How fluent is your English?

[Conviction07]

The biggest thing is the context getting lost in translation, not the context itself. I'm Aussie, writing a plot for a town set Europe, aimed at a world wide audience, while knowing that most language on the net is aimed at Americans, I know this because of spell check. In Australia and other Britain influenced countries we call ass arse, and a bathroom is where you bathe, and where you shit is the toilet over here. There a countless words like that. I also have to be careful not to use any Aussie lingo as the none of the characters are Aussie, and I have a habit of typing like I talk, and I talk fluent Aussie. What Ive done is, the European town/s are made up names and mentioned, but the country in Europe is not, I don't mention currencies, you can score dope but he says it will cost you a 20, or "I need to earn some cash". I'm older than my intended audience so there will be context people will not be old enough to understand, but whoever does will get lolz so I put that in. Whatever you do don't try and be too clever, I assume none of us are professors of English literature so trying to be too clever will come off making no sense. If he is detective just use lingo you see on detective shows, if you want to make him sound clever, make him overly clever and make his underlying trait like no one understands what he is on about half the time, and have characters mention it now and again.

Interesting, I'm completely the opposite of you. As an Australian myself (I don't even like the word Aussie), I make a concerted effort to write "American" because I know it's the most common. And since I consume a lot more American media than I do Australian, it's actually pretty easy for me to do.

 

[N1K17Y]

just write it however you feel like it. im not native english speaker but i understand it pretty much perfectly. the game with the most use of "big words" ive played is wicked choices and that style of writing is one of its strongest points. even though you see alot of engrish on this site, its far easier to be able to read something than to write it. plus it will be one less thing for you to worry about when making your game

 

[W65]

I find the possible options to answer the poll not fully representative of my situation.
I'm not a native speaker, so my grasp and more so my usage of English is not perfect, but it's not "big words" that confuse me. The real wall is represented, in my humble opinion, by idiomatic expressions. Every language is full of those and sometimes they're lost on a foreigner because there is often no bullet-proof way to derive their actual meaning from the words they're composed of.
I mean, there's the classic example, how the heck is any sane person supposed to know, without having encountered such uses before, what these mean:
-knowing your shit;
-being the shit (as opposed to "being shit");
-get your shit together;
-being full of shit;
-X the shit out of Y;
-not giving a shit;
-a shitload of.
Only context and experience with English speakers can tell you why the same damn word appears in such different constructs.

So the real enemy is not some pesky accultured word like "serendipitously".
Besides, most non native English speakers have a scholastic education in the language, thus it's far more probable for us to know obsolete words or very formal expressions rather than the most common ones and especially rather than the vulgar ones.
I mean, we read some Shakespeare in high school, but my English teacher for sure never taught me what "fucking someone's brain out" means.

Yeah, that shit (lol) is exactly why you'll see people who make a point of saying "idiomatic" when they're talking about fluency. Fluency doesn't necessarily imply familiarity with actual and current usage.

Unfortunately, to have dialog that sounds natural to native speakers it's nearly impossible to avoid the use of modern idiom. It's like trying to write dialectually natural patois while not turning away speakers of the base language, or, more figuratively, like trying to walk a tightrope that's greased and doesn't exist.

 

[mickydoo]

Good to see another "Australian" floating around @Conviction07. Yeah I do write like an American easy enough, but when I try and be funny I revert to Australian if I'm not careful

 

[freedom.call]

Non-English person here, I'd say I'm somewhere between passable and good. Reading and writing better than speaking.

 

[Barabash]

This is tricky, I hope to believe I'm somewhere between good and passable. There's always a time when I'll find a phrase I can't quite understand or at all, but it's not happening often, so I'm pretty content with myself
When it comes to verbal dialogue I'm not perfectly fluid, but I'm not also stuttering too much, I don't intend to brag to much, but I passed English exams pretty well. There's always a room for improvement though, so I keep watching movies, play games and read a lot of articles in Eng.
These days English is extremely important so everyone should know basics at least, not knowing it and having an internet connection is very lame excuse for me.

 

[Carpe Stultus]

I'm currently in the middle of doing a heavy rewrite on one of the games I work on, and was just curious how advanced I should get with the use of my vocabulary? From what I gather, the majority of both players and developers here aren't native English speakers, so I'm concerned that a big chunk of my potential player base could be left completely lost if I go a little too far with using bigger words that perhaps only a small percentage of players will actually understand. So I made a poll just to gauge what the general level of people's English comprehension here is. Also, is this something any of you other developers have considered, or should I just do me, everyone else be damned?

I'm not a native english speaker and yes sometimes i just don't know the exact meaning of certain words, which is not really a problem because there is always uncle google, if the meaning doesn't become clear during the conversation.

However, i've played what you've developed and i can only say that you should just do you.

 

[anne O'nymous]

The problem (almost) don't lie in the vocabulary, but syntax, grammar and sentence construction.

Even with people fluent in English and native English speakers, you'll face case where "this word" is unknown from the reader. Obviously, the less you use unusual words, the less you risk to face this, but it's not by itself a problem. In part because the context help to understand what is said, and this understanding is what matter the most. So, don't try to reach a situation where everyone will understand every words, tend to a situation where everyone will understand the meaning of the sentence.

Take games in Engrish by example. I'm sure that you understand all the words, but do you understand all the sentences ? That's the same problem that none native English readers have to face. A sentence can be perfectly correct, but still hard to understand for none native readers because it have too many pitfalls.
This sentence, by example : "yet, I like her more than like a friend, this even if she don't know it yet. It's not a lie, lie on the bed and I'll explain it to you".
It's a simple sentence, it's a correct sentence (as far as I know), but neither the two "yet", the two "like" nor the two "lie" have the same meaning. And that's where you'll loose none native English players. You can use these three words, you can use them for all of their meaning. But if you avoid to use both meaning in the same sentence, it will ease the life of the none native English readers.

Also, try to use linking words, even when the sentence will still be correct if they aren't used. This is a valid variation of the first sentence I used above: "yet, I like her more than like a friend even if she don't know it yet."
The only difference is the missing ", this", but this difference is also what make the sentence more or less easy to understand. The more linking words you'll use, the easier the sentence will be to read, especially for people who aren't fluent in English. This because English is a fucking weird language create by barbarians for barbarians ; hey, don't take me too much at serious here, please.
What I mean is that native or fluent English readers can see a sentence of 40 words, almost without a single linking word, and without a single punctuation mark, and still understand it because it's a perfectly valid sentence. By example here is a perfectly valid sentence despite its lack of many things that could have really eased reader's task by structuring way more its meaning and so making it way easier to understand for them ; shit, 37 words only...

So, write like if you were speaking to a genius child. Someone that know all the words, but don't necessarily have the attention spawn needed to understand complex sentences structures. Then, you'll loose less your none English readers.

 

[Holy Bacchus]

This sentence, by example : "yet, I like her more than like a friend, this even if she don't know it yet. It's not a lie, lie on the bed and I'll explain it to you".
It's a simple sentence, it's a correct sentence (as far as I know)

Actually, that sentence still doesn't make much sense to a native English speaker.

For starters, "yet" in this context would be a more formal version of "but" which would be more commonly used to begin such a sentence, or they would say, "And yet". There's also a superfluous "like" in the beginning of that first sentence and it's also missing an "as", so the first part of the sentence should read as either, "But I like her as more than a friend", or "And yet I like her as more than a friend".

The next part doesn't need the word "this" and "don't" should be "doesn't", i.e. "even if she doesn't know it yet".

The second sentence is fine, but could be written in a different way to convey an easier meaning. For example, "It's not a lie" could be replaced with, "I'm not lying", which could also be better as a separate sentence with an exclamation mark at the end for greater emphasis, or you could go with "I'm telling the truth". The second "Lie" could also be replaced with with word "Sit", and it also probably doesn't need the "to you" either as "explain it" is sometimes more like typical English speak, or even just the word "explain" is enough.

Therefore, a better way to construct these sentences could be this:

"But I like her as more than just a friend, even if she doesn't know it yet."
"I'm not lying! Sit down on the bed and I'll explain."

 

[anne O'nymous]

Actually, that sentence still doesn't make much sense to a native English speaker.

Except stating the obvious truth that I'm neither a native English speaker, nor a fluent one, what was your point ?

Therefore, a better way to construct these sentences could be this:

So, the problem (almost) don't lie in the vocabulary, but syntax, grammar and sentence construction.

 

[Holy Bacchus]

Except stating the obvious truth that I'm neither a native English speaker, nor a fluent one, what was your point ?

Sorry, I didn't mean for that to sound offensive, I was just stating that that sentence isn't really how native English speakers would say it.

So, the problem (almost) don't lie in the vocabulary, but syntax, grammar and sentence construction.

Basically, yes. I can't speak to how English is taught to non-native speakers, but I know from studying French in school that foreign language education generally teaches people how to speak in the proper, formal way but doesn't take into account the more informal way that people usually speak which differs from the way it is taught.

 

[polywog]

I'm currently in the middle of doing a heavy rewrite on one of the games I work on, and was just curious how advanced I should get with the use of my vocabulary? From what I gather, the majority of both players and developers here aren't native English speakers, so I'm concerned that a big chunk of my potential player base could be left completely lost if I go a little too far with using bigger words that perhaps only a small percentage of players will actually understand. So I made a poll just to gauge what the general level of people's English comprehension here is. Also, is this something any of you other developers have considered, or should I just do me, everyone else be damned?

I read an article once where The NY Times was criticized for using big words, so they instructed their reporters to restrict themselves to writing at an 8th grade level. Prior to making this reply, I searched for confirmation, and found that they have since raised it to a 10th grade reading level.

Publishers of romance novels, based on some studies, have long recommended that their authors not go past the 5th grade reading level, for the benefit of their readers, and to maximize sales.

 

[anne O'nymous]

Sorry, I didn't mean for that to sound offensive,

I wasn't effectively offended, but you could have said this otherwise.

Basically, yes. I can't speak to how English is taught to non-native speakers, but I know from studying French in school that foreign language education generally teaches people how to speak in the proper, formal way but doesn't take into account the more informal way that people usually speak which differs from the way it is taught.

More than the difference between the formal and informal ways, the problem is lying in the difference between the native language of the reader and English.
Like you studied French, you probably remember that words order tend to be inverted in English ; or is it in French ? By itself it's not a problem, I read something in English so I know that I'll have to take care of this inversion ; basically speaking, it's now the previous word that will complement the meaning, not the following one like usually.
When you're fluent in English, it's not a problem. But when you aren't, it's an unnatural order for you. You have to fight, more or less depending of your effective ability, against the habit due to your own language. And, while this example apply to Latin languages and not only to French, all languages have their own particularities that make it hard at first to understand a language that don't share them.
By default for none English readers, English looks the same than Engrish for native English readers ; the words exist, they seem more or less used according to their meaning, but why in this order ? Why this one ? Why in this place ? Obviously, it once again depend of the effective ability with English. The more you "master it", the more natural it will look for you.

Take this sentence that a French could have wrote :"the leaf fell from the tree, then she touched the ground".
Why this "she" ? For someone coming from a language that have a neutral gender and use it for object, it's not natural and it let him confused. The initial impulse is to see the sentence as, "a leaf fell, and at the same moment a girl touched the ground." But what girl ? Is there even a girl around there ? When was the last time one was named ? I mean, perhaps that it's a way to join two events happening at the same time, but in different places. And even, touched the ground with what ? Her hand ? Her butt ?
Then the said reader remember that the author come from a language that don't have neutral gender and, because he failed to find another meaning, he assume that "she" refer to the leaf. But it wasn't a natural process, he had to struggle with the sentence before he finally understand it ; still, he's not this sure that he effectively understood it.
That's the kind of process that happen in the mind of none natural, nor fluent, English readers ; taking in count that, the higher is his ability, the less it happen. That's why, trying to stick to basic construction (but not too basic either) for the sentences ease the works for the reader. It limit the number of "why", and permit to focus on the meaning more than on the understanding.

 

[baka]

I want as good "everyday speech" English as possible.
Most of my English I learned from internet, not from my school time, so I don't know what is right or wrong.

 

[W65]

[...]

Take this sentence that a French could have wrote :"the leaf fell from the tree, then she touched the ground".
[...]

The thing I love about English, and the thing that makes it such a beautiful bitch-language, is that a person could just write exactly that sentence and it's still a valid, comprehensible English sentence. The best part is that the reader is left to assume that the female characterization of the leaf is somehow important or relevant, and is likely to eventually conclude that the author was just being literary if they can't figure a reason why.

It is almost barbaric, this English language, in how unhelpful it is to the reader in comprehending its expressions. Sentence structure be damned. I'll put my shit together however I feel.

Yeah, okay, every language has its own literary tradition to draw from (vertical east Asian languages, anyone?), its own fucked-up foibles of usage, and probably sounds like garbage to folks far enough removed in grammatical lineage. I'm no scholar of linguistics, but from listening to native and foreign speaker alike complain I've gathered that English is widely viewed as some terrible monster of grammar and construction. There's a kind of beauty in that distinction in and of itself.

 

[215303j]

That's a great point I've never really thought about. Unfortunately, if you want dialogue to sound natural, there's really no avoiding that problem.

One solution is to localise the game to a place that fits your dialogue.

Take Crododile Dundee for instance. I get that the guy is a charicature of an Australian and not someone who you'll ever meet IRL, but still the movie is interesting because of his localisation, which provides context for the story. Imagine that same movie but with Arnold Schwarzenegger in the title role, that would not work at all.

A game that is clearly set in Russia, will get away with using bad English with typical Russian-English expressions. It may even get better because of this use of language. The same game when set in pseudo-USA would be ridiculous and annoying.

 

[random.person]

The thing I love about English, and the thing that makes it such a beautiful bitch-language, is that a person could just write exactly that sentence and it's still a valid, comprehensible English sentence. The best part is that the reader is left to assume that the female characterization of the leaf is somehow important or relevant, and is likely to eventually conclude that the author was just being literary if they can't figure a reason why.

It is almost barbaric, this English language, in how unhelpful it is to the reader in comprehending its expressions. Sentence structure be damned. I'll put my shit together however I feel.

Yeah, okay, every language has its own literary tradition to draw from (vertical east Asian languages, anyone?), its own fucked-up foibles of usage, and probably sounds like garbage to folks far enough removed in grammatical lineage. I'm no scholar of linguistics, but from listening to native and foreign speaker alike complain I've gathered that English is widely viewed as some terrible monster of grammar and construction. There's a kind of beauty in that distinction in and of itself.

To be honest, English is actually a simple language. And I'm conforted in this opinion by a friend of mine who studies languages at the University.
Simply put, the rules are pretty simple but what's especially simple is the absence of the fuck ton of desinences, conjugations and what not that languages stemming from Latin have.
I mean, we have tables for our verbs and it's practically a meme in my country (Italy) that the majority of the population doesn't even know how to use a part of it (the notorious "congiuntivo"). And you know what's even funnier? A shit ton of verbs, even common usage ones, don't follow the regular table and do what the heck they want. How do you know a priori? You can't. Unless you have good intuition and a firm grasp of Latin to guess where the verb comes from and why most verbs have become irregular (usually it's because Latin had four conjugations and Italian only three, so some verbs ended up in weird spots conjugation wise). Other irregularities stem just from the fact that some Latin verbs were already irregular.
And then, after verbs, you have to care for male, female, singular and plural forms for substantives and adjectives (thought you could add an -s? Nope), where it's usually all fine until a word that in Latin was clearly for males pops up and nowadays females too can be denoted by it so everyone started to put -essa at the end of it even if it does make no sense etymologically wise: for instance doctor is "dottore" and in Latin -or was clearly for male words, so the female form should be "dottrice" since in Latin the equivalent of an -or word is a -rix word (e.g. ultor and ultrix), which in Italian becomes -rice (e.g. Beatrix -> Beatrice), but no, someone thought "dottoressa" was the way to go, probably by assonance with "principessa" (princess) -- but that word is that way because it stemmed from the male word princeps to which an -a, the desinence for female nouns, was added, not because -essa meant something!
So, English grammatic is actually pretty free learning wise for a lot of foreigners because it is simpler than their own language. What's hard for non native speakers are the spelling and pronunciation and all those verbs that acquire different meaning depending on stuff like up, down, off, of, at, in et cetera. The latter can be understood only by experience since it's not always clear why they mean those things (e.g. compare "to show up" to "to show off"). Spelling and pronunciation are simply a mess in English because of historical reasons (the great vowel shift being the first offender: you literally switched the sound of all vowels without altering how you wrote them, thus you use the same Latin alphabet as romance languages but with vowel pronunciation shuffled) and it's evident given how even native speakers mess it up sometimes and given the differences in spelling you can find on the two sides of the Atlantic ocean.

And now a pet peeve: why is it that so many native speakers don't use the irregular form for verbs that have the past tense in -t? You told the world to learn those and then go with -ed, you're very rude!
(E.g. burnt, learnt, dreamt...)

 

[c3p0]

I'm currently in the middle of doing a heavy rewrite on one of the games I work on, and was just curious how advanced I should get with the use of my vocabulary? From what I gather, the majority of both players and developers here aren't native English speakers, so I'm concerned that a big chunk of my potential player base could be left completely lost if I go a little too far with using bigger words that perhaps only a small percentage of players will actually understand. So I made a poll just to gauge what the general level of people's English comprehension here is. Also, is this something any of you other developers have considered, or should I just do me, everyone else be damned?

Can't answer your question with yes/no or another good advice.
I'm a native German speaker, but even in my mother tounge I think I could do better. Most times I don't have troubles to read or listen things in English, but I do not understand every word. Don't know if I can the same if it's something in dialect.
Even our own (German) dialects are sometimes too much for ourselve.
For how I come to where I am - for English. Basic school education for around 7 years. And then to advance more heavy consume of Anime/Mangas in the only other language I know a little better beside German, without counting computer language - and this skills are a least a little bit rusty now.
I believe that I am around the Cambridge English Advanced level at least for reading, the other two most likely not

But most times I write a post, like this, I have at least one tab open with some dictonary helping me. And then, I try to fix the failure later that are so obvoius that even I myself thinking: Come on, how could you have written this in the first time?

For your situation: You could give me your text, if you want and I try to give you my two cents about it.

The problem (almost) don't lie in the vocabulary, but syntax, grammar and sentence construction.
...

I think the same. I can use a dictonary for the words, but what a sentence means is on another page. And even if I know one meaning of the sentence, what should be the meaning in this situation be?

Example from german language:
You are in the car next to the driver. Car is waiting on a cross and the ample is red.
You say, as the ample has switched: "It's green, you can driver."
What is my intend hear? Without additonal content, I guss your solution is as good as mine.
Is it: "Your lazy ass it is green, so go!" or simple "In case your eyes was not nailed on the street, the light has changed."?

....
This sentence, by example : "yet, I like her more than like a friend, this even if she don't know it yet. It's not a lie, lie on the bed and I'll explain it to you".
...

This sentence I do understand.

For the benefit of those who don't know these phrase:

• Knowing your shit = Being highly knowledgeable about a particular subject.
• Being the shit = Being of a very high quality, i.e. that was the shit = that was the best.
• Get your shit together = An instruction given to a person to either calm down if they are highly stressed or worked up, or a means of expressing tough love to someone who requires motivation.
• Being full of shit = Not being honest or truthful.
• X the shit out of Y = An expression of a desire to cause physical harm to a person, animal, or object.
• Not giving a shit = To not care about something.
• A shitload of = A non-scientific unit of measurement used to describe large quantities of a particular thing.

five out of seven

...
Basically, yes. I can't speak to how English is taught to non-native speakers, but I know from studying French in school that foreign language education generally teaches people how to speak in the proper, formal way but doesn't take into account the more informal way that people usually speak which differs from the way it is taught.

Yes, you are right. What was I thought was the British brown tounge and I think for sure, it will stick to me.
French on the other side I personally try to forget it. Was never a strong side from my education, never really used it and never have a reason to use it. Only thing I could think as a reason would be some Manga/Animes that haven't a offical english translation, but I only seen one official and the, of course, there was already the inofficial one... - or a sleeping beauty frenchwoman in my bed.

 

[Holy Bacchus]

The thing I love about English, and the thing that makes it such a beautiful bitch-language, is that a person could just write exactly that sentence and it's still a valid, comprehensible English sentence. The best part is that the reader is left to assume that the female characterization of the leaf is somehow important or relevant, and is likely to eventually conclude that the author was just being literary if they can't figure a reason why.

I would say that that sentence could be interpreted as involving an actual person, not that the leaf is being characterised as a female. The "she" could refer to a woman who touches ground as a leaf falls from a tree.

 

[Holy Bacchus]

Also, one other thing I notice in a lot of games is when a woman's lady parts are referred to as her "sex", i.e. "she took off her panties and revealed her sex".

I honestly don't think anyone, in the history of the English language, has ever referred to a woman's pussy/vagina/fanny/snatch/muff/slit/twat/box/beaver/cunt as her "sex".