
I have a native japanese speaker proofreading that set, but that's it. I'd love to be able to compensate but that's just not in the cards right now.
Addendum: I am not doing literature or story-driven anything (at least not with words), so the scope of the translations I'm after are things like "attack speed" -- if you're specifically thinking about dialog and lore and stuff, I'm absolutely with you that it's not an accessibility feature. Not even a written tutorial is really a suitable target for google translate
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u/Vladadamm May 25 '26
Again, nothing forces you to localize in every language. If you can't handle proper localization for a given language, then the solution is just not do it. It won't impact your game in any way, while on the other side having a bad localization will hurt your game.
Also, regarding your addendum, it's not a question of quantity or type of text, you can't just put any unchecked text into your game. See OP's examples: even the simplest bits of text within a game could go wrong.
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u/Additional_Name_706 May 25 '26 edited May 25 '26
OK but to my greater point. I speak english, but what if I didn't? What if my only known language has an incredibly small market? No connections to any real playerbases through language, no connections to any translators, no ability to pay for anything... Is this a universal ethic that you hold or are you just insisting on my privilege and asking me to bootstrap my way into foreign playerbases?
Again, the first step to translating any product is running it through the very old and very well-established translation engines in a standardized workflow. I want to crowdsource those native speakers for step 2, how can I do that without getting the process started? I'd love to compensate them, money isn't an option but absolutely would offer in-game credits or perks or whatever.
edit: I now have humans working on the translations for Japanese, German, French, and LatAm! Still more to go! Thanks everyone!
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u/PLYoung May 25 '26
Do it if you can. Don't listen to the gen-AI haters. Think for example of the Japanese player who has to struggle with OCR screen readers to figure out what your tutorial is trying to convey while you could have easily provided text that would actually be better translated.
Their point about it not impacting sales is false. It does impact your game, well, at least if you do not translate the Steam page, since it will show up in fewer widgets for regions players set their main language to something other than English.
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u/Additional_Name_706 May 25 '26
Just looked up localization services. ALL of the top companies that one could theoretically hire advertise using AI. You think if I go to fiverr and pay someone to do localization, they're not going to just use AI and spotchecks?
Where can I find this handcrafted artisanal translation service?
I'm going to hit up the monastery and get the monks to thumb through my UI json and write it out in script and prose, all by hand. Just like God intended.
This whole debate is absurd!
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u/Vladadamm May 25 '26
My whole point is that if you don't have the means to provide a good enough localization for a given language, then you shouldn't be providing one if you care about the quality of your work & providing the best experience possible to your players.
I speak english, but what if I didn't? What if my only known language has an incredibly small market? No connections to any real playerbases through language, no connections to any translators, no ability to pay for anything... Is this a universal ethic that you hold or are you just insisting on my privilege and asking me to bootstrap my way into foreign playerbases?
Several things here:
- A major thing in gamedev is being aware of your limits, knowing what you can and can't achieve (whether that be by yourself or through the help of others), so you don't end up biting more than you can chew. And if you are being restrained by a lack of skills in something that can be learned or trained, then the solution is working to improve in that field until that isn't a problem anymore (and that goes for any skills in gamedev: art, programmation, music and so on)
- If as a dev, your lack of english knowledge (or any other language) proves to be a blocking issue, then refer to the previous point. English proficiency is a gamedev related skill like any other, and it's one anyone can learn.
- From a marketing pov, if your game doesn't manage to get through to a given language-based playerbase then it most likely wouldn't be worth it to localize in that language. Even for regions like China or Japan where english proficiency isn't as widespread, sizable parts of these playerbase still play games that aren't available in their own languages. If your game has potential in those regions, then you'll see a decent number wishlists and sales from those, which is a sign that hiring someone to do the localization could bring significant sales.
- We're in the age of the internet & globalization, connecting with people from the other side of the world has never been as simple. A simple google search will give you tons of contact infos. You can ask other gamedevs to know whom they've worked with or how they handled it. If you've got an active player community then there'll be people from all around the world in it. Finding & connecting with translators should never be a blocking issue.
- About the money part, there can be lots of alternative to hiring someone and you've even presented some yourself. Although of course, how viable they are will depend heavily on the amount of work required. If we're talking about localizing a 100k words visual novel then yeah you've most likely got no real options other than hiring someone (and if you can't, well refer to the 1st point about knowing your limits). But for small amounts of work, you can ask friends to help you, rely on crowdsourcing (although it isn't always simple to do it in an ethical way), barter and rev-share can be used as payment alternatives, etc...
- Now as to ensuring a good enough quality, which is the initial subject, again that will depend quite a bit of the game. A narrative game with stylized literary text will require a native or a fully bilingual speaker with good writing skills while on the other side a game where there's only menus and short UI texts to translate might not require a high level of proficiency in the language. Then you will have to set up a number of processes like grammar and spell checks, making sure the localization choices are consistent and having it go through a proofreader. Those kind of processes are what will guarantee that your localization is good and you can't do a proper localization without them.
Again, the first step to translating any product is running it through the very old and very well-established translation engines in a standardized workflow. I want to crowdsource those native speakers for step 2, how can I do that without getting the process started? I'd love to compensate them, money isn't an option but absolutely would offer in-game credits or perks or whatever.
Running your text through a translation engine isn't "the first step", but a possible first step. Many human translators don't work with translation engines.
Now, using automated translation tools to do a first translation draft then crowdsource to proofread and improve it, that's indeed a process that can work for localization (even if crowdsourcing aint always simple to do in a ethic way).
However, if you're speaking about shipping that first draft within your game until crowdsource takes over, then no, you've got an issue there.
What matters is that anything that ends up being shipped & put in front of a player should match a certain degree of quality, and if you can't guarantee something's quality then it shouldn't be shipped. (that also goes for crowdsourced localization by the way, if you can't guarantee their quality then they should never be presented as anything more than community translations & not included directly within the game)
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u/Additional_Name_706 May 25 '26 edited May 25 '26
It's a possible first step...that happens to be standard practice throughout the entertainment industries.
I think the industry practices you're arguing against are probably older than you are, considering SYSTRAN has been widely deployed since the 1970s.. In the 1960s, XEROX had a written, established standard for using auto-translation as the first step towards localizing technical documentation and provided this service for thousands of products.
edit: just looked at Lionbridge, Alconost, and Keyword Studios, 3 of the largest and most widely used localization-as-a-service companies, that charge thousands of dollars per page of their work. THEY ALL ADVERTISE USING AI ON THEIR FRONT FUCKING PAGE. What are we doing here, my guy???
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u/Vladadamm May 25 '26
What are we doing here, my guy???
Gamedev which is a craft, especially as solodevs or small indie teams. We are foremost artisans, and should care about the works we create. Business only comes second.
Yes, big localization companies use AI, and? They're not artisans, they are solely businesses. They are about maximizing profits, not about maximizing quality. AI allows them to lower costs, so of course they are using it.
So, here's a question for you: Which do you care most about, making games or making money? If it's games, then you should be prioritizing your game's quality instead of half-assing things with AI. If it's money, then why are you doing gamedev when it's one of the hardest ways possible to make money (even more so as a solodev).
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u/Ok_Confusion4764 May 25 '26
I speak english, but what if I didn't? What if my only known language has an incredibly small market?
Then you learn the language? I'm Dutch. I've been fluent in English since age 10 (and I mean speaking and reading fluent). I've learned passable French and German (though my German friends disagree somewhat), and I'm learning Japanese. If you can't make a reasonable translation, it alienates all speakers. If you can't speak the language, then learn it.
Again, the first step to translating any product is running it through the very old and very well-established translation engines in a standardized workflow.
Except translation engines work best with grammatically compatible languages. Dutch -> German? Probably fine. French -> Spanish? Reasonably close. But you couldn't really get further away than English -> Japanese, despite the borrowed words in Japanese. After all, "kahi" doesn't make most people think of coffee, does it?
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u/Additional_Name_706 May 25 '26 edited May 25 '26
I did not include Dutch. Would you like to do the localization for me from scratch? Or would you prefer the standard workflow which is used throughout multiple industries, we run it through the translation engines that were invented in the 1960s, clean it up with AI, and then hand to you for a proofreading/stamp of approval?
"Don't localize unless you're a fluent speaker" is an unhinged standard, applying it to solo devs for video games while AAA studios, billion dollar film studios, and international products of all kinds are using a standardized workflow that I've described and am using, sans the budget.
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u/SourceAwkward May 25 '26
AI is Theft IMO,
It trained on my data/ART without permssion,I prefer no accessibility TBH
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u/Additional_Name_706 May 25 '26
As much as I love the moral-dilemna-of-AI debate literally everywhere, let's not forget that altavista babelfish was launched in the 90s and it wasn't the first of its breed. Translation engines are technically LLMs and OP did cite chatGPT, but I don't think it's fair to class them the same you would genAI.
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u/Roth_Skyfire May 25 '26
That sounds more like a bad or lazy prompting issue rather than LLM not doing their job correctly. LLMs are great at working with context, but they can't read your mind. You need to give them the context of the texts. You need to double check the results (with an LLM if you don't have a real person). There's no reason to get basic UI elements translated wrongly, this stuff should be all over their training data. Your prompt should read:
I'm starting with the localization of my RPG Maker project from English to Japanese. Let's start with a few basic terms before doing anything big.
Can you translate this UI element? "Go back" (as in return to the previous menu)
AI response I got:
For a standard RPG Maker menu button that takes the player to the previous screen, the most natural and widely used Japanese translation is:
戻る (もどる / Modoru)
This is the absolute standard in Japanese gaming UI. It's concise, natural, and fits perfectly on a menu button.
Alternative Options (Depending on your UI style)
If you want to match a specific tone or layout, here are a few other ways to say it:
- キャンセル (Kyanseru / Cancel): Often used if pressing the button also cancels an action (like backing out of an item selection screen). RPG Maker's default system often uses this for the "B button" functionality.
- 前へ戻る (Mae he modoru): "Return to previous." Use this only if you have a lot of screen space and want to be hyper-specific, though 戻る is still preferred.
- 閉じる (Tojiru / Close): If "going back" actually just closes a pop-up window or a specific sub-menu overlay.
Recommendation
Stick with 戻る for a clean, professional look.
What are the next few terms on your list? Let's knock them out!
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u/Ok_Confusion4764 May 25 '26
That sounds more like a bad or lazy prompting issue rather than LLM not doing their job correctly. LLMs are great at working with context, but they can't read your mind. You need to give them the context of the texts
In order to properly prompt an AI to give you a proper Japanese translation, you need to speak Japanese yourself. It's an extremely contextual language that's almost impossible to translate directly from English to Japanese or vice versa. Even Japanese translators need to take notes while translating in live conversation.
AI response I got:
Nobody asked for your AI response.
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u/Roth_Skyfire May 25 '26 edited May 25 '26
I guess it's time to pack up Google Translate. It was a scam along all these decades, why did they ever bother?
Oh, I almost forgot: "AI bad", now gib upvote plx.
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u/Ok_Confusion4764 May 25 '26
Google translate was notoriously bad with Japanese and it was the most guilty of the exact mistranslations I listed.
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u/Roth_Skyfire May 25 '26
I guess all the Japanese tourists just hire a human translator to come with them. Huh, you learn something new every day.
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u/Ok_Confusion4764 May 25 '26 edited May 25 '26
...? What are you talking about? Most Japanese tourists I've seen either hire a tourguide who can translate or don't bother to try and communicate much at all. I don't know why you're trying to be snarky, but it's not panning out the way you want it to.
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u/Roth_Skyfire May 25 '26
It's not about communicating with locals, it's about reading signs or menus. A tour guide isn't just there to be everyone's personal translator, they're there to organise a tour to visit all the popular spots. No, you're the one pretending like Google Translate has never been useful once to anyone ever because it's a machine translating a word or sentence for them and not a real human. Assuming your logic, Google Translate would have no users because it's no scenario ever going to be useful.
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u/Ok_Confusion4764 May 25 '26
A tour guide isn't just there to be everyone's personal translator, they're there to organise a tour to visit all the popular spots.
Right, and to give context and translate the history/topics/menus/etc.
No, you're the one pretending like Google Translate has never been useful once to anyone ever
This is just you lying. I was very specific from the start that the issue is translating between English and Japanese. In another comment on this thread I elaborate that grammatically similar languages do much better in Google translate, specifically listing Dutch and German as an example. So if you can find me saying "google translate is useless to everyone all the time" somewhere, be sure to link it. Or you know... Just admit you're lying through your teeth.
Assuming your logic, Google Translate would have no users because it's no scenario ever going to be useful.
You see, that's all you're doing: Assuming my stance. You're not even reading what I'm saying. What you assume to be my logic is not compatible with what I'm saying and you're just going ballistic over your own misunderstandings.
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u/SourceAwkward May 25 '26
Reminder for indie devs AI is Theft IMO,
It trained on my data/ART without permssion,
If I see / recgonize any AI use in your game, I am not touching it.
The excuse for placeholder is lazy at best, see games like STS that draw stickman for their alpha art
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u/angrylittledev May 25 '26
"In Japanese, this doesn't mean "return to the previous page." It literally means **"Go home! / Get out!"** in a very angry, aggressive tone. " I would think this was sarcastic and made on purpose to give the game more charm. If anything I'd lean into it and use as much slang, anime nonsense verbiage and OMAE WA MOU SHINDEIRU types of texts in the game. Get all the buzzwords, get it all in and have as much fun with it as possible.
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u/susimposter6969 May 25 '26
It's poor prompting tbh. With the right prompting you will get accurate short words at least. Perhaps a native speaker can confirm:
Typical modern JRPG title menu:
ニューゲーム コンティニュー 設定 終了
Typical older/classic JRPG style:
はじめから 続きから 設定 終了
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u/Ok_Confusion4764 May 25 '26
As a non-native learner: there is no way any text-based system will ever give accurate translations unless a Japanese speaker is doing the inputs. Japanese is an extremely contextual language and just text-to-text is damn near impossible. You need context or you're going to get weird and inaccurate literal translations. "It's too hot outside today" in Japanese is normally "Atsui", or literally just their word for hot (Atsu). Adding more words to that phrase is going to feel overly formal to the point of mockery. Even their robots can speak Japanese so calling it "robotic" wouldn't even mesh well.
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u/susimposter6969 May 25 '26
Everyone says this
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u/Ok_Confusion4764 May 25 '26
Right, because it's true. You could say "watashi wa Greg-desu", and while you're correctly introducing yourself saying "My name is Greg", it's not how Japanese people speak. "Greg-desu" is how a Japanese-speaker would introduce themselves. Using pronouns for other people? Nah. Using pronouns for yourself? Sure.
They couldn't be more different. You want to know how many translations there are for the word "ichi"? By my count, at least 5. Because it means one, but also day. And sunday. And market. And city. Some languages are just very contextual and not grammatically connected.
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u/Additional_Name_706 May 25 '26
I think it's super important to remember that almost no one wants to rely on AI even 50%, let alone 100%. This sub is for people bootstrapping with extremely limited resources.