[Germany] Issues with esports and casting language - Page 6

On February 12 2011 20:50 trancey_ wrote:
The whole german language is like 10% english nowadays so what are you complaining about?

On February 12 2011 04:18 Shockk wrote:


Calling HomerJ the "german pendant" to Day9 is probably the most insulting comparison imagineable.

On February 12 2011 20:58 Rabiator wrote:

Exactly that ... it shoudlnt be. If you extrapolate that into the future german will cease to exist at some time.

On February 12 2011 03:12 coma wrote:
Edit: I confused Starcraft 2 with esports in general, so this probably should get moved. Sorry about that.

Hi,
I'd like to address a few issues i see with the progress of esports in Germany, especially concerning the style of casting and the language involved.

Before I begin with my argument, I would like to state that I want to see esports (specifically Starcraft 2) succeed in the non-english speaking countries. I do not know how this is handled by casters in other countries than Germany but I believe that the issues may have a mutual origin being the commonly accepted language in the gaming community, english.


Ok, lets get to the statement:

The language used by most (if not all) german casters (a hybrid of german and english) acts as a major hindrance for people to get attracted to esports and therefore the success of esports on a larger scale in Germany.


Let me elaborate a bit on the language part:
(This got quite big)
If you are a common gamer and also speak a bit of english, you will probably prefer to play games in their original language (same applies with watching movies or series). Doing this and watching tournaments and casts on english, you will familiarize yourself with the english vocabulary used.

If you now engage in a discussion with someone in german you will have the problem that you can't name the units and abilities and that you are accustomed to the english terms for pretty much everything happening in the game. What would happen now is a stuttering conversation, since you would have to translate all the english words over to german. This may take quite a long time depending on the word.
Just to show an example: "choke point" should be translated to "Engpass". I actually had to look that up myself.

Now, since the guy you're talking to is usually also exposed to a similar amount of english content and the discussion would be impractical and seem silly if you always thought for a few seconds before going on, you just do the easy thing and use the english term. You are now able to finish the discussion. The problem is that you just invented a fuckton of new words to accustom to the german flow of speech and that someone listening to your conversation will be fucking weirded out and not understand a thing you are saying.

Of course this doesn't matter to the common gamer.


Now, I wanted to talk about the development of esports in Germany in relation to this new language.

The moment this language becomes awkward is when you try to explain something about the game to someone who is actually playing games on german or, in the "extreme" case, doesn't play any games and/or does not speak any english.
While the gamer may actually incorporate the "Denglish" words into his language, the "normal" guy will probably ask you to talk in german to him or just give you the nerdstamp.


What I want to see is successful esport-events in Germany, with a big audience. The people currently doing the casting in german unintentionally stop this from happening by alienating anyone that does not speak their artificial language. If nothing changes about this, the german scene will likely stagnate at the point where it is now.



I am really interested in the opinion of other people on this , so please tell me what you think.

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Note:
Of course I could be wrong with this. It could very well be that we will see huge televised tournaments casted in germany, casted in "Denglish". However, I neither see that happening nor would I personally watch something like that.


Response edit #1:
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Response edit #2:
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On February 12 2011 20:50 trancey_ wrote:
The whole german language is like 10% english nowadays so what are you complaining about?

On February 12 2011 03:29 Sewi wrote:
As a german I totally see what you mean. Talking about SC2 with friends in public environment makes you look like a serious stupid nerd. To others you may sound like you want to be cool by using English words etc but translating these things to German sounds even more stupid to those who actually play the game...

The problem this brings is the following:
(I can only speak for myself but I am pretty sure that a lot of other German players think like that)

- I completely ignore German SC related websites
- I cannot stand 90% of the German casters (This is partly because of the Denglish but also because some of them just have a terrible language usage even in their L1
- I dont feel as a part of the German SC2 community at all

On February 12 2011 22:36 Zocat wrote:
I think it may be appropiate to throw some numbers around.
Assembly is on atm, 2.30pm in Germany (so almost no NA watchers):

Shoutcraft (English): 1750 viewers
glhf 1 (English): 4900 viewers
glhf 2 (English): 600 viewers
itzMorglum (Polish): 720 viewers
pararin (Finnish): 520 viewers
Khaldor (German): 6300 viewers

So we have almost as many people watching the German stream, compared to the English streams. Even when some German people prefer watching the English casts (ie. myself & friends).
So there is definitely an audience for German casts which will chose German casts over English ones.
So "we dont need German casters, they should cast English" or "people should just watch English streams, no need German streams" seems just wrong.

On February 12 2011 20:58 Rabiator wrote:

Exactly that ... it shoudlnt be. If you extrapolate that into the future german will cease to exist at some time.

On February 12 2011 21:36 Daswollvieh wrote:
Maybe the issue is not so much the language of German casters, but the viewers feeling embarassed. "Fremdschämen" anybody? I think a lack of self-confidence on part of the viewership plays a big part in this. Don´t get me wrong, I´m not calling out anybody here, but it´s the feeling I get from discussions like this. The viewers don´t want to feel embarassed, but then, there actually is no reason for that... it´s self-induced.
Though I may be talking out of my ass.

On February 12 2011 22:50 Tone_ wrote:


So where is the problem? German streams for German people. We shouldn't be losing English streams in favour of German.

Why does this post even exist?

On February 12 2011 21:55 Rabiator wrote:

Let me try to explain better by giving an example:

You are a nerd (probably) and thus most likely love


Since you live in germany you might have encountered


But do you think a combination of both (a "Schnitzelpizza") is good? Personally I think it is an abomination and I would like to apologize to all the Italians out there for any germans who actually cook, sell and eat these things. Just take half of one of your own "national foods" and then put that on a pizza and check is you like the thought of it.

I have nothing against english, I have nothing against german. I just hate mixing them up, because that means the person doing it isnt able to switch between the two and will - most likely - always have problems with either of them. You really hear from some germans that they are translating sentences word by word into english and that sounds totally awful, because you would need to have a different order of words in that sentence.

Personally I would love to have more original versions of movies in our television, simply because they have a much better sound quality. Even subtitles hurt more than they help because they distract from the stuff going on on the screen. I am a big Jane Austen fan and there are a lot of good BBC movies of her books (1). The german translations are very very horrible though and full of mistakes in their translations an sometimes even saying the complete opposite at important parts of the dialogue. (1) No idea about the quality of the translation for Hollywood movies, because they are usually terribly bad in comparison to the BBC ones.

On February 12 2011 21:40 heishe wrote:


So what? That doesn't matter at all. Who cares what we speak as long as we understand eachother? The german that was spoken here 200 years ago is completely different from the one spoken today. Who cares about that? Right, nobody.

That is useless traditionalism.

On the topic: Everyone in the world should use the original english terms for everything in Starcraft 2 and Starcraft 2 related. It creates an even platform to communicate about things even for players who don't speak english that well.

Sometimes I hear polish casters, or french casters or whatever, and I still understand what's going on because sometimes they use english terms!

On February 12 2011 23:23 trancey_ wrote:

No i don't find english words irritating nor do they make me angry. The american language has adapted some german words too and it's far better to use words than force a translation, this would sound even more horrible. Imagine if he used "Hetzer" or "Berstlinge" and other failed translations, for "Ghost" there isn't even a translation. I cannot understand how this can be anything more than mildly disturbing, let alone irritating enough to make a thread about it.

If he casted only english i'd be happy with it.

I also read Clamevs post and honestly i didn't know if the whole thing was written ironically, because most points he cries about aren't valid in my opinion. I don't want german casters to be like american casters and i don't care if they are a bit sloppier. They do their thing and there are plenty of other casters to watch so you do not have to take the time and complain about one stream you do not like.

On February 12 2011 23:38 Rabiator wrote:

Adding german words to english has only happened when there was no equivalent english word already. Our dear "german" casters are using english words when there are german words to use ... just to sound cooler. That is quite a difference.

On February 12 2011 23:43 trancey_ wrote:

But that's not only for eSports, i use words like "sweet" and "nice" regularly, that's normal slang. And everyone says "cool". Got no problem with that, but this discussion is probably in the wrong place here and should be adressed at linguists?!

On February 12 2011 23:50 Zocat wrote:


I think Rabiator is talking about verbs like "moven" "casten" "attacken" "retreaten" "forcen". You take normal English verbs (move, cast, attack, retreat) which have normal German translations (which would make sense) and conjugate them following German grammar rules.

I think something like "cheese" isnt a big problem for him (i assume) though we could use 'bärtig'.