Final Fantasy V Translation Notes
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by Mark Rosa (mrrosa@eden.rutgers.edu)
OK, here's the unofficial translation of FFV that everyone's been waiting for... well, maybe a
few people have. ^_^ A few things you should know before reading it...
* Things in italics, or in brackets and parentheses, are my comments and aren't actually said in the game.
Names of speakers are in bold.
* There were a few times where I decided to keep Japanese words intact rather that use (possibly
awkward) translations. Keep in mind that this is a *translation*, not a complete rewrite; Ted Woolsey and
the other official Square translators have a lot of freedom to change things and "invent" words so that things
sound good. For example, in the conversion of FF6j to the American FF3, "madou" (magic-leading,
roughly) became "Magitek" and "genjuu" (mythical beast) became "Esper". But since my version of FF5 is
unofficial, I was reluctant to create words like that and so I just left Japanese terms in. Other times I used
words from other FF-series games which seemed to fit, such as "Hikari no Senshi" = "Light Warriors"
(FF1). Just for reference:
"Mu" = "void", or "nothingness"
"Hiryuu" = "flying dragon"
* Japanese differs from English in that there are a lot more variations in speech styles depending on the age
and sex of the speaker. So often it's possible to identify who's talking without actually stating who it is. In
FFV, there are many instances where they just have an open quote and then the words, without a name in
front. But in the English version I always put the name of the speaker in there, just to clear up any possible
confusion. (This also means I may have been wrong once or twice... ^^) When there were unnamed
characters, such as in towns, I either numbered them or described them.
* Lastly, since I tried to stay fairly literal with the translation, the dialogue might not be as lively as in
FF3US... at times it might read more like the American FF2. For example, Exdeath (the main villain) is
really boring compared to, say, Kefka or even Golbez. I thought of breathing more life into his lines but
decided against it because I wanted to stay true to the original, even though at times I put in some
Americanisms when it didn't seem to change the overall meaning. But I figured that since many of the
players are going to have some Japanese ability, I'd better use literal equivalents. But I admit, it does make
things sound a little bit weird occasionally.
* Thanks go out to Tat Nakao for helping with general stuff and some strategy, May for helping me get
the "music box" scene in Lix (the dialogue moves really fast so that the scene's length lines up with the
music), Nora Stevens for the nifty border on this page, and my friend Josh for sitting patiently while I
translated all this stuff for him. (At first he would come down to my place and play while I read the
dialogue... then I figured, "Why not type this and do the world a nice service?" ^_^) Also thanks go out to
several other people, who are forever immortalized in the names of the townspeople in Lix. ^_^;
Let me know if there are any errors in here, and have fun!!
World 1
World 2
World 3
--Mark
January 7, 1997
Questions? Comments? Contact me at mrrosa@eden.rutgers.edu! 
