Roleplaying with English as a third language?

Marl

I'm a 19 year old fennoswede (Swedish is my mothertongue, finnish is my second language) who loves roleplaying games. I've tried a couple of tabletop RPG's with a tight group of friends over the years, but I am always the most "interested" person in our group (sadly). I've tried playing Achaea many times over the past 7-8 years (I've probably made twentyish characters) and I always tend to play multiple hours a day for a couple of days/weeks before I suicide that character. This is solely because of one thing: my difficulties in RP'ing ing English.

I wouldn't say that I'm absolutely terrible at the English language (feel free to correct me, however) and if it's just me and another player I can manage the conversations fairly well but whenever I'm in a RP situation where there's more than me and one other person (three or more) I tend to freeze and I have no clue what to say. This might just be because I'm a MUD noob, but I'd genuinely like to hear if anyone else has had this issue (especially if English is not your first language!). I've had a great time so far though, and it seems like this character will stick around for a while. Who knows though.

I'll stop now before this question/rant gets too long-winded, though. Thanks for reading.

Exelethril

Dw you already write English better than the Tyrannus of Mhaldor

Dochitha

My English is limited, I don't really understand most of the items and room description. But I do Google define many times when I am really interested to know about it. RP wise, I personally don't like RP... I actually don't understand the meaning or scope of RP. Like I have to pretend to be something? Nvm... So I can't recognise RP events. I find myself usually hunting, trading and fighting. 

Marl

Dochitha said:

My English is limited, I don't really understand most of the items and room description. But I do Google define many times when I am really interested to know about it. RP wise, I personally don't like RP... I actually don't understand the meaning or scope of RP. Like I have to pretend to be something? Nvm... So I can't recognise RP events. I find myself usually hunting, trading and fighting. 

Cool, thank you for the answer! Good to know that I'm not the only one who doesn't understand some of the ridicolously fancy words in the room descriptions lmao. But yeah, google has been a good help tool so far.

Which city do you play in, if you don't mind me asking? Are there cities that are less RP heavy than others? 

Marl

Exelethril said:

Dw you already write English better than the Tyrannus of Mhaldor

Lol, thank you (I suppose)!

Kayeil

I speak English only but one of my first friends in Achaea spoke mainly French and we RPed a great deal. My character's second marriage was to someone who spoke Afrikaans. If you stick around and make good friends and are open and honest with them about difficulties and keep an open line of communication maybe in tells or in some way to let them know you aren't understanding something it can go a long way on all sides. I never thought RPing with people who didn't speak English as their first language was too difficult so long as they weren't too shy about being open with me about any difficulties. I think you'll find if you talk about it after establishing some kind of RP with somebody that a lot of people will be really happy and eager to work with you.

Ognog

Suggestion for you, @Marl. Roleplay a troll or a mhun with very limited language ability. Might feel like less pressure to speak eloquently (even though your English is just fine).

One thing is for certain though - playing Achaea is guaranteed to expand your vocabulary. I know it has expanded mine! (even learned some Sartanic obscenities along the way )

You don't have to be an expert cunning linguist to play Achaea, and it's even advantageous not to be a shining wit.

Kiet

Why a Mhun? Mhuns from Moghedu speak perfect Achaean.

Ognog

Kiet said: Why a Mhun? Mhuns from Moghedu speak perfect Achaean.

Oh crap, now I've offended Kiet (and the populations of Kasmarkin and Moghedu). I think I'll stop now before I dig this hole for myself any deeper.

Kiet

I'm just saying nothing about Mhun says bad Achaean! You can play any character as being bad at the language, really, but the largest population of Mhuns in the game seems to do just fine.

Kyrra

Ognog said:

Roleplay a troll or a mhun with very limited language ability. 

There are a fair few sirens that only get by on body language and making noises as well.

Coamenel

Dochitha said:

My English is limited, I don't really understand most of the items and room description. But I do Google define many times when I am really interested to know about it. RP wise, I personally don't like RP... I actually don't understand the meaning or scope of RP. Like I have to pretend to be something? Nvm... So I can't recognise RP events. I find myself usually hunting, trading and fighting. 

I have this as well. I'll be ok if there's no pressure (conversations with multiple people in room, lots of stuff happening like in events, etc), but otherwise I tend to bail and ask later what actually happened. I'll admit that I rather stay out of RP situations though, doesn't really seem to be my 'thing'. Like @Dochitha , I rather fight, bash or trade.

From my experience, people will forgive you your mistakes and bad grammar/misunderstanding stuff. Not all of them, but most of the players will understand your situation and be patient/forgiving. Even though most of them will never know what a struggle it can be

So in the end, I think you'll be fine. You can, as suggested, RP being born somewhere primitive or something like that. But I never felt the need to do so, so that's all up to you!

Daklore

To RP, one does not have to be Gandalf, or whatever high fantasy character you want. Roleplay is exactly that, taking a role and playing it. You play your character. It doesn't have to be super different than you are, it doesn't need some verbal tick, or some sort of flashy pose. Just... do as you do If you clam up in a situation, you clam up. A lot of us do this in real life as is. Also, considering how bad at English many native speakers are... I wouldn't feel bad about mis-spelling or mis-using a word. Hell, even the best of people mis-spell a word or three, or once in blue moon use a word erroneously. (I do it all the time, and I'm not even the best of people!) Having snarky comebacks at a moments notice comes with experience and practice. I can't speak for everyone, but I've been roleplaying in MUDs for about 20 years now... I've had a lot of time to develop my ... snark. If it can even be called that.

That's what she said.

I mean, as long as you're not roleplaying a stutter... No offense to any stutters out there, as I myself have a thing with stammering/stuttering in real life as is. I mean, I do it, not I hate people who do it.

Rangor

As a Norwegian I totally get you! But you don't need fancy emotes to rp in achaea, nor fancy posts. Even though they do look awesome when done right. For laughs, search for my oldest posts in public news. 

Coamenel

Rangor said:

As a Norwegian I totally get you! But you don't need fancy emotes to rp in achaea, nor fancy posts. Even though they do look awesome when done right. For laughs, search for my oldest posts in public news. 

No need to go back very far, just look up my recent public posts. @Aegoth is still vomiting about them :')

Ankhareoutef

Even many native English speakers feel similar anxiety, albeit stemming from different places. At one point or another you have to just throw yourself out there and have faith that the people around you will accept that you're trying and it takes practice.

Skye

Achaea (and most other IREs really) come with many preset emotes as well that work just fine for most interactions. The local RP culture here leans more towards quick interactions with more talking and less story-like emotes, so you needn't feel too worried about writing something complicated. keeping things simple is the best way to make yourself understood.

Most of us are also ok if you send an OOC message to say you have difficulty with the language.

Marl

Thank you for all the encouraging answers! I'll keep making mistakes and learning from them, good to know that I won't be crucified for that 

Coamenel

Marl said:

Thank you for all the encouraging answers! I'll keep making mistakes and learning from them, good to know that I won't be crucified for that 

Oh, you'll be crucified. You just need to stop caring about it :')