warner-brothers-doesnt-love-japan

http://beaniecanning.wordpress.com/2009/06/29/warner-brothers-doesnt-love-japan/

Interesting out a international company doesn't like other languages.

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i didn't even know they had a place in sl till now..

That's not just anti-Japan...

It's anti anybody who's not English speaking, which is... what? Most of SL?

Probably not most by any stretch, but darn if I don't encounter crazy fereners and der feren wayz everday in almost every sim I go to.

And the sad thing is, all they have to do is get a universal translator and plop it down on the sim. Heck, some of those translators are free...

And they work.

I remember once being told a computer would never be able to handle the complexities of translating human language - but darned if they can't makz senz outda dem fereners fer me.

Weird.

I wonder if Warner Brothers even knows it has a Sim in SL?

A bit OT, but...I once had a customer ask me some support questions in difficult-to-understand English, so I looked at his profile and saw he was French. So I opened up the google translator and was able to respond in both English and French. He apparently thought the google French was good enough, so we finished our dealings in French, a language I don't know at all. It was technical details, user interface kinds of things we discussed, too, and it worked well enough that I solved his problem and he went away happy.

And it was a really cool experience.

Does it work for Pennsylvania Dutch???

Might come in handy if I come across some Amish folks.

Re: Google translators and such. I use Simbolic, since it's free and I can take newbies & such to the same place to get a matching one also for free.

It seems to translate French, Spanish and Portuguese fairly well, but I am told the German translations are laughably bad. If I wear the translator around a German person I am quickly told "take it off, please!" The person seems to be in pain. Lol

Re: the article.

It could easily be a moderating issue. If the moderators of that sim, which represents a public brand, only speak English, then to keep track of the chat and know whether anyone is breaking the terms of service for Second Life, or even the law, they must understand everything that is said, without shadow of a doubt.

This could easily be a legal/moderating issue, not a xenophobic one. Just offering another perspective. (I'd be very surprised if a film company hated ANY potential market.)

problem is, they aren't responsible to KNOW everything that is said (and if someone were to use IM for that purpose they'd have no way of knowing that either, so the reasoning doesn't fly.

and while there are some valid points in the ethic of trying to be inclusive to everyone, the way it was dealt with is purely a power trip on the part of the staff...

does it put people off when others around them are speaking a language foriegn to them? yes, a bit... americans that are only familiar with english seem to be the most sensitive to this, since they're likely to have had the least exposure to other languages being spoken around them (it's a trait of large lingually insulated communities)

on a side note I've found it's often easiest if both people one either side of a language barrier either translate their native tongue to to the listeners, or vice versa... it also helps to understand the structure and emphasis of how the language puts together sentence such as being verb centric (focus is on the action, as in chinese) or noun centric (focus in on objects as in english) or what order a sentence is given in (english places adjectives before nouns, most latin derived languages place them after.)

Cheers to Warner Brothers for not bowing to the "We are the world" crap that is spewed so often these days. Nothing at all wrong with a private entity wanting to be able to understand what is being said on their property.

It's interesting to note that LL are taking the opposite approach and discriminating in favour of foreign languages by not having non-English words on their proscribed list for adult purposes.

Pep (Circumvent the restrictions by learning French rude words!)

Wow....

This was brought up last night in the Forum chat......it's pretty disturbing. Americans are terrible language snobs.....and yes it is because we are insular. We don't need to speak any other languages to cross state lines.....and we aren't exposed to other languages unless we go to great lengths to travel. (on the whole....I realize there's plenty of foreign language speakers in this country)

A lot of times I am really ashamed at how elitest Americans can be. For me personally....I love traveling and I love learning a new language and I love listening to foreign accents even in my own country. I think in SL especially....given that it IS a world format...open to the entire globe.....it's really tacky to discriminate on the basis of language. Really tacky.

Now....I would agree....in my own country.....I have been in an absolutely tizzy over encounters with people who don't speak English, but 'should' due to their JOB. Example...on Martha's Vineyard....where I basically grew up spending my summers....a beautiful little tourist island (maybe more touristy then we'd like sometimes).....there is suddenly this amazing influx of foreigners there over the summer......working all the jobs that we worked as kids. That was what summer was all about.....get a job for 2 months and have blast. Now I walk into the local grocery....and they're all Brazilian.....now I have nothing against Brazil.....but dam it when I go to buy something IN MY OWN COUNTRY and I can't get help with a problem because noone speaks English.......THAT pisses me off. It's like that all over the island and a lot of local folks are pretty annoyed....it's not a big deal when the girl at the bakery has an Irish accent....but it IS a big deal when you can't communicate AT ALL with a person in a service position.


WB.....I think they're being elitest and prejudice and it's pretty sickening. I enjoy SL for the very fact that it IS so diverse and I CAN meet and speak to folks from all over the globe. I love it.....I think it's a phenominal way to bring people together.......And I for sure will never visit the WB sim.

I've experienced this first hand in the Gossip Girl sims when I was practicing Swedish with one of my friends, when a Mod Squad person swooped in and asked us to speak English in open chat or we would be asked to leave. I'm of the opinion that if you're paying for the land, you can set up your rules as you please within the confines of the Second Life TOS/CS but I will certainly never visit your establishment again. Really dumb move, particularly on the part of a large corporation, but the point is somewhat moot as the GG sims are apparently closing very soon.

The entire experience reminded me of the time I was in Paris, when a garishly dressed woman said in a very loud voice, "Doesn't anyone speak American around here?"

To the people talking about the joys of using translators:

The responsibility to use the translator should (rightly) be on the shoulders of the non-English speaker. That is a reality of life on Earth, there are a lot of countries here on this planet, and for people to actually be able to communicate, it is imperative that all people in a situation speak the same language. If I go to a German sim it is appropriate to expect that I either know German (I don't) or use a translator to translate everything I say into German, and vice-versa. The sim in question is an English sim, like it or not. It doesn't matter one whit what languages you know, English is the only language that can be reasonably expected for the people present to speak and understand. If you can't speak English you're still welcome, but you have a responsibility to use a translator to translate for you. That responsibility cannot be laid at the feet of everybody else present.

The mods were doing right to eject people who are repeatedly told to speak English and deliberately refuse to do so.

What do you call someone who speaks 3 languages? Trilingual. (^_^)

What do you call someone who speaks 2 languages? Bilingual. (^_^)

What do you call someone who speaks only 1 language? American. (=_=)

ばか！(=_=)

Funny, I'm a US citizen, and I speak two languages. All this time I thought I was an American. (Yes, I know, it was meant to be a joke, but in the context of this thread, well.....)

whom are you calling a fool?
XD

I'm Californian. We're not Americans. Just ask the Texans. (^_^)y

When traveling abroad as an American, you don't really need to adapt or learn the local language. Just point and talk loudly and everyone will get it. (^_^)y

Well, lets look at this practically. From where I live, I can go 1,000 miles in any direction and the predominant language is English. With the exception of the southern border states where everyone knows a bit of Mexican, the average American requires a foreign language for two things: the two weeks they are in high school or college and are taking a school-sponsored trip to Europe (probably) where they will still encounter many people who can speak English, and the 2 or 3 weeks they get to travel in their 50's or 60's after the kids are grown up and before health issues settle in.

I could learn a language and try to get a job using that language, but there will not be that many opportunities and those will be filled mostly by native speakers anyways - they tend to be those rare high end jobs like international banking which require specialized skill sets (as opposed to working the counter somewhere in a ski chalet gift shop). Its not like Belgium where there is an expectation of leaving your home country and working across Europe, or even England where people will take an annual holiday trip to Spain or Greece, or even those alcohol fueled party barges that routinely criss-cross parts of the Baltic and North Sea where you at least get to practice your drunken Dutch, German, and Swedish on the opposite sex.

Unless we actively seek them out and make it our life's focus, there just are not a lot of foreign language opportunities for us Americans. Yes, we could be the night manager at some run-down motel and spend half our time talking Spanish to illegal aliens, but who wants to make minimum wage? All the language jobs tend to be either very low end or very high end positions with nothing in between.

. . . and behave like the aforementioned Americans, "speaking foreign" by talking in English louder.

Pep (Doesn't do that; has been sworn at by southern French taxi drivers for being a Parisian snob! )

O.o ???

Not sure how rural of a part of the USA you're in...

But here, I can go 30 feet from where I am right now and encounter at least 5 languages. In my city, I'm likely to hear 10 or more in a day if I go outside. My neighbors all speak different languages from each other.

On a daily basis I will encounter:

Korean
Mandarin
Cantonese
Spanish
Tagalog
English
Vietnamese
Thai
Japanese
Russian

And more...

In LA, where WB is, its going to be a similar mix.

When I read the story this is what I see.

1) moderator tells people the rules and expects them to be followed
2) person gets confrontational and blatantly continues to break the rule
3) person gets ejected

What is so suprising about this?

Follow the rules or leave. Simple.

Some people think that the SL universe revolves around them apparently.

When the rules are improper, people should call them on it.

There is a depressing statement. Being close to 50, I do hope I do not become decrepit that soon.

It is a matter of opinion whether the rules are improper or not. The area is paid for by a private entity, be it corporation or individual, and they can determine the rules as they see fit.