Non-English speakers: what language do you game in?

[Dalamar]

In my group, we use a mixture of Finnish and English. Most of us have a bad habit of doing this in normal situations also since Finnish doesn't have a good word for everything.

If you have read the PHB and speak finnish, you can easily follow our conversation. The rules names are mostly left in English, but spell names are quite mixed: 'Fireball' is 'Tulipallo' but 'lighning bolt' is still the same.

 

[BronzeDragon]

I DM and play in Portuguese, my native language.

But I do make a point of not translating names, since they tend to become very poor approximations of the originals.

Can you imagine Rivendell translated? The Lord of the Rings edition made in Portugal uses "Valfenda"...pretty horrible in my opinion....

 

[Doc_Souark]

We use the pretty language of Arkansian, but we have a heathen from a backward place called Boston Mass. (or rather Fall River) so we speak real slow.

 

[Rashak Mani]

Like Bronze Dragon said... in portuguese things sound strange. The translation of Rivendell into Valfenda is according to Tolkiens instructions for translation. Still the result wasnt too good.

We use most spell and skill names and some weapons in English. Some words do get mixed in too once in a while. Most gamers here have weak to medium english spoken... but read well. So they tend to avoid speaking too much in english. Most would understand but not to well.

With more proficient speakers thou we used to mix full sentences in english and then change back to portuguese. English sounds better for RPG.

 

[Ziggy]

We are definitely using Norwenglish. I think that we tended to use more norwegian words when we were younger (15 years ago), but now all people I game with are fluent in English, and most won't even notice that they are mixing words in the same sentence.

I've also noticed that my campaign notes tend to be 80% English. I don't know why I do that, but it's probably because most background material is in English. This means that I sometimes have to translate my own notes on the fly, and while that is not a big issue, it feels pretty strange....

In my last campaign I've tried an experiment, using English as the common trade laguage (Common in FR). Thus NPC will speak English when they are using Common, with accents and errors depending on how fluent they are. PC must similarely speak English when conversing in Common. It's been working pretty well, and most of us are now more aware of what langauge we are speaking, and in-game conversations have shifted towards Norwegian only (when speaking their native language).

.Ziggy

 

[Maudlin]

Belgium has some rather quaint bilingual issues, so language is really odd in my group...

I DM in Flemish except for all the game terms which are in English, while most of my players respond in French, including all game terms, except when they respond in Flemish when they use English again, except when they talk to me directly when I reply in whatever language I was addressed in. Sometimes.

There is no pattern to it, sometimes sentences are finished in a different language than they were started in, sometimes words get morphed halfway ("je cours en spellcastant"), sometimes one grammar is used with another vocabulary, etc... I'm told it is slightly frightening to watch. Oh, and we mix between imperial and metric units on the fly

 

[Darkness]

We play in German; but as most rules and other names (Gods, etc.) aren't translated yet, we find it easier to say "The Overlord" instead of always translating it into some equivalent word.

The same with my group, except that we wouldn't use translations even if they were available.

 

[Chacal]

When playing back home, we mix english and french, going from one to the other rather hap-hazardly. I'm not sure why, but I find that fantasy sounds painfully cheezy in french. "boule de feu" just doesn't cut it.

Ancalagon

Same, here.

By the way, I like the pic you use for your avatar: I use the whole Picture as my background...


Chacal

 

[Noldor Elf]

Our gaming language is Finnis, althought we haven't translated the rules so names of classes, weapons, skills, feats etc. are all in english.

Lately our DM has started to translate names of places. He thinks it would be easier with only one language in names. Waterdeep is Syvävesi, Misty Forest is Hämymetsä, Sword Coast is Kalparannikko for those who want to know.

 

[Ron]

We game in Portuguese, although technical terms are mostly in English. The problem is the Brazilian translation only arrived after more than ten years playing D&D. It's difficult to change after this. I know, of course, of several people that learned the game in Portuguese and, thus, game only in their native language. I'm too much of a veteran to do that. However, when playing modules, we translate the boxes.