The Case for Spanish -- A Letter of Hope

[Answa]

Greetings friends!

I’m Answa Martes, from the Besaid server. I’m a member of a close and vibrant community under the banner of a Linkshell called Sangre Hispana. We’re definitely not the only Hispanic group in our server and neither are we the only server with Hispanic players. In my group of friends, I’m one of the few that’s neither South American nor Spanish, since I was born and raised in Puerto Rico and currently live in the US. Thanks to this, I’ve had plenty of exposure to the English language and I’m able to speak it (and write it) with relative ease and fluidity. However, this is not the case for many of my friends. This game is home to a rich variety of cultures and its lore is vast and complex. Part of this is lost with the linguistic limitations inherent in the game. FFXIV has been distributed through various geographical regions, among which are the Americas and the European Union, where most of the Spanish-speaking world resides.

The languages covered by the game are French (with around 68 million native speakers), German (90 million), Japanese (122 million), and English (328 million) [Note: These numbers were taken from Wikipedia and merely reflect a point]. Spanish, in turn, is the second most natively-spoken language in the world, with 329 million people across 21 countries that consider it its official language. Moreover, Spanish is one of six official languages of the European Union, as Spain is one of its member states (with around 46 million people living in it).

My Spanish friends have informed me that the reason why Spanish was not included in the list of languages to be incorporated in the game is probably that the Spanish government doesn’t require products sold in its soil to translate their text to the language, while France and Germany both have this requirement. Is this really the reason? I’d consider it better practice not to alienate a considerable chunk of the world population (that is more than capable of both buying the game and maintaining a subscription). Such a simple reason as laws don’t require you to hire a team for the endeavor sounds contrary to logic; opening the doors to more people would serve to both bring a more homey feeling for current players and attract a diversity that is yet untapped.

Spanish-speakers comprise a very different community than we may be used to, which often necessitates our retreat from the general game population, creating niches from which we do not escape—due to a lack of adaptive tools (auto-translate, for one). We’d love to see an effort from the development (localization?) team that would highlight the inherent beauty of diversity, embracing a language that is more than popular in our world and solidifying it (and rightly so!) as worthy and important (this, in turn, not being a declaration of how inferior other languages are).

I appreciate your time and hope your many adventures bring you joy,
Answa Martes, on behalf of the Eorzean Spanish-speaking community

Edit:

Hey everyone,

I appreciate all the passionate posts and requests that have been made here and I understand everyone's desire to see FFXIV feature a Spanish localization. We spoke to Yoshida about it and also passed along all the kind words from the community. He let us know that currently there aren't any plans to include Spanish as one of the in-game supported languages, but post 2.0, as we look into further spreading FINAL FANTASY XIV around the globe, we will keep this request in mind. This isn't a definite "yes" or "no", but it's definitely something we will take into consideration as we move forward.

Once again, we would like to thank you all for your positive comments and continued support.
(P.S. If someone would like to translate my response into Spanish for a native Spanish-speaking friends, that'd be awesome. )

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Saludos a todos,


Mi nombre es Answa Martes del servidor Besaid. Soy parte de una comunidad vibrante e integrada bajo un Linkshell llamado Sangre Hispana. No somos el único grupo hispano en nuestro servidor ni tampoco el único servidor con jugadores hispanos. Siguiendo el mismo hilo, entre mi grupo de amigos, yo soy uno de los pocos que no es español ni de Sudamérica, ya que me crie en Puerto Rico y actualmente vivo en los Estados Unidos. Gracias a esto, he tenido amplia experiencia con el inglés y lo hablo con suma facilidad. Sin embargo, este no es el caso para muchos de mis amigos. Este juego goza de una muy rica variedad de culturas y la trama (las historias y el diálogo) es vasta y de complejidad apreciable. Parte de esto se pierde con la limitación lingüística inherente en el juego. Actualmente, el título ha sido distribuido a través de varias regiones geográficas, entre ellas las Américas y la Unión Europea, en las cuales la mayoría del mundo hispanohablante habita.

Los lenguajes incorporados en el título son el francés (con alrededor de 68 M de hablantes nativos), el alemán (90 M), el japonés (122 M) y el inglés (328 M). El español es el segundo idioma más acogido por hablantes nativos (329 M), siendo el idioma oficial de unos 21 países. Además, el español es uno de los seis idiomas oficiales de la Unión Europea por virtud de la inclusión de España (un país que acoge a unos 46 millones de seres humanos) en ella.

Me han informado mis amigos españoles que la razón por la cual el español no se incluyó en la lista de las lenguas a ser incorporadas en el juego es probablemente porque las leyes españolas no requieren que los productos a ser vendidos en suelo español se traduzcan al castellano. Francia y Alemania sí siguen esa práctica. ¿Es esta la razón, realmente? Me parece buena práctica intentar no aislar a una muy grande porción de la población mundial (y que es más que capaz de comprar y mantener una subscripción al juego). Una razón tan simple como lo es que las leyes no obligan pagarle a un equipo de personas para traducir el contenido me suena contrario a la lógica, ya que abrirle las puertas a más gente sólo traería más comodidad (a aquéllos que ya jugamos) y diversidad (aún más jugadores vendrían a participar).

Los hispanohablantes somos parte de una comunidad diferente y a veces por necesidad nos vemos obligados a crear nuestros propios nichos en el juego porque no hay otra manera de adaptarse. Nos gustaría ver un esfuerzo de parte del equipo desarrollador que resalte la belleza inherente en la diversidad, acogiendo un idioma más que popular en el mundo y solidificándolo propiamente como uno apto e importante (no siendo esto una declaración sobre la inferioridad de otros lenguajes).

Gracias por su tiempo y que sus aventuras les traigan gozo,
Answa Martes, de parte de la comunidad hispanohablante eorzeana.

[Seig345]

Hablo un poquito Espanol, but nothing close to your mastery of a second language.

I have no idea what it would involve to translate the game for the Spanish language. I imagine the auto-translate phrases would be simpler/quicker to manage. I don't see why they couldn't do either, especially with the new content coming out in 2.0.

But again, I haven't a clue what's involved with translating such larges chunks of text, but if it means more people are able to play the game, it's got my vote!

[Mario-san]

I would be agree if at least the quest/story text were in spanish, sometimes is too long and written with a complex english (like poetic). I like the item names in english. =)

Yo me conformaria con que por lo menos el texto de la historia o los quest estuvieran en español, francamente no me gustaria que los nombres de los items fueran en español, la interfaz tampoco me preocupa.

[RisaFuria]

My name's Lothar Trotsky, leader of the Sangre Hispana Linkshell and member of the Hispanic community that makes its presence well-known in the game. I, as well as most of our community, wish to understand and be able to follow the incredible story in this game we so love with more ease and depth. Unfortunately, the linguistic differences make it so that most of us are not able to understand it, leading many of our friends to simply desist from even logging on.

I understand that it's a costly endeavor to translate the game to Spanish, but in the long run it'd be much more profitable, as many players would be compelled to join under the umbrella of inclusiveness.

With nothing more to say, I hope you take this petition into account, as it stems from a community that grows daily and wishes to enjoy the game 100%.

Sincerely,

Lothar Trotsky
Leader of Sangre Hispana
Member of the FFXIV Hispanic Community

version en español

Mi nombre es Lothar Trotsky soy el lider de la linkshell Sangre Hispana y miembro de la comunidad hispana la cual es muy amplia en el juego, tanto yo como la mayoria de la comunidad desearia poder comprender y seguir mucho mejro al increible historia de este juego q tanto nos gusta, lastimosamente la diferencias de idioma hacen q la mayoria no la entiendan o incluso muchos jugadores desisten de entrar al juego por la limitacion en el idioma.

Se q es un gasto traducir el juego al español pero a largo plazo terminaran ganando mucho mas de lo q puedan gastar ya q el juego al encontrarse en español animaria a muchos mas miembros de la comunidad a entrar al juego y compartir esta grandiosa experiencia.

Sin mas q decirles espero tomen en cuenta esta peticion de una comunidad cada dia mas grande en el juego la cual quiere disfrutar de el al 100%.

ATTE

Lothar Trotrsky
Lider de Sangre Hispana
Miembro de la comunidad hispana de FFXIV

[Rhomagus]

I agree and thought it odd that it wasn't included this time around for XIV. I don't speak any Spanish but I support it's inclusion mainly because it makes business sense, but maybe they've already run the numbers internally and did not come to the same conclusion as I have.

At the very least I like seeing different languages in my chatlog. It adds a neat flavor to the game.

[Answa]

I would be agree if at least the quest/story text were in spanish, sometimes is too long and written with a complex english (like poetic). I like the item names in english. =)

Yo me conformaria con que por lo menos el texto de la historia o los quest estuvieran en español, francamente no me gustaria que los nombres de los items fueran en español, la interfaz tampoco me preocupa.

I know exactly what you mean. This is what most of my friends say, as well. Ability and item names we can get used to easily, though a nice translation of the names in the help text would be swell. It's the elevated English used in the storylines that draws confusion, as well as for simple party shouts, etc. There are coping mechanisms, but they feel more like band-aids than anything.

That said, please spread the word among your Spanish-speaking friends in your respective servers so they may voice their support, so SE knows we're not just 5 people. We're going to start doing that in Besaid soon. Numbers mean something in the long run.

[Kaizlu]

I'm a native Spanish speaker (Mexico), and yeah I support this.

I can't say I'm surprised really, even the biggest game of all eternity (SWTOR) doesn't have an official Spanish translation, it's really weird how the language gets ignored most of the time.

Let's hope more languages are on the way, or at least that they add the language to the auto-translate function.

[RisaFuria]

Please spread the news in all server i know are a lot of hispanic members in all server in the game if you know any hispanic say to him reply this post and suport us

[Chardrizard]

I am not a native english speaker myself, so i see where you are comin from.

I am neither supporting or against this idea of yours, but if they happen to do this, there might be more people asking for their language to be translated and it might gives image that SE is playing favourite.

[RisaFuria]

I am not a native english speaker myself, so i see where you are comin from.

I am neither supporting or against this idea of yours, but if they happen to do this, there might be more people asking for their language to be translated and it might gives image that SE is playing favourite.

I know a lot of people want the game in his languaje but i can only speak for myself and my comunity and for the 329 million of people that speak spanish and not want all the game just only the history that are the most important.