Preset Newgen Languages are wrong

I know not that many care but its an issue of realism to me. I know SI can't code that about 80% of people outside of Quebec can't speak French but there are some things that they get dead wrong.

Scandinavians,Germans should all be able to speak English

Luxembourgians(Sp?) should speak English, French, German and their local dialect(wont even try to spell)

This is off the top of my head, are there any other errors in terms of preset languages for newgens?

I know not that many care but its an issue of realism to me. I know SI can't code that about 80% of people outside of Quebec can't speak French but there are some things that they get dead wrong.

Scandanavians,Germans should all be able to speak English

Luxembourgians(Sp?) should speak English, French, German and their local dialect(wont even try to spell)

This is off the top of my head, are there any other errors in terms of preset languages for newgens?

Why?

They might all be able to speak some English, but that doesn't mean they know the language.

They do it throughout school. I have a Norwegian and German Friend(from Camp) and they did all their schooling in both countries. They speak fluent english and although there is a noticable accent, they possess a high proficiency in English.

English has become the Lingua Franca of the world, more people in FM should be able to speak it and not just their native languages as most newgens generated in the game are sadly.

They do it throughout school. I have a Norwegian and German Friend(from Camp) and they did all their schooling in both countries. They speak fluent english and although there is a noticable accent, they possess a high proficiency in English.

English has become the Lingua Franca of the world, more people in FM should be able to speak it and not just their native languages as most newgens generated in the game are sadly.

I suppose that's fair to say.

Although it does depend on what constitutes speaking a language on FM.

The worst English speakers in my class still speak some sort of basic English so I'd say torsportsfan is completely right.

Amsterdam is a tad weird, 'cause everyone speaks English, even Dutch people speaking to each other, and on the phone. However, doesn't mean everyone in The Netherlands does. I liked how the best English speaking footballers in the Premier League at times have been Bergkamp and Ljungberg.

It's always funny that the game automatically assumes all Canadians know how to speak French. Makes me always think the virtual me knows more languages than the real me... :o

Most Canadians these days outside Quebec know English and least Basic French through schooling.

And if you really want to be picky, there are 5 languages (maybe more I think...) under 'Chinese': Cantonese, Mandarin, Wu, Hakka, and another one I don't remember...

Most of the provinces speak Mandarin, with the exception of the Southern province of Guangzhou along with Hong Kong who speak Cantonese and know basic Mandarin (people like me, understand bits of Mandarin, can't speak it though), I think the province beside Guangzhou speak Hakka, and provinces near Taipei can speak Wu...

Yep, I think it isn't too much to ask for a large proportion of players from these obvious countries to be coded to speak English. It isn't a "big" problem though!

I never said it was a big problem but an issue of realism and isnt the goal of Football Manager to be as realistic as possible?

I never said it was a big problem but an issue of realism and isnt the goal of Football Manager to be as realistic as possible?

Yes the goal of FM is to be as realistic as possible, but there are so many countries that have a specific in an area...I can also state that Canadians players should have 2nd nationalities of European or Asian descent instead of a lone Canadian nationality, since historically these people have come to Canada and settled here from other countries.

There are many other issues that are priority of SI to make the game the most realistic possible. At least they fixed the unrealistic scouting knowledge from last year's game (Canadian/HK sunday league footballers managers shouldn't have scouting knowledge of Holland and Germany ).

Although I think in this year's version, Canadian/HK manager should at least have knowledge of Canada, HK, England (colonized HK), and China.

Realism has limits. Reminds me of the realism vs fun debates...

Surely Rio Ferdinand's and Wayne Rooney's grasp of English should only be basic.

Seriously though I'm surprised more Regens don't have English at least as basic - in fact it applies to many players at the start of the game. Right or wrong much of this planet can speak English to an extent that isn't present in less prolific languages. I think its pretty different for a European or Chinese, Japanese and so on, moving to England than moving to Moldova. They'll likely have a grasp of English whereas they may not have known Moldovan even existed.

I never said it was a big problem but an issue of realism and isnt the goal of Football Manager to be as realistic as possible?

no, no, no, no, no! The goal of fm is not to be as realistic as possible. Its a game and it will never be perfectly accurate. The point of it is to be as entertaining and absorbing as possible. If it was to be more realistic, you wouldn't have control over most transfers, but that would be pointless as it would reduce the entertainment. This is a major misconception, realism is a large part of what makes fm the best football managment sim out there but it wouldn't be the best if it was realistic in every aspect, entertainment value has to be the first priority over realism.

Footballers don't get proper education though, at least in Turkey it's like that.

I learned French and Spanish at school. Doesn't mean I am fluent.

It is hard for SI, Like the fella said about Chinese, these a few languanges. Even in Spain, there are various regions with slight differences in their dialect.

Languages in FM can be a bit dodgey alright. Us Irish (Rep of) learn our national language, Gaeilge,from when we enter schooling and learn for 12 years (or there abouts) but the majority of Irish cant speak the language that great. However there are still parts of the country where Gaeilge is spoken almost exclusively. However no Irish player in the game will ever have even basic Gaeilge.

Also Polish is an official language of Ireland because of the amount of Polish people here yet no regens from Ireland I have come across have Polish as a language or even have Polish second nationality.

Some thing for SI to work on maybe.

I think it is already possible to set multiple languages for a specific country in the editor. I think for example most Dutch regens do know at least (basic) English, some know (basic) German etc.

In the case of the Netherlands I think Dutch is set as a 100 % language while English and German have lower values. Could be wrong about this, can't really check over here right now.

Another similar example from the top of my head is that Scandinavians also have knowledge of other Scandinavian languages (and maybe also English); Danish regens do speak at least (basic) Swedish.

A problem with the Quebec case is that Quebec is a region within the country of Canada and that the game's code doesn't really see it as a region with another language (French) than the rest of Canada (English).

Technically I think it would not be all that hard to implement that each Canadian regen from a French speaking city/town has French as a proficient language. Don't think it would be worth the effort....

A similar thing is already done in the game in the case of the Basques in Spain: regens from Basque cities have Basque set as a second nationality.

However, as compared to coding all Quebec regens to know French, Basque regens do serve another purpose besides only a "realism" or "mainly aesthethic" one: there are certain Spanish teams who only sign Basque players.

Although it certainly would be nice to see, to stay at the Quebec example, native French speaking-regens from Quebec-Canada (who therefore might be more likely to end up in the French League), I don't think it will add to the fun factor of the game (merely to more realism perhaps...).

And another hard question for SI would be: where do we stop?

As other posters already mentioned, should they include Spanish dialects like Catalan and what about the different languages in China? And if I look at a very small country like my own: do we include a language like Frisian (officially not an accent/dialect and the second official language of the Netherlands, but it is only really spoken in only one province)?

Same thing with Arabic here in Israel, I don't know a word in Arabic.

But.. I guess it's just a minor issue that isn't worth SI's time, they'd rather wast...sorry "invest" in other areas, like a 4-D match engine, or something.

Never knew that about Polish people/language in Ireland

One thing is for certain, all European players should have English, at least the basic level..

As a Canadian born and raised outside of Quebec, I can say that I only know basic French from what I got from 9 years of it in school.

Some very interesting points. As to how deep we go with knowledge of languages, it should be noted that the player's info is for football purposes, not a biography of his life (). So if there are clubs in the game that exclusively speak a different and obscure language to the rest of the country, then it could be of use. But if its just a couple of local clubs who come from a region that mostly speaks a different language, then it really wouldn't be worth its implementation.

I'm just running a quick experiment (although on FM08) to see if i can get the game to produce French speaking players from Quebec. Will report back soon.

Luxembourgians(Sp?)

That is strange, just this minute a academy player has come into my youth team with luxemboug as his nationality, well he was born there, but chooses England has his nation. But i think its Letzburgesch

I just did my test and by changing the language of Quebec City to French, the newgens have French names with French and English (Basic) languages. The other players from Vancouver have just English language.

I don't know whether its realistic for people from Quebec to have mainly French names (?) and whether much has changed between FM08 and 09 but it seems to work ok by changing a few things in the editor.

Interesting, I will have to try that in editor. However my OP was about how much more newgens should have at least a basic command of english than how its displayed in the game where newgens can only speak their native tongue. This might have been the case 50-60 years, but the times are changing and English has taken over.

Luxembourgians(Sp?) should speak English, French, German and their local dialect(wont even try to spell)

It's "Luxembourgers" and they speak "Letzebergisch". Totally irrelevant to the conversation but I'm prissy and thought I'd say. I made my current manager have Luxembourger as a second nationality to start running on the languages front. That, and I'm trying to learn as many as I can with this character. Only at 8 so far, but it's only 4 seasons and a bit in.

Also, they're only greys but on my game, Luxembourger regens DO speak French, German and Letzeburgisch (no reason for them to speak English officially).

Interesting, I will have to try that in editor. However my OP was about how much more newgens should have at least a basic command of english than how its displayed in the game where newgens can only speak their native tongue. This might have been the case 50-60 years, but the times are changing and English has taken over.

I agree with you to an extent. I guess it depends on the definition of 'basic' language knowledge. For me, i would say Ancelotti has basic English, yet it is probably more advanced than many who know a bit of English. Personally i got an A in GCSE German but wouldn't class myself as having Basic German knowledge, i would still struggle alot if i moved to Germany for real.

But i would certainly agree that certain nations, especially the Dutch and Scandanavians, are very well educated in English and deserve it as at least a basic language.

It amazes me somehow to see so many players in FM world are unable to speak English.

They surely don't have cables, don't listen to MTV, and hate Hollywood, plus IQ on the foot.

It's always funny that the game automatically assumes all Canadians know how to speak French. Makes me always think the virtual me knows more languages than the real me... :o

Most Canadians these days outside Quebec know English and least Basic French through schooling.

And if you really want to be picky, there are 5 languages (maybe more I think...) under 'Chinese': Cantonese, Mandarin, Wu, Hakka, and another one I don't remember...

Most of the provinces speak Mandarin, with the exception of the Southern province of Guangzhou along with Hong Kong who speak Cantonese and know basic Mandarin (people like me, understand bits of Mandarin, can't speak it though), I think the province beside Guangzhou speak Hakka, and provinces near Taipei can speak Wu...

Chinese consists of dozens of dialects. Perhaps the more common ones would be Mandarin (Beijing area), Cantonese (Hong Kong, southern China) and Hakka (Taiwan and some parts of China), but there are definitely a lot more dialects.

Singapore is another one that irks me. It assumes we all know Malay, but the majority of the population is Chinese.

But then, most of Singapore's footballers are Malay, so I guess this throws the system out of whack. I still think SI should try to fix this though.

Don't even get me started on the regen names.