Quote Originally Posted by Evaddaragon View Post
I was under the impression that ticking a language under the DF didn't mean that you actually were fluent in the language, but rather that you accepted playing with people of that language.
You don't need to be completely fluent, but people will expect to be able to communicate with you, so you should have at least some basic understanding of the language.

Auto-translate includes things like "I can understand a little" and "Please use simple words" and I'd regard those as reasonable for a language you selected. Your teammates should be willing to make enough effort to speak simply when someone in the group needs that (at least once they're informed that someone needs it). If you can understand them so long as they speak simply, and you can communicate yourself through a combination of auto-translate and what bits you can write in that language, then you're good enough at that language to justify including it in your language selections.

It's when people check languages that they don't understand at all (or little enough that they're unwilling to make an attempt at it) and then expect the rest of the group to use (or understand) a different language, whichever one they themselves speak natively, that's where it gets rude. It's rude whether it's an English speaker refusing to communicate in French after selecting both, a French speaker refusing to communicate in English after selecting both, or any other combination with German or Japanese into the mix.

Now, I have a decided advantage in that my native language, English, is the most widespread language on my server and data center. So I can get away with only selecting that language alone and not have it impact my queue times much. I could also select German and perhaps Japanese, because I can understand them to some extent. Though it was a long time ago that I studied it, I think I still remember enough German to write in it well enough to make myself understood. For Japanese, I'd also have to figure out how to switch the PS4's keyboard to JP mode, and still wouldn't be able to say very much, but if I took the time to familiarize myself with it first auto-translate could probably cover my lack of skill there. I would never queue for a run with French selected, though, because I don't speak that language at all. It's probably the second most widespread language on the data center, but if I were with a group of French speakers I'd have no clue as to what was going on in party chat, and that wouldn't be fair to the rest of the team.