Case Study #1:

Disclaimer: English is my native language, so I will default to that below, but these guidelines aren’t exclusive to folks whose first language is English. I won’t go into how to improve your tone and cultural understanding right now, as that’s a more complicated topic that’ll take forever to write up here, but please ask me about it! I think it’s so hecking neat & I have thoughts!!

Why does this even matter??

We have professional translators! But it’s obviously not practical to have them translate every DM or comment, and there’s other benefits to knowing how to relate to more folks as a CM:

• Players trust me more! They’ll discuss their issues much earlier with me, so I can fix it before it turns into a bigger issue. Think review bombs, or chronic hackers, or that one guy (& usually any friend he can find) that shows up to your announcement posts to critique every decision you’ve ever made.

• We get increased sales and engagement from these regions! China and Russia have continued to be our top-selling regions in our last sales. These are new growing markets with less competition right now, so it’s easier for us to gain traction. By diversifying our audience, we also get better protection for our studio. While we’ve had a strong American audience, a lot of kids haven’t had as much money to spend on games lately because of the economic downturn. Kids from China, however, aren’t experiencing an economic depression!

• I can provide advice on design choices that may limit our sales in certain regions! As an example, China has much harsher restrictions on gore–by not having any visible blood or skulls, we avoid getting a higher age restriction or getting blocked from the Chinese market entirely. Since a lot of our audience is children, this is a huge deal for us!!

General tips (for any language!)

Use the correct translation website! It’s usually tied to the most popular search engine there. In America, that’s Google (and Google Translate). In Russia, that’s Yandex (and Yandex Translate). You can usually just ask people what their preferred translation website is.

Don’t spend forever on pretty wording. As a comms professional, I care a lot about subtext and tone! Unfortunately, when you’re starting out in a new language, you will have no idea how to get that across, no matter how perfectly you phrased it in your native language. Prioritize getting your message across to start. You’ll figure out better tone with time.

When you’re first starting out, avoid slang! Start incorporating it slowly later once you’ve established some baseline communications. The end goal is for everyone to learn (not just you). It’s cool for your players to know your international slang too! Fully avoiding your slang can make you sound too professional (almost cold). Also, your community takes its cues from you; they’ll avoid using slang too, and then you can’t learn.

• Idioms are, bar none, the hardest level of slang. Think literally as much as you can. (The English phrase “raining cats and dogs?” Yeah, that’ll sound like actual animals from the sky if you’re not familiar with the idiom). They’re also an amazing reference point for improving your tone.

• Mirror how your community talks as you figure out what your own voice would sound like in a new culture. As an example, in Russia, you’d generally use “)” and “(“ instead of “:)” and “:("

• Be wary of more technical words. As an example: a “bug” in English (as in a glitch) often would translate as a bug (as in a spider)

Foster an environment where people feel safe asking questions! If someone asks a seemingly obvious question or reacts weirdly to something you said, there may be a language barrier at play. Don’t be offended by questions (which can make them feel like they’re being aggressive when that’s not their intent), or express too much shock (which can make them feel stupid), and remind other players that not everyone speaks English natively here. Conversely, don’t be afraid of asking seemingly stupid questions if you’re not sure what someone is saying! We lead by example here; it’s okay to look dumb sometimes. (As an example: I’m fond of calling things I find really impressive “sick.” For my Russian community members, they didn’t immediately understand that’s a compliment—they assumed it was some sort of confusing insult. If one of them hadn’t asked me what I meant, this would’ve all been super awkward. Instead, everyone learned a new thing!)

Use more simple sentence structure and verb tense. That tends to translate more easily. Some languages also don’t have the same verb tenses as your native language. I’ve included a chart below for how likely each English verb tense is to translate without issue.

Simple present - “I write”

Simple past - “I wrote”