About the Spanish Translate

[Xlantaa]

I think the Spanish public is very few and the investment don't worth it. I'm not sure, but I think Spanish people don't reach even the 1% of player base. It is not a popular game in Spain, neither on South America. I'm Spanish and I find difficult find Spanish players. There are only like 1 or 2 forums dedicated to the game, while you can find a lot for other languages.

[PharisHanasaki]

I think the Spanish public is very few and the investment don't worth it. I'm not sure, but I think Spanish people don't reach even the 1% of player base. It is not a popular game in Spain, neither on South America. I'm Spanish and I find difficult find Spanish players. There are only like 1 or 2 forums dedicated to the game, while you can find a lot for other languages.

Probably because it's obvious there's no interest in the hispanic playerbase.
I've had a few friends join and have difficulty following the cutscenes/dialogs, so in the end they basically skipped the story and had little to do besides some casual raiding.

I have, however, found a very active group of latin americans in my server. But I was a year and a half into the game when I met them (and they had been playing for 2 years+). Most people who do stay, like me, play solo or join an English FC.

Still, way more people speak Spanish than French or German. But I'm sure they must have done their research.

[Lukha]

I think the Spanish public is very few and the investment don't worth it. I'm not sure, but I think Spanish people don't reach even the 1% of player base. It is not a popular game in Spain, neither on South America. I'm Spanish and I find difficult find Spanish players. There are only like 1 or 2 forums dedicated to the game, while you can find a lot for other languages.

I mean, to be fair, the lack of interest might at least partially be due to the lack of a version of the game they can understand easily.

[Kaethra]

As a language, a large number of people speak Spanish. As a monolingual community, that number dives drastically. The majority of spanish speaking people are bilingual with English. So the hispanic language used in FFXIV is English.

[Ghastly]

As a language, a large number of people speak Spanish. As a monolingual community, that number dives drastically. The majority of spanish speaking people are bilingual with English. So the hispanic language used in FFXIV is English.

Please stop pulling statistics out of thin air. Majority of Spanish speaking people are not bilingual.

[Kit-Kat]

Here we go again. When games get translated into German and French for the European client (in any game), it's not based on the amount of people speaking it. Europe has many countries with different languages, but in the European Union, English, French and German are the ones that have the highest priority as 'official European languages", and European versions of videogames need to be translated into those 3 languages minimum, other languages are optional and it's up to the company doing the localizations to decide if the cost of new clients and supporting them would be worth it.

[Kingmanath]

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 ^^)

[Valenth]

From what I know literally EVERYTHING in Germany is translated or dubbed in German, it's a culture thing for them and maybe a remnant of WWII. As to why they translate the game into German and French specifically for the EU, I'd pin it down on SE (being Japanese) is a bit old-fashioned and sometimes still have the mind-set of Europe market being the third after Japan and North America. I also think the French and German countries have a vast history of translating things into their own language, and as such they have the resources easilly accessible. I would wager there's just a LOT less translation agencies available in Spain. Do correct me if I'm wrong there though, it's just an assumption I'm making. In the end all is fair though, they don't owe us anything and as a Japanese company it can be hard to make it, or even want to, outside of Japan as it's a very big investment. SE, and us in extension, are incredibly fortunate they have someone like Koji-Fox, a professional literate and multi-langual person who's very passionate for this game and their company. Sadly, I think his Spanish is a bit rusty, otherwise he might have actually opted to do Spanish as well.... as if he isn't busy enough already. xP

Anyway, by this time I would not count on there being a Spanish translation of the game. It would just take way too much resources from not only catching up, but also keeping everything updated. Remember, this game's patches are being released simultaniously in all translations and adding another language could cause more delays in the patches being released. I know I just said SE was old-fashioned, but with regards to translated simultanious releases they're showing to be ahead of many other Asian (MMO) companies.

[Mwynn]

From what I know literally EVERYTHING in Germany is translated or dubbed in German, it's a culture thing for them and maybe a remnant of WWII. As to why they translate the game into German and French specifically for the EU, I'd pin it down on SE (being Japanese) is a bit old-fashioned and sometimes still have the mind-set of Europe market being the third after Japan and North America. I also think the French and German countries have a vast history of translating things into their own language, and as such they have the resources easilly accessible. I would wager there's just a LOT less translation agencies available in Spain. Do correct me if I'm wrong there though, it's just an assumption I'm making.

It's mostly because living in the EU gives you the Option to learn : Your Mother Language dependend on the Country, English as the Second Language (World Language to say), French / German / others being Optional.

In Germany as example, we get teached German in School and English is one of the Languages that you're going to learn 100% (if you want or not, you can't really influence that).
Languages such as French/Spanish and others are completely Optional (Tho is also a Must if you want to Study later on)

It's a Fact though, that French gets picked more so then Spanish in the end.

[Valenth]

It's mostly because living in the EU gives you the Option to learn : Your Mother Language dependend on the Country, English as the Second Language (World Language to say), French / German / others being Optional.

In Germany as example, we get teached German in School and English is one of the Languages that you're going to learn 100% (if you want or not, you can't really influence that).
Languages such as French/Spanish and others are completely Optional (Tho is also a Must if you want to Study later on)

It's a Fact though, that French gets picked more so then Spanish in the end.

True, the same applies here in the Netherlands except I also had to chose between German or French on top of that, or if I really wanted, both.

That being said, I know from experience and from plenty of German friends too that Germans don't like or are comfortable enough with English to the point of almost always picking the German client over the English one. This may sound logical, German being their native language after all, but here in the Netherlands you'll see most people actually pick the English language in a game when given the option between NL or Eng. To Dutch people Dutch gametexts usually sounds incredibly... cheesy, corny, uncool and even cringe-worthy. I think it has to do with the amount of dubbing and subbing/translating everything into German in daily life over there though. In the Netherlands, especially in Amsterdam, there is so much English in daily life that there's entire parts were you really don't need to be able to speak Dutch in order to make a living. We also usually leave foreign media in their original language and just add subtitles. Heck I can even say half the day I think and talk in English too, often not being able to find a word in Dutch, but knowing the English one instead.

All in all, it seems to be a cultural thing, if you'll allow me to encapsulate the earlier mentioned 'daily life' in this. This is why I was guessing in my previous post things are a bit different in Spanish and Spain regarding translations. I'm not sure how much English (speaking) outside influences they have in their daily life, or if they stick more to media created by Spanish for Spanish. I'm don't know this for sure though, so if a Spanish person could fill me in that would be great. xP Germans have plenty of English influences in their life, but they have set up a very big industry of localizing and translating everything first from what I know. I think there is barely any TV show or movie that is in it's original language in Germany, right?

Ps. Don't American schools also give Spanish like European non-UK schools give English? I was under the impression they did.