WoW as a second language
by Elizabeth Wachowski 
Feb 20th 2007 at 2:47PM
I found myself in a rather interesting pickup group for Steamvaults this weekend. I found a hunter through the LFG system, and he invited a warrior, a priest, and a warlock who were his guildies. I breathed a sigh of relief -- an easy run to the Karazhan key fragment was assured. Until I noticed that I could only understand one out of every five words they said. The guild I had grouped with was largely French-speaking, and my high school French IV lessons weren't going to get me out of this one.
I explained that I didn't speak French well enough to communicate with them on Vent, and in return, they set up a macro system so that I could be informed of my role while they did the actual strategizing. Anything with an X over its head would be sapped by me, and they spoke English well enough to type out simple directions for a rogue ("left!" "resap!" "wait!") The first couple of pulls were rough, but it went smoothly after the first boss. In fact, it went better than most English-speaking groups, possibly because there wasn't annoying chatter or loot arguments.
There are many Quebecois in my guild and on my server, and from that, much of Magtheridon seems to have gained some command of French, or at least some horrible hybrid of French, English and WoWspeak. ("Vous, uh, feignez le mort?") Does your server have a lot of diversity when it comes to languages, or does everyone mostly speak one? How do you deal with multilingual guilds or instance groups?
Filed under: Virtual selves, Instances
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Strongmark on Arthas Feb 20th 2007 2:57PM
My guild leader is from Laval and the two other high ranking guildies are from Montreal. Since the rest of us are from western canada, Calgary, AB to be exact, to say the least, we are not very fluent in the French language so they always speak English with us. It amazes me how well we get along too, considering the adversity between Western Canada and Quebec... haha. They are great people, always fun and always willing to help.
Sylythn Feb 20th 2007 3:01PM
I actually ran with a Quebecois group not too long ago - I did a bit better recognizing the french than the author suggests - but not by much. French Canadians are pretty much the only foreign language exposure I've hit. In other online games, I've played with Euros, but they've all spoken English.
Flit Feb 20th 2007 3:04PM
"LF2M DPS 4 PUG RUN COT OHB PST."
That's my second language. Everyone i've run into speaks Wow-english.
"MORE DOTS!"
Pritchard Feb 20th 2007 3:08PM
I assume that they were Canadian as they did not turn tail and run from the first boss.
Jeff Feb 20th 2007 3:09PM
True for Maghteridon, we're a bunch of québecois peeps playing WoW on that realm, and its not rare that I see other french speaking at random point in the game ; I never actually noticed that on another realm, hence why I stick to the good ol' magh. I'm in a french guild we made, but we're only casual gamers...
From what I've seen tough, lot french speaking people dont know english that well, So maybe it can sometime be a pain in the ass for ya english speaking dudes to cooperate with us sometime.
Im also against french speaking dudes, who shout in large city, sometime being harassing. I think of WoW as an pure american game, with all the american pop culture things it contains, like simpsons show at TV. What a good part of the content they are missing if they cant read the Hogger quest properly lol ! :)
One thing I dislike is the percentage of americans that hear french or suspect you from being french and begins their xenophobe things attitude lol... saying "damn frenchies" and such. Wait till you know they guy you speaking about before judging, but most are open-minded.
I saw some spanish dudes in duskwoods, and I took time to say them "Hola" and helped them kill Mor'Ladim hehe... instead if running in fear saying "Damn mexicans" :)
mrRaist Feb 20th 2007 3:23PM
ni hao?
glowing brightwood staff 800g OK????????
:D
Strongmark on Arthas Feb 20th 2007 3:26PM
Jeff, I don't get it, you just said you were against french speaking dudes shouting in the cities, then you go into a half-rant about xenophobes who say damn frenchies to the people shouting? WoW isnt a pure american game... it's a game made based by an american company made for everyone in the world. Lots of people watch simpsons outside of america...
The only frenchies you should run into on American servers, are French Canadians, and in that case, I would be incredibly suprised if they couldn't speak english, considering that a huge chunk of Quebec is anglophone.
Strongmark on Arthas Feb 20th 2007 3:27PM
I think I'm even further confused since it sounds like you say you are from Quebec...
*Kobold butt scratch* Im so confused!!!
Natali Feb 20th 2007 3:31PM
Being that the EU side of things is quite populated, you'd think some of us would run across language barriers quite a lot.
Not so. More than half my guild speak English as a second language, they're from Sweden/Holland/Turkey etc, and thankfully, they don't mind that us English people don't speak a word of their languages. I now know a few more foreign words as an end result!
I do however get frustrated when people on the English realms don't speak too much English, but being that there are no Swedish/Dutch/Turkish realms, that's no one's fault.
Jeff Feb 20th 2007 3:32PM
Maybe I didnt explain well my point, I mean, if there was a chinese player who yelled in chinese, I wouldnt like it since its not the langage of the game, and most peeps dont understand.
Its the same thing that happen with some french speaking who start yelling and spamming in french. Its just not adequate in my opinion...
Because sometimes there are french kiddie who cant speak english too well and spam everyone in Stormwind with french, I think its making a bad rep for us when it happens. Consequence of this hapenned to me, when a group didnt want a "french" lol... ahhh good old generalisation :)
Jeff Feb 20th 2007 3:36PM
@8 Yeah im from Québec, Bonjour tout le monde.
I've met too much french speaking players who were total noobs, In fact I saw one french hunter 63 at Honor Hold with mostly leather and cloth gear from level 40-50 :) that's what i'm trying to explain, that these guys make a bad "cliché" for us.
Strongmark on Arthas Feb 20th 2007 3:40PM
Ahh, I get it now, haha. I would hope no WoW players would think all French Canadians are noobs cuz of one hunter, lets atleast hope not!
Ancalimon Feb 20th 2007 3:42PM
@ #6...is there some sort of an English to WoW-English translater? still have no idea what everone is sayin in game lol...i am just a lingo noob
Jeff Feb 20th 2007 3:47PM
Hehe, Well I'm acting as a mediator sometimes lol...
I was grouping with some dudes in Westfall to run them VC (I was 60 at the time) and, all of sudden they were ranting about frenchies who are this and that (bad things) lol... But my guild wasnt french yet so they presumed i was american. I added more to french case, hehe, saying french were worst and all... to see how they would react. Then at VC, those 3-4 noobs paid hehe, lol amusing what a Feign death can do, and I said them "Salut, et bonne journée" (Have a nice day) while Van Cleef was chasing them all. hehe, maybe that was bad after thought...
Derbeste Feb 20th 2007 3:54PM
hehe....evidently none of you ever played FFXI.
Japanese and North Americans and Europeans were all on the same servers. We communicated through a built in translater.
I LOVED jp parties for the same reason the OP liked his french group. Less chatter...more spatter.
That...and JP groups were usually MUCH better than NA groups. So to get invited to a JP experience party was a very nice compliment.
Vlam Feb 20th 2007 7:36PM
I play with a few Quebecois, But since I am Canadian myself, Its no different. I often talk to many French people at school.
But all my guildies see "Canadian" as a language as its own. I'm often asked to say "How aboot that eh?"
Chupes Feb 20th 2007 4:35PM
I've always guilded with people from my country (Dominican Republic) first in Ilidian H. and later we re-rolled Andorhal-A, where other dominican guilds from other realms joined us, in the end we had a guild of 300+ spanish talking players. later on the guild disolved and we got spread all around the realm. we still use a chat channel so that no matter where or which guild we are it's like a giant gchat just for us.
I see i derrailed from the subject. What i wanted to comment was on your experience, most of the time i find myself with 2 other guildies wanting to run x instance and we have to fill with english speakers. most of the time i try to "behave" and save it for gchat or /w's but most of my guildies don't actualy care. a small amount of the people we group with, (around 10-20% would mind the spanish talking) but most dont care and actually enjoy running with ous, because of the coordination we have; and a few nigths ago, for the first time since launch, i stopped caring bout english, and switched to all spanish for the whoe run, the reason? it was way easier to get my point to my guildies in spanish (i'm like a drill sergeat, i instruct through insults =P)
Blackbrute Feb 20th 2007 4:14PM
I'm French Canadian and I play in Norgannon realm. We're two big french guild in the server. First there is "Empire de Camelot", they have about 50 accounts, with 15 to 20 active lvl 70. We are "La Clic a Claude", we have about 40 accounts and 10 active lvl 70.
We really all speak english. I'm pretty much the only one that doesn't speak it with a French Canadian accent, but it's just funny. We have several Western Canadian who speak english. They try to speak French how they can and it's nice, but we really get along well.
We've been playing since the game started with the same characters so it always surprises people when we invite them (the rare times) to see that we speak french and we're good :).
desfaber Feb 20th 2007 4:51PM
I'd settle for people being able to spell 'Rogue' correctly.
Tsel Feb 20th 2007 5:11PM
@18 It's spelled 'Rouge' you nub.
:-D