I know, this doesn′t affects you directly, but it has to be said.
FO1 and 2 were great games, but the german translation was a big fail! Not only great grammatical errors, even some bugs appeared because of some moddifications in the german version.

Please, Fallout is a game for advlts, we don′t want any censorship... And of course amateur translation . It doesn′t bother me, because I prefer english in video games, but that doesn′t apply to every german player.

this is a bit off topic but i just have to say it :p
german has hard grammar and germany does censor more than other countries.

on a personal note, i work with alot of truck drivers and get to meet alot of germans. and the only thing going through my, and my co workers, mind(s) is "why dont they learn english?!". every driver that comes expects someone german speaking and it makes us sad face :p

im not bashing u or anything like that, u obviously have good english.. this is more gonna be a question from me. why does germany, spain, italy and france have such a hard time learning english?

if anyone gets offended i'll delete this post In gaming terms... Life's a die, then you bich.

The thing is that unlike Sweden (im from there too) they don't use subtitles in movies/series/like anything, so they are dubbing everything. Secondly there are like 82 millions(?) registered inhabitants there and many countries beside them know the german language, so it is no big problem for them to not know english that good.

But I think that it will change a bit (learning from the internet hyay), I know a couple of younger germans and they speak very good english.

Out of curiosity, are many of these drivers from the area that was previously East Germany? If so, the only languages school children were taught in schools were German, Russian, and I think some Latin. English was optional.

Today depending where in Germany you look it might also be different, I believe the education system differs from region to region since a different board is in charge of the various states. While it probably doesn't directly answer your question as to why they don't learn English, perhaps it is due to the different mix of languages in Europe and the percentage of English speakers they meet anyway on a day to day basis?

OT: Who did the translations of the original Fallout titles? This applies to all languages of course but not everything will come across the same way as it will in the original language due to a variety of reasons.

that's actually good to know but i dont know which part of germany they're from, a truck driver can be from anywhere it's the best answer ive gotten so far and it makes alot of sense.. unfortunately =] thanks! In gaming terms... Life's a die, then you bich.

Also American English is one of the hardest languages to understand because we Americans use one word to have so many meanings.
Plus, we say he and she were other countries use a variance of other words to give the sentence a gender.
And so few Americans actually use sentence structure any more when speaking, let alone posting on the internet.

Dave Chase

the internet has a language of its own =] In gaming terms... Life's a die, then you bich.

U don′t have to delete your post and I understand your questioning. It′s true, that in some regions, there were no english lessons in school some time ago. My generation doesn′t have this problem. But germans are used to german dubs (like in every movie, serial and nearly every videogame). I know it′s different in other countries, like in poland. No polish player would like to have a polish dub in movies or in games.
By the way, I know german is not the easiest language, but that′s no excuse for a really bad translation. Whoever it was, the one who was responsible for the translation really messed up the whole game with it. It was just sad...

About the censorship:
Some years ago, german law was a little different. If a game was too violent, it was not just only for advlts but it was forbidden to sell it in public. Only chance was to order it from somewhere or to buy it "under the counter". Of course, this was pretty bad for the sales output. So the companies decided to censor many games. For example Fallout (no gore, no childern) or half life (not possible to kill civis, androids instead of soldiers). This was pretty annoying, especially for the advlt gamers.
Laws has changed, advlts can now finally buy the games, they like. But the companies are still censoring some games. German fallout 3 is less bloody and it′s not possible to cut of limbs for example. But the game is still for advlts only, so I don′t understand, why they still do that kind of censorship (I know, Fallout 3 is not from gamesas, it was just an example).

Another thing are games with symbols from the Third Reich. It is absolutly forbidden, to show them in public, so the companies have to remove it or they wont be able to sell their products in germany. This doesn′t bother fallout, but it might be still interesting for you. But who knows? Maybe Hitler was still alive, survived the nuclear holocaust and became a ghoul in Fallout online ?

I hope, you understand now .

PS: Watch this and enjoy german half life
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=alIBAUO_CUM

just got one thing to say about censorship: Australia.

There, be glad you don't play games over there...

that's very true, should always be a handfull of people checking those sort of things out. and a ghoul hitler is actually something i'd love to see him or cartman! In gaming terms... Life's a die, then you bich.

I think that the emotes should be well translated, then at the bare minimium players could communicate via a basic emote language.

There are several rays of hope now, actually, since Atkinson's retirement (he was one of the most vocal advocates of video game censorship). We're also seeing a lot more Australian-based video game studios, or Australian offices for international / US studios, which means that there's an investment and with that will eventually come sort form of lobby movement to hurry the politicians along. Maybe you'll sit and sigh, wishing that I were near
Then maybe you'll ask me to come back again
And maybe I'll say "Maybe"