Foreigners

[sanchez]

The few Zones in which people are forced to spawn with other than their chosen language group have had predictable difficulties, though the Spanish and Dutch seem to do ok with it. But conflict isn't inevitable for visitors at all.

[Doug R.]

I didn't suggest it was inevitable, I said it would be unsurprising.

I wouldn't be surprised if half of all cross-language encounters involving any languages ended in violence.

[sanchez]

And of the examples of cross-zone contact your chars have witnessed, how many ended in violence?

[Pilot]

For my experience contact with foreigners are fun to rp. I've learned few words in polish, some sentences in dutch, and remembered my german.

I never let go a chance to interact with different Cantr cultures because it's a refreshing way to renew my interest in the game.

I've seen my charries in serious difficulties, but also had big laughs like the time when a dutch charrie asked my spanish charrie to represent the dutch town where they both live in a spanish reunion because he said my charrie talked spanish good enough to communicate with them

[Doug R.]

And of the examples of cross-zone contact your chars have witnessed, how many ended in violence?

I have only met one foreigner that wasn't fluent in English, and it was a lone man in a longboat in neutral territory. We traded maps. However, no conclusions can be drawn from one encounter. I base my speculations on my inherent belief that the rule of law is the only thing that keeps humans from butchering each other, and the multitude of posts on this forum that describe such butchering.

[geparden]

...
Recently the game has seen Turk on Swede genocide, and if what was said in the "Depression" thread is true, the Lithuanians are purging an island also. I'm not an idealist; I'm a realist, and if I learned one thing in Cantr, it's that life is very, very cheap.

yes... the tables sortof turned. Just take a look at the public statistics. If I'm not wrong, then the number of turkish charries dropped very far down. Soon the swedish deathsquads outnumber the turks.

So much for peacetalks...

[psymann]

For me, this sort of interaction is impossible unless all players can emote in a common language.

Most communication, with someone who does not speak your language, is done with actions. In Cantr, those actions require a common language since they are all written.

If I find any of my characters in a place where there are foreigners that can't emote in English, then I leave. I can't speak other languages well enough to emote in them, and I have no interest in using an auto-translator to do it for me since I'd have no idea what I was writing but would have to trust the auto-translator to do it correctly.

I don't want to play with people who can't do the emotes in English - that's why I picked the English region to play in. I am happy with foreign languges - whether real-life ones or made-up ones - as long as the emotes are in English. Same as I'm happy to try to have a face-to-face communication with someone foreign, but really wouldn't get any interest from just speaking to them on the phone.

psymann

[Cherize]

One of my characters has just met someone who seems to only speak a foreign language. I think it's either Swedish, Norwegian, or Finnish. This should be interesting. There are only two of us, so it's not like we have anyone else to talk to.

[SekoETC]

My Finnish characters have been traveling a lot and neither of them has found a sea yet so I think their spawn points are very much inland. Swedes in the other hand are sailors so there is a very high chance you ran into one of them.

There has been a suggestion of including more hardcoded emotes like *smiles*, *waves* and so on. Then they could be translated and would allow some basic non-verbal communication. The only problem I see in this would be the flattening of expressions and rp when people would pick a simple emote from a list instead of writing a full sentence of rp that conveys a nuance. People who can get more out of writing complex sentences should stick to using them when there are no foreigners around.

[Joshuamonkey]

most people understand English emotes

If your character has been involved with characters of another language for a decade or so, It would make sense for them to know the language fluently. Something you can also do and what I've tried personally is to work on translation notes, and ask them what things mean, as long as you can understand eachother's *roleplaying*.

[wichita]

A couple of my characters have gotten extensive practice in trying to deal with Spanish speaking characters. I don't bother to use the translator, because the immature grammar makes it enjoyable for the recipients, I think.


It's going to be rough when the Poles and Lithuanians finally have to interact in depth with the Chinese, though.

[Joshuamonkey]

A couple of my characters have gotten extensive practice in trying to deal with Spanish speaking characters. I don't bother to use the translator, because the immature grammar makes it enjoyable for the recipients, I think.

Using a translator gives immature grammar...I still use a translator for my Spanish speaking character, but I know enough Spanish to where I can use it correctly

[jexter]

I'm thankful to sanchez that he just yesterday explained me a little rule about the "learning" of languages. Now, as I and you know, if I know English I have to RP three cantr years to "learn" the English language in game and after that it is supposed my char learned it and can use freely as much as I know right? But if do not know English I must try to learn it in game to be able to communicate with English chars, and no matter how hard and long my char will try to learn English he will never learn it, because we spend not enough time in game to actually learn a language ourselves. So... So it is a little absurd.

I would suggest, that if my char, in my case, Lithuanian tried to learn Portuguese and he put much effort to it, for instance, for 5 cantr years it could be supposed that he learned the language and can interact with Portuguese freely (in English off course, the most common language). This would be logical - cause in real life 5 years is more than enough to learn a foreign language. And Cantr is a life simulator! So why not encourage people chars to try to learn a little other language in order to some day have much benefit for that.

Off course it is clear that you must try as hard as you can to learn. Make a little dictionary. speak in foreign language as much as you can etc. and even after that 5 years still use it as much as you know and only talk in English in private to say thing you can't tell.

I don't know if you got what I wanted to say. My English degraded gradually not using it for long time. Sorry for the off topic though. If the admins demands, I can make a new topic about this.

[sanchez]

She* explained it. And please be clear about what you are suggesting. Not only that you be allowed to feign fluency using online translators and the like to generate dialogue in a language you don't know, but in the case that those OOC resources are not available, like for Lithuanian, you would substitute a common langauge like English instead? For emotes, fine, but for dialogue this violates the spirit of a multilingual roleplaying game.
Portuguese and Lithuanian chars speaking English, either in whispers or aloud, to pretend they have learned eachother's languages is what's absurd. I agree that some of the multilingual spawnpoints have caused problems, but this is no solution. You need to make a good faith effort to learn new languages with your chars in game, just as you would irl. And again, you may write your emotes in any language. We all use pointing and guestures to express ourselves when we communicate without a common language. Show some creativity with that instead.

[SekoETC]

You should create an English character to get more practice. You seem to write English much better than many other people so there's no reason to say it was rusty.

Three years in Cantr is a very short time. So I think that characters whose native language is not English shouldn't speak or understand English perfectly even after several years, no matter if the player is good at English.

You should use something universal which is pictures.