Non-English languages in video games

I think it's fair to say that not all people on Sup Forums have English as their mother tongue, and over the years we've seen when non-English languages were featured in video games. Most recently, in this screenshot, we have Czech in Deus Ex: Mankind Divided.

But was the quality good? Did they actually speak proper Czech?

I'm a Serb myself and the one time I remember hearing my language spoken in a video game was GTA 4 and that was an utter disaster. It sounded like they hired gypsies to speak the words, and the way they spoke it sounded like it came straight out of Google Translate.

Has there been any game that has actually done justice to speaking foreign languages in video games?

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What does that mean?

Sounds something like "Where are you going, idiot?"

Polack here, our languages are similar and i'm pretty sure it was proper czech, it was funny to fully understand some stuff like Stairs being called Schody, both the same in Polish and Czech

Sucks to be you. If I wasn't a native English speaker I'd kill myself.

>If I wasn't a native English speaker I'd kill myself.

Why though? English is very easy to learn.

Are you incapable of learning?

This
Now i know two languages instead of one.

thing is, with english even dominating as a lingua franca, I don't think devs will give two seconds to foreign tongues as long as it sounds foreign enough

They wouldn't even have to pay some big money, you could just offer some fans small incentive, or chances are they would do it for free.

well at least yours is excusable. hearing Arabic in games when you speak Arabic is a fucking disaster, no game ever gets it right

I think they speak some Arab language in Mankind Divided too, at least in Dubai.

You played the game yet?

kinda sucks that everything is english, wish i could be like those guys who learn english from games but instead a different language.

hate how almost everything is in english and the MC is an amerishart

Nuclear Throne has a Finnish sound designer and so he made the police force in the game have some garbled Finnish voice lines. For example the head of the police will say "I am the law" in Finnish if you die to her. I love it.

Some WW2 shooters have decent German.

"Behind you, imbecille!"
I still don't get why would they shout they were going to backstab you

But well, even RE4 even if it was mexican spanish instead of castillan spanish is not as bad as Coronel Allende in RDR. His VA could not land a word stress right even if his life was on the line.

Whenever someone has to speak Italian in a game they usually hire Italo-Americans to speak in a stereotyped Italo-American way.

Resident Evil 4 had a Mexican Spanish accent, while the game was supposedly set in Spain, not in Mexico.

For anglophones, that is like hearing British people speaking like black people speak in American ghettos, slang and all. I won't ever play that game because of that, it is both insulting and ridiculous.

It may be surprising ,but when Czech people speak English, the do not have a fucking Russian accent. Not a single game/movie got Czech accent right.

>WW2 game
>Nazis speak perfect english

>I'm a Serb myself

You mean an orthodox Turk?

>But was the quality good? Did they actually speak proper Czech?

The language was used properly.
Albeit I did notice a non-sensical sign on the buildings.

Anyway, Cyberpunk 2077 is trying to do this.
MGS 5 also had the different ntaionality soldiers speaking their own languages as well as Boss needing a translator to even interrogate them.

Age of Empires 3 - another bombastic example where every nation has their own dialogues.
I'd include AoM and AoE:O but they kind of fake the ancient languages given no one can speak them anymore.

HUEHUEHUE here.

In all games I played so far the portuguese has been invariably shit. I'd say Max Payne 3 was the best effort, they got the accent right.

The problem tends to be people translate the lines fed by the writers verbatim, so sentence structure comes out weird as shit. Besides, there are a lot of pragmatic details which are overlooked.

I've noticed this with french and japanese in western games as well. English spoken in a japanese game is always awful, like the weapons dealer at the end of Yakuza 3 ("Are you nuts?" was delivered so hilariously I couldn't focus on the scene).

You're fucking pathetic.

I'm czech and I suspect those characters will have terrible forced "russian" accent

I hope I'm wrong

turkish voices in bf1 are top tier

Contrary to memes on the internet, there was barely any introduction of Ottoman blood into Serbia. It was rather the reverse, what with children taken into the janissary corps, that Serbs would go off into the Ottoman empire and marry their women and so on.

Suck it you beaner.

Catalan, en realidad.
#GATILLADO

>Anyway, Cyberpunk 2077 is trying to do this.

Yeah, I heard about that.

It's one way to avoid localization and bloating up the game with uncompressed audio for different languages for the whole game.

In order to understand foreign languages spoken in Night City, i.e. get subtitles, the players will have to get some sort of cybernetic implant.

Wolfenstein TNO and Old Blood had top tier foreign voices, they actually hired native actors to do kraut/polack lines

Disfruta de tu Colau, payaso. Pronto habrá más Mohammeds que Jordis y viviréis para ver a vuestros nietos con chalecos bomba.

Bitchin'.

iirc translation quality was also dependant on qualiy of the implant, with cheap shit being probably google translate tier

>I still don't get why would they shout they were going to backstab you

They know Leon is a Burgestanise so the chances of him knowing a language other than English are very low.

When speaking in English? Yeah, they all sound like Russians.

They do this for all Slavs, for whatever it's worth.

You can't just act like Sup Forums after your first post was literally you being triggered at a game and refusing to play it because of that.

If they actually do this, people are going to do full runs of the game with the cheapest shit, sort of like 1 INT runs of the first two Fallout games.

>Americans so lazy they can't take burgers out of their mouths long enough to learn a language

yeah thats what I mean

>uyobok
thats just pure russian word lol

>I won't ever play that game because of that, it is both insulting and ridiculous.
Sounds fucking hilarious more than anything. Don't be so sensitive.

>Resident Evil 4 had a Mexican Spanish accent
I swear there's always something new to learn about that game.

I'm disappointed there's no translation to what the Majini say in 5. And for an obvious reason I suppose. Someone did say on some forum I googled that their friend speaks a few African languages but couldn't recognize the dialect used in the game. So it could be they're speaking a made up language or something that's really rare. There's only about 3,000 languages there in Africa after all.

I spent some time growing up near a military base in South Korea so I can understand a few phrases and can differentiate accents slightly.

I know, for a fact, that the accents in the first Crysis game are way off. They're probably native Korean speakers but they completely lack the more gruff accent from the North. It's very difficult to explain if you don't have an ear for it already, even for Korean-Americans.

I remember some of the Korean actors from Die Another Day sounding really off too, mispronouncing certain syllables slightly. Not sure what was up with that. I haven't seen past the North Korea scene so I'm not sure if they explain that he's some sort of double agent and the Northerners haven't noticed how terrible his pronunciation is yet.

I'd say the best example of a good and articulated portuguese is Pedro talking in civilization V, my fellow huezilian friend.Dunno about him in 6, though

I've been playing Romance of the Three Kingdoms XI and all of the dialogue is in Chinese. Surprised Koei could hire actual Chinese people to do the voices for it, but even more surprised that they don't include subtitles for the lines, as I know most Japanese don't speak any Chinese.

I see nothing wrong with this
it would be hilarious to see different outcomes of quests/story because your character did not understand properly what to do.

I really doubt that it's this complex in the new Deus Ex game, but I'd love to see an RPG that fully commits to something like this.

RE: Revelations 1 has the characters try and pronounce "Valkoinen mökki" airport (lit. white cabin). While they all get it wrong I did find it really funny and endearing. I'm just glad for Finland to get any mentions at all. You really only see Finland/Finnish in games made by Finns, like My Summer Car.

we are talking about Cyberpunk 2077, its being made by CDPR, same guys that did Witcher games, it might be pretty fucking good once it comes out, aka 10 years after half life 3

Oh shit, I followed the wrong conversation tree. Sorry about that.

Would be great if CDPR follows through on it, whenever it releases

>For anglophones, that is like hearing British people speaking like black people speak in American ghettos, slang and all.

Just because you hate Mexicans doesn't mean you have to give a bad example. It's the difference between American and British English, no nigger ghetto involved.

Native Brit here
If there was the option to have every game set in a country to just have their original language with English subs, id never turn it off.
Any form of media that is set in a foreign country but everyone speaks English with a funny accent is the worst.
Also Americans should never try any English accent as it is always some fucked up cockney or RP shite.The Scots and the Irish have it worse tho.

Hearing Spanish in rainbow six 2 was great.

Nah, they told us the release date. It's right there in the title.

yeah thats what I mean, hl3 gonna be out in 2067, I hope I can live this long

>implying mestizo mexicans aren't niggers

I'm glad nobody here is proud of their language. It's SHIT. English all the way.

You do understand people can love more than one language, right?

I don't recall any games I've played where there was spoken french besides Civ 5 and 6, and even in those the way they spoke made me cringe really hard

Napoléon in 5 was barely ok with what I think was a mistake in the translation of "you", resulting in him adressing you with "tu" (familiar, or when you know someone personally) instead of "vous" (formal, polite, and if you just met someone)

Civ 6 was worse though, I don't remember who is supposed to be the French leader but she has an awful English accent when speaking ans she doesn't sound natural at all

But I'm proud. I'm not proud of having been forcibly taught a third language because I live in a specific region of a much larger country with its own language already though, what a fucking waste of time and school hours.

As a counter-example, many Japanese games that are set in foreign countries will use that country's language for the whole game and subtitle it Japanese. For instance RE and SH are all in American since that's where they're set. There's a PS1 game called Aconcagua where everyone speaks American and Spanish.
Compared to American stuff where they will set games/movies in foreign countries but everyone just speaks with a racist accent because reading is for faggots, I think it's pretty admirable from an artistic point of view.

Fun fact, the colonel from that movie also voices Wei Shen in Sleeping Dogs.

>English language
This meme again

How shitty Mexicans and Mexico are is still completely irrelevant xD

You spoke an untruth, on the internet no less, and it gave people who don't know any better the wrong impression on how fucked up the situation actually was.
Please be more responsible when talking to your peers over the internet.
Whenever you engage in joking remember to make it incredibly apparent to anyone who doesn't have grade A autism that the contents of your post are merely humorous in intent and not to be taken as factual information.

t. a concerned anonymous comrade

Non french speaker here.Do you think Widowmaker's french sounds correct?

> Will Yun Lee

So he has Korean parents but didn't grow up in the country. I'm not sure if it was him with the poor accent, but it would explain it if he was.

I've never played Sleeping Dogs so I'd be curious to learn if his pronunciation of any Mandarin (or whatever Chinese he spoke) is any good, if they ever even say a Chinese phrase.

>MGS 5 also had the different ntaionality soldiers speaking their own languages as well as Boss needing a translator to even interrogate them.

YOUR RUSSIAN IS SUPERB

WHERE DID YOU LEARN TO SPEAK IT?

I remember her saying "Cherchez la femme" or something like that, which was alright, but then she only says a few words in French now and then, so I can't really judge

The only thing I can't stand about her is that stupid "Cauchemar" (the French for nightmare) tattoo on her right forearm

Nah, Wei says maybe one or two words in Chinese.

R u fuking high mate? English is a fucking abomination.
Aside from the main issue of how disjointed the written language is from actual speech, you have the fact that the latin influences turned English into just a fucking mess. Words that should be related end up having different etymological sources all across the board. It is an incredibly ugly language.

I guess Venom Snake never learned Russian?

Weird how Ocelot never called him out on it considering Snake had canonically been speaking perfect Russian throughout Snake Eater.

or maybe gameplay > plot consistency

I keep thinking of this scene from Black Dynamite, and some of the comments say that his pronunciation is a lot better than they expected

youtube.com/watch?v=SDtVT4cpXFs

>the russian mafia and japanese demon hunter in VTMB

That certainly made my ears bleed.

I'd just learn English I think.

shitty english accents bother me more if its not intentional to be honest

Some people doesn't buy games without dub.

Aren't games haraam? I mean, you can usually SEE the female characters in vidya.

too bad english is the shittiest language

>Killing Semen Demon
For what reason.

So EYE is a French game with a really funky translation. How is the performance of the actual voices?

There are Arab Christians, you know. Sure, the majority is muslim, but there's still Christians there too.

Been playing SOCOM 2 campaign yesterday. Mission 2 starts with two guards having a conversation and you eavesdropping on them. One of the guards talks pure, perfect-accented serbian language and the other is russian. Languages are perfectly spoken but someone thought it would make sense to mash the two.

I haven't played it in years but if I'm not remembering wrong there's no real VA, just gibberish sounds.

>Weird how Ocelot never called him out on it considering Snake had canonically been speaking perfect Russian throughout Snake Eater.

The game has issues, no need to grasp at straws at the parts that were actually explained. The metal stuck in his head served as an early explanation for his lack of knowledge and memories that he's supposed to have. In the case of languages the actual reason seems to be that he simply doesn't know them.

they had a really good Polish in Wolfenstein TNO, but it was a bit weird when someone started with a few sentences in Polish and then suddenly switched to English for the important part. Or when (IIRC) father was talking with his kid in Polish and then they suddenly switch to English to pray. The fuck.

But I guess it sounded perfectly well for all non-poles so oh well.

You never finished the game, did you? Spoilers ahead

Venom Snake is actually different from the real Big Boss, it's just the medic from the ending of Ground Zeroes (supposedly one of BB'S best soldiers who knew almost anything about him) who swapped his face and identity with the real Big Boss, to hide him from the rest of the world. And Ocelot knew everything about the whole story because he helped them both, but he used self-hypnosis to forget about it

>SOCOM 2

Is it worth emulating the game?

But what about the law in Saudi Arabia?

Who here /dontgiveadamn/ about shitty spanish or mexican/spanish-stereotypes in videogames? i personally think they are pretty hilarious

>Merchant calls you "yёбoк"
>A Russian insult to start a fight when addressing someone directly
>Calling a customer who's a superhuman, turbo-augmented cyborg "braindead fucking retard"
I guess they have suicidal tendencies.

You can speak Arabic and doesn't live in Saudi Arabia at the same time!

not every arab country is saudi arabia

Welp.

It is made up future language:
youtube.com/watch?v=gWp3hkUrWdE

Just took a peak at that particular part of the game and they did apparently have the sense to hire an actual Serb for those few lines. Nicely done.

I'm playing it on a real ps2 and on a real crt. It has more AA than most ps2 games, practically no jaggies. However on real hardware average fps is around 15, I personally find it unplayable unless you play on easy or normal due to aiming and gamepad.

On the other hand, game does some stuff far better than most tactical/squad based shooters. Squad commands are very, VERY detailed and friendly AI is pretty fucking good. Levels are not too big that you get lost and usually follow a formula that you need to figure out. For an instance in one mission you work together with two members of SAS and you need to infiltrate some kind of compound with suppressors and stealth. Only to work yourself up into the top floor and to hear a conversation among two leaders who start running into different ways. One dude goes into a closed bedroom and barricades himself, that is easy. Other dude runs over the balcony and starts jumping down and unless you are really fucking fast he will run out, resulting in mission failure. HOWEVER, if you are clever you can spot a wooden plank connecting the two balconies at the very beginning of the mission. If you shoot it the dude remains trapped on the balcony which makes things a lot more easy. Shit like that, game has some clever stuff.

R6 siege has operators speaking good French and speak english with a french accent.
Raphaël in SC2 and 3 speaks French with an english accent.
Leliana and that woman she wants to kill speak proper French in DA:O too.

What I remember the most is how in the Delta Force 3 they cheaped out on some arab-speaking VAs and hired their polish cleaning guy or someone. As a result a fair chunk of towelheads shout at you in perfect Polish, including some movie quotes and shit. Fucking hilarious.

the first mission in Hitman 2 where you have to kill some mafia boss was hilarious as fuck. sentences are translated literally and the accent is all over the place. Italian is wrong most of the times in videogames, but I think it's funny.
>VAFANCULO!
>STRONZO!
>graaazie dei fIIIori, li stavamo aaaspettando
good shit

>some french, german or other euro
>speaks english with a shit accent
>cant speak their own language or never does
this flips my ON button downwards