I tried searching for this but couldn't find anything - if it exists, it's buried below tons of threads on the language skill.
For those of us who doesn't have English as their native language or live in an English-speaking country, in what language do you play? (Or for that matter, for those who just choose to play in another language for some other reason.)
Do you play with a translation of the game, is there an official or some 3pp or have you translated it yourself? Do you play in English? Do you play in another language but use English game terms?
Is there anything in particular you have noticed when playing in another language?
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I'm a swede myself and play in Swedish when off-line. While there's no official translation, an amateur (Mikael Börjesson) has made an excellent translation of most of D&D 3.0/3.5 so we use that, adding stuff as we go along. When I started playing about eleven years ago, we used Swedish with English game terms but it feels really dorkish and awkward so today, I'd actually prefer to play in English only to playing in "swenglish".
I've noticed a lot of translations of names and places also feel cheesy and goofy in Swedish - the words are often both ugly (because not the same words are pretty in Swedish and English) and feel like something out of a childs story (and not in a good way). This is especially true for compound words, and even more so when the words are for races, places and people. Those often can not be translated, so you have to rename it and mostly skip compound words.
I've also noticed it's sometimes hard to translate, because English has more words than Swedish. I'm no linguistic, though I've got a good vocabulary in Swedish (dabbling in spoken word and so on) and a decent one in English, but it's hard to get a different word for everything. Luckily, it doesn't really matter if both the Wizard class and the Magician archetype are called "Trollkarl" in Swedish, since they're not in the same game, usually.
A few words are far more beautiful in one language or the other though; I really like the word "ranger" but dislike the closest you can get in Swedish, "jägare". "Enchantress" is a bland and boring word to me, but "Besvärjerska" is wonderful.
So, what's your experiences?
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I live in Poland, and I play off-line in Polish. We use a weird mix of languages. I don't translate proper names, I don't translate spell/feat names (mostly because everybody grew up on Baldur's Gate/Neverwinter Nights, and knows the English names by heart), I translate magic item names (mostly), class names and features are a mix. Monsters are always a headache, especially all the deadline monsters. Demons and Daemons drive me up the wall, because both sound the same in Polish.
AoOs, for some strange reasons I don't remember, are known as "plaskacz" which is the Polish word for a "b&*&$slap". Don't ask, but at least everybody understands it and the word is shorter than the official Polish translation ("atak okazyjny").
We(me and my group) usually play in portuguese using english terms, most words doesnt look good in portuguese, we use the original core rulebooks in english too, some newer members in our group sometimes uses a portuguese translated word and are instantly repressed for that hahahahaah, like you said, it usually sounds like something from a childs story... Some words are kinda close though and we use them in our native language like "elf" and "elfo"(or elfa, the a female elf).
By the way, im from Brasil(Brazil in english).
I'm from Germany and we actually do have a German version of Pathfinder , but I get my book in English. The main reason is that I don't like the German publisher very much. But I used to have the German 3.5 books. This is why we are using some sort of mixed language right now, depending on who we're playing with.
We speak German but mostly use English terms because it's easier to match it with our rulebooks and charactersheets. We do know the translations for most spells and feats by now, but sometimes it's still cumbersome to find the right page in an English book if you only have the German name for something. So we try to avoid this by using English terms except for those feats and spells where we just got used to the German names in 3.5 ;)
I started getting some adventures from paizo which is a bit cumbersome too. Sometimes I take some notes regarding translations when preparing the adventure, sometimes I'm making it up as I go. I often keep English namens if they sound better or can't be translated properly (like 'Jimes "short-change" Iggins' or whatever his name was, from Crypt of the Everflame). Also rhymes are somehow hard to translate if you try to keep the meaning... so again, depending on who I'm playing with I just give the english texts to my players and let them figure out what is meant. At any rate, whatever they're trying to understand ingame could be in a foreign languag (like elven) too ;)
We play in another language (except with english-speaking friends) but use english terms (and I strongly encourage players I introduce to buy english books).
As I'm currently in Switzerland we sometimes use swiss-german as ingame talk, and german as out-of-game talk, tough it sometimes inverses during play.
I have to admit that we don't roleplay that much, probably because such talk sounds really weird when using the (mine: luxembourgish) mother-tongue.
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I'm in the same boat with my mates as Gorbacz is. We live and play in Finland and grew up with those same games, so naturally our gaming jargon is a mixture of translated terms and English names spells and feats. Power Attack is Power Attack, despite the translation being an easy and not nearly as off-putting as some place names and class names when translated. It's just easier to remember and comes so much more naturally in the midst of combat. There's still only a couple of seconds in a round!
In most cases when translating Golarion proper nouns and names in general we look for older Finnish words and archaic expressions to make the those instances of Finnish on a map or on the tongue of some rugged mountain scout sound that more traditional and magical. Lampblack River is "Nokivuo" (or "Sootflow"), since the actual direct translation would be clumsy and difficult to remember. Riddleport is "Rätselpori", which harkends back to the old name for a very important city in the hstory of Finland - Rääveli, or Tallinn. The Red Mantis organization is "Punainen Sirkka"(or "Red Cricket"), which is kind of sad, but since "sirkka" is a common word stem for a insect from the mantidoe order and the direct translation of the praying mantis is a horribly long word("rukoilijasirkka"), we can't do much, but cringe when hearing the name of the organization. "Mantis" as such is a great word, it immediately brings to mind the deadly ambush predator we all know. We don't have it, unfortunately and "sirkka" just reminds me of "Samu Sirkka" or Jiminy Cricket. :P
Nasty business, dat translaion.
I play in danish. We intermingle danish and English terms freely as the mood strikes us.
I would loathe a danish translation of the game though. That's terrible. I still shudder at the thought of the translated manual for Icewind Dale.
Urgh.
We have the same issue with compound-words as you do in Swedish, I'm sure. Titles and such can be hard (if not impossible) to translate so it doesn't sound stupid (it made Exalted paricular difficult because everyone has impossible-to-translate names).
So yeah, I prefer to keep the game as written.
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Hi !
Luckily for us (French), Black book editions translated Pathfinder in French (so was 3.5 but not by the same company). So most of the time we use the french translation for rules thingys. Given that I play with a french canadian colleague through skype i sometimes use english words.
Now for the names, I realise that the English names and places are usually self explanatory. I don't know if i'm clear.
A place called the GreenHill forest is quite self descriptive. In french it usually doesn't sound that good in French.
So from the sound of it I sometimes translate it, sometimes don't. In general once you use the translated word or an equivalent, it finally doesn't sound that bad. You just need to get used to it.
"Sandpoint" in RoTRL was translated to "Pointesable" and finally it's not that bad.
I live in Norway, but we primarily play in English since one of our group is from America.
I live in Spain, near Barcelona.
Our group generally uses Catalan for OOC and Spanish for IC.
Regarding PF we use the English editions of the rulebooks and APs.
Those in the group with a good grasp of english translate on the fly.
We do not translate names of people or places. Feats and spells are usually referenced in english too.
@Gorbacz.
Interestingly enough, "plaskacz" is very similar to the word "plasca", which I've heard used in both catalan and spanish as an onomatopoeia for a slap.
Maybe we're beginning to steal words from Polish now.
I am german and we mostly use the original english material. We had one player in our group who had the german core rulebook, but in my opinion that is a real mess. I mean, seriously, a book which has the exact same page count in english and german, how can you expect it to be any good?
I have played 3.5 in the german version for a long time, but even then we had a portion of the books in english. So I do know most of the german words for feats and stuff, but I mostly ignore them.
When we play a written adventure (as we are now, playing Kingmaker), I sometimes paraphrase the "read-aloud-texts", but as we all have a decent grasp of the english language, many times I just read them, especially if I find them really evocative or fun. Names are never translated, only if someone doesn't get a meaning that way, but after the explanation it stays as in the original.
At some point, as a test of my language-skills, I would really love to play in a english-speaking game, but since I don't like the idea of online gaming, that's probably not going to happen anytime soon...
I live in an English-speaking country, and my group all speak English in game...
Except for Seventh Sea. Everyone who speaks a second (or first) non-English language plays a character that speaks it, causing no end to the hilarity when characters don't have every language (7th Sea has no "common").
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I'm curious as to what some of the posters here mean when they say that the translations sound too much like kid's fairy tales. Could someone elaborate on that? Frankly, a lot of the game sounds a bit like kids fairy tales in English, too - I guess though that kind of language has been "reclaimed" a bit by the way Tolkien found new ways to use it. (just a theory)
For reference, here's another thread on the same topic:
Non-english gamers, in what language do you play Pathfinder?
I like hearing what people do in other parts of the world. The board member "faustusnotes" has a blog where he discusses his experiences playing Pathfinder in Japanese, for instance.
We play in Swedish with a lot of English terms strewn in. I don't mind the "dorkishness". It's all jargon anyway.
Like many others I find that any translation sounds outright silly, including the one stringburka mentioned.
I live in Poland, and I play off-line in Polish. We use a weird mix of languages. I don't translate proper names, I don't translate spell/feat names (mostly because everybody grew up on Baldur's Gate/Neverwinter Nights, and knows the English names by heart), I translate magic item names (mostly), class names and features are a mix. Monsters are always a headache, especially all the deadline monsters. Demons and Daemons drive me up the wall, because both sound the same in Polish.
Mostly same here. Some spell and feat names we do translate ('fireball' is mentioned almost as often as 'ognista kula' or 'kula ognia' and no one says 'Improved Initiative' but 'Ulepszona Inicjatywa').
Monstres are usually weird mix. No one would say 'dragon' - it is 'smok' but rarely anyone mentions 'obserwator' instead mostly using 'beholder' and so on, and so on. Monsters that have names estabilished in Polish fantasy tradition are generally namd in Polish, others are spawn of linguistic chaos.AoOs, for some strange reasons I don't remember, are known as "plaskacz" which is the Polish word for a "b!~%!slap". Don't ask, but at least everybody understands it and the word is shorter than the official Polish translation ("atak okazyjny").
We kept 'atak okazyjny'. Never occured to us to use 'plaskacz'.
@Gorbacz.
Interestingly enough, "plaskacz" is very similar to the word "plasca", which I've heard used in both catalan and spanish as an onomatopoeia for a slap.
Maybe we're beginning to steal words from Polish now.
It might be conicidence. "Plask" and "plusk" is Polish onomatopeia-derived word for slap/splat and splash respectively. "Plaskacz" comes from the first and refers to slap (usually on the back of the head or nape).
I'm curious as to what some of the posters here mean when they say that the translations sound too much like kid's fairy tales. Could someone elaborate on that? Frankly, a lot of the game sounds a bit like kids fairy tales in English, too - I guess though that kind of language has been "reclaimed" a bit by the way Tolkien found new ways to use it. (just a theory)
I'd say not so much like fairy tales as in children stories as told by children. As in the words used are often clunky, non efficient and overly descriptive.
For my part, being french canadian, we play in french, but favor the use of books in english and do not translate coined terms and names (like Power Attack, trip attacks, vital strike and such), but do translate generic terms when it is easy to do, and the word or expression stays about the same lenght. It ends up being some kind of frenglish. For instance, we will probably say mur de feu ou mur de fer instead of wall of fire or wall of iron, and might just as well say fireball or boule de feu, and magic missile or projectile magique. But we will always use the term "flaming burst sword", not wanting to have to say "épée d'explosion de feu" or something like that.
The reason most people I know use english books even tough they play mostly in french is twofold (threefold even). Books in english tend to be cheaper, somethimes by a good 20% margin versus the translated ones.
Also, translations tend to be clunky and over-descriptive, and composite words can become a real mouthful. Finally, tranlations are usually made in France, and some expressions used there, even if they are generally understood, might sound even more alien to our ears that their english counterpart.
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I find all language barriers can be overcome by repeating anything misunderstood LOUDLY..
...aaaaAND sssSLOoooooWLY.
I'm curious as to what some of the posters here mean when they say that the translations sound too much like kid's fairy tales. Could someone elaborate on that? Frankly, a lot of the game sounds a bit like kids fairy tales in English, too - I guess though that kind of language has been "reclaimed" a bit by the way Tolkien found new ways to use it. (just a theory)I think what they mean is that a direct translation leads to similar phrasings you would find in a childs book. For example
"The sadistic, corrupt sorcerer, Vorlus, was the one responsible for the devilish scheme."
Might translate in another langauge to..
"The bad, no longer nice magic man Vorlus, was up to no good dealings."
So even though all of the words are synonomous a direct translation leads to "Baby Talk" as things can be phrased very differently in each language.
In one of the previous threads, KaeYoss noted that the 3E German translation of "Blackguard" was "Finsterer Streiter", where finsterer means something like "sinister" or "gloomy".
"Gloomy Champion" sounds like someone the Care Bears would fight. ;-)
Ah, "Finsterer Streiter" could be translated as "Dark Guard" as well. If you look up "finster" in an online dictionary (LEO, for example) there are nearly a dozen translations.
Being German, I use the English books because I like to get them as soon as possible. The translations strike me a bit clumsy, as well.
However, we speak German and use all the English terms, sometimes going so far to mix both languages, applying German grammar to English words ("Ich caste magic missile auf den Troll." "Dein Wizard wird von dem Mite gegrappelt"). That often sounds weird, but it works.
When we play a module or a society scenario we read the text passages in English. Some things are translated into German, some not.
And I still think it's funny that "Whippoorwill", Pharasma's holy bird is called "Ziegenmelker" in German, what would roughly translate as "Goat Milker".
And I still think it's funny that "Whippoorwill", Pharasma's holy bird is called "Ziegenmelker" in German, what would roughly translate as "Goat Milker".
Because there is Slavish myth (probably known to Germanic people as well) that Nightjars drank milk from the goats. Actually, its Latin name caprimulgus means goat milker. The same goes for Polish name as well.
I am an english speaker from the U.S. but I am learning japanese. I played my last LARP character speaking mostly in japanese, had a few other people understanding me by the end of the second event. I made a japanese character sheet back in 3.5, and filled it in in japanese.
I mostly play in Norwegian although all game related language is kept in English and it would just make it more confusing by translating it. Adventure read-aloud-text I either translate on the fly, or paste the text as-is (we play through Fantasy Grounds).
In another group we play in English due to varied nationalities.
I've tried to get some Korean friends to try too, but they're being shy about this unknown thing called pen-and-paper RPG. ;)
I'm curious as to what some of the posters here mean when they say that the translations sound too much like kid's fairy tales. Could someone elaborate on that? Frankly, a lot of the game sounds a bit like kids fairy tales in English, too - I guess though that kind of language has been "reclaimed" a bit by the way Tolkien found new ways to use it. (just a theory)
1) Names, especially ones made of compounded-words, always sound more exotic in a foreign language than their translated equivalent. Period :) Those who don't see that it sounds just as childish in English simply don't master the language well enough to notice it.
2) English takes compounded-word relatively well. That's one of the strengths of English. This "ware" has no physical hard part to it; then it's a software! Some languages are more capricious in ways that words can be compounded or juxtaposed.
Each language has its strengths and the true art of translating is all about transposing the strength of one into the strength of the other without loosing the intention nor the meaning. But something ALWAYS get lost in translation, even when something has been gained from that translation.
'findel
I am a American...we of course play in English( though I have seen people use other languages to represent in game languages...). But this is a very educational and interesting thread.
I never realized...
1) That people had to play the game in English...I just figured the books were pretty much translated...
2) I never realize things lost in translation had that major of a impact.
I have learned things about language so thank you all for that.
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I live in Serbia, and we play in serbian, and, of course use english terms for anything game related, because translated to serbian, it just sounds completely retarded. Actualy, we "serbify" some terms by pronouncing them in english, but using serbian grammar to actualy say them.
E.G. Instead of saying:"Ja zapocinjem Grapple", we just say "JA greplujem" which means that 'i start a grapple', but is shorter and easier to say.
I live in Chile, and we play in Castillian. I try to impose a relatively strict use of Castillian when playing to avoid breaking the immersion, but truth is that everyone breaks it all the time, even myself, particularly when refering to feats and spells, since the Castillian names can be confusing when you are using English books.
I never translate proper names, however, since Castillian is not a language that deals well with composite words, which can result in names that sound either too convoluted or simply plain bad. This results in players often taking names in English.
Except for Seventh Sea. Everyone who speaks a second (or first) non-English language plays a character that speaks it, causing no end to the hilarity when characters don't have every language (7th Sea has no "common").
I can relate to that. Besides our native Castillian, three of my players are fluent in French and another in Italian, and when playing 7th Sea they always create Montaigne/Vodacce characters, for a non-stop series of incomprehensible encounters. This, of course, is part of the game's charm.
Here's a question for our non-English speaking Pathfinder friends.
When you are DM, do you use regional accents to add colour to your acting out NPCs interacting with the players?
For example, in our Englsh language games Dwarves invariably speak with Scottish accents (though our efforts would surely make a true Scot cringe), Halflings get English West Country accents (think Samwise from the LOTR movies), random farmers and peasants often get Southern US accents etc.
Do German players use a crisp Berlin accent for the evil wizard and a Bavarian accent for laid-back commoners?
Years ago I was in France watching a dubbed version of the Paul Hogan (the guy from Crocodile Dundee) show. There was a skit about Australian soldiers in WW1 speaking to some British officers. I couldn't undersand much of what was being said, but I thought it really funny that the British officers were dubbed into very posh Parisian accents, while the Australian soldiers had much rougher, rural accents.
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Actually, yes...i also use other langauges for racial languages. Norvegian for dwarven, greek for elven, some african language for orc, german for gnome and southern dialect of my own language for halfling.
Since my players know english and serbian, they really don't understand a word i am saying...
Heh, of course we play in Czech with English terms mixed in. So the "Wand of Shocking Grasp" is "Hůlka shoking gaspu" and "Sihedron rune" is "Ten sedmicípej nesmysl" (that seven-pointed nonsense).