| From: | Gurth <gurth@******.NL> |
|---|---|
| Subject: | Re: Language Barriers |
| Date: | Sun, 13 Aug 1995 10:21:14 +0200 |
>Do parties consist of people who speak english or are rules availiable
>in foreign languages?
What do you mean with "parties?" The group of players who play the
characters, or maybe the group of characters in the game? I think I don't
fully understand your question...
Anyway, that won't stop me from answering :) Rules exist in German, but I
don't know about other languages (I've seen some of the German ones -- the
best I thought was the Grimoire: "8th German Translation, 2053" instead of
"15th edition, 2053" :)
AFA the "parties" goes, if you mean groups of characters, well, yes, all
characters I've seen were played in Seattle (that includes my own group of
players, another Dutch group, a German one, and an English one), but the
_players_ were talking in their native language, not necessarily English. I
got asked that question when I was in the UK, though, "When you play SR, do
you speak Dutch or English?" 99% of the time Dutch, with some English words
and terms thrown in (mostly "shit" and "fuck," but I think we can
safely say
those have become Dutch words anyway :) Occassionally we switch to English
for a few sentences, usually prompted by me saying something like "Yes? How
can I help you?" in English when the PCs walk up to a reception desk :)
The hardest part is actually translating on the fly (as opposed to
programming on the fly :)... If I run a FASA module, I read it through
beforehand but make no notes, let alone translations. So when there's a Tell
It To Them Straight bit I'm translating while I'm reading, which can be a
bit annoying as my English is actually too good (sounds like I've got a
pretty high opinion of myself, doesn't it? :) -- what I mean is that I use
loads of English words without even trying to figure out what they mean in
Dutch, so when I do have to translate something I'm often looking for ages
to find the right word even though I know exactly what I want to say :(
Any other non-native English speakers have similar experiences?
--
Gurth@******.nl - Gurth@***.nl - http://www.xs4all.nl/~gurth/index.html
people who are experts at avoiding reality
GC3.0: GAT/! dpu s:- !a>? C+(++) U P L E? W(++) N K- w+ O V? PS+ PE Y PGP-
t(+) 5 X R+++>$ tv+(++) b+@ DI? D+ G++ e h! !r(--) y? Unofficial Shadowrun
Guru :)
