Did they ever give an in-universe explanation for Unity? Iirc they went with an English accent because they thought the French accent might be too difficult for some people.
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Dear developers: please stop inserting random Spanish words into Latino/a/x/e character dialogue
- Thread starter Thorakai
- Start date
Yup.
"Schafer credits Plana for helping to deepen the character of Manny, as the voice actor was a native Spanish speaker and suggested alternate dialog for the game that was more natural for casual Spanish conversations."
I think interspersing words from another language can be done naturally, as it's the way a lot of people actually talk. Grim Fandango does it really well, as I recall.
I feel like you can tell when it's written by someone who isn't a native speaker or hasn't worked with native speakers to properly write it.
I didn't like how that one character in TLOU2 was written yet something like LiS2 is perfect. I'm pretty sure it was great in Miles too.
Also that NEO TWEWY example as people said doesn't really apply cause they are dumbasses trying to sound smart by speaking another language lol.
I didn't like how that one character in TLOU2 was written yet something like LiS2 is perfect. I'm pretty sure it was great in Miles too.
Also that NEO TWEWY example as people said doesn't really apply cause they are dumbasses trying to sound smart by speaking another language lol.
This is so annoying, even for me with no Spanish descent because it's so blatant.
But when I'm talking English I don't randomly drop "Kumpel" instead of buddy. It's the same when German people in English film and literature regard other people with "Herr" or "Frau". No, we don't do that.
What's more likely are false friends or difficult words you simply don't know; it's not the easy ones like "cabron" or "hola" or "Guten Tag".
But when I'm talking English I don't randomly drop "Kumpel" instead of buddy. It's the same when German people in English film and literature regard other people with "Herr" or "Frau". No, we don't do that.
What's more likely are false friends or difficult words you simply don't know; it's not the easy ones like "cabron" or "hola" or "Guten Tag".
And by half the thread, it's like you have people saying that it's still annoying when you basically define a Latin character by having speak random nonsensical Spanish instead of having them go on full Spanish, or have "Spanglish" in a context that actually makes sense or actually giving them a context that uses the culture, depending on where they're from or on whether they're immigrants (or children of) in another country in comparison to someone who lives in a Spanish speaking country.
Basically, stop throwing us all in the same bag and treating Latinos as a single monolith. We're not.
Sorry but there's nothing to be outraged about here, OP. IMO. People talk in a million different ways and combinations of dialects and it can be an individual thing how to mix them together. There is no right or wrong and I don't think many of these decisions that developers have made are offensive at all.
OP
OP
You cut-out the rest of the post you quoted where I acknowledge single word version substitution happens. The part you did quote is meant to say I can't think of an instance of that type of Spanglish happening in games being represented, not that I never experienced or heard about it in real life.
I'm Hispanic and my family has never ever done this, so it always comes across as really weird seeing it in media.
Extremely disagree. As a Hispanic enby, Latinx rules. Sad seeing people fight it :(
Yeah people move along, you are getting offended by nothing, you hear the white man, stop trying to claim for proper representation of your culture on video games.
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There are millions of ways we Latin American people speak, yet we easily distinguish when a dialogue for a Latin American character was written by someone who is not a native speaker.
Can't you guess why?
And what is this proper representation? The OP uses Jackie as a negative example. Someone above is stating that Jackie was so life-like that it was uncanny. How are the devs supposed to cater to both these opinions?
OP
OP
Thank you for this. I haven't played Grim Fandango or Miles Morales so I'm looking forward to trying it out.
Were did I argue that every latino should speak in a certain way? Some speak like that so I'm fine if some are speaking in that way in media, how is that treating latinos as a monolith? I'm not following your logic at all.
OP
OP
All I'm asking of developers in my post is to be more thoughtful about how they implement Spanglish. I gave some questions to help further define the character's background and context surrounding a conversation to encourage more thinking about how Spanglish manifests itself and how it can be used. If CD Project Red took the time to research Spanglish/code-switching and arrived at Jackie's dialogue, sure my use of that clip can be ignored (for context--I think it's weird that Jackie, who most definitely grew-up fluent in English, is dropping simple Spanish words in a dialogue with an English-only speaking MC). I doubt that there was too much thought given to how Spanglish was used just given the developer's history like giving little regard for how to positively represent the transgender community in marketing, the change they made with the Voodoo Boys and the resulting reactions to that, and just the general continuation of orientalism that seeps the entire genre. I think what likely happened, and what is most often the case, is that developer referenced popular media that always defaults to a single way of representing Spanglish. And if that happened, then next go around I just ask for developers to be more thoughtful and do a bit more research around how Spanglish can be spoken.
Diverse population has a diverse way of speaking? Pretty obvious you can't generalize people based on bad game dialog.
I'm pretty sure that there are latinos that speak like this, we are millions are pretty diverse, but I still feel that a lot of times in games and other media it still does sounds kinda half baked to say the least. I agree, just simplying adding a spanish word at the end of a sentence doesn't feel right. I have heard latinos irl mixing english and spanish but at least in my personal, and limited, experience, it never sounds like that. It's more natural, maybe? I don't know how to put it right
I don't know about the voodoo boys since I didn't play much Cyperpunk but Jackie talks like my dad just without a New York accent. My dad grew up in Queens New York but was raised by his Colombian parents. It really varies on how the individual feels about the topic I suppose.
This was my first thought, especially with Into the Spider-Verse where he speaks with his mom, and seeing the reason it was done (because some people in America does it in real life). I even remember people post that it's stuff that happens in their family. Though I don't doubt that it's done horribly in some media when they try to imitate what happens naturally for scripts and acting.
We fight it, because unlike in English, there is no way to actually say Latinx in Spanish.
The closest would be Latinex which is in itself another anglicism forced into Spanish.
On simpler terms, stop creating words for our language.
Different sections of the Hispanic, Latinos/as community speak differently, for some an interpretation might sound forced or fake for others it sounds perfectly natural. So there's never going to be a 100 percent consensus.
In my opinion Luis Lopez was dope In the Ballad of gay tony.
In my opinion Luis Lopez was dope In the Ballad of gay tony.
Extremely agreed, can't even pronounce that "word" in spanish.
My biggest issue with the Spanish language is how gendered it is, so I am heavily in favor of updating the language to be more gender neutral. In other words, I think our language should evolve, even if it comes from English.
OP
OP
Can I ask a clarifying question? When speaking Spanglish, does your dad solely talk like some of the examples in the OP where it seems like only a single word within an English sentence is substituted for its Spanish equivalent? Or does he also slip into other patterns like beginning sentence in espanol, y despues cambiando la idioma mid-sentence para communicar su intento claramente? And does he find himself speaking Spanglish even to those who solely speak English?
My experience with Spanglish in both speaking it and hearing it from others is that its a mix of patterns of styles, not solely restricted to a single manifestation of Spanglish that seems most common in media. But maybe I do need to think about how to frame this discussion a bit better in future so folks don't come away thinking that I'm saying their speech style is wrong or off. I do still feel like there is a need for diversity in how Spanglish is represented in games + some consideration on representing heritage without solely relying on language as a means of communicating character backgrounds.
It already exists. We use "e" to be gender neutral. Todes, Latines, Elles, etc.
More of the single word, the inverse too where he'll speak Spanish and substitute some words for English. Same with my mom but less often. My grandma does the second example more often but she does the first one too.
Yeah my feelings on the matter are it's overused in media to the point of annoyance but is also very realistic for first and sometimes second generation immigrant families and isn't "cringe".
OP
OP
I said it earlier but IMO it comes down to how different the latino cultures can be, from latino communities in the US that naturally use very mixed languages, full spanish speaking countries like Chile, Argentina, Colombia and most of South America, Brazil with portuguese as its main tongue, etc.
Then, when a game comes with the token latino character that barely represents one segment of the entire "latino community", it's only natural that some people will be weirded out.
Then, when a game comes with the token latino character that barely represents one segment of the entire "latino community", it's only natural that some people will be weirded out.
It makes the phobics and other right-wingers foam at the mouth. Reason enough for me to be bothered by it. Especialmente cuando son latinos que "apoyan" a los que quieren literalmente subirlos a un camión y mandarlos a la frontera.
I have seen it heavily use by latino groups. It's not that bad.
Yeah having Latino characters say one liners in Spanish is always annoying. Was annoying in TLOU and many other games.
It was actually kinda natural in miles because he pretty much only used it with his mom or other hispanic characters. He's not talking to some random white dude in spanglish like how pretty much every other game does.
It was actually kinda natural in miles because he pretty much only used it with his mom or other hispanic characters. He's not talking to some random white dude in spanglish like how pretty much every other game does.
Ah yeah, it's incredibly cheesy.
American developers/localization teams don't seem to understand that we spanish speaking people don't walk around saying "loco" "bandido" or "caliente". Then there's the issue of mixing up european Spanish with latin american spanish, which is one layer deeper into this dumb practice.
American developers/localization teams don't seem to understand that we spanish speaking people don't walk around saying "loco" "bandido" or "caliente". Then there's the issue of mixing up european Spanish with latin american spanish, which is one layer deeper into this dumb practice.
I agree with OP
I agree with this too!
I understand what OP is saying. To me it sticks out even more when they do not properly conjugate verbs or when they misgender adjectives, because it tells right away that the person who wrote the dialogue doesn't speak Spanish and didn't care enough to investigate further.
Grim Fandango is a good example. I think Sombra from Overwatch is good too. She even points out the stupidity in "I'm en fuego". You can say "I'm on fire" in English, but "Estoy en fuego" doesn't exists in Spanish, it sounds extremely weird.
Look at this:
He sounds very artificial and cartoonish. Probably that was the intention, but you can tell how they were more concerned with inserting random Spanish words than making the character more natural. It's very telling when he says "piñata" with a strong Ñ but then goes on and says "piranhas" lol
Ñ, we'll never let you go.
I agree with this too!
I understand what OP is saying. To me it sticks out even more when they do not properly conjugate verbs or when they misgender adjectives, because it tells right away that the person who wrote the dialogue doesn't speak Spanish and didn't care enough to investigate further.
Grim Fandango is a good example. I think Sombra from Overwatch is good too. She even points out the stupidity in "I'm en fuego". You can say "I'm on fire" in English, but "Estoy en fuego" doesn't exists in Spanish, it sounds extremely weird.
Look at this:
He sounds very artificial and cartoonish. Probably that was the intention, but you can tell how they were more concerned with inserting random Spanish words than making the character more natural. It's very telling when he says "piñata" with a strong Ñ but then goes on and says "piranhas" lol
Ñ, we'll never let you go.
It depends on the context. My wife is from Mexico and she always says "look" in spanish(no idea how to spell it lol, "mida"?), or other random things instinctively.
Just look at how Miles' mom talks to him in the Spiderverse movie. It's very natural and extremely common.
Actually the more I read the OP the more I'm kind of offended. Its like the OP is saying everything I live with daily is incorrect. Even the example words " amigo, hola, cabron, or loco " in the OP are just common as hell to be mixed in with an English conversation(my sister in law will come over, say hola, and that's the only Spanish thing she'll say to me the entire time). I mean, if you came over, and you knew nothing about my wife, and she said "Hola, come in", you'd now know she has some sort of Spanish-speaking heritage without establishing any prior knowledge of that.
I'm just going to go through these bullets in relation to my daily life.
Without detailing each of the videos posted in the OP here, I'm not sure where to start listening with Reyna but from the minute I listened to it sounded fine. Jackie seemed fine too. The first NEO one, the first line was really weird though. I think it comes down to the script overall. I would imagine a good/solid script has solid code switching. A poor script or poor acting/directing will have poor code switching. But to act like code switching doesn't randomly happen is fairly ignorant.
Yes there are plenty of examples of scripts having awful Spanish words sprinkled in where it sounds super cheesy, and I'm sorry if this post is coming off a harsh, but I feel like this a lot more of a "book smarts vs street smarts" thing with "holier than thou" attitude thrown in, or someone who doesn't really live in that type of environment to realize it's not an unnatural thing. Like, if I read this post from a colleague and I was going out with them with my wife, I'd probably just bail. If it sounds unnatural in media, it's because the script is bad. But to say there shouldn't be code switching unless you've established prior that the persons heritage is of Spanish speaking decent is disingenuous to real life, and more unnatural than making the good faith effort to have code switching IMHO. I don't believe code switching most of the time is done in bad faith.
I agree with the substance of what you're saying, I just think the OP, and the bullet list especially, doesn't take into account at all real-world footing.
Again, I don't mean to come off as harsh and I'm certainly not trying to single out the OP personaly, this topic just hits a nerve with me I guess.
Just look at how Miles' mom talks to him in the Spiderverse movie. It's very natural and extremely common.
Actually the more I read the OP the more I'm kind of offended. Its like the OP is saying everything I live with daily is incorrect. Even the example words " amigo, hola, cabron, or loco " in the OP are just common as hell to be mixed in with an English conversation(my sister in law will come over, say hola, and that's the only Spanish thing she'll say to me the entire time). I mean, if you came over, and you knew nothing about my wife, and she said "Hola, come in", you'd now know she has some sort of Spanish-speaking heritage without establishing any prior knowledge of that.
I'm just going to go through these bullets in relation to my daily life.
- Is my character a first, second, or third-generation immigrant? If they are a first generation immigrant how long have they been in the country? The longer you've been in a new country the more assimilated you are, the less likely you are to see code-switching.
- Who is my character talking to? Do they understand Spanish at all? If they don't understand Spanish, does it really make sense for my character to code-switch?
- What situation is my character finding themselves in, is it a peaceful conversation at a coffee shop or is all hell breaking loose? The latter situation is a much more justifiable reason for someone to slip into speaking Spanish when in a panic than the former (as long as you've established that the character recently immigrated or has not had much time to assimilate, of course).
- What subject matter is being discussed? Simple topics like how was your day are less likely to have much code-switching vs conversations that are more technical where it might be easier for the character to communicate in their native tongue.
- What types of Spanish words is my character sprinkling into the conversation? Is it just basic words like hola and si? Or are they dropping idioms or phrases that flow better into a conversation vs their English translation/counterpart?
Without detailing each of the videos posted in the OP here, I'm not sure where to start listening with Reyna but from the minute I listened to it sounded fine. Jackie seemed fine too. The first NEO one, the first line was really weird though. I think it comes down to the script overall. I would imagine a good/solid script has solid code switching. A poor script or poor acting/directing will have poor code switching. But to act like code switching doesn't randomly happen is fairly ignorant.
Yes there are plenty of examples of scripts having awful Spanish words sprinkled in where it sounds super cheesy, and I'm sorry if this post is coming off a harsh, but I feel like this a lot more of a "book smarts vs street smarts" thing with "holier than thou" attitude thrown in, or someone who doesn't really live in that type of environment to realize it's not an unnatural thing. Like, if I read this post from a colleague and I was going out with them with my wife, I'd probably just bail. If it sounds unnatural in media, it's because the script is bad. But to say there shouldn't be code switching unless you've established prior that the persons heritage is of Spanish speaking decent is disingenuous to real life, and more unnatural than making the good faith effort to have code switching IMHO. I don't believe code switching most of the time is done in bad faith.
I agree with the substance of what you're saying, I just think the OP, and the bullet list especially, doesn't take into account at all real-world footing.
Again, I don't mean to come off as harsh and I'm certainly not trying to single out the OP personaly, this topic just hits a nerve with me I guess.
I hate it in video games because it just comes off as "hey guys! Did you know this guy is Latino? We're so inclusive!" It never sounds natural to me because they'll just use a single word. I'm sure some people do this in real life but I personally have never come across that. What's more common in my experience is people speaking English to me and then saying an entire sentence or phrase in Spanish before switching back to English. Never just a single word. And they do this because they know I understand it. Another common thing is just cursing in Spanish, or calling their parents mama or papa. Never a random "pendejo" like it always is in video games.
Thing with that word is that probably defines Hispanic people born or raised in the USA. However people from latam dont identity as much, since while we mostly speak Spanish and some Portuguese and live and the same zone, we are all different and we can not be defined as latinx. There are better neutral ways to call people from latam:
Costa Rican
Argentinian
Brasilian
Mexican
None of those words are gendered and we can pronounce them.
OP
OP
It's "mira"
I'm not meaning to offend and I hope my other points really clarifies the impetus for me in making this thread: it's not that I'm saying this type of code-switching never happens or that it is invalid, what I have an issue with is that its the only type of code-switching that seems to be ever represented in media. I don't think its enough to just solely drop random Spanish words in a single sentence to represent Spanglish and calling it a day, when there are so many other forms and patterns of Spanglish that intermix and intertwine. The types and patterns most prevalent with a person also changes depending on who they are and what their background is. Why does it seem like only the single-word substitution version is ever shown? Is it because each of the developers who implemented this type of Spanglish in their game researched code-switching, engaged with Spanish-speaking reviewers, and all came to same conclusion that this is the only or most prevalent way that it happens? I doubt that. I think what happens is that developers copy what they see in other media, and what you see in other media is just that single form by which Spanglish manifests.
In response to that I presented some questions for a developer to ask themselves to further contextualize the background of their character and in what context are they finding themselves having a dialogue, because answering those types of questions can do more to enrich the representation of Spanglish in media. The answer to those questions are more my experience and my takeaways from general research on Spanglish patterns, not meant to be an end-all-be-all declaration of what is right and wrong way of representing it. The questions are also not exhaustive, they intermingle, the answers to all of which will interconnect in different ways.
I think in hindsight I should have framed this thread as a need for developers to diversify how Spanglish is represented.
My wife has been here for like 25 years. Is she supposed to stop switching at a particular anniversary?
I didn't use the word stop. I said it would be less likely to come-up. Not that it ever outright stops, because it never does. But as someone gets more comfortable with English let's say, there would probably be less situations where the speaker might be forced to default to a Spanish word because they aren't able to easily recall the English word.
I don't understand a lick of Spanish outside of a few basics. Her random word usage has taught me more. This comes off as "your in america speak american" type of bs.
It's not suppose to come off that way. I'm tired of situations where there is only one Latino character in a game, the person is obviously fully fluent, nobody in the game knows Spanish, and yet still you see the random Spanish words being dropped in conversation constantly. If your character was born and raised in America and is fully fluent in English, chances are they will prefer English and stick to English when talking to their peers that do as well.
We are randomly in the house. Do we need to have our house shot up to justify the code-switching?
Yea I shouldn't have used justifiable. Ultimately what I'm trying to communicate is that context matters. If the character is in an office setting with other people that solely speak English, how likely are they to drop Spanglish? How likely would they be to do so in comfortable setting with trusted people? How likely when in a panic?
This is the exact opposite from my experience. When my wife is talking super technical with her friends from Mexico she needs to go back to English. She holds technical conversations a lot better in English.
Gotcha, I have the opposite experience where I default to my native tongue (English) when I can't cover the technical stuff in Spanish.
I don't even think this matters?
It goes back to my point about diversity in Spanglish representation. If you are just defaulting to very basic Spanish inserts every single time, maybe its time to pause and ask yourself if you are doing this purposefully, or if its only driven by the few Spanish words you and others on your team know?
"I'm sorry if this post is coming off a harsh, but I feel like this a lot more of a "book smarts vs street smarts" thing with "holier than thou" attitude thrown in, or someone who doesn't really live in that type of environment to realize it's not an unnatural thing. Like, if I read this post from a colleague and I was going out with them with my wife, I'd probably just bail. If it sounds unnatural in media, it's because the script is bad."
I do take offense because I am billingual, my family is billingual, my girlfiriend is billingual, our friends are billingual. If I'm making a thread on this matter and contributing a lot of posts its because I care about learning and making sure how I'm represented is respectful and thoughtfully-developed. So having you--someone who self-admittedly just said they don't know a lick of Spanish--tell me that my post reads as "book smarts" over "street smarts", that its holier than thou, and that you would walk-away from me for making these points? It's insulting and no amount of apologizing for coming off as harsh will change that. I literally have more lived experience in the topic than you.
To reiterate, it's about context; the setting, role, framing and cast dynamics around the Spanglish-speaking character.
Grim Fandango is in a whimsical setting with the playable character speaking accented Spanglish. There's critique to be had there, but that's not where I'd focus the examination of othering that's been happening among presumed white American creatives/leadership.
TLoUII with its setting of the Pacific Northwest among a cast that's majority white, or otherwise Americana-monocultural in regard to language, but then you have Manny, a side character, speaking at a playable white Abby in Spanglish. It feels like a fabrication in service of "Say something in Spanish for me!" white Americans that some of us who have been othered in our own home country irl will be familiar with - and that's not to say that the writing of Manny doesn't reflect real people (even in the hypothetical post-apocalyptic setting of Seattle). The wiki reminds me that Manny is from Mexico, which sure - I don't quite remember that which might say something about the importance of exposition paid to it - but it says something about the state of American-made media that that's the model often seen for such characters among a majority-white/monocultural cast. It would not be as much of an uncomfortable if there were more Latinx characters in individual pieces of media, but we end up with tokenism scraps that don't quite reflect a reality I recognize when it's a semi/realistic Americana setting I feel I have an familiarity with.
The setting, % of cast, role of the character (playable/major/side/NPC) all sum to it being quality/comprehensive/cohesive representation or not.
Also, let Latinx people identify as Latinx. It's not the fault of Latinx people that Elizabeth Warrens used it to describe groups of Latin people it doesn't apply to. Us people whom that word belongs to know what we're doing with it - it hasn't and shouldn't be forced on those who it doesn't apply to. The criticism is misdirected if actual Latinx people are being criticized, or as I sometimes see, dunked on.
Grim Fandango is in a whimsical setting with the playable character speaking accented Spanglish. There's critique to be had there, but that's not where I'd focus the examination of othering that's been happening among presumed white American creatives/leadership.
TLoUII with its setting of the Pacific Northwest among a cast that's majority white, or otherwise Americana-monocultural in regard to language, but then you have Manny, a side character, speaking at a playable white Abby in Spanglish. It feels like a fabrication in service of "Say something in Spanish for me!" white Americans that some of us who have been othered in our own home country irl will be familiar with - and that's not to say that the writing of Manny doesn't reflect real people (even in the hypothetical post-apocalyptic setting of Seattle). The wiki reminds me that Manny is from Mexico, which sure - I don't quite remember that which might say something about the importance of exposition paid to it - but it says something about the state of American-made media that that's the model often seen for such characters among a majority-white/monocultural cast. It would not be as much of an uncomfortable if there were more Latinx characters in individual pieces of media, but we end up with tokenism scraps that don't quite reflect a reality I recognize when it's a semi/realistic Americana setting I feel I have an familiarity with.
The setting, % of cast, role of the character (playable/major/side/NPC) all sum to it being quality/comprehensive/cohesive representation or not.
Also, let Latinx people identify as Latinx. It's not the fault of Latinx people that Elizabeth Warrens used it to describe groups of Latin people it doesn't apply to. Us people whom that word belongs to know what we're doing with it - it hasn't and shouldn't be forced on those who it doesn't apply to. The criticism is misdirected if actual Latinx people are being criticized, or as I sometimes see, dunked on.
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I just thought about this topic the other day when I watched Army of the Dead and its German character Dieter says "scheiße" at one point. For swearing and muttering to yourself it can be justified, but it still didn't feel 100% natural to me.
US media just loves to do this for any foreign characters and I always think no one would talk like that in real life. But there are far greater annoyances of course, like actors speaking in foreign languages where every speaker of that language immediately recognizes that they really can't speak it at all and have just memorized their lines phonetically.
US media just loves to do this for any foreign characters and I always think no one would talk like that in real life. But there are far greater annoyances of course, like actors speaking in foreign languages where every speaker of that language immediately recognizes that they really can't speak it at all and have just memorized their lines phonetically.
Maybe it's just me, but I've never felt the need to drop spanish words around people that don't speak spanish, nor do I know anyone that does.
It's such a simple context, that many games just flat out get wrong. It feels almost insulting writing, if you think about people that speak other languages, they also rarely just drop words in other languages in conversations, so it's also terrible when they do it to them as well.
ofc, if it's a scene with two characters that both speak the other language, then I can see the context, even though I also rarely see it happen in real life.
It's such a simple context, that many games just flat out get wrong. It feels almost insulting writing, if you think about people that speak other languages, they also rarely just drop words in other languages in conversations, so it's also terrible when they do it to them as well.
ofc, if it's a scene with two characters that both speak the other language, then I can see the context, even though I also rarely see it happen in real life.
To be honest; the biggest resistance to the term Latinx I've seen is from Latin American people themselves that don't like the term. Not white allies misusing it
