Using Civilization to learn languages

[Pando]

I hope this tread is in the right subforum.

Greetings and Salutations!

Long story short, I'm learning Chinese and I love playing Civilization and I've been hoping to combine the two.

I'm able to use Chinese in daily life so I thought I might learn something if I start up the game in Chinese -- and boy am I in over my head.

Obviously the Civ vocabulary is very different to the Chinese I use in everyday life. Also because of the unique way the Chinese writing system works if you come across a new Chinese character I have no idea how to pronounce it - which is a problem trying to figure out city names, civilizations and leaders etc. I realized I wasn't learning anything new only relying on the little I already knew, in combination with being familiar with the game from before, that helped me click the right boxes most of the time.

However, I'm far from giving up.

What I'd need now, is a way to practice this vocabulary. For instance with some spaced repetition software. And that brought me here:

- I'm trying to find ALL the written vocabulary in the game (Civilopedia, quotes etc excluded). Is there an easy way to find it all in different languages?

- IF I could find all of the vocab, in Chinese and preferably English to get the translations right - I could try to compile them into an Anki flash card deck or something and we could all be playing the game in Chinese in no time - and not just relying on the pictures.

A search didn't bring up anything but it brought me here, that's not to say it hasn't been done before. Either way I'm here for your help!!!

Unfortunately simplified characters aren't available as far as I know, so I'm going with traditional Chinese, which isn't my preference, but it's doable. Does anyone know if there is a simplified Chinese mod? Again, search engines suggested it might exist but couldn't specify where it might be available.

 

[joncnunn]

I'm not sure they are intending the leaders to be using modern languages. They may be intending the leaders to use the older form of the language that was used during that ruler's reign.

(Other than jokes such as making Washington sound like Clinton and Elizabeth the First sounding like Elizabeth the Second C. 1955)

 

[Volcanon]

Tokugawa sounds pretty close to "olde timey Japanese".

 

[reddishrecue]

Civ 4 had a wider variety of languages than civ 5. Civ 5 usually had English.

 

[joncnunn]

Civ 4 had a wider variety of languages than civ 5. Civ 5 usually had English.

The only leaders speaking English in Civ V are Washington & Elizabeth.

I'm also fairly sure that for those with G&K, BNW, and all DLC civs they have more civs than Civ IV with BTS.

 

[Sclb]

Some of the civ leader use an old formal version of their language, so learning from them isn't a good idea. Ironically Wu Ze-Tian speaks modern Mandarin (dialect with mainly Beijing and some Nanjing influence) which would be significantly different from that the Middle Chinese use back in her days during the Tang dynasty. Also prior to the 20th century, written Chinese (classical Chinese) was distinct from spoken Chinese dialects due to significant evolution of spoken dialects for 2000 years. Modern written Chinese (vernacular Chinese) was introduced around the time of 1919 May fourth movement. Further more simplified Chinese characters was introduced in the 1950-60 in PRC as an attempt to increase literacy.

 

[reddishrecue]

The only leaders speaking English in Civ V are Washington & Elizabeth.

I'm also fairly sure that for those with G&K, BNW, and all DLC civs they have more civs than Civ IV with BTS.

Yeah, in sound they do but for language in settings, the only language that was available to me was un english. I was refering to language in settings. While the language in settings for civ 4 had many different languages other than english.

 

[Pando]

My initial post wasn't clear enough as there seems to have been a misunderstanding.

I wasn't talking about audio. I'm talking about text.

I changed the language of the game to Chinese, and now all buttons, names, descriptions etc is in Chinese. (The different leaders are still talking their own languages like before, and that's fine) Since changing a language in this game is just a button press away - it shouldn't be impossible to find a file with all of the text used in the game. I don't know how to access such a file however and I don't know in what format the text would be in it.

The thing I'm looking for is a list with BOTH the Chinese and English names of every military unit, building, social policy, dialogue option etc etc

example

Settler = 定居者
Worker = 工人
etc.

If such a list exists, I'd love to find it. If it doesn't, it shouldn't be to difficult to create.

THEN I could make flashcards of those words and practice the vocabulary of the game on my own. That would mean that I would have my very own Civ-dictionary where I could look up whatever Chinese the game throws at me - I could quickly learn most of the essential vocabulary, and then practice those words and phrases by playing Civilization.

This could obviously be done regardless of which in-game language you want to learn

 

[Pando]

Yeah, in sound they do but for language in settings, the only language that was available to me was un english. I was refering to language in settings. While the language in settings for civ 4 had many different languages other than english.

In Steam options you can change the language of Civilization 5 to a handful of other languages

 

[Pando]

Do you guys understand what I'm looking for?

 

[poom3619]

Are you looking for something in Core/XML/Text.xml that's totally openable with Notepad?

 

[poom3619]

Yeah, in sound they do but for language in settings, the only language that was available to me was un english. I was refering to language in settings. While the language in settings for civ 4 had many different languages other than english.

You can change the steam's language, and games that support those language should change accordingly, or you can simply go into My Document/Game/Civilization 5/ find a file about setting or anything with language_EN_US and change that to FR_FR or whatever you want.