An explanation

Quote :

translation + claudia edit
(Ah, nice to meet you, madame. I am charmed, of all these beautiful pale women. Your beauty excels the beauty of tonight's moon.
[I'm translating this back into English.. guys, you don't need to poke in random French words or French phrases, all characters are ALREADY speaking French... But if you want, I can make you play all in French, after all, it's my native language... So either stick to English, or go all the way to French, don't try to look smart, it will fail because i am God and I pwn French Skills ! XD])

Well, this is more an exlantion for myself really. Although certain others haven't allowed me the proper opportunity to do so. I might be overlooking a button, but can't seem to edit in an explanation there. Yes, I am new to this chronicle. And didn't realize, despite the fact were typing all of this in English, that were actually talking in French.

Now, it's been suggested, the story is taking place in France, so everyone must be speaking French regardless. Well, I was in a Dutch game, and we typed it in Dutch. Not English. Did not suspect things were different here. And while whatever, every board is different. I don't care for the way that tacked on thing makes me look as a writer and role player. And the erronous assumption included, that I'm trying to look smart. Is a blatant insult. Nor will I let it stand without answering. So yes, I made a mistake, a newbie mistake to this board. But I'm not going to let it be made into something it is not, nor stand by being treated so harshly.

You might have got something wrong there...

I don't think Claudia meant to insult you or call you names. Far from it!
You see, on this board, we are quite familiar with each other (as much as you can be on a board) and, contrary to the Horror theme of the game (both P&P and pc game) itself, we all like to tease and be playful, innocent and funny. Really, what Claudia meant to do was to tease you, to make a joke, yes, maybe even to make fun of you - but she wasn't laughing at you, she was inviting you to laugh with her.

Don't take anything that happens out of character so seriously. It's not meant to insult you, it's meant to be a gentle poke in your side, more like a tickle than a thorn.


(On a sidenote, now that I officially obtained my Latinum, it's galling me that I can't understand any of the French phrases I've read in the roleplaying section so far. My character should, but alas! I have not teh awesome skillz of God Above (My Post), indeed! D: )

It could be. Hope to have not over reacted, it just felt... raw. Talked with Claudia before she put that in there. But maybe something didn't translate quite correct between the two of us.

Thanks for taking a moment to sit down and... catch me up on the local humour Eliza.

From what I know of Claudia, there certainly must've been a misunderstanding. She's really friendly and can take a joke - and she gives good lulz, too! (I like them, at any rate...)
Maybe you just need to get used to our 'special humour' - and I guess being on teh interwebs also makes everything more difficult.

So, nevermind what you said, misunderstandings do happen, especially on the internet, and I don't think someone'll feel hurt now that everything's been cleared up. By the way, you're welcome. I'm glad I could prevent this from getting unnecessarily heated up.

My bad I have been in a relative bad mood lately...

All characters speak French, either because it's their native language or because they have learnt it. Unlike your Dutch game, not all of us, players, do speak French. Because I chose the story to happen in Bordeaux, the basic language used unless told otherwise is French with a French accent. But because the only language we as players are able to communicate in is English, we are all narrating and instant-dub in English.

Ever played any fantasy video game ? Just because the game is in English doesn't mean the characters are actually talking English. How about Warcraft, or dungeons ? Common language and Orc is nothing like our English.

It's the same. That's why all non-french have at least one dot in linguistics. That's also why and how Raekel (and Miri to a certain level) has a French-Canadian accent (Quebec...).


As I loled in my brackets, if you want true accuracy I can GM in French. But you, players, are not French speakers so... I mean I could ask Eliza to actually type in Latin when her character speaks Latin. But I do no because that's why spoiler brackets exist, so only characters with that ability are able to know/understand. She could also type in German, since both Eliza and Corinna are German-speakers, but whenever her character does speak in German, she clarifies in English for us players (and if important, adds in spoiler brackets for German speaking characters only).

Our characters have abilities that we, players, do not. For narration sake, we are all communicating in English, but our characters are actually speaking French. Do Bilbo the Hobbit actually speaks English ? I bet not, but the story has been narrated in this language because Tolkien was an English speaker.
Sure, many many characters do speak English, due to Bordeaux's history and to long time education... But even if Corinna's native language is Latin or German, she's expected to talk to other kindred in French. Whenever she doesn't calls for a very specific call. (and she uses the language border to keep Tremere secrets in between the Tremere... Which is very Tremere like ^^)

I thought this was clear enough.. I went for the smarty-talk 'insult' because it's presumptuous of you, player, to try and go for actual French sentences, especially with an Internet translator, when your gm's native language is French. It's not mean, it's like bar-psychology done while talking to an actual doctor in psychology. Because you want to prove how smart you are, as a player, you take the fun out of the game for other players who do not know French and who are just in for a good time..


If you want a dark ages (=middle ages) campaign in transylvania, do you actually expect me to narrate in.. What language is it ? Rom ? Bulgarian ?
You get the point ?

Alright, I've had to think about this, to try to understand what your getting riled up about. So, because I took the time to get a translater. Which took all of... a mintue. No I had not considered that being an inconvience. And it was wrong of me. Would only take readers a mintue to punch it back into a translator. But I shouldn't have left it like that. Should have put a translation into brackets from the start. Your right.

However Claudia. Just because you speak French. Does not make me typing something in it 'smarty talk.' Translator or not. My native toungue is English, I don't care if someone else uses it. It's not like I own the language. And to clarify, I don't know Dutch. I had to type every post in that game, using a translator. Read the replys with the same. The other people there were native dutch. It was their language, and we all got plenty of laughs from some of the horriable translations Babel Fish made.

I wasn't trying to be smart. Just accurate. As a writer. To me that's what online rps are, their writing. Threads woven through multiple authors into one overall story that the storyteller guides.

Do you actually speak elfic language when you play an elf in a Lord of the Rings rpg ? Seriously ? You know there is an actual university diploma on elven language in the UK ? (I have a friend there, great for lulz too)

And you are asking everyone to make an unnecessary useless effort just for some image's sake ? French does not belong to me, nor does Spanish (second native language), but I will not use either just to show off amazing language (or googling, which I think are even more pointless) skills.
If it's to trad in and ask us to trad back, it's like taking the milk out of the frigde, take it all the way to your girlfriend (who doesn't not drink milk, ever), give it to her and tell her "here go put it in the fridge". Plus Internet translations tend to translate badly when translated back..

http://translationparty.com/tp/#9409774

Ever tried this ?

Things are have been sorted out, I don't care that much, at least you understand that characters are speaking french, even if we are playing in English ;-)

When Claudia spoke of trying to look smart by throwing a little French into the conversation, she was probably referring to me. A few posts before yours, I threw in a few words in French, to show that my apology to Corinna (Eliza) was not just a casual thing -- something more serious than, 'Oops, my bad'. Of course, I had to do a little research on the Interwebs to look up the more emphatic apology. If you saw my post and assumed French was necessary, I apologize.

I might still throw in the occasional word in French, because I'm taking this game as incentive to learn French, which I've wanted to do for a while. But I won't go overboard. (Claudia might laugh at some of my PMs, but I'll live.) However, I will continue to use M. and Mlle. in front of people's names, and sometimes the long version, because to me it seems weird to use Mister and Miss in a game where we're supposedly speaking French.

I speak some Spanish, and I did take Latin in school, so using Latin to confuse the non-Tremere won't work as well as putting it in spoiler brackets. But my character does not speak Latin, as he told Corinna. (Ah, but what languages does he know? That's the question.)

PS -- if I'd known Eliza doesn't speak French that well, I might not have bothered with the fancy apology.

I did run it back through the translator at the time. To see how it would come out when returned to English. Changed the wording slightly to make it less nonsensical. Yes I know elvish is an actual language. Tolkein created a full working language for his books. The man was a language professor as his first carear as I recall, over being a writer. Used to have fun in highschool, competing with classmates over such trivia, including a little Elvish from time to time.

I don't know how many times I can explain, it's not an effort to show off. Anyway, hopefully I've shown that to the fellow writers, which was my intention here. Just didn't want to be taken as someone who was being deliberatly rude or crass in my writing.

And as you pointed out Claudia. Now I know were all speaking in French. That's the only relavant part to the chronicle itself. So I can avoid a similar mistake in the future.

Duncan, that's precisly what I was trying to do. Create a greater emphesis on Nick's statement. The little bit it would still sound awkard, due to the fact Nick hasn't completly mastered his French as a character. That extra bit, and perhaps. Elicting a smile from Miri. Thought it would make better reading. Of course, as I stated a boo boo on my part, when we were actually already speaking French.

Duncan.Oliver wrote:

PS -- if I'd known Eliza doesn't speak French that well, I might not have bothered with the fancy apology.

At all. I don't speak French at all, and I still don't know what Duncan said to Corinna. I won't find out, either, because I'm way too lazy to look it up on teh interwebs.

I must admit, as the player, I felt incredibly stupid and thought 'Next time I get the chance, I'll start writing German'. Then I thought, 'This only makes everybody feel annoyed like me, so let's not'.
But I'm grateful that we'll keep to English now; all those languages make my head spin.

(I will, as Duncan does, also keep to adding 'Mademoiselle' and 'Monsieur' to my posts, though, as some might have noticed, I can't even build the plural forms of these correctly. Thank God we have Claudia who can edit faster than lightning! )

Eliza wrote:

Duncan.Oliver wrote:

PS -- if I'd known Eliza doesn't speak French that well, I might not have bothered with the fancy apology.

At all. I don't speak French at all, and I still don't know what Duncan said to Corinna. I won't find out, either, because I'm way too lazy to look it up on teh interwebs.

I must admit, as the player, I felt incredibly stupid and thought 'Next time I get the chance, I'll start writing German'. Then I thought, 'This only makes everybody feel annoyed like me, so let's not'.
But I'm grateful that we'll keep to English now; all those languages make my head spin.

I'm sorry I made you feel stupid. That was not my intent at all. I assumed that you spoke at least a little French, although I'm not sure why; maybe because you're friendly with Claudia. Anyway, just translate Duncan's words as "I'm very sorry." I'll try to stick to English, although I won't swear to it... I might be tempted in the future. Just the odd word here and there, though... not sentences.

Well, it might make sense to put into french certain sayings that don't translate and mean the same in english,

but it's highly unlikely that anyone except a fluent french speaker would know these colloquialisms. 0:

I also like referring to other characters as monsieur or madame. xD;