Cantr II Discussion Forum

How many Cantr players have one or more characters in a language area that is not their native tongue (but, obviously, is a profienciency of theirs)? How patient do you find people to be when you stumble over the language?

I have 4 English characters, 4 French ones, 1 German one and 3 Esperanto characters.
When I make mistakes, most people don't even comment on it. Some will correct me OOC or reply in a way that shows the correct form, e. g. if I say "I hate working; it make me so sleepy", they'd answer something like "It's quite normal that it makes* you so sleepy. Perhaps you should rest a bit".

English is a foreign language for me but after studying it since I was... nine years old or something I often keep forgetting that. I do often mess up with prepositions or forget to use articles but I don't remember being corrected for a long time. When I write rp I often use a dictionary / translator to check up words that I'm not so sure of, or to find synonyms. Sometimes it results into using weird words people barely understand if at all... But on casual things like chatting or writing to the forums (not counting some suggestions that require special vocabulary) I don't use the dictionary.

With my Swedish character I'm making mistakes all the time and recently have been posting the corrections right after so that I wouldn't have to blush when they kindly correct me. In small conversations there's no problem but when it gets bigger I tend to get a headache and have to check many words with a translating program to get the big picture. I also often have to make up new words because they are not in the dictionary (try bowstring for example), and people then reply using the correct form. I don't think there has been a case yet where I had been totally misunderstood.

I have two native languages (raised bilingually) and none of them is implemented in Cantr. All Cantr lands are foreign language areas for me . I play characters in English, German and Esperanto areas. None of them sounds like a native speaker, but such is life. Just that I'll never be a good RPer because of the language barrier.

The benifit with American English is that not even the natives put much energy into phrasing things correctly, so we foreigners are usually on the same level as them

I have a Spanish language character who was very fortunate for a while to find a character who was extremely patient with her poor language skills. I have not used the language for over a decade so I am constantly making very basic mistakes with my communication. My character was quite enamored with the man she found who was willing to patiently correct all of her ridiculous errors. Unfortunately, she has now become separated from him and is hopelessly lost in the German area without another Spanish speaker in sight.

Of course, the thought has occurred to her that her companion ditched her on purpose.

I've got a Spanish character and a Russian character as well. The rest speak English.
I understand spanish rather easily, because my family speaks a language that is similar to it. Sadly, the few spanish speakers my character met left without her, and now her travelling partner and everyone else around there speaks German.

I know enough russian to survive a newspawn's life, but the island my character is on is sparsely populated. Nobody has corrected my russian yet.

InsaneIrony wrote:I know enough russian to survive a newspawn's life, but the island my character is on is sparsely populated. Nobody has corrected my russian yet.

That is because everyone in the Russian area uses a translator.

trage wrote:

InsaneIrony wrote:I know enough russian to survive a newspawn's life, but the island my character is on is sparsely populated. Nobody has corrected my russian yet.

That is because everyone in the Russian area uses a translator.

O.o ... Nyeh. I don't trust translators that much. They don't always get grammar right.

InsaneIrony wrote:

trage wrote:

InsaneIrony wrote:I know enough russian to survive a newspawn's life, but the island my character is on is sparsely populated. Nobody has corrected my russian yet.

That is because everyone in the Russian area uses a translator.

O.o ... Nyeh. I don't trust translators that much. They don't always get grammar right.

No I am saying that is the reason no one has corrected your Russian. Almsot everyone there uses a translator so they can't correct it.

I've just recently started a character in the French area. With only a very basic knowledge of the language I expected it to be really difficult to get by but I hadn't realised just how good the online translators are. Almost everything my character hears or says has to go through a babel fish of one sort or another but I'm finding it really interesting, perhaps because it's challenging.

Pulpcatcher-- I hope you drop by the French forum; not all the threads are in French, and it's kind of quiet there most of the time.

Pulpcatcher, don't trust too much in automatic translators. The result might sound good to your ears, but usually it is barely intellegible. Mostly incorrect grammar, but also just mistranslations of words... words usually don't have a 1:1 relation from one language to the other, there are at least 2 different translations to choose from that have different connotations or completely different meanings. When the automatic translator opts for one of the possible translations, it doesn't do so with the understanding and intuition of a human. That is why even a beginner has a better chance, with a good dictionary, to get things right in a foreign language than an automatic translator. Perhaps that will change in the next 20 years.

By the way, have Babel Fish translate something along the lines of "I have studied French for ... months and I suck." and tell that to somebody who knows French very well... you'll make their day

To demonstrate how badly translators work without knowledge of the language (I use translators sometimes, but it is necessary to be able to know how to proof-read it);

Take an english phrase, put it in a translator, and then translate it back to english. You will notice the differences.

I use the translators because I like to login from work (ssshhh!) and I don't keep my French dictionary or verb book here. So I use google's language tools, plug in the phrase I need, and double-check it against my own knowledge to finesse it into correct (or mostly correct) syntax.

I have multiple French speaking characters, and I find now that I'm starting to think in French again. Which would be cool, except that my job requires me to speak and write English.