The original English translation is an accurate translation of the words, but it’s gotten the intent wrong. This is the problem described in the Redundant Translations article from Legends of Localizations. In the example above, Cloud says he doesn’t know what リユニオン is. This is the English word reunion in katakana. Using the English word makes it sound special. It has a similar effect to capitalizing in English, which is what the translators did. But the determiners a, an, and the don’t exist in Japanese and translators have to infer what’s appropriate from context. In this case, changing one word (a → the) makes Cloud sound like less of an ignoramus. Translators can also insert other determiners or punctuation if they would help clarity: I don’t even know what this “Reunion” is. Or change it significantly, if it still fits the surrounding dialogue: What Reunion are you talking about? Preserving intent is more important than preserving the sentences themselves.

I was curious about “cool”. Here there’s a lot of leeway, because Cloud uses the word いい (ii) which means good but can be translated as numerous words with a connotation of good. Cloud follows it with な (na), which adds emphasis in a masculine way, so cool fits.

うるせぇ (urusee) is an abbreviation of うるさい (urusai) and means shut up. ウダウダ (udauda) is an onomatopoeic word like blah blah blah. He says, literally, [unspecified subject] speaks blah blah blah [masculine emphasis]. イスにすわって (isunisuwatte) means sit down on [that/the] chair, おとなしく (otonashiku) means meekly, obediently, or submissively, and して (shite) is another imperative meaning do. Finally, ろ (ro) is short for たろう (tarou) or てやろう (teyarou). It implies an order you would give to inferiors. Taken literally the sentence is close to Sit down in the chair and do it meekly, inferiors. A prime example of why you shouldn’t do word for word translations.

I like the original US translation. Cid’s tone is just right, it’s natural-sounding native English, and the intent is preserved.

No liberties taken here. Palmer really does want lard in his tea. He has a repeated laugh of うひょ (uhyo) or うひょひょ (uhyohyo). It’s like a titter. I chose hee hee but the original English gave him a catch-phrase of hey-hey.

In this case I’m not a fan of the original English. Hold on to your drawers is natural and fitting, but the follow-up sounds odd to my ear. Regardless, it’s faithful; another example where I thought they might be playing up Cid’s crudeness, but he really is this ridiculous in the original.

Now let’s look at my favorite line in the whole game:

It’s a mistranslation, of course. But in another context, it would be a perfectly valid translation of the sentence in question.

The issue is once again translating something Japanese doesn’t care about into something English cares about obsessively. Japanese doesn’t require you to specify whether nouns are singular or plural. So when Tifa says she doesn’t understand that black cape, it could also mean those black capes. As in, why do they keep seeing mysterious, non-Sephiroth-y people wearing black capes? And we can infer this interpretation with certainty, based on two things: 1) Tifa’s next sentence immediately talks about them. 2) Tifa is not a blithering idiot.

This is why Japanese doesn’t require specifying plural. Context usually makes it clear, and when it’s unclear, it probably doesn’t matter.

The PC version changed this line to I've never heard of Black Materia… Which is what you would probably guess the line is supposed to say, if you didn’t check the JP script. It’s probably for the better but I’ll always love this line.