Question concerning playing in a foreign language.

[Snickie]

I should probably elaborate.

When I started my Spanish charrie, all I knew were colors, numbers, very basic phrases, and the really obvious cognates (but not the false cognates). I had no concept of conjugation, either. I started my Spanish character as a way to apply my written and reading Spanish when I started taking Spanish in high school.

Since learning French is not a requirement for me (means I have no deadlines for it), I'm much less likely to keep up with my studies of it. I know more French now than I knew Spanish before, but, again, I don't trust myself to keep up.

[Joshuamonkey]

Well I guess while we're on the subject, I just have one Spanish character, and when this character spawned I was in middle school and just taking my first Spanish classes. I did indeed use a lot of Google translate (by translating what it gave me back to English first to make sure that the meaning wasn't changed). Now I actually do speak Spanish, and I can say that Cantr helped me then and helps me now to learn the language.
Actually, when I first started Cantr I made one English character and one Spanish character.

[EchoMan]

Only eight? ...players or characters? Either way, wow.

The French zone might be getting an influx of deaf-mutes soon then...all that inbreeding I guess.

9 now. There is a link at the bottom of the player page named "Statistics Cantr II (public version)" and then "Language group statistics" where you can see how many players and characters there are per language.

[ManyVoices]

9 - that's me, that's me. Je suis le numéro neuf!

[bnlphan]

I was overly concerned for no reason. i forgot google chrome will instantly translate the entire page if i get stuck. *But that's cheating* Now conversation is the only issue.

[Swingerzetta]

Huh, I didn't know about that link. So... There are only 2 esperanto players, but 34 characters? Curious.
Also, Polish is 100.19% translated.

[Bmot]

Huh, I didn't know about that link. So... There are only 2 esperanto players, but 34 characters? Curious.
Also, Polish is 100.19% translated.

That's because the number of players is counted by the players who have set their account to that language. Like mine wouldn't show up as Dutch even though I do have a Dutch char, because my account is set to English (as far as I know...) So, there's only 2 people who set their account to Esperanto, but their probably are more people playing an Esperanto char.

[ObsessedWithCats]

I hope this is an OK place to bring up this question...

How well should I speak a language before I spawn a character speaking it? I feel like the best and fastest way to refresh my German for Cantr contexts would be to spawn a very passive German character and learn while they 'zombie', then they can 'wake' slowly as I start to get a bit more confident, but I also think that might not be very fair on the people around them considering how rusty I am. I'm refreshing on Duolingo but I've not even got to the past tense yet and it's making me realise how little we actually earned for GCSE - I knew the phrases but I didn't know why I was using each word so I find it hard to apply them in new contexts.

I've seen less successful characters than what I'm planning who spawn very obviously fluent in their spawn language, but for all intents and purposes my character would probably be a sleep worker for quite a long time which might be depressing for the people around them. Any thoughts?

[Cdls]

As per the Wiki...

The Foreign Language Rule

Each character spawns knowing only one language, no matter how many you as a player know. Your characters may travel or meet characters from other language zones and learn new languages in game. But, even if you as a player have knowledge of a second language OOC, you must roleplay for each character a language-learning process for a minimum of forty (40) days. This Language Rule is to mitigate any advantage for multilingual players. You are, however, allowed during this process to describe the actions of your character using any common language, though your character may only speak words learned in game. It's understood that characters will learn grammar from experience, but some attempt should be made to explore it. Machine translation such as google may aid in the language-learning process, but it is never a substitute for real world knowledge. You may not spawn a character in a language in which you have no working knowledge. Characters who use machine-generated language only are disruptive to native speakers and not allowed.

And...

You should only spawn characters in languages in which you have some competence.

http://wiki.cantr.net/index.php/Game_Rules

Basically, if you require a translator or translator tool to play in that language for a lot of content, it is best to not spawn in that language.

[SekoETC]

Wichita was well received in the Finnish language group playing one of the first 3 characters there even though his language skills were rather primitive at the time. But some language groups might be more tolerant to non-native speakers than others.

[ObsessedWithCats]

OK, so I should probably wait 'til I can write it better even if I can manage OK understanding it with a dictionary. I'll maybe try translating my other characters' emotes for Cantr-context practice in the meantime.

*continues attempting to plough through cases and genders*

I think I'm a bit ahead of what some have described earlier in this thread (I'm well beyond colours, numbers and introductions) but there's no great shortage of German characters so I'd perhaps risk doing more harm than good.

[*Wiro]

You could ask the German players in their section of the forum. I did the same before making a German character long ago and they encouraged me.

[ObsessedWithCats]

You could ask the German players in their section of the forum. I did the same before making a German character long ago and they encouraged me.

Ehe, I guess this is my answer - I can think of a way to ask in German while only having to look up a word or two but I couldn't even guess how bad my word order is :/

[sanchez]

We all have to play by the same rules, which Cdls posted.

That said, Cantr is a fantastic language-learning tool. If you think you can keep up, and your chars might ‘pass’ among natives, you should certainly try it. Short of that, a better option would be for your English-spawned chars to travel to German towns where you can roleplay learning German. That way, errors would be more natural but you could still benefit from the immersive environment.

There are many non-native players in the English Zone, and I don’t think it’s a problem at all.

[ObsessedWithCats]

Question:

How do Cantrians say 'Sleeper' (Schläfer?), '(to) Spawn' (erzeugen?) and 'Newspawn' (???) in German? Can anyone think of any other words that are Cantr-specific?

(Maybe this'd be better in the German section but no one's posted there for months - that'll be my backup plan if I can't get an answer here)