Translated ASLRB

[nekengren2]

What efforts have been made on translations of the ASLRB? I googled and really couldn't find much. I seem some player aids in other languages but not much past that.

I understand there is no official eASLRB so any translation would also be un-official. If I were MMP I would never expend any effort on such a losing proposition. I can't imagine any auto-translation would work very well.

My friends from Spain don't speak good English and ASL is completely not accessible. Heck, even most native English speakers can't jump through the ASLRB hurdles. My wife is an ESOL professor so the topic is interesting.

I'm an IT guy and have written multi-lingual database-driven applications. There is a vision of a framework high-level eRules type community supported wiki with links for multiple languages UNICODE.

Neal

 

[Robin Reeve]

The main problem is the massive use of acronyms based on English expressions.
If a Spanish, French, etc. ASL community wants to remain in touch with the rest if the world, English is essential.
If one had a translation, there would be a double effort of learning the game in both languages.
That said, there has been at least one attempt to translate the ASLRB in French. But people hardly use it.
The SK1 and 2 rules have been translated, and that makes much more sense, as the rules are shorter than the full ASL tome.

 

[Actionjick]

The main problem is the massive use of acronyms based on English expressions.
If a Spanish, French, etc. ASL community wants to remain in touch with the rest if the world, English is essential.
If one had a translation, there would be a double effort of learning the game in both languages.
That said, there has been at least one attempt to translate the ASLRB in French. But people hardly use it.
The SK1 and 2 rules have been translated, and that makes much more sense, as the rules are shorter than the full ASL tome.

Good point about the acronyms. Seems like a translation would be a massive effort.

 

[nekengren2]

yes, i figured SK would make more sense for translation. much better structured and of course less dense.

Robin, when you say "acronyms" are you meaning things like IFT, THDR, etc?
I would see a translated version having those "standard" english acronyms embedded as reference within the translation.
The translated ASLRB would be for overall comprehension and rules lookup.
For international play some rudimentary English would still be needed and those acronyms would be mandatory.
For local play the language specific acronyms could be coined but...............not sure that would be a wise effort.

I find that international players are hesitant to do a rule lookup because of course the exercise is much more difficult for them spur of the moment. It takes a LOT of unpacking some of those rules in another language to figure out what it means. A translated ASLRB would help.

The other problem is always things like STREAM, RIVULET, DITCH, etc. Sometimes the other language will have less or more of those various flavors causing issues.

 

[Actionjick]

What efforts have been made on translations of the ASLRB? I googled and really couldn't find much. I seem some player aids in other languages but not much past that.

I understand there is no official eASLRB so any translation would also be un-official. If I were MMP I would never expend any effort on such a losing proposition. I can't imagine any auto-translation would work very well.

My friends from Spain don't speak good English and ASL is completely not accessible. Heck, even most native English speakers can't jump through the ASLRB hurdles. My wife is an ESOL professor so the topic is interesting.

I'm an IT guy and have written multi-lingual database-driven applications. There is a vision of a framework high-level eRules type community supported wiki with links for multiple languages UNICODE.

Neal

Frankly I am amazed that ASL is even attempted by anyone who has English as a second language. The fluency of our foreign friends who post here embarrass's me at my lack of even a rudimentary command of a foreign language.

Guten tag and Panzerfaust will not impress most frauleins.

 

[bendizoid]

I’m very impressed by people who learned ASL dispite English not being their native tongue, amazing. I can barely stand to read or understand certain rules passages with all the double talk. Good grief ! Yes, translations are a great idea.

 

[STAVKA]

Started playing Squad Leader at age 14 the same year (skipped school at age of 12 - infested with commie gulagwankers) I started to work , my 3 year older big brother could read English (me-not-much) was the rule guy, When ASL came out I purchased it and my brother tried it a couple of times but lost intrest in ASL and we contiuned to play SL until I lost intrest.

Beside a translation book, I had to purchase a fat English Dictonary that explained each word in English in lengthy simple terms with plenty of examples of its use, and my Mother helped me out in the beginning when asked. After 3 years of studies I have learned both to play ASL and my ASL-English was suffiecent enough to bring in others to play the game.

 

[Actionjick]

Started playing Squad Leader at age 14 the same year (skipped school at age of 12 - infested with commie gulagwankers) I started to work , my 3 year older big brother could read English (me-not-much) was the rule guy, When ASL came out I purchased it and my brother tried it a couple of times but lost intrest in ASL and we contiuned to play SL until I lost intrest.

Beside a translation book, I had to purchase a fat English Dictonary that explained each word in English in lengthy simple terms with plenty of examples of its use, and my Mother helped me out in the beginning when asked. After 3 years of studies I have learned both to play ASL and my ASL-English was suffiecent enough to bring in others to play the game.

You have my utmost admiration for your accomplishments. Well done!

 

[nekengren2]

Started playing Squad Leader at age 14 the same year (skipped school at age of 12 - infested with commie gulagwankers) I started to work , my 3 year older big brother could read English (me-not-much) was the rule guy, When ASL came out I purchased it and my brother tried it a couple of times but lost intrest in ASL and we contiuned to play SL until I lost intrest.

Beside a translation book, I had to purchase a fat English Dictonary that explained each word in English in lengthy simple terms with plenty of examples of its use, and my Mother helped me out in the beginning when asked. After 3 years of studies I have learned both to play ASL and my ASL-English was suffiecent enough to bring in others to play the game.

Amazing. I am truly amazed that you and others have enough interest in the game to make such an effort to read those rules. True dedication. 99.9% of people are not able to do this.

 

[Actionjick]

Amazing. I am truly amazed that you and others have enough interest in the game to make such an effort to read those rules. True dedication. 99.9% of people are not able to do this.

I would go so far as to say 99.9% of native English speakers would take one look at the ASLRB and reach for their video game controller.

If the ASLRB could only be translated into a couple different languages what would they be and how do you think that would be determined?

Btw have I ever mentioned how awkward it is to post with a cat butt in your face??

 

[nekengren2]

agreed. Just one look at ASLRB and 99.9% are quitting.

Based on table below my take.............

Spanish first choice. highest potential to get new ASL recruits. Easiest translation.

#2 and #3 Chinese and Japanese. Masses of educated affluent people with potential. Much harder translations here.

I'm not sure Hindi,Bengali,Portuguese,Russian have potential for enough recruits. Maybe Hindi. Maybe Russian.

Notice French and German are way down on the list. However........any eASLRB project probably should include those because of the potential to pull in masses of existing gamers. Also since they are second languages for eastern europe and parts of africa it makes sense.

Languages with at least 10 million first-language speakers[7]

Rank	Language	Speakers (millions)	% of World pop. (March 2019)[8]	Language family	Branch

1	Mandarin Chinese	918	11.922	Sino-Tibetan	Sinitic
2	Spanish	480	5.994	Indo-European	Romance
3	English	379	4.922	Indo-European	Germanic
4	Hindi (Sanskritised Hindustani)[9]	341	4.429	Indo-European	Indo-Aryan
5	Bengali	228	2.961	Indo-European	Indo-Aryan
6	Portuguese	221	2.870	Indo-European	Romance
7	Russian	154	2.000	Indo-European	Balto-Slavic
8	Japanese	128	1.662	Japonic	Japanese
9	Western Punjabi[10]	92.7	1.204	Indo-European	Indo-Aryan
10	Marathi	83.1	1.079	Indo-European	Indo-Aryan
11	Telugu	82.0	1.065	Dravidian	South-Central
12	Wu Chinese	81.4	1.057	Sino-Tibetan	Sinitic
13	Turkish	79.4	1.031	Turkic	Oghuz
14	Korean	77.3	1.004	Koreanic	language isolate
15	French	77.2	1.003	Indo-European	Romance
16	German	76.1	0.988	Indo-European	Germanic

 

[Actionjick]

agreed. Just one look at ASLRB and 99.9% are quitting.

Based on table below my take.............

Spanish first choice. highest potential to get new ASL recruits. Easiest translation.

#2 and #3 Chinese and Japanese. Masses of educated affluent people with potential. Much harder translations here.

I'm not sure Hindi,Bengali,Portuguese,Russian have potential for enough recruits. Maybe Hindi. Maybe Russian.

Notice French and German are way down on the list. However........any eASLRB project probably should include those because of the potential to pull in masses of existing gamers. Also since they are second languages for eastern europe and parts of africa it makes sense.

1	Mandarin Chinese	918	11.922	Sino-Tibetan	Sinitic
2	Spanish	480	5.994	Indo-European	Romance
3	English	379	4.922	Indo-European	Germanic
4	Hindi (Sanskritised Hindustani)[9]	341	4.429	Indo-European	Indo-Aryan
5	Bengali	228	2.961	Indo-European	Indo-Aryan
6	Portuguese	221	2.870	Indo-European	Romance
7	Russian	154	2.000	Indo-European	Balto-Slavic
8	Japanese	128	1.662	Japonic	Japanese
9	Western Punjabi[10]	92.7	1.204	Indo-European	Indo-Aryan
10	Marathi	83.1	1.079	Indo-European	Indo-Aryan
11	Telugu	82.0	1.065	Dravidian	South-Central
12	Wu Chinese	81.4	1.057	Sino-Tibetan	Sinitic
13	Turkish	79.4	1.031	Turkic	Oghuz
14	Korean	77.3	1.004	Koreanic	language isolate
15	French	77.2	1.003	Indo-European	Romance
16	German	76.1	0.988	Indo-European	Germanic

Could you explain the numbers on your chart? Thanks!

 

[Actionjick]

In my two futile attempts at learning a different language I tried German and French. German cause I thought it would be cool to understand the dialogue in war movies. French because I liked how it sounded in the song Psycho Killer by the Talking Heads. Silly and short sighted. Should have tried Spanish as it is the primary language of our neighbors to the south.

 

[nekengren2]

Could you explain the numbers on your chart? Thanks!

uh oh. shoulda copied the table header. thanks. put that on the message.

 

[nekengren2]

In my two futile attempts at learning a different language I tried German and French. German cause I thought it would be cool to understand the dialogue in war movies. French because I liked how it sounded in the song Psycho Killer by the Talking Heads. Silly and short sighted. Should have tried Spanish as it is the primary language of our neighbors to the south.

My college advisor wouldn't let me take Spanish. I had to take German because it was more "sciencey". I insisted and he insisted. Of course he won and he was wrong about which language would help me the most.

 

[WuWei]

The big selling point for ASL is the community, and the existing community speaks English. Who should a potential Chinese player contact if he has a rule question?

 

[Actionjick]

The big selling point for ASL is the community, and the existing community speaks English. Who should a potential Chinese player contact if he has a rule question?

Sun Tzu?

Lol, sorry. Sometimes hard to suppress the jick in me.

 

[Actionjick]

uh oh. shoulda copied the table header. thanks. put that on the message.

Lol, thought I was just being dense in the old brainpan.

 

[nekengren2]

The big selling point for ASL is the community, and the existing community speaks English. Who should a potential Chinese player contact if he has a rule question?

Excellent point. Maybe English is the way it should stay. Even if a Chinese sub-community existed I can imagine at some point members would want to graduate to the bigger native English community.

However.......Maybe a ASLRB in Chinese would be primary school ASL for a billion people. It certainly makes entry more accessible. The double whammy of hugely complicated game with hugely complicated language makes it nearly impossible for most Chinese.

 

[hongkongwargamer]

The big selling point for ASL is the community, and the existing community speaks English. Who should a potential Chinese player contact if he has a rule question?

Other Chinese players. There’s a fairly established community already.