Bilingual Pillars of Eternity - learn languages while playing!

[adr_p]

I like computer games. But I don't play much. Why? Because after every session with a game I feel guilty (sic). And I wonder if I could spend this time in a better, more productive way. So I had to come up with a good excuse and I've found one! Learning languages!

 

But it's sometimes hard to play a game in a foreign language, especially at early stages of learning when you don't know many words. And it's no fun to play with a dictionary... The solution is a bilingual game but because I don't know any I had to modify a monolingual one. I chose Pillars of Eternity.

 

I have some coding skills so I’ve created a small application that allows me to have this:

 

 

This little program can combine two (or more) languages in the Pillars of Eternity game. Why? For language learning purposes. This way you can play the game in a language your're learning but still don't miss the single word because everything is also written in your native tongue.

 

For example: if you're native tongue is english and you're learning spanish, you can create a en/es mix. Everything will be primarily writen in english, but spanish translations (if possible) will be added just after, like that: "I really like to learn languages." «"Me gusta mucho aprender idiomas."»

 

If your spanish is good enough you could even create an es/en mix, so everything will in spanish with english translations. You can event add a third language buy running this program again!

 

You can create a mix of any of the languages available in the game:

• english,
• german,
• spanish,
• polish,
• franch,
• italian,
• russian.

Please note that it's not possible to have every single text in the game available in two languages because of available space limitations. For this reason GUI (game interface, like menus, buttons etc.) is available only in the first language (the same applies to some item names and other texts in the game category).

 

There are three categories of text in the game:

• conversations
• quests
• game (everything that doesn't belong to one of the two previously mentioned, like items, abilities etc.).

You can pick any combination of categories for which you want to add a second language (for example just conversations or conversations and quests).

 

DISCLAIMER

 

This program DOESN'T MODIFY any game files, just adds new ones, so IT'S SAFE. But I have to write this: I can not be held liable for any potential damage caused by it.

Also note, that I'm not associated with the game's manufacturer in any way.

 

NOTE

 

I wasn't going to publish this lump of code, I've just wanted a quick tool for myself. But then I've realized that there could be someone that may find it useful, so I'm sharing it, with some 'improvements' that make it easier to use. If you're a programmer and you're looking at the code (which is available in data/mix-languages.php, the rest is just a PHP distribution): usually I produce a better quality code

 

I’ve created it for myself but then I realized that someone may find it usefull too, so after some changes, I’m sharing it:

Pillars of Eternity Language Mixer: http://s000.tinyupload.com/index.php?file_id=06377743606892622671

 

Just download it and double click a shortcut named „PoE Language Mixer”. It’s pretty easy to use and it will guide you step by step. Also, if you like it, I have a request, just keep reading.

 

POLITE REQUEST

 

This is totally free. But if you find this script useful, you want to help me and you have a Facebook profile, blog (or any other place where you're socially active), please share this page:

 

http://nighthee.com "

 

 

(or any of its language versions or subpages).

 

Thank you and happy gaming!

 

Cant EDIT: links edited out until I get word back from the squad.

 

Cant supplementary EDIT: Returned links to the post.

[Cantousent]

This is an interesting idea.  The plug for the page on the end can be problematic, but I approved the post and I'll check with the squad to see if it's okay.  Always begging for forgiveness... that's me.

[Cantousent]

Hey guys, the consensus seems to be that it's okay to post the link, so we're all good. I haven't tried the mod personally, so use at your own risk. If you try and like it, come back and let everyone know.

[lameover]

Its the great one!

Have some trouble playing with russian lang, when almost all character's builds are english.

Now i don't need to switch on english when leveling up

Thanks!

[Rosveen]

This is the best mod ever. Video games are a great way to learn languages, so I play in French sometimes, but only when I know the game well enough to remember the dialogues without reaching for a dictionary every half minute. This will make it 10 times easier. Thank you! I'm going to try it as soon as I'm back from holidays.

[R.Alexander]

I was just about to start a new game in Spanish. With an English translation available right in game, I won't have to look up any translations I get stuck on.

[Cantousent]

Nice. I might get my wife to play a game with Spanish and English selected. That would be cool. It's going to have to wait, but maybe later.

[Gunnar.Maluf]

  Amazing idea! I hope your tool goes beyond Pillars of Eternity and reach other games in the future!

Learning a language like that is faster and funnier.

[ibrahimovic]

I hope anyone who have the file or OP, to upload the file again as the link is dead.

 

It is a valuable tool for language learner and I'm sad that it is no longer available for download

[evilcat]

Why we are not funding this?

Games has great contribution to teaching secondary languages. Maybe becouse it is interactive, or if you dedicate 100h the method no longer matters.

Cool idea.

Edited December 16, 2016 by evilcat

[Elric Galad]

Bede mogl mowic po polsku !

[JerekKruger]

Bede mogl mowic po polsku !

 

Read might be a bit more accurate. Polish is bloody difficult to pronounce.

[Yonjuro]

Why we are not funding this?

Games has great contribution to teaching secondary languages. Maybe becouse it is interactive, or if you dedicate 100h the method no longer matters.

Cool idea.

 

 Also, why aren't game companies doing this? They already paid for the translations and the extra UI is minimal work for them.

 

 This would be good PR for an industry that is always blamed for everything wrong with today's youth. If Elvis Presley had taught everybody to speak Lithuanian his gyrations would have been far less scandalous ... err ... I surmise.

 

 I suppose it is due to the dearth of text in most modern games but it could be a good value add for games like Pillars of Eternity.

 

 Are you listening Obsidian? It makes your products better than more expensive to produce products in a new way and you are already paying most of the cost of doing it. Also, somebody has already written a working prototype. Just let word of mouth do the advertising rather than claiming to be a language learning product for ... reasons.

[evilcat]

It would be nice if next OE games would have an option to bilingual version, where you can pick primary language and secondary.

That is not much to code, but will spawn some articles (there is already enought science of gaming) and being casually mentioned in non gaming magazines that some $$$

Edited December 20, 2016 by evilcat

[adr_p]

Thank you all guys for the kind words. I agree with you, this idea is worth pursuing and has the potential to be more than just one simple tool. Maybe it is a new voice in the language learning community choir.

 

I've reuploaded the tool, it can be found here: http://s000.tinyupload.com/index.php?file_id=00716358117680923504

 

Unfortunatelly I cannot update the original post, would be great if MOD could update the link there to avoid confusion.

[Elric Galad]

 

 

Bede mogl mowic po polsku !

Read might be a bit more accurate. Polish is bloody difficult to pronounce.

Well, I would say it's probably not the worst eastern language for this.

 

Sure there are some three consonants in a row (noticeably the dreaded "shtsh"), and my wife's godfather's first name sounds a bit like a lightsaber noise, but I feel there are still a tolerable number of vocals.

 

The 7 cases declensions give me a bit of an headache though...

 

 

By the way, it is fun to consider CRPGs are one of the few stuffs consistently translated in polish. And it seems to date back from before the Witcher...

Edited December 21, 2016 by Elric Galad

[QuiteGoneJin]

Chrome doesn't like this dl but I REALLY wanna give it a shot, can anyone verify that this isn't malicious?

[QuiteGoneJin]

Works, you have to select the two languages in the language selection after installing.  SO... COOL!

Edited January 5, 2017 by QuiteGoneJin

[adr_p]

Works, you have to select the two languages in the language selection after installing.  SO... COOL!

Great I was about to ask you what went wrong

[adr_p]

 

By the way, it is fun to consider CRPGs are one of the few stuffs consistently translated in polish. And it seems to date back from before the Witcher...

 

It dates back to before Planescape Torment and the first Baldur's Gate Fun fact: the distributor that took the risk of translating (or rather fully localizing) those huge games was CD Projekt (yes, a future producer of the Witcher series). It turned out that the risk was worth taking. They trod new ground of other distributors. Both RPGs and CRPGs have always had very big audience in Poland.

[Firo]

Who does still have the script?

[Gritino]

Wow. This is actually a very cool idea.

 

Kudos to the person who came up with this. How many languages is this in?

[Messier-31]

Kudos to the person who came up with this. How many languages is this in?

 

You haven't read the opening post of this thread, have you?

[Firo]

 At last, I found it.

https://www.reddit.com/r/languagelearning/comments/5k2w2z/use_modded_pillar_of_eternity_to_learn_7/

 

For anyone who needs it.

 

pan.baidu.com/s/1vIlWVAREjOyr_2c9q_A-tg

 

 

[adr_p]

Thanks for posting the link here, Firo. Today I've found that some people tried to contact me on Reddit, but I'm not an active user and without email notifications turned on I couldn't get their messages not being logged in.