Gaming and proficiency with language

[Jack7]

[FONT=&quot]J'suis my dinka alkuHOL GRANDE!

ICH BEEN EIN GEDRUNKEN!!!
[/FONT]

 

[Bedrockgames]

During one roleplaying weekend we had a foreign exchange student gaming with us so we had to play in English. Experience was short-lived and nice, but it did bring some challenges. E.g. Getting even a bit drunk severely dented any use of lingua franca and almost everybody (especially that German guy) started to yell a lot. For some reason people think that it will improve their English if they speak louder.

It relaxes your mind when you use your mother language and relaxed mind is essential when you do something creative. I've also noticed that grammar-nazism and linguist perfectionism are both traits of many roleplayers.

Would you feel comfortable gaming with someone who is not a native speaker or would you like to game in lingua franca?

I would be perfectly comfortable with someone in the group who speaks english as a second language.

On the grammar nazi thing, I think that is a bit of a shame. There is a place for correcting a person's spoken or written English, but it isn't the gaming table. Especially if you have people who speak different modes of English (everyone doesn't speak perfect English all the time and some people are more prone to regional slang than others). People should be comfortable being themselves at the game and not have to worry about their speech.

 

[was]

I've gamed w/speakers of other languages on occasion. We just took our time and it worked out

 

[S'mon]

I guess it's more due to the peculiar subsample of the German population you're dealing with: people who have selected an English-language game as their hobby are bound to pick up some language skill along their way. And once we've mastered the pesky "th" the sound of English isn't to different to the music we're socialized with in our teens.

But as you've mastered exception-based games like 4e, exception-filled grammars like the German shouldn't be too hard for you.

Well, yeah - but like I said, with the possible exception of the Scandinavians, the Germans I meet seem to be consistently more fluent in English than are other nationalities. With eg Norwegian it's kinda obvious that the language practically *is* English, just with 1500 years or so of separation. That's not so obvious with German, but I suspect it may be there are underlying similarities obscured by the grammar and by English's Romance overlay.

 

[S'mon]

BTW slightly OT - being a bit transatlantic myself (American wife) and playing an RPG set in modern America recently with a very English-English GM, the English-isms got so distracting they contributed to my decision to leave the game. I feel like a horrible pedant. When the GM insisted in my final session tonight that Corporal Hauser was US Army, not USMC, I wanted to scream...

"Corporal? Corporal?! There are no Corporals in the US Army! He'd have to be either a Sergeant or a PFC! AAAAAAAGH!!!"

I really suck as a player.... *sigh*

 

[haakon1]

With eg Norwegian it's kinda obvious that the language practically *is* English, just with 1500 years or so of separation.

Nod. I've encountered Norwegians (in Norway) who I assumed were Americans because their accent and diction was flawless. That's a rare ability among other countries.

 

[haakon1]

When the GM insisted in my final session tonight that Corporal Hauser was US Army, not USMC, I wanted to scream...

"Corporal? Corporal?! There are no Corporals in the US Army! He'd have to be either a Sergeant or a PFC! AAAAAAAGH!!!"

I really suck as a player.... *sigh*

At least it wasn't Lef-tenant Hauser.

You do realize there are Corporals in both the US Army and the USMC, right?
E5 = Sergeant in either
E4 = Corporal in either (also Spec 4 in US Army, if not in a "command" role)
E3 = Lance Corporal in USMC, PFC in US Army
E2 = PFC in USMC, Private in US Army
E1 = Private in USMC, Private in US Army (E1 is boot camp rank, not a serving rank, unless you've been busted down to Private)

United States Army enlisted rank insignia - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

United States Marine Corps rank insignia - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[Gulla]

Would you feel comfortable gaming with someone who is not a native speaker or would you like to game in lingua franca?

I've played a lot with groups on conventions with multi-language groups. Mostly we default to English when we include non-Scandinavians. Works very nice even with all UK players and me as a (Norwegian) GM. A bit of a challenge on some exotic pronunciation, but I have no problem doing it.

A much bigger challenge than RPGs is playing tournament board games with fellow Scandinavians, since small words meaning "may", "must", "can", "might" etc. are the same words, but with different meaning in the three languages. We usually have a bit of discussion before someone remembers this and we default to English to resolve the rules argument

 

[S'mon]

You do realize there are Corporals in both the US Army and the USMC, right?
E5 = Sergeant in either
E4 = Corporal in either (also Spec 4 in US Army, if not in a "command" role)
E3 = Lance Corporal in USMC, PFC in US Army
E2 = PFC in USMC, Private in US Army
E1 = Private in USMC, Private in US Army (E1 is boot camp rank, not a serving rank, unless you've been busted down to Private)

United States Army enlisted rank insignia - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

United States Marine Corps rank insignia - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Naw, I didn't know Corporals actually existed in the US Army system, every other time I've seen the US Army rank listings it goes from Spec-4 to Sergeant, I had no idea Corporal was a designation for an E-4 in a command role. See how bad I am? And it made perfect sense for the game - the NPC had been placed in a command role apparently due to all his superiors turning into/being eaten by zombies. I'm just glad I didn't issue any mistaken pedantry at the table.

In the British Army BTW a Corporal is a section (squad) leader of 8 men, a Lance Corporal is his deputy leading half the section, & appears to be equivalent to a US Army Sergeant from what I can tell, whereas the USMC rankings appear similar to the British. I know when I was in the Army, being a Corporal was a pretty big deal.

 

[haakon1]

Naw, I didn't know Corporals actually existed in the US Army system, every other time I've seen the US Army rank listings it goes from Spec-4 to Sergeant, I had no idea Corporal was a designation for an E-4 in a command role. See how bad I am? And it made perfect sense for the game - the NPC had been placed in a command role apparently due to all his superiors turning into/being eaten by zombies. I'm just glad I didn't issue any mistaken pedantry at the table.

You don't get MASH re-runs in the UK? Corporal Klinger and Corporal O'Reilly spring to mind when I think "Corporal", and the 4077th MASH was definitely an Army unit.

Anyhow, I do think in Vietnam stories, it's much more commom to here "Spec 4", but for WWII or Korean War stories (like MASH), you hear Corporal a lot.

In the British Army BTW a Corporal is a section (squad) leader of 8 men, a Lance Corporal is his deputy leading half the section, & appears to be equivalent to a US Army Sergeant from what I can tell, whereas the USMC rankings appear similar to the British. I know when I was in the Army, being a Corporal was a pretty big deal.

May I quote the Simpsons?

Bart: Grandpa, do you think I coulda been a Fighting Hellfish? (Grandpa's WWII unit.)

Grandpa: Heck, you've got a fourth grade education and a give 'em hell attitude. You coulda made Sergeant!

I've discovered that military ranks are global, though some translation is required. This link has the official NATO conversions:

Ranks and insignia of NATO armies enlisted - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

OR-6 = British Sergeant, US Army Staff Sergeant, USMC Staff Sergeant
OR-5 = <no British rank>, US Army Sergeant, USMC Sergeant
OR-4 = British Corporal, US Army Corporal or Spec 4, USMC Corporal
OR-3 = British Lance Corporal, US Army PFC, USMC Lance Corporal
OR-2 = British Private, US Army Private, USMC PFC
OR-1 = British Private, US Army Private, USMC Private

Why do I care? I work in HR (not for military, for a global company) and it fascinates me to think through how different cultures think about concepts of rank and seniority. The universality of military ranks really surprised me, and I can find traces of similar organization (3-4 man team, 10 man team, 100 man team, 1000 man team) back to antiquity. My theory is it's just kinda natural for our species, like base 10 math.