About the Spanish Translate

[Claviusnex]

I've overseen national language support (NLS) in multiple products. For things like publications general translation skills are fine but for text or messages issued from code you typically need someone with enough programming skills to be able translate the message/text files and compile them for verification. You also add onto the product test cycles as each language gets tested independently. Another cost during translation, at least for English, is developer time taken up explaining ambiguous words. Take invalid, one meaning is a disabled person and the other is the opposite of the word valid. There are many other multiple meaning words like this. None of this comes cheap nor can it be done overnight. I will say Spanish was one of the languages we always got asked to support and rarely did we do it. The fact was with limited funds for NLS we had to cover our largest revenue bases. These were usually Arabic, French, German and Japanese. Towards the time I retired Chinese was also hitting critical mass. My guess is SE is in a similar position.

I've also seen some comments as to Latin countries. Many of these countries actually speak Portuguese so translating the game into Spanish still only serves part of the market.

Lastly, which dialect of Spanish? While Spanish speakers can understand each other much like we English speakers there are enough different dialects that sometime you wonder are we all speaking the same language?

[raela]

I've also seen some comments as to Latin countries. Many of these countries actually speak Portuguese so translating the game into Spanish still only serves part of the market.

Lastly, which dialect of Spanish? While Spanish speakers can understand each other much like we English speakers there are enough different dialects that sometime you wonder are we all speaking the same language?

Er, what? No, Latin America is definitely Spanish dominant. Brazil is the only South American country that speaks it primarily. There are however a few African countries that also use it officially.

The people in my FC seem fairly aware of what is "regional" and what is "neutral" dialects, and usually go with neutral language when in a mixed group. I'm in NA, though. Really though, FFXV was able to condense dialects without an issue, so it's not like that should be a stopping point for SE. Don't get me wrong, I can see cost and time being two very good reasons for FFXIV not getting a translation - but dialect, not so much. Hell, it could even feed into regional flare like we get in English...

[Rymm]

Er, what? No, Latin America is definitely Spanish dominant. Brazil is the only South American country that speaks it primarily. There are however a few African countries that also use it officially.

You aren't wrong, but I just want to point out that while Brazil is the only country that speaks Portuguese, it also home to at least half of the continent's entire population. So numbers wise, at least half or close of South Americans don't speak Spanish as a first language.

Now, if you include Central American countries like Mexico, then yes, the scale will tip back toward Spanish, but the Brazilian population still takes a huge chunk (about 1/3rd population) out of the numbers of Central/South American people who would play this game. It's likely that this has some influence on SE's decision to translate or not.

[enthauptet]

It would be easier for non-translated players to play and understand too if SE and Koji let us have a more normal text version in English instead of their old style fluff speak that is like bad shakespeare. I've had a few of my friends in-game ask me for clarification of many things because they can't understand what the text says.

[Elim]

In Europe more people speak French than Spanish (France, Belgium, Switzerland, Luxembourg).
In Canada, Africa, a part speaks French too.
All over the world, more people speak Spanish than French. But are these countries a marketing target ? this is the question ^^ (for German i don't really know many countries where it's an official language ^^)

French is one of Canada's two official languages(equal status with English in our government ^^), although it's only the mother tongue for 22% of our population.