Non-native English speakers at Pokémon Showdown.

[Mimas]

Pokémon Showdown even though it is a game where there is great diversity, English is still the most used language for communication between players. You can find people who are still learning English and others who already have English as their mother tongue, or native language. I am Brazilian and my official language is Portuguese, but I study English since 2014 and I still have another 2 years to finish my English course. I can say with certainty that the Pokémon Showdown gives me an English learning every day, either in the game itself or via Smogon.
There are probably a lot of players who do not have English as their native language and are still learning, but the game provides rooms for various languages, such as Spanish, Italian, German, Portuguese, and many others. Me, for example, I don't need to stay at Portuguese room because I can normally talk English with the people from another rooms and also understand what they are talking with no problem, but..

How are you dealing with not having English as your native language in a game where English is heavily used?

 

[lio]

As a French native speaker, I can tell you that my English was absolute trash back when I joined the sim in summer 2013.
I think native speakers of romance languages (Spanish, Portuguese, French, Italian, ...) have an overall lower level at English just due to how their languages are so widely spread so they do not need English "as much" as people from countries with lesser-spoken languages.
Honestly, practicing in multiple English-speaking chatrooms helped me get a much better level (although it's far from perfect), and I remember having learnt some words thanks to the English name of some attacks/abilities & that helped me during my English tests back in highschool.
It's hard at the beginning, be it for communicating with the global staff or for playing in general, but you quickly get used to it if your native language has its own chatroom, because the people in there are usually willing to help newer users. Once you get to a more advanced level the rest starts to make sense on its own progressively, a bit like a puzzle. I've even found my gf on PS, I'd never had met her if I didn't speak English so ig all the time spent shitposting in all languages was worth it
If I had to give any advice to the non-English speakers who come play on PS, it's to never be afraid of asking for help in their respective language's room to the more experienced users. The French room helped me a lot during my first weeks/months on PS, and I'm glad to be able to help the new users myself now. There are also many translations projects for the Smogon articles, letting the new users learn about them can be very beneficial in my opinion. Accessing an article in both English & their own native language is such an amazing opportunity to compare the sentences & learn faster!

 

[Mimas]

As a French native speaker, I can tell you that my English was absolute trash back when I joined the sim in summer 2013.
I think native speakers of romance languages (Spanish, Portuguese, French, Italian, ...) have an overall lower level at English just due to how their languages are so widely spread so they do not need English "as much" as people from countries with lesser-spoken languages.
Honestly, practicing in multiple English-speaking chatrooms helped me get a much better level (although it's far from perfect), and I remember having learnt some words thanks to the English name of some attacks/abilities & that helped me during my English tests back in highschool.
It's hard at the beginning, be it for communicating with the global staff or for playing in general, but you quickly get used to it if your native language has its own chatroom, because the people in there are usually willing to help newer users. Once you get to a more advanced level the rest starts to make sense on its own progressively, a bit like a puzzle. I've even found my gf on PS, I'd never had met her if I didn't speak English so ig all the time spent shitposting in all languages was worth it
If I had to give any advice to the non-English speakers who come play on PS, it's to never be afraid of asking for help in their respective language's room to the more experienced users. The French room helped me a lot during my first weeks/months on PS, and I'm glad to be able to help the new users myself now. There are also many translations projects for the Smogon articles, letting the new users learn about them can be very beneficial in my opinion. Accessing an article in both English & their own native language is such an amazing opportunity to compare the sentences & learn faster!

Very good! I already knew a little about your relationship with English because of the Cosmopolitan room, and I super admire your responsibility and willingness to learn the language. Today I can see that your English is incredible, and I agree that even the game's own moves helped me a lot too.
Also, beautiful advice and thank you for sharing a little of your story.

 

[Kalalokki]

#freescandinavianroom

I'm a swede and we basically learn english in school all our life so we're all p much bilingual here, as well as having played the games since I was 6 years old. Even though my english was p good before coming here, just the amount of english that I've either talked or typed here has increased my skills a lot more and it's been real useful.

 

[lydian]

im kind of in the same spot as kalalokki too. when i joined my english was already really good, but nonetheless being on smogon and ps! helped me keep it sharp, honestly. not to mention the more colloquial and slangish type of words and phrases that you don’t really learn in school. on another note, i really like the english environment, its a really pratical language and i often find myself thinking in english instead of portuguese, because unlike the romance languages, like portuguese and such,in english you have to conjugate verbs a lot less in order to think, it just makes thoughts a bit more fluid actually.

 

[Asheviere]

#freescandinavianroom

I'm a swede and we basically learn english in school all our life so we're all p much bilingual here, as well as having played the games since I was 6 years old. Even though my english was p good before coming here, just the amount of english that I've either talked or typed here has increased my skills a lot more and it's been real useful.

This exactly. My English was pretty good before I got to PS, did extra English in school and all that good stuff, but just being on PS and using hours of English every day has really helped. It's gotten to the point where people in the United States think I'm a native speaker when I got there on vacation, and people in Amsterdam sometimes think I'm a tourist when I speak English. I think PS and talking to people from PS on Skype/Discord has been a huge help there, and listening to recordings of me from ~2012 it's pretty incredible how much better my English got since. Thanks PS.

 

[Mimas]

#freescandinavianroom

I'm a swede and we basically learn english in school all our life so we're all p much bilingual here, as well as having played the games since I was 6 years old. Even though my english was p good before coming here, just the amount of english that I've either talked or typed here has increased my skills a lot more and it's been real useful.

Nice! Unfortunately in Brazil the majority of the population don't even know the basic of English, and I think that we could learn the language at school.

 

[Cresselia~~]

I'm not a native English speaker. But language rarely bothers me when I play games.
I played Pokemon Crystal in Japanese ok when I was little and had just started to recognize the Japanese alphabets.
I just guess a hell lot of things and eventually figure out how things work.
I didn't know how to use potions, but still ended up beating the Elite 4 and the Champion anyway.


Back then, before Pokemon Showdown was launched, Smogon developed NetBattle, which was a software to be downloaded and installed.
I downloaded NetBattle and tried to install it on a PC with Chinese Windows.
It didn't work, so I registered on Smogon forums to ask why it didn't work.
The staff back then told me that NetBattle only works on English Windows, and it is normal that it can't be installed on Chinese Windows.

I was so sad back then.
But now that I think of it, I find it funny.

I'm glad that they developed Pokemon Showdown and made it available online without downloads.

 

[Mimas]

im kind of in the same spot as kalalokki too. when i joined my english was already really good, but nonetheless being on smogon and ps! helped me keep it sharp, honestly. not to mention the more colloquial and slangish type of words and phrases that you don’t really learn in school. on another note, i really like the english environment, its a really pratical language and i often find myself thinking in english instead of portuguese, because unlike the romance languages, like portuguese and such,in english you have to conjugate verbs a lot less in order to think, it just makes thoughts a bit more fluid actually.

The principal thing that I learn at school is the verb to be, and my class still have a big problem about conjugate the verbs..

This exactly. My English was pretty good before I got to PS, did extra English in school and all that good stuff, but just being on PS and using hours of English every day has really helped. It's gotten to the point where people in the United States think I'm a native speaker when I got there on vacation, and people in Amsterdam sometimes think I'm a tourist when I speak English. I think PS and talking to people from PS on Skype/Discord has been a huge help there, and listening to recordings of me from ~2012 it's pretty incredible how much better my English got since. Thanks PS.

I never went to United States or any country, but I think that I will have a little problem with the accent, just because we don't have the same reality with the conversation at the English courses.

I'm not a native English speaker. But language rarely bothers me when I play games.
I played Pokemon Crystal in Japanese ok when I was little and had just started to recognize the Japanese alphabets.
I just guess a hell lot of things and eventually figure out how things work.
I didn't know how to use potions, but still ended up beating the Elite 4 and the Champion anyway.


Back then, before Pokemon Showdown was launched, Smogon developed NetBattle, which was a software to be downloaded and installed.
I downloaded NetBattle and tried to install it on a PC with Chinese Windows.
It didn't work, so I registered on Smogon forums to ask why it didn't work.
The staff back then told me that NetBattle only works on English Windows, and it is normal that it can't be installed on Chinese Windows.

I was so sad back then.
But now that I think of it, I find it funny.

I'm glad that they developed Pokemon Showdown and made it available online without downloads.

Very nice! I think that an online game gives to everyone a better knowledge about everything, also the conversation.

 

[Sondero]

Nice to hear you're feeling confident about your English, Sellon. I'm reading what you're saying and it's pretty good. Not flawless, but no one's perfect.

#freescandinavianroom
We were taught English at school until the end of the high school equivalent. I grew up with games in English while I still didn't really know the language and that was a nice starting point. PS was a good help as well, of course, but I didn't really get around to talking on the site until I was already fairly adept at writing and reading the language.

But what really made me good at understanding English has been the Zero Punctuation videos. They have a lot going for them that makes it a challenge, Yahtzee speaks very quickly with an English accent and uses terms that can be difficult to understand, but he uses pictures to visualize what he says. To anyone that likes to keep up with gaming reviews and wanna challenge their English comprehension, Zero Punctuation can be a great learning tool at an intermediate level.

 

[regalpearl]

I am an Italian native speaker, but English being the main language used on PS has never really been much of a problem to me, also because by the time I joined I had been studying English for quite a few years. It does help a lot for daily practice though, especially when it comes to taking part in a forum discussion, like in this case. I find that particularly stimulating.

 

[Mimas]

Nice to hear you're feeling confident about your English, Sellon. I'm reading what you're saying and it's pretty good. Not flawless, but no one's perfect.

#freescandinavianroom
We were taught English at school until the end of the high school equivalent. I grew up with games in English while I still didn't really know the language and that was a nice starting point. PS was a good help as well, of course, but I didn't really get around to talking on the site until I was already fairly adept at writing and reading the language.

But what really made me good at understanding English has been the Zero Punctuation videos. They have a lot going for them that makes it a challenge, Yahtzee speaks very quickly with an English accent and uses terms that can be difficult to understand, but he uses pictures to visualize what he says. To anyone that likes to keep up with gaming reviews and wanna challenge their English comprehension, Zero Punctuation can be a great learning tool at an intermediate level.

Interesting! Thank you very much Sondero.

 

[Flare]

Native Spanish speaker here. I spent many years studying English and I mostly learned just basic grammar and whatnot, from there onwards I continued learning on my own, bumping into many English chats, playing games in English and trying to talk to people verbally, it was quite entertaining and productive for me.

By the time I joined PS I had more than enough knowledge to chat without issues, and even so with PS I learned a lot more. I feel I can blend in any chat almost as if I was a native English speaker (Text wise). There's always something new I can learn from English chats.

 

[Mimas]

I am an Italian native speaker, but English being the main language used on PS has never really been much of a problem to me, also because by the time I joined I had been studying English for quite a few years. It does help a lot for daily practice though, especially when it comes to taking part in a forum discussion, like in this case. I find that particularly stimulating.

You described my situation with Pokémon Showdown, also, Italian is a little similar to Portuguese and Spanish, I can understand some sentences! Very good.

Native Spanish speaker here. I spent many years studying English and I mostly learned just basic grammar and whatnot, from there onwards I continued learning on my own, bumping into many English chats, playing games in English and trying to talk to people verbally, it was quite entertaining and productive for me.

By the time I joined PS I had more than enough knowledge to chat without issues, and even so with PS I learned a lot more. I feel I can blend in any chat almost as if I was a native English speaker (Text wise). There's always something new I can learn from English chats.

Yes, some people try to learn by itself, and I like to come back to the basic grammar because sometimes I get confused with some sentences and rules, for example, I still don't know very much how to use "in, on, at".. Basic things that a native English speaker wouldn't have problem.

 

[Lotus]

I'm a native Korean speaker.

Around the fourth or fifth year I moved to U.S. I started playing Pokemon on emulators or my peer's 3DS to revive the nostalgic memory I had back when I was 10 years old. One day I decided to look up "best LO Ambipom set" and found a youtube video showcasing one of the PS battles. I was immediately attracted by an online simulator and decided to join PS, only to realize there are tons of people online that I have to approach to learn competitive battle. Because of how introvert I am (contrary to my common behavior in Discord or other non-formal places) I had hard time finding an opportunity talking to people in the first place. If there were any competitive experience I had for Pokemon it was just lurking around the Korean blogs and seeing Battle Spot and VGC commentaries. So this had me apart from popular tiers in PS and I had to spend about a year doing what I like.

It was about the third month I spent in PS when I realized that there are PS rooms dedicated to serve foreigners (Spanish, Chinese, French, etc) but a room for Koreans did not exist. I continued to spend lonely time in PS playing ORAS OU and constantly getting wrecked in the ladder like newcomers. At some point I got tired of losing so I tried to find different metagames. The new metagame I tried and played 2000+ times was called ORAS Balanced Hackmons (I sadly don't play BH anymore because of a series of unfortunate events) which is easily the greatest reason I joined Smogon - the number of people I met and ganged the ladder with significantly improved my English in online environment and ultimately allowed me to be who I am here today. Though most of my ORAS BH friends got banned, became dead, or lost motivation as SM went around the corner, they ended up helping me overcome language barrier and my lack of confidence to a large degree.

Today I occasionally hang out with a few Korean speakers (most of them get on like once per month) and other non-native English speakers and help them to at least understand online abbreviations and competitive Pokemon terms. I sometimes invite them to hang out with me on Smogon, though they all turn down the request.

Probably there are other people who may have been intimidated by PS because of the lack of room that uses their language, but as long as you are able to find something that others like, you'll have no trouble getting along. I have no complaints about Korean PS room not existing or anything because of how small the playerbase size is, but it is part of our responsibility to deal with such environment too if we intend to have fun.

 

[Mimas]

I'm a native Korean speaker.

Around the fourth or fifth year I moved to U.S. I started playing Pokemon on emulators or my peer's 3DS to revive the nostalgic memory I had back when I was 10 years old. One day I decided to look up "best LO Ambipom set" and found a youtube video showcasing one of the PS battles. I was immediately attracted by an online simulator and decided to join PS, only to realize there are tons of people online that I have to approach to learn competitive battle. Because of how introvert I am (contrary to my common behavior in Discord or other non-formal places) I had hard time finding an opportunity talking to people in the first place. If there were any competitive experience I had for Pokemon it was just lurking around the Korean blogs and seeing Battle Spot and VGC commentaries. So this had me apart from popular tiers in PS and I had to spend about a year doing what I like.

It was about the third month I spent in PS when I realized that there are PS rooms dedicated to serve foreigners (Spanish, Chinese, French, etc) but a room for Koreans did not exist. I continued to spend lonely time in PS playing ORAS OU and constantly getting wrecked in the ladder like newcomers. At some point I got tired of losing so I tried to find different metagames. The new metagame I tried and played 2000+ times was called ORAS Balanced Hackmons (I sadly don't play BH anymore because of a series of unfortunate events) which is easily the greatest reason I joined Smogon - the number of people I met and ganged the ladder with significantly improved my English in online environment and ultimately allowed me to be who I am here today. Though most of my ORAS BH friends got banned, became dead, or lost motivation as SM went around the corner, they ended up helping me overcome language barrier and my lack of confidence to a large degree.

Today I occasionally hang out with a few Korean speakers (most of them get on like once per month) and other non-native English speakers and help them to at least understand online abbreviations and competitive Pokemon terms. I sometimes invite them to hang out with me on Smogon, though they all turn down the request.

Probably there are other people who may have been intimidated by PS because of the lack of room that uses their English, but as long as you are able to find something that others like, you'll have no trouble getting along. I have no complaints about Korean PS room not existing or anything because of how small the playerbase size is, but it is part of our responsibility to deal with such environment too if we intend to have fun.

Thank you so much for sharing a part of your story at Pokemon Showdown in our thread! Well, in some moments I received some feedbacks also because of my shame and lack of communication with other people in English. I've always used Google Translate to talk to people since last year I joined here, where my English was not so improved and pretty basic, actually I still use Google Translate, but we need to have a moderation about this and just use when required. Currently my English is much better and the Pokémon Showdown has contributed a lot to this, nowadays I go in all the rooms and I usually talk to people without any problem, some words go unnoticed, but it is a new learning. I loved your speech in the last paragraph and I make your words mine.
Addiction: You are very famous in the community of translations of articles into Portuguese because of your posts, many of the Brazilian and Portuguese contributors translate your articles, and they are wonderful. The writing and the quality of the article is impressive, I hope to translate an article of yours soon! :')