Navy, army or air force ranks?

[Ionesco]

I was wondering how to translate the different ranks when I ran into problems regarding if it were ranks in the navy, army or air force?

[peko]

I would suggest you use the army/air force ranks as they seem more appropriate. There aren't really any huge differences that aren't blatantly inappropriate. Wouldn't make much sense to translate Major into Örlogskapten (~Naval Commander)

[Kaz]

For the spanish translation I'm trying to extract from context of each character involved. An organization such as PHALANX is most likely going to have members of all branches working together.

Cheers!

[peko]

Um... Ok. I'm either not getting what you are saying or I think you are attempting something that can't be done. Admittedly without having taken a look in the actual files I doubt that there is more than one entry per rank and then there can be no context for each character.

[Kaz]

I went over to wikipedia and looked for the ranks in the different armed forces (US). Then looked at the ranks for each character, and started matching with the ranks for each armed forces branch.

Cdr. Paul Navarre has to be Navy, since Cdr stands for Commander which is used only in the Navy.

Col. Ingrid Falkland is either Army, Marine Corps or Air Force, since Colonel is not used in the Navy. And whichever I chose (at least in spanish) the word would be the same (Coronel).

Similarly, Surgeon Captain Helen Floydd could be any of the four branches, yet use the same word in spanish (Capitán), the only difference being that if she was Navy, she would outrank Navarre (Navy Captain being a higher rank than Commander), and equivalent to Colonel in the other branches, while if she was in any of the other 3 branches, she would be the most junior "named" officer. Note that this last rant does not affect translation at all.

Cdr. (Air) Subakh al-Kuhar was a bit of a problem, since the Air Force does not use Commander as a rank, but as a title. Being a commander, and with the Air Wing added after, one could assume we're dealing with a Colonel or a Brigadier General.

Finally, for the XO I went to the page on Executive Officer to see what it is about and decided to just translate directly (Oficial Ejecutivo) even though I have not ever heard the term used by active military personnel.

In the end, what I think is even more important than using the proper rank translations is to be consistent throughout the different places where those are used. Having someone be a commander in one page a Colonel in another would be a much bigger problem I think.

I expect this makes sense to you and helps you get to a good translation. I have certainly gained a greater appreciation for translators while working on UFO:AI..

Cheers!

[peko]

Oh, I was thinking about the soldiers ranks not the ranks in the mails.
Makes a lot of sense now.

[Kaz]

This should make for some interesting results. Translators who can't understand each other... ROFL

Cheers!

[Reticulan Pilot]

just on a sidenote: how is there Navy involved if any UFO shot over a body of water is deemed to be lost :p or the Navy within PHALANX is doing a lousy job

i really believe that the force is comprised of ground troops and air forces

[Hertzila]

If they give soldiers to PHALANX I guess they are involved.
If UFO crashlands into water it pretty much means the UFO is lost (torn up and submerged). Of course you could use scuba diving/submarines to pick it up but what's the point? You'd have to search countless amounts of seabed/lakebed just to find a few pieces of UFO.

[Kaz]

In establishing an organization such as PHALANX, I would not object to having certain specialist officers drawn from the navy even if the bulk of the operation would be run by the army or air force. Some navy skills could be of great benefit in PHALANX. If building underground bases, you need to minimize the space so as to build faster and cheaper. The navy are specialists regarding how to handle lots of stressed men in these conditions (think submarine). Other specialties would benefit having the best man (or woman) for the job regardless of branch. I'm sure the wounded soldiers coming from a field operation would really appreciate having the best surgeon patch them up, even if it was a navy or air force surgeon. The same could happen for science officers, etc.

Cheers!