The translation of ALL languages in Bedrock Edition is of low quality.
Let me take Simplified Chinese for example, while other languages have the same situation. (p.s: The following zh-cn problems have nothing to do with Minecraft China Version)
To name a few wrong translations in Simplified Chinese: (confirmed in 26.1)
Key | Origin English | Current Simplified Chinese | Suggested Simplified Chinese | Reason |
item.spawn_egg.entity.agent.name | Agent Spawn Egg | 代理机器人刷怪蛋 | 智能体刷怪蛋 | the current one means agent robot spawn egg |
item.chest_boat.bamboo.name | Bamboo Raft with Chest | 带宝箱的的竹筏 | 运输竹筏 | inconsistency with chest |
itemGroup.name.bars | Bars | 条块 | 栏杆 | the current one means stripe block |
item.spawn_egg.entity.blaze.name | Blaze Spawn Egg | 烈焰刷怪蛋 | 烈焰人刷怪蛋 | inconsistency |
tile.brick_block.name | Bricks | 砖 | 红砖块 | inconsistency |
item.bundle | Bundle | 同捆包 | 收纳袋 | mistranslated as the bundle of marketplace |
tile.calibrated_sculk_sensor.name | Calibrated Sculk Sensor | 已校准潜声感测器 | 校频幽匿感测体 | inconsistency |
item.canBreak | Can break: | 会损坏： | 能破坏： | the current one means will break |
tile.carved_pumpkin.name | Carved Pumpkin | 雕刻过的南瓜 | 雕刻南瓜 | the current one means carving pumpkin |
item.chainmail_chestplate.name | Chainmail Chestplate | 链甲胸甲 | 锁链胸甲 | the current one means chainmail armor chestplate |
item.chainmail_helmet.name | Chainmail Helmet | 链甲头盔 | 锁链头盔 | the current one means chainmail armor helmet |
item.chainmail_leggings.name | Chainmail Leggings | 链甲护腿 | 锁链护腿 | the current one means chainmail armor leggings |
itemGroup.name.chains | Chains | 链条 | 锁链 | the current one means chain-link |
Clock | 钟 | 时钟 | Bell and Clock should use different translations | |
Crops | 小麦 | 小麦植株 | the current one means wheat | |
entity.ender_crystal.name | Ender Crystal | 末影水晶 | 末地水晶 | inconsistency with end |
entity.fireworks_rocket.name | Firework Rocket | 焰火火箭 | 烟花火箭 | inconsistency with java edition |
Firework Rocket | 焰火火箭 | 烟花火箭 | inconsistency with java edition | |
tile.frosted_ice.name | Frosted Ice | 冰霜 | 霜冰 | the current one means ice frost |
entity.happy_ghast.name | Happy Ghast | 善念恶魂 | 快乐恶魂 | the current one means goodwill ghast |
item.spawn_egg.entity.happy_ghast.name | Happy Ghast Spawn Egg | 善念恶魂刷怪蛋 | 快乐恶魂刷怪蛋 | the current one means goodwill ghast spawn egg |
item.spawn_egg.entity.husk.name | Husk Spawn Egg | 尸傀刷怪蛋 | 尸壳刷怪蛋 | inconsistency |
item.banner.illager | Illager | 灾厄村民 | 灾厄 | the current one means omen |
Lantern | 灯 | 灯笼 | the current one means light | |
item.leather_chestplate.name | Leather Tunic | 皮革胸甲 | 皮革外套 | the current one means leather chestplate |
tile.light_block.name | Light | 浅色 | 光源方块 | the current one means shallow |
entity.lightning_bolt.name | Lightning Bolt | 闪电 | 闪电束 | the current one means lightning |
Milk Bucket | 牛奶桶 | 奶桶 | generalise cow milk bucket to milk bucket | |
itemGroup.name.mobEgg | Mob Eggs | 生物蛋 | 刷怪蛋 | inconsistency |
tile.nether_brick.name | Nether Bricks | 下界砖 | 下界砖块 | inconsistency |
tile.nether_wart_block.name | Nether Wart Block | 下界疣方块 | 下界疣块 | inconsistency |
feature.monument | Ocean Monument | 海底遗迹 | 海底神殿 | may be confuses with ocean ruins |
tile.packed_mud.name | Packed Mud | 填充泥浆 | 泥坯 | the current one means fill mud |
item.chest_boat.pale_oak.name | Pale Oak Boat with Chest | 苍白橡树运输船 | 苍白橡木运输船 | the current one means pale oak tree boat with chest |
tile.beacon.primary.pocket | Primary | 主要的 | 主要效果 | may cause misunderstanding |
itemGroup.name.products | Products | 产品 | 产物 | the current one means goods |
entity.chest_raft.name | Raft with Chest | 带宝箱的的竹筏 | 运输竹筏 | inconsistency with chest |
tile.bed.respawnSet | Respawn point set | 重生点设置 | 已设置重生点 | the current one means respawn point settings |
tile.respawn_anchor.respawnSet | Respawn point set | 重生点设置 | 已设置重生点 | the current one means respawn point settings |
feature.ruined_portal | Ruined Portal | 破坏的传送门 | 废弃传送门 | the current one means destroyed portal |
Sculk | 潜声 | 幽匿块 | at tile.sculk.name inconsistency with sculk | |
itemGroup.name.sculk | Sculk | 潜声 | 幽匿 | at tile.sculk.name inconsistency with sculk |
tile.sculk_sensor.name | Sculk Sensor | 潜声感测器 | 幽匿感测体 | indicates that sculk sensor produces sounds instead vibration |
tile.beacon.secondary.pocket | Secondary | 辅助 | 辅助效果 | may cause misunderstanding |
Sheep | 羊 | 绵羊 | the current one means caprini with may be confused with goat | |
entity.shulker_bullet.name | Shulker Bullet | 潜影贝子弹 | 潜影弹 | inconsistency with java edition |
tile.soul_lantern.name | Soul Lantern | 灵魂灯 | 灵魂灯笼 | inconsistency |
tile.tall_dry_grass.name | Tall Dry Grass | 高干草丛 | 高枯草丛 | inconsistency |
feature.trail_ruins | Trail Ruins | 小径废墟 | 古迹废墟 | the current one means path ruins |
feature.trial_chambers | Trial Chambers | 试炼室 | 试炼密室 | the current one means trial room |
feature.missingno | Unknown Feature | 未知功能 | 未知结构 | the current one means unknown function |
item.armor.upgrade | Upgrade: | 升级： | 已有升级： | the current one means "to upgrade" |
item.spawn_egg.entity.vex.name | Vex Spawn Egg | 猥傀刷怪蛋 | 恼鬼刷怪蛋 | inconsistency |
item.spawn_egg.entity.warden.name | Warden Spawn Egg | 循声守卫刷怪蛋 | 监守者刷怪蛋 | inconsistency |
item.warped_door.name | Warped Door | 诡异门 | 诡异木门 | inconsistency |
tile.warped_door.name | Warped Door | 诡异门 | 诡异木门 | inconsistency |
tile.warped_fungus.name | Warped Fungus | 诡异真菌 | 诡异菌 | inconsistency |
item.warped_fungus_on_a_stick.name | Warped Fungus on a Stick | 诡异真菌钓竿 | 诡异菌钓竿 | inconsistency |
item.warped_hanging_sign.name | Warped Hanging Sign | 翘曲悬挂告示牌 | 悬挂式诡异木告示牌 | inconsistency |
tile.warped_wart_block.name | Warped Wart Block | 诡异疣方块 | 诡异疣块 | inconsistency |
tile.wither_rose.name | Wither Rose | 凋零玫瑰 | 凋灵玫瑰 | inconsistency with the given context |
itemGroup.name.wood | Woods | 树木 | 木头 | the current one means trees |
entity.zombie_villager_v2.name | Zombie Villager | 怪人村民 | 僵尸村民 | inconsistency with zombie |
And, I recently noticed that a Bedrock Marketplace translation survey was carried out in Win10 Xbox Insider. Yes, someone did take notice of this problem, however a recently released Marketplace content "Original Bed Wars" was translated to something with pornographic meaning. (We all know that "Bed War" (起床战争) is a proper noun, but your translators don't, and translated as "床上大战").
Update: After 2 years this was partially resolved, but there are still half of "bed war" contents like "BED WARS NOOBS" that use the wrong translation.
The aforementioned wrong translations are only a small proportion of the whole mess. Just fixing those translation does not solve the whole problem.
A more detaied list of unsynced translation can be found on Chinese Minecraft Wiki
I've made a corrected version of Chinese Simplified translation at MCLangCN , if you want a full list of the poor translation of Chinese, just head there and compare the current one with what I have corrected.
There's also another project called Translations for Minecraft (Bedrock) , which is created by Russian proofreader of Minecraft Java Edition Crowdin project, and consists of more languages. It has 1.95M downloads on curseforge and 500K on Google Play, so it's self-evident that masses of players are unsatisfied with the translation of Bedrock Edition.
And this is a widely affected problem among ALL languages provided in Bedrock. To list a few bug reports (also consider their duplicates):
Brazilian Portuguese: MCPE-50174
Simplified Chinese: MCPE-51997
Dutch: MCPE-35098
German: MCPE-12142
Greek: MCPE-38541
Japanese: MCPE-15805
Korean: MCPE-233978
Polish: MCPE-22243
Russian: MCPE-40591
Turkish: MCPE-21719
Most of the translation bug reports have been unattended and were marked as resolved since they hadn't been updated for 1 year+.
As a game played by millions of users, Mojang and Microsoft should care more about user experience of localization.
The translation problem started from Pocket Edition 0.x version and is being continuously reported, but it's Bedrock 26.1 today and the problem is still not solved.
It's weird that you have assigned the work to those whose translation work is even worse than an online machine translator's.
And don't forget that Bedrock translation is used in Minecraft Education Edition and Minecraft Earth. (And their exclusive contents are exactly translated by the same group of people as Bedrock Edition, inferred from the language files.)
Possible solutions:
1. For a temporary solution, adopt the aforementioned translation from community-based project.
2. Make translation of Bedrock a subproject of Minecraft Crowdin Projcet so that experienced proofreaders of Java Edition can have access to them. (Recommended)
3. Make Translations for Minecraft (Bedrock) an official project and use translation in it (which is also contributed by the community).
4. Assign the work of translating Bedrock Edition to another group of translators. (As far as I know, translator of other Microsoft projects are far better.)
Translation is a big barrier for the synchronization of Java Edition and Bedrock Edition. I hope this issue can make you attach importance to this long-lasting problem.
(P.S. I personally think this maybe the most difficult problem the solve during the contents sync between Java and Bedrock.)
Linked issues
is duplicated by 32
MCPE-182490
The Chinese Simplified Chinese translation of Bedrock Edition has serious rigor issues
Resolved
MCPE-180615
Sniffer is translated as sniffer
Resolved
MCPE-179465
The Translate bug
Resolved
MCPE-172770
Simplified Chinese translet error
Resolved
MCPE-161698
About the Chinese translation of new items in version 1.19
Resolved
relates to 2
Attachments
Comments 75
Why not use the translation version on Crowdin? That version is pretty good and favored by we players.
I had made a resource pack to modify the terrible translation. I thought everything is OK. But after a huge update, I realized that I have to do that work again. Oh. Sometimes I just feel like a fool when I seeing these wrong translations. We do need a correct and official translation, please.
The worse thing that this translations is used in Education Edition too. How it could be, that EDUCATION edition contains spelling errors? I can't believe that teachers didn't provide feedback about it.
I have no idea why Bedrock Edition don't use the same translation or the same translating way to Java Edition. That's not funny to play the game with such bad machine translation.