Languages in PS

[buddha]

Perhaps there should be a language forum  Some people are having difficulty getting around.  We could announce what languages we speak to help out the new people.

Not sure if it will be picked up on, but it could be handy to know who speaks what.

Mulla : english native, un poco espanol, eine bischen deustch

[Seytra]

The official language of PS is english. If you\'re going to help people get into PS in their native languages, fine, but I\'m totally against the separation based on language that will inevitably happen if people can have the convenience of using their native language, instead of having to practice english. This separation will hamper RP, and be bad for a general mindset that might even culminate in racism towards RL people, that will manifest at least in guilds only accepting people who come from certain language areas, which would not even have any RP value. Furthermore, in todays world, being able to communicate in the english language is almost a requirement, so why not take the opportunity to learn it while doing something fun, where it doesn\'t matter if you make mistakes, than having to do so later under way less pleasant circumstances?

And before you accuse me of not knowing what it is like to be non-native english speaking: I am not natively english speaking, but AMOF, I don\'t see this matter in any way, and will decline to use my native language in PS.

In fact, I think it sucks very badly to have all these non-english content on the internet. It adds to redundancy, and the information I need might simply be written in any of the multiple languages I don\'t understand. If everyone would simply use english if by any means possible, the purpose of the internet, which is communicating information to the broadest base of people possible, would be achieved way better.

[Icefalcon]

I couldn\'t have said it better Saytra.

I\'ve even seen a little of this in-game already. People were RPing in the tavern, and they weren\'t letting anyone wield swords while in the tavern, which I think is appropriate. One person wouldn\'t remove his sword or even answer back because he couldn\'t speak English. It kinda ruined the atmosphere...

[Robinmagus]

Eh? If someone is having trouble with the game. /tell them and help em. Or let them go to help channel and type some random numbers. The advisors will pick up on it and redirect him No. seriously. English only outside of /tell

[Seytra]

Originally posted by Robinmagus
English only outside of /tell

Non-english is OK to overcome problems with the game, i.e., OOC things, but not for IC communication.

That\'s what I meant by saying:

Originally posted by Seytra
If you\'re going to help people get into PS in their native languages, fine

: I\'m not fond of it, but if it is the only way, then so be it.

[buddha]

Wow, that seems incredibly narrow minded to me.  I\'m sorry if the world isn\'t homogenous enough for you.  Maybe we should enforce a blonde-haired blue eyed requirement as well?

These forums are seeming more and more xenophobic lately.  I come from a place that is extremely diverse and I\'ve learned to enjoy being around people who are different from me.  On my street in real life, there are people who only speak Thai or Spanish or (I think) Fillipino.  We smile and wave and go to the same restaurants.  It doesn\'t ruin the atmosphere for me.   I live in a place where the national language is English, but my neighbourhood hardly has any English signs or businesses.  

My point is, let\'s try to enjoy the fact that we get to interact with people from all over the world.  Part of that means accomodating some language barriers, and I\'d like to help in that regard.  I like diversity, even if it does step on your game.

EDIT: Seytra, your signature becomes terribly ironic when combined with your first post.  Re-examine the phrase \"intellectual poverty\".

[Moogie]

Originally posted by Robinmagus
English only outside of /tell

This is wrong, wrong, wrong. English only in /shout and the Help channel. You may use any language you want in /say, /guild, /group, and /tell.

[ramlambmoo]

The official language of PS is english. If you\'re going to help people get into PS in their native languages, fine, but I\'m totally against the separation based on language that will inevitably happen if people can have the convenience of using their native language, instead of having to practice english. This separation will hamper RP, and be bad for a general mindset that might even culminate in racism towards RL people, that will manifest at least in guilds only accepting people who come from certain language areas, which would not even have any RP value. Furthermore, in todays world, being able to communicate in the english language is almost a requirement, so why not take the opportunity to learn it while doing something fun, where it doesn\'t matter if you make mistakes, than having to do so later under way less pleasant circumstances?

And before you accuse me of not knowing what it is like to be non-native english speaking: I am not natively english speaking, but AMOF, I don\'t see this matter in any way, and will decline to use my native language in PS.

In fact, I think it sucks very badly to have all these non-english content on the internet. It adds to redundancy, and the information I need might simply be written in any of the multiple languages I don\'t understand. If everyone would simply use english if by any means possible, the purpose of the internet, which is communicating information to the broadest base of people possible, would be achieved way better.

That has got to be the most narrow minded rant ive ever heard.  Ok, the offical language of PS is english, so that language should be used.  But how can you expect everyone on the internet to use english? Oh, boo hoo you cant read some of the content?  Oh, you must feel so left out being the majority of users who can read most things on the internet.  Why in gods name should everyone be forced to speak english on the inernet? To make it easier for us? WTF? Its called tolerance.  Diversity.  I only speak english, but i understand how bad it is as a language to learn properly.  Linguistically english is one of the worst languages around with the amount of euphemisms, sayings, metaphors etc... plus the largely non-existent spelling rules (well for me ) and the ridiculously felixble grammer system.... Im very happy i was born and english speaker because it is the language out of all in the world i would least like to have to learn. I would support a global language on the internet, but only if it wasnt english, so it would be easy to learn.  Something like Korean, except more european. (latin perhaps? lol).  I say korean because its a very structured, scientific language- everything can be said pretty much one or two ways, and you know exactly what everything means.  Plus it is 100% phonetically correct- what you see written is exactly how you pronounce it, every time.  If we had a global language, it surely would need to be a good language.

[Tarachnul]

:tup: Diversity

let me put it this way... I didnt spend the last four years of high scholl learning french for nothing...

not only this but i atleast consider picking up bits and peices of languages through experience fun...for example im only fluent in english and to an extent in french however i have over the years picked up rudiments of german russian latin greek and spanish... and i enjoyed the experience as such i beleive the use of multiple languages in a game should not only be allowed but encouraged it adds to the realism of the game and lets you learn how to say \"my name is \" in yet another language

sorry if i sound like im ranting

regards

-Tarach

[Harkin]

Sorry here, but I\'m gonna agree with Seytra. You come to America you don\'t speak english you gonna have a hard time. English is used widely in many countries, unlike most other languages which are kept in smaller regions, maybe one or two neighboring countries. I\'m so sorry if America\'s egotisical ass had to go and try to convert everyone to english, but thats the way it is, and our language no matter how hard it may claimed to be, or confusing, is a simple language at heart. You can\'t judge the language on the slang and non-correct terms made up and used everyday, even though I\'ve always wanted to make up a a word.

Anyway, I believe you the majority of PS users English is the native or a very well spoken language, so I think all people need to do is learn it and move on.

[Foresteer]

Originally posted by Harkin
Sorry here, but I\'m gonna agree with Seytra. You come to America you don\'t speak english you gonna have a hard time.

planeshift.IT <--- .it = italy.. they arent coming to america... or even an american game XD plus i can indentify (for about 90% of the time) what i am listening to.. i might not understand it :/

I hope to learn a vast number of languages though probably gonna start with german and japanese (not only the 2 languages i like the best but also the 2 languages that have the coolest stuff on the internet in them) though i hope to at least learn to comprehend if not speak Mandarin, Korean and French (its possible.. each language you learn makes the next easier exponetialy, thats a proven fact) then perhaps Spanish..

Then i\'ll have the languages i want to learn and then the most spoken languaes that other multi-linguals can speak (so if i can speak their native language i can at least speak thier second hopefully )

Anyway it is narrow minded to expect everyone to learn english just for us.. i mean english is the most learned as it has the most technical terms (and therefore the best language for building learning and research) but we cant expect everybody to bend and learn it for us.. as i just stated i am more then willing to bend for others too...

Compromise is the ultimant solution for humanity

EDIT: also unlike what you think its the norm worldwide to at least speak two and then hopefully understand a third or fourth language... so crack a book get a tape and get learning! besides you can talk to your friends and your parents or anybody else wont know what the flip you are talking about now thats fun

[Kiva]

Originally posted by Foresteer
planeshift.IT <--- .it = italy.. they arent coming to america... or even an american game XD

Um, actually that\'s simply because Luca registered it as an italian domain quite a few years ago. It has nothing to do with what language the game uses. And in case you didn\'t know, quite a few of the developers are from America, so if you don\'t like American products, I suggest you dig a deep hole and jump down there, because that\'s as far as you\'ll ever get with such an attitude.

Anyway, you can talk whatever language you wish, be that russian, hebrew, german, african or whatever you wish, but NPCs will always talk english, and if you ever plan on using /shout or the help feature, it is english only. That\'s the only language rules, as Moogie already stated. And of course, these forums are also english only.

You people have to remember that PS is a free game, thus it is in the bottom of the food-chain. We\'ll of course recieve all those people who are too cheap to play P2P games, and a majority of those are also either unwilling to learn english, or unwilling to speak it, and that\'s just something you will all have to learn to live with. There\'s nothing you can do about it, and noone is going to start setting requirements on what languages you have to speak to play a game.

[Caym]

Well, back to buddha\'s question : there\'s a forum and website in french - but I don\'t know about other languages. At some point during MB I seem to remember there was a project to make several websites \"officially\" related to PS in various languages like spanish, german, russian, etc... However to idea seems to have been dropped, but there will be a patch to translate the interface in french, and hopefully in other languages.

But I think it could be a good idea, just to help people get started, or to answer the troubleshooting questions. Specific, technical vocabulary (in this case computer-related or video games related) is the most difficult part of a foreign language to handle - it\'s not something you learn at school. But of course this would only be for people who _can_ speak english to a certain extend, but could feel most confortable using their mother tongue for technical of gameplay questions/problems.
As for the others, those who can\'t speak english at all, well there\'s nothing anyone can do, they\'ll just have to get over it since the esperanto thing didn\'t really work

But let\'s bless the use of english as an international language while we can, because soon, it won\'t be english anymore, but chinese. And that\'s a loooot more difficult to learn
(oh and Seytra, thanks for making my day with your hilarious post - and let\'s all boo the mean guys who\'re stubbornly unwilling to learn english. I mean it\'s not like you can\'t learn a whole language in 2 days, is it ? And I don\'t see why people would want to take this time to learn another language anyway... Tss how stupid they are)

[Moogie]

Speaking of websites and communities for non-English players, does anyone else find all the Zelphirien people are like this hidden, seperated community with almost no connection to the rest of us? I hate that. I don\'t want our community split because people don\'t want to mix and speak a common language.

[lynx_lupo]

First, english is one of the easier languages to learn. Sure it doesn\'t have much rules, but it also doesn\'t have sex, \"bending\" (and numerical) modifications to nouns and verbs (sorry for the bad english ). If you want something hard, learn hungarian or one of the chinese <-.

Secondly, the interface is easy to grasp, even if you don\'t understand the terms. I have no problem at all with it being translated, but would someone who doesn\'t understand the almost basic wordings of the interface be able to understand the complex game material? I very much doubt it. Given the roleplaying aim of ps, they couldn\'t contribute much to the atmosphere or gameplay.
So following my thread, they\'re isolated by default, unless they group with their like. But those groups are still isolated - take moogie\'s example.

For me, this isn\'t about xenophobia and narrowmindedness at all. I see english as the yliakum general language and all others as alien. So it would bother me if someone spoke slovenian or finnish in public, to some extent - I can tolerate aliens, but once there are too many, you move out etc (it\'s hard to live somewhere where there is no communication).
However, if someone spoke gobble, vodalian or some other language from the setting, that\'d be perfectly normal and acceptable.