Communicating with non English speakers

thegreeneso

I doubt it's a big deal on NA servers, but on EU there is a lot of people that don't speak English and there's not much you can do to communicate with them unless you happen to know their language. While it's not really possible to completely solve the problem, it could be really helpful to have some tools to deal with this.

For starters, giving us an ability to showcase our spoken languages and letting us see the language of other players' client would already help a lot. Another helpful feature would be premade chat messages that are automatically translated to client's language (for example basic phrases like "Follow me" or "Help me"). These are small things, but would really help with basic communication.

Syldras

thegreeneso wrote: »

For starters, giving us an ability to showcase our spoken languages and letting us see the language of other players' client would already help a lot.

If it's optional, for people who think it would help them, I'd be fine with that. Other than that, I'd vote against it. If I play my main, I'm Sarayn Andrethi of Great House Telvanni from Sadrith Mora, and it doesn't matter and it doesn't concern anyone else either, whether it's François from Paris, Pavel from Prague or James from London behind the screen. And I don't want or need to know that about other players either. Let alone I don't really understand how this would help, as knowing what languages someone speaks doesn't change a thing about whether you understand those languages or not.

thegreeneso wrote: »

Another helpful feature would be premade chat messages that are automatically translated to client's language (for example basic phrases like "Follow me" or "Help me"). These are small things, but would really help with basic communication.

I think that would be more helpful.

In general, I am wondering though, in which situations does this problem that you describe occur? In the chat? Well, then I'd assume you'd just ask your question and someone will understand it and reply sooner or later. At worst, it's a matter of patience. In random groups? Then an auto translate for some basic commands would surely be useful.

thegreeneso

Syldras wrote: »

thegreeneso wrote: »

For starters, giving us an ability to showcase our spoken languages and letting us see the language of other players' client would already help a lot.

If it's optional, for people who think it would help them, I'd be fine with that. Other than that, I'd vote against it. If I play my main, I'm Sarayn Andrethi of Great House Telvanni from Sadrith Mora, and it doesn't matter and it doesn't concern anyone else either, whether it's François from Paris, Pavel from Prague or James from London behind the screen. And I don't want or need to know that about other players either. Let alone I don't really understand how this would help, as knowing what languages someone speaks doesn't change a thing about whether you understand those languages or not.

It won't let you understand any language, but it will instantly tell you if someone can't understand you. Right now, there no way to tell the difference between someone ignoring what you're saying and not understanding your language.

Syldras

thegreeneso wrote: »

It won't let you understand any language, but it will instantly tell you if someone can't understand you. Right now, there no way to tell the difference between someone ignoring what you're saying and not understanding your language.

But what difference does it make? Either way, the person is not replying and you don't get the answer you need.

I think most people do write something back if they don't understand, btw. I had people whisper me in Russian while questing at night, and I always sent back a short simple reply in English that it don't understand them. Not sure if they understood me, but they could probably guess what it's about.

Northwold

Syldras wrote: »

If it's optional, for people who think it would help them, I'd be fine with that. Other than that, I'd vote against it. If I play my main, I'm Sarayn Andrethi of Great House Telvanni from Sadrith Mora, and it doesn't matter and it doesn't concern anyone else either, whether it's François from Paris, Pavel from Prague or James from London behind the screen. And I don't want or need to know that about other players either. Let alone I don't really understand how this would help, as knowing what languages someone speaks doesn't change a thing about whether you understand those languages or not.

A lot of people in Europe speak three or four languages well. Knowing what language someone speaks tells you how to communicate with them.

Syldras

Northwold wrote: »

A lot of people in Europe speak three or four languages well. Knowing what language someone speaks tells you how to communicate with them.

I live in Europe and 3 or 4 sounds like a lot for the average person, I would say. At least in my country it's one foreign language on a lower school level and two on a higher (with a third and forth optionally, but most people don't choose that path).

School education is a good point, though. If a foreign language is learnt, it's mostly English, no? I always perceived that as the common language to use abroad anyway.

katanagirl1

This is a great idea. We use quick chat emotes in Cyrodiil for communicating. Could they be used in a way that comes across in the appropriate language for the receiver? Do they already work this way and I am not aware of it?

Monte_Cristo

tuxon wrote: »

[snip]

Who says they're playing from Russia?

[edited to remove quote]

Muizer

tuxon wrote: »

[snip]

I see Cyrillic being used a lot in chat, but I can't tell whether that's Russian or Serbian, North Macedonian, Bulgarian, Ukrainian etc.

[edited to remove quote]

colossalvoids

tuxon wrote: »

[snip]

Russia, part of Ukraine and Belarus aren't able to purchase anything new themselves, but obviously can play what they have or what's gifted to them by first world country's citizens.

[edited to remove quote]

p_tsakirisb16_ESO

colossalvoids wrote: »

tuxon wrote: »

[snip]

Russia, part of Ukraine and Belarus aren't able to purchase anything new themselves, but obviously can play what they have or what's gifted to them by first world country's citizens.

[edited to remove quote]

Why their countries are second, third or fourth world?

Muizer wrote: »

tuxon wrote: »

[snip]

I see Cyrillic being used a lot in chat, but I can't tell whether that's Russian or Serbian, Bulgarian, Ukrainian etc.

[edited to remove quote]

Yeah that is an issue tbh.

thegreeneso wrote: »

Communicating with non English speakers

If you accept that Google Translate is your friend, is not difficult to communicate on the EU server as long as someone writes something and doesn't remain in silence and you do the extra work.

Just copy paste their comment to google translate, it will find the language that is written translate it to your preferred language, you write the response in your language, and paste it in the chat box.

FYI. Even if English is my third language, I prefer to translate and write in English in those situations, because the translators do better job From-To English than any other languages eg Greek to German/Russia/Chinese.

derkaiserliche

I got insulted by a russian after a dungeon , so i told him to speak english and i got banned for 3 days as result

Freilauftomate

katanagirl1 wrote: »

This is a great idea. We use quick chat emotes in Cyrodiil for communicating. Could they be used in a way that comes across in the appropriate language for the receiver? Do they already work this way and I am not aware of it?

Yes quick emotes work this way and it's super helpful.

Syldras

p_tsakirisb16_ESO wrote: »

Why their countries are second, third or fourth world?

There are actually clear definitions by things like degree of industrialization or income per capita:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-world_model
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Developing_country
I'm not sure, of course, why this would matter in ESO. I don't care if another player is from the Netherlands, Australia, Peru or Poland.

derkaiserliche wrote: »

I got insulted by a russian after a dungeon , so i told him to speak english and i got banned for 3 days as result

Are you sure it wasn't a decision from context or wording? It's a bit hard to believe that a simple "Sorry, I don't understand Russian, could you write that again in English, please?" would get someone a ban.

Kendaric

derkaiserliche wrote: »

I got insulted by a russian after a dungeon , so i told him to speak english and i got banned for 3 days as result

Reminds me of the time a French (?) guy tried to whisper me in French since my Bretons always have French names and I jokingly replied

"non parlez grenouille"

. He immediately switched to English to insult me

I just blocked him.

Syldras

Kendaric wrote: »

Reminds me of the time a French (?) guy tried to whisper me in French since my Bretons always have French names and I jokingly replied

"non parlez grenouille"

. He immediately switched to English to insult me
I just blocked him.

Maybe you should be happy he didn't get you banned as it is an ethnic slur you used.

Sakiri

I think what op is asking for is what ffxiv does.

Your name in guild and friends list is shown with EFDJ depending on the language you select, and your client language is underlined.

They also have an extensive list of phrases, ability names, commands, etc in their auto translate menus. These come up in brackets and show in your client's default language.

Sakiri

Syldras wrote: »

Northwold wrote: »

A lot of people in Europe speak three or four languages well. Knowing what language someone speaks tells you how to communicate with them.

I live in Europe and 3 or 4 sounds like a lot for the average person, I would say. At least in my country it's one foreign language on a lower school level and two on a higher (with a third and forth optionally, but most people don't choose that path).

School education is a good point, though. If a foreign language is learnt, it's mostly English, no? I always perceived that as the common language to use abroad anyway.

My husband speaks English, Swedish and German. Three is common here.

Uvi_AUT

Syldras wrote: »

Northwold wrote: »

A lot of people in Europe speak three or four languages well. Knowing what language someone speaks tells you how to communicate with them.

I live in Europe and 3 or 4 sounds like a lot for the average person, I would say. At least in my country it's one foreign language on a lower school level and two on a higher (with a third and forth optionally, but most people don't choose that path).

School education is a good point, though. If a foreign language is learnt, it's mostly English, no? I always perceived that as the common language to use abroad anyway.

As an Austrian I can say almost everyone speaks at least three languages. Thats because we dont really count english as a second language, since everyone speaks it. So your first foreign language is really the one after english.
Often its hungarian, Ukrainian, Italian or French, depending on where you live. Austria is very small

Syldras

Sakiri wrote: »

My husband speaks English, Swedish and German. Three is common here.

Well, I speak 9 (and another 5 very limitedly, but probably well enough for a few common questions - it's a hobby), but that doesn't make it the norm here. I live in Germany and many people here only speak German and learn English at school (or English plus another language - mostly French or Spanish - in case they visit a higher education level school). Although that, unfortunately, doesn't even necessarily mean that they actually speak these languages well. Young people mostly have a good English comprehension nowadays (probably also through using English on social media), but with older people, it's more complicated, whether they've once learned English in school or not. (And another exception are of course immigrants or children of immigrants, who also speak the language/s of their parents, in addition to German and the 1 or 2 languages learnt at school - but that's not the majority of the population).

Scandinavia always seemed like a positive exception to me. I had several Danish and Norwegian friends who spoke English and German very well - one reason back then was that media translations were very rare, so if they watched movies, those were mostly either in English or German.

The opposite was France (although I'm not sure how it's today, as things might have changed meanwhile) - I had French penpals when I was younger, and each of them said that foreign language lessons at school were rather limited and absolutely horrible (as in: not very useful when it comes to actually communication).

Northwold

Kendaric wrote: »

derkaiserliche wrote: »

I got insulted by a russian after a dungeon , so i told him to speak english and i got banned for 3 days as result

Reminds me of the time a French (?) guy tried to whisper me in French since my Bretons always have French names and I jokingly replied

"non parlez grenouille"

. He immediately switched to English to insult me

I just blocked him.

Well you insulted him first... What were you expecting? A warm embrace?