Apparently, Google Translate isn’t just good for translating websites. You can ask it to translate StarCraft II unit names into Chinese.
This little experiment all started when I learned that Blizzard released a Chinese-language version of StarCraft II in Asia. The version is fully localized and dubbed in Mandarin. And when I say fully, I mean ever road sign and background poster has been redone in Chinese. The developers spared no expense in their attempt to penetrate the China market.
Before you ask, there is no Japanese version. Japan remains the land of the consoles and handhelds. However, there is a Korean version. It makes sense because everybody in South Korea with a PC has played StarCraft. And if you’re living in South Korea, you’ve probably socially connected to somebody who at one point or another has contemplated becoming a professional gamer.
Anyway, on to the translations:
Apparently, the term Zergling translates to xiao gou, which means little dog. Anyone familiar with StarCraft II know that the Zerglings are not dogs. But I seriously doubt the millions of Chinese gamers playing in cafes care about the lore. For those who do care about the lore, Zerglings are evolved from the Zz’gash dune runners. (I had to search for it on the StarCraft Wiki.)
Yes, you can even translate Raynor into Chinese. It translates to basically a three-syllable phonetic spelling of Raynor.
What about the Mutalisk? It’s called fei long, which means flying dragon.
The Protoss are known as shenzu, or god-race. If you’re wondering what the Terrans are called, they’re renzu (human race). The Zerg are known as chongzu (insects).
Anyway, I thought it was impressive that Google Translate understood the contextual meaning behind the StarCraft II terms and translated them correctly. Of course, I didn’t have success with every term. For example, when I searched for ‘marine,’ the translation in Chinese was for ocean. I had to search for ‘terran marine’ to get the correct translation. But that’s to be expected.
Before I go, I did have one final observation to share. In the regular English version of the game, the SCVs and Marines can be disrespectful to you when you give them orders. “What do you want?” “Alright, I’m going.” They seem downright hostile to the idea of having to work. In contrast, the SCVs and Marines in the Chinese version sound happy and excited to work when you order them around. It surprised me at first. But after thinking about it for a bit, I can understand why the change was made.
If I were an overzealous government regulatory committee member, I’d be pretty skeptical about exposing six million people to a game where the most common worker units endlessly complain about working. I’m not saying that the decision is right or even that such a discussion ever took place. But I wouldn’t be surprised if the developers took that into consideration when they localized the game.
By the way, here’s the game’s installer recap in Mandarin.
