Writing in a different language

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Evy
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Re: Writing in a different language

#16 Post by Evy »

I'm French Canadian and English is my second language, but I suppose I'm one of those odd cases of someone who's more comfortable writing in English. Not just because it's a more "accessible" language over the web, but... I mean, I'm a francophone. French is tough and many translations from English can sound SUPER cheesy. I already have better French grammar than most of the people in my area, but it's still not perfect. And with differences in regional dialects, finding a "middle ground" in a language like French can be... uhh. Quite tricky, to say the least.

That said, the best way to learn a language is through immersion. If you just keep at it, you'll see your linguistic skills improve in no time.

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Re: Writing in a different language

#17 Post by Banya »

I had lost track of this topic, I'm sorry >< I didn't expect so many replies though, thank you!

@Selidor & LateWhiteRabbit : thank you for the advice :) I think you're right, I'll follow your suggestion! And... I thought I had replied earlier to your messages but I must have forgot, I'm sorry ;__;

@YonYonYon: really? And now are you comfortable with English? Russian and English are completely different languages

@juunishi master: it sounds a lot interesting! Probably it would acquire a completely different meaning from language to language, but it would be a good challenge (though I'd be able to suggest for Italian variants instead of English ;__; even so, I know that the American Kentucky accent and the UK Scottish one are considered peculiar as English variants)

@Mammon & Carradee: I don't know if there are any, in general Italian gamers are a great minority because there's still a form of shaming people who enjoy videogames as childlish or immature; therefore, there's almost no market for games here and visual novels are almost unknown as a genre... I should find a niche, but I still haven't met anyone who played or enjoyed visual novels except for the friend who introduced me to Renpy ^^" since Italian is spoken only in Italy, Malta and a little fraction of Switzerland, and having to emerge from a worldwide crowd I thought that simply writing a VN novel wouldn't work... because I should be lucky to appeal a little niche first, otherwise my work would be completely ignored. It might me of lesser quality if I write in English, but at least I have a chance to share with others :)
Afterall on lemmasoft we're all from different countries, aren't we?
PS: I looked for that game; It looks like they ripped off "La Locandiera" by Goldoni, a very famous play in Venice, so they're probably Italian xD

@Evy: I know what you mean ^^" complex structures and vocabulary can't be rendered completely in English or, if they are, they would sound very cheesy... but French has means of expression that in English could be rich and interesting too :)

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Re: Writing in a different language

#18 Post by Frullo »

Banya wrote:I had lost track of this topic, I'm sorry >< I didn't expect so many replies though, thank you!

@Selidor & LateWhiteRabbit : thank you for the advice :) I think you're right, I'll follow your suggestion! And... I thought I had replied earlier to your messages but I must have forgot, I'm sorry ;__;

@YonYonYon: really? And now are you comfortable with English? Russian and English are completely different languages

@juunishi master: it sounds a lot interesting! Probably it would acquire a completely different meaning from language to language, but it would be a good challenge (though I'd be able to suggest for Italian variants instead of English ;__; even so, I know that the American Kentucky accent and the UK Scottish one are considered peculiar as English variants)

@Mammon & Carradee: I don't know if there are any, in general Italian gamers are a great minority because there's still a form of shaming people who enjoy videogames as childlish or immature; therefore, there's almost no market for games here and visual novels are almost unknown as a genre... I should find a niche, but I still haven't met anyone who played or enjoyed visual novels except for the friend who introduced me to Renpy ^^" since Italian is spoken only in Italy, Malta and a little fraction of Switzerland, and having to emerge from a worldwide crowd I thought that simply writing a VN novel wouldn't work... because I should be lucky to appeal a little niche first, otherwise my work would be completely ignored. It might me of lesser quality if I write in English, but at least I have a chance to share with others :)
Afterall on lemmasoft we're all from different countries, aren't we?
PS: I looked for that game; It looks like they ripped off "La Locandiera" by Goldoni, a very famous play in Venice, so they're probably Italian xD

@Evy: I know what you mean ^^" complex structures and vocabulary can't be rendered completely in English or, if they are, they would sound very cheesy... but French has means of expression that in English could be rich and interesting too :)
I wouldn't completely discard the italian VN market since, being italian myself, i know for sure that there are quite a number of fellow spaghetti eaters interested in VN, they just play them in english (or japanese, for the most hardcore). And all the "nerdy" crowd which populte for instance Lucca Comics could be interested in an italian VN, or at least i hope so.
Of course it will always be a much smaller market that the international one and you will need an english version sooner or later, but if you market it well a italian VN could be a novelty just because there aren't any around (except for "Elisa the Innkeeper" which was also published in other languages).
Personally, i'm still starting up my project, i will definitely write in italian first and then translate to english later because it's much easier for me to do that, but it depends on you.

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Re: Writing in a different language

#19 Post by fullmontis »

As a fellow italian I've come to accept that my english translation is going to be not as good than the italian version. I just make sure it is understandable and there aren't any major typos, and I use feedback to fix mistakes. I keep my linguistic somersaults for the italian version, where I have a better idea of what I'm doing.

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Re: Writing in a different language

#20 Post by Banya »

Two Italian fellows... and I noticed the reply to the topic only now! I'm sorry ;__;

@Frullo e Fullmontis:
Dite che potrebbe funzionare? Anche un altro utente del forum mi aveva parlato di una nicchia italiana di VN developers e di giocatori di VN, ma come si fa a contattarli\entrare? Non mi è mai capitato di incontrarne, anche in anni in cui ho frequentato le fiere (il Lucca però è al di fuori delle mie possibilità per ora purtroppo) e mi piacerebbe radunarli ><

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