Experiences Non-English roleplaying

[Onmyoji]

All the roleplays on RPN are in English, but there are still many non-native English speakers around.

So I was wondering, do you ever roleplay in your native language too?
Alternatively, if you are native English speaker but know more than one language, do you roleplay in those other languages?

I'm curious if your rp experiences are different depending on languages. Maybe there are different trends in non-English communities that we don't have here? Or different array of fandoms?
Do you find it easier or harder to rp in a different language?

Share your stories!
Just remember that English is still the main language on RPN so don't post rp examples in other languages XD

 

[Idea]

All the roleplays on RPN are in English, but there are still many non-native English speakers around.

Well, that's cause..

English Only
Content posted on RpNation is expected to be written in English. This includes the RpNation Discord server, private workshop, profile posts, and private messages. This assists the Staff so that they may moderate content effectively and fairly.

Minor elements of posts, such as phrases, signatures, and in-character dialogue, are not required to be written in English. Users may be asked to provide an honest translation upon Staff request.

-the rules

So it's a little more than just "being the main language".

In my own case, to answer your first question, I haven't ever roleplayed in non-english languages. Besides my primary RPing site being RPN, the reason for this is the same reason why I refuse to watch dubs in my own native language, I hate how it sounds. I find that I am a lot more self-conscious of awkward translations in my own native language and that it often just doesn't sound right in the way english does. Other languages I find to be less snappy and allow for lesser wordplay, though that may just be because I don't have that much contact with most of them.

 

[Shuusuke]

Never have RPed in languages other than english, despite that not being my native language, which is portuguese (pt-br). Don't feel any inclination towards doing that either, and I can think of a few reasons why.

1- In general, I probably write/type more in english than in portuguese. When I do, it's usually either just to chat so there's little need for perfect grammar and storytelling, or when I'm writing a paper/essay so I have to be extremely technical and there's no room for creativity, so my brain probably linked those two things which are extremes and not a good match for RPing.

2- The fact that online in particular, that's not a high-regarded nationality due to some common behavior, so I instinctively stay away from brazilians in online english environments (games, for example), meaning I might've missed chances which I wouldn't take anyway.

3- I just got used to english being the language the stories are told. I played a lot of games when I was a kid, and all but literally one I've played back then had portuguese available, all of them were mostly english with a few elusive japanese ones I didn't even own. Some titles now have portuguese subtitles and even voice acting, but I feel like that happened too late for me. So when I think of a story, the thoughts are already in english. I'll let portuguese be used in real life, I guess.

I did run into about 5 occasions that had a structured RP though. They were on this murder mystery game I seem to mention every now and then in my posts. I ran into them by pure chance since the host apparently just didn't pay attention and left their server public when 90% of the time they leave it private. So I did watch, and as I thought...it felt pretty weird. They were RPing, in portuguese. They weren't just chatting, nor describing hypothesis, tests, and results. They weren't netspeaking, nor being technical. Anyway, I think that gets the point across. Every now and then I had to remind myself that it's actually possible to RP not in english. And I don't count what I witnessed when I tried out Habbo many years ago, since that was just a mess with people trolling and being annoying in general, hence the "structured" distinction at the start of this paragraph.

So I guess being in english is just fitting for it to me. Portuguese would be too close to home, to the point where it'd feel uncomfortable.

 

[Sludge]

I find that I am a lot more self-conscious of awkward translations in my own native language and that it often just doesn't sound right in the way english does.

That's so true. Subtitles and non-professional dubs sound way better in English for me. Bad translation in my own language feels like being hit with an anvil to the head.

I've seen a few communities, but they seemed small and somewhat inactive. As for roleplaying in English as a non-native speaker, personally, there is a lot of self-doubt involved into it. Thankfully people don't appear to mind the mistakes? I wish somebody would point them out tho.
(then again, I guess you never know if the person you trying to help will appreciate it)

 

[kevintheradioguy]

I'm... terribly multi-lingual. But I roleplayed in just three other languages before.

I must admit, there's this weird thing with me: I am embarrassed to text-RP in anything but English, but embarrassed to live-RP in English but not other known languages. No idea why, but... here we go.

 

[Onmyoji]

That's really interesting how everyone has different perspectives. Exactly what I was curious to see when I started this thread!

I'm mostly roleplaying in English atm, but it's not my native language. Originally I started roleplaying in native language, but I have perfectionism problems lol So when I write in native language I tend to notice more mistakes and awkward sentences, while in English I feel more relaxed and writing flows much easier. (and I'd like to believe my grammar is not bad in English either. I'm just less... critical).
I also spent a few years in an English-speaking country. During that time I adapted to speak and write in English, and even think in English. Somehow I also decided to try roleplaying in English during that time. And it sort of... stayed. I feel more comfortable roleplaying in English by now. I do occasionally check what my language communities are doing, but I feel out of place there, after having roleplayed in English for so long.

 

[MechanicalSnake]

I have to second the opinions that say they feel awkward or insecure rping in their own language cause i feel the same. Also, i am Czech And I would not even know where to look for roleplayers From my country.

 

[marorda]

Not a native. I'm Dutch but I've been taught English since 5th grade. But watching TV taught me some English beforehand though. Still I only RP in English when it comes to online RPing. I have a general preference to writing in English rather than Dutch because in English I can think of many more words to describe things than in Dutch (still writing a book in Dutch at the moment though).

When it comes to real life RP (I LARP)... it's Dutch all the way. But that's because the events are in Dutch and some won't allow you to speak English :/

 

[Sludge]

Noticing a surprising number of people LARPing. I thought it was just a thing that sorta sometimes appears in the movies but is actually mostly very rare. Glad to see I was wrong.

 

[marorda]

Noticing a surprising number of people LARPing. I thought it was just a thing that sorta sometimes appears in the movies but is actually mostly very rare. Glad to see I was wrong.

Over here, there's so many events! Nearly all of my current friends and acquaintances I met at LARP. Met my boyfriend there too. We're a very big and welcoming community. It's not like the LARP I've mostly seen in movies though, where people basically just play D&D in Real Life (maybe that's a US thing?). The events here are BIG. The smallest one I attend has maybe 30 people. Then comes one with 70. And then it's room for 200. One day I want to go to the worlds' biggest LARP in Germany. It's got over 10000 people! O_O

 

[Sludge]

It's got over 10000 people!

*spits drink*

You could film a lotr style battle scene without cgi.

 

[marorda]

Easily. Google Conquest for Mythodea and take a look at the pictures yourself!
One of my favorite events I attend is that very small one. It's called Yggdrasil, set in the Viking Age (the year's currently 854) and our main event is in an Iron Age village.
Here's me at a small event where we just went hiking through a forest:

Spoiler

And this is me at another event:

Spoiler

View media item 33179

Some pictures from events I attend look like they're straight out of some epic fantasy/history movie (unfortunately, I never find myself on those most epic pictures)

 

[Onmyoji]

I never actually tried LARP but I heard a lot about them and a couple of my friends do that often and I read their reports regularly. And it does look like they could make a movie there XD
People still play D&D in real life, not just in US. lol I also have a few friends who do, but I had always been deprived of any forms of roleplaying that involves live interaction. So I only know of text-based roleplaying.

 

[marorda]

I played D&D too. Just sitting around a table with friends and rolling dice. But no dressing up as our characters and playing the quests outside (which is what I meant to say). Dressing up is, for me, reserved for LARP. And I always have so much fun!

• Alberta (formerly Albertus) is a Librarian/Alchemist at an event for children. So (s)he is just an NPC. Used to be played by a guy who quit, then I took over the role. How we explained it to the kids? I had a little accident in my lab. Wanted to make a potion to make me manlier, turned myself into a woman instead. Many other NPCs have informed me they like Alberta better than Albertus, because I interact with everyone as much as I can.
• Elizabeth is a wizard in a modern day setting. She got cursed by the Nightmare. So now she has trouble sleeping. Her dreams look like Dali and Lovecraft had a baby in an Escher painting. Mix in her own personal worst fears and boom! She hops into the dreams of other people a lot too. In order to fix them when they're mentally broken. She's gonna need that happen to herself pretty soon.
• Calaerwen is an Aos Sì, Irish Elf. Mage. Likes to take things super literally, play pranks, and switch babies for logs.
• Kaelin Stormsea is a pirate/mage/bard. Plays the flute and drum. Makes inappropriate puns about her instruments (the flute is in the key of "D", so.... yeah). Soon to be ritual-leader of the Mage's Guild, Storyteller. Only knows spells that can be used practically (light, unravel magic, detect magic), defensively (gust), or to annoy people (nausea, etc.)
• Freyja Lynxborn (retired) used to be a healer for the Darion Tribe. Turned bloodthirsty/wannabe demon hunter after she got a letter from her sister in the Afterlife. saying how a demon from our lore was destroying souls. Ended extremely depressed, confessing to her cousin she might kill herself if she loses one more person she cares about. (That literally happened on the last day I played her)
• Ingrid Börkdottir is a Viking Healer and tired of your bullshit. She's constantly being yelled at that she's not working quickly enough despite the fact she was at that point the only healer in the entire village. Now there's one more, and they plan on working together. Piss one of them off? You're now on the bottom of the waiting list. Tell us how to do our job? Here, have this herb to sooth your pain... Oops, that's the one to make you puke. Sorry not sorry.

I love text based RPing because in text I dare to do way more than I do in real life. I can have my characters do risky shit. The characters may die, but at least I won't get physically injured. In LARP, you can still die if your characters do dumb things, but if I in character decide to leap out of a tree, I'm gonna break my legs XD
Written RP gives me more freedom, but physical RP gives me more fun since I can go all in. Like when Elizabeth got cursed, I was told that it was painful and scary. That I was seeing all my worst fears. I could go ALL IN and start screaming and wailing. I physically cried and shuddered. It happened upstairs, but I was screaming so loud that the people downstairs could hear me. It gave one girl a panic attack, and most others were genuinely too terrified to enter the room. When some people finally did dare to enter (one of them being my BF)... he actually cried.
I've never seen him get emotional, and his character is fairly void of emotions too... but he actually cried seeing me physically and mentally broken. That's an effect very difficult to achieve in writing.

 

[Necessity4Fun]

I find it easier to say anything (typed or spoken) in English. Why is that? Well, English is in a lot of things I like! The PlayStation games were in English with English subtitles, a lot of series, Tokusatsus and so on only ever got translated to English and my own dad was part of a translation group due to how rare it was to have people to translate those into Brazilian Portuguese. English is a language that's been part of my life for a really long time and I overall just find more and more words in English that we don't have and could make our life a lot easier...

...I'd write some examples here but they're so enthralled in my vocabulary at this point that it's even hard to remember they're not words in my language!

Oh! Dread. Trying to describe the sensation of dread to my psychologist was rather troublesome because no such word exists in Portuguese. The closest I could think of was 'Fatalism', but it's not exactly the same thing...? There I remembered one~

But really, half of my therapy sessions are me trying to remember how to translate words because I just think what I'm feeling and thinking is a lot easier to say in English, but the psychologist doesn't understand it to the same degree I do ^^'
This week's word I forgot was 'sue', in Portuguese 'processo'. Sue is so much easier to say...

It also feels like a separation. Portuguese IRL, English online. I feel more comfortable and safer like that, had a bit of a rough life growing up, not physically, we weren't super needy or anything but depression and more recently anxiety are a thing, and yeah... I just, like the separation between the worlds, it's a reason why I barely use Facebook and avoid WattsApp like the plague. Online, I'm Nessy, IRL, I'm Arielle. I hate when things start blending. I lose my safe-space pretty quickly due to certain circumstances. It's like I'm in a constant fight with people IRL, and the internet is a refuge where I need to fight nobody, where I can just be myself and not make convoluted plans to attempt winning this or that battle, then getting frustrated when I inevitably lose again.

People think I'm addicted to it, and they might be right, but there's not a lot in my corner of the world to me and the friendships I have in this and other places are what keep me going, even if I suck at displaying that.

Would I try an RP in Portuguese or Spanish? (Not Japanese, not really ready for that), yes, yes I would, but on a different website (even if it wasn't against the rules).

It's like a switch for me, here and other places I type full English, other places like e-mails for people, I type (formal) Portuguese. I like it this way, easier to wrap my head around it. I'm always forgetting words in my language tho, English it's just easier to remember for complicated concepts XD

 

[Redfork2000]

This is an interesting topic. I speak english and spanish, and as I've grown up I've used both languages almost equally. You see, I lived the first half of my childhood in United States, where everything, including school and TV, were in english, while my parents and the rest of my family mostly spoke to me in spanish. Then I lived the second half of my childhood in a latin american country, where everything is in spanish, but it was also during this part of my life that I began to do more stuff online, and most of what I do online is in english. However, I have been in some spanish communities, and I've roleplayed with a few people in spanish too. In fact, I'd say I roleplayed in spanish way before I ever did a roleplay in english, even though nowadays I roleplay almost exclusively in english.

As for differences, when you're working with people who speak spanish, there's a huge difference between people from Latin America and people from Spain. They have different ways to speak, and have their own different slangs. I mean, most latin american countries each have their own way of speaking, but the greatest differences are when you compare the way people from Latin America and the people from Spain speak. It really shows when you consider that when TV shows or movies are dubbed to spanish, they have to do two spanish dubs: one for Spain, and one for Latin America. Oh boy, and if I ever have to listen to another argument on which is the better spanish dub, it'll be too soon. I mean, I've seen people from United States and United Kingdom argue over stuff like "color" and "colour", or "soccer" and "football", but trust me, the language conflict is greater in spanish.

However, I've definitely had lots of nice experiences roleplaying with people in spanish. Besides the slang and a few minor differences, roleplaying with people in spanish isn't too different than what you'd expect from roleplaying with someone in english. What I have noticed though is:

-There's more slang when I RP with spanish-speaking users. I remember having to ask my RP partners every now and then what some of their slang meant. It really varies from country to country. The ones I know a bit more about are the ones from Argentina and from Spain, since most people I RPed with in spanish are from those countries.

-Although there's many memes in spanish that are simply the translated counterparts of some english memes (for example most Spongebob memes), there's also a good amount of memes that are exclusive to the spanish language, just like I imagine there must be for every language.

 

[Felis]

I've never RPed in my native language.

When I first started, the forum that looked most welcoming to newbies was in English, and so I grew used to it. Also, after some (in my opinion) fairly badly translated books by English-speaking authors, I started buying the English editions instead. Some games only get released in English where I live, as well. With all that exposure, I actually find it easier to write in English now, even though I may still make mistakes every now and then.

It's kind of funny, really, but I hardly write in my native language at all, except for college or day-to-day communication. I sometimes even talk to myself in English, haha.

And I think if I were to start RPing in my own language now, I'd feel kind of awkward, too.

 

[d1uni5ys24si3o]

I was introduced to roleplaying in english. So, for me it’s awkward to switch to a forum in my native language. Most of my interactions are in fact in english, but i do notice that my humor passes a lot better in french so I guess i’m still not a perfect english writter. I have an accent, pretty heavy french accent in english.

I tried joining a french forum, it wasn’t my thing. I haven’t noticed any trends out of place, but it’s a lot more comedic the french stories than english tbh like in english forums you will find very dark themes, violence, gore etc... the characters are super dark etc... The french forums I looked at a while ago were and had hilarious backstories and stories, very cringy in my opinion. Wasn’t my cup of tea