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Quebec Cracks Down On Translated Videogames
Thanks to VE3D for their story revealing that the Quebec government is cracking down on videogames without complete French-language packaging, meaning that game stores in Quebec are having to return or amend significant portions of their stock. The article says that "...the likes of Electronic Arts, Sony and Microsoft have been following this law for sometime, but everyone else has ignored it", and a game store worker on the Gaming-Age forums indicates stores "...can't sell anything that doesn't have a French cover", so this new enforcement means that "...the cover that says 'Only on Xbox' must read 'Seulement sur Xbox'."
Call me a jingoist if you want, but French Canadians piss me off. Learn english for christ's sake!
Yoda of Borg am I! Assimilated shall you be! Futile resistance is, hmm?
Donnez-moi un certain bebe chaud d'amour de horney!!!
Neck_of_the_Woods
#/usr/local/surf/glassy/overhead
It boggles my mind how something like this can pass as laws... oh wait, on this side of the border we have DMCA...
ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI!?
The Canadians have silly regulations.
More obvious news later today. Stay tuned.
~foooo
What the hell were these companies thinking foisting their illegible wares on the poor consumers of Quebec. Can you imagine the uproar if Sony refused to translate their Japanese game covers into English for we here in America? How would we know what to buy? Take THAT corporate scumbags.
Quebec, being in Canada, has an entire ocean and a huge chunk of North America between itself and France.
if the games aren't on the shelf obviously they wont sell.
this will force more company to actually complete the localization process. a good move as far as i'm concerned.
It's funny that the anglophones call the francophones arrogant for asking that products in the francophone markets be, well, francophone.
The bottom line is that it isn't just a good policy to translate the game and its packaging, it's a smart business move. The more people that can actually read and understand the packaging, potentially, counts as more people who might buy it.
justen
I have recently become a member of a couple of organisations dedicated to causes that I am interested in - Amnesty International, and an environmental group with a very realistic and practical approach to protecting the environment.
I was motivated to do so because of the influence of money in politics. I decided that, if business interests are going to use money to influence political outcomes and marginalise the power of my vote, I had better fight fire with fire and put some of my own money into the mix to fight for what I believe in. I therefore tried to select groups who will use the money to maximum effect whilst still maintaining the ideals I want to support.
Really, this is quite a depressing situation. I feel like I shouldn't have to pay to have my views expressed, but when there are oil companies and anti-abortion religious extremists and weapons manufacturers and drug companies all pouring money into buying political influence it is not going to do much good to refuse to participate on the basis of principle. Recently, however, I've started to belive that it's possible that the only way to beat those who seek to corrupt the political process to serve their own interests is to get down in the mud and fight them with their own tactics and weapons - money, and to a lesser extent media spin and hidden influence of public figures. I think it is possible to do this and still maintain the moral high ground, because the 'interest' I wish to protect and serve is not financial, nor will it benefit me more than anyone else.
It's a dangerous path to take, though. There are so many examples of people who were once idealistic, decided they had to be in the game in order to win it, and ended up caring about the insider dealing and their personal interests more than the ideals they originally sought to champion. They say "anyone who isn't a communist when they're 20 is a coward; anyone who's still a communist when their 40 is an idiot," but to me that is just a lame justification for the tendency people have to lose sight of their higher aims and ideals and focus entirely on their own circumstances. I think that it's the person who is 40 and who has lost all of their idealism who is the coward and the idiot, not the person with the courage to still believe in something better and to fight for it.
www.amnesty.org
CMDRTACO CHECK YOUR EMAIL!
I am from a French Canadian family and I take a mild bit of offense to that (but hear it so often that it kinda rolls off by now). My family is full of kind generous people who are outgoing and friendly. In my experience, people in Quebec are very friendly and appropriately humble (or at least not arrogant). I find that the French traditionalists in the Quebec government tend to be arrogant pricks, much like a wide range of politicians are arrogant pricks.
But back on topic... I may be an uneducated American on this one, but I thought that the regulations insised on bi-lingual packaging, with the french more predominantly displayed. Even still, would I be barred from selling Japanese imports in a game store if I worked there? Is there a fine for breaking this regulation? I understand that Quebec wants to maintain its heritage, but outside of the city of Quebec, English is the main spoken language, right? Are there many French Canadians left who aren't bi-lingual? Just some ramblings to mull over.
-=-=-=-=-=
I'd rather be flamed than ignored.
It makes me wonder what the reasons behind this are.
Quebec is the only French speaking state or province in North America. The 5 million French speakers in Quebec are surrounded by 300+ million English speakers in Canada and the US. People in Quebec worry that French will disappear in a generation, making Quebec just another English speaking part of North America and losing (or at least muting) a distict culture. So they pass laws encouraging the use of French (the law in question here applies to much more than video game sales). Personally, I think their fears of being assimilated are understandable.
"Canada sucks"
"US sucks more"
"We're Americans too"
"France sucks"
"Drug costs"
Have I missed anything?
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
All the rudeness, none of the scenery. /me ducks.
"Pigeon, a Quebecen (oui et non?), let me know that games that don't feature French-language sections in English-language manuals are being pulled from shop shelves as well as games that aren't available in English if a French version is available." I have no clue what that means. Is it just me?
If it is in the companies best interest, it should be the company that does it to protect their interests. If it does not effect the companies bottom line, why should they be forced to do it? The government should not enforce it, free markets should.
However, I am not from Canada, so I really have no say in such a matter.
Va te fais fautre.
This has been a problem for a while now for merchants in Quebec, and there have been numerous stories. What gets me is that even if you only speak English, your signs and advertising still have to have French in it. Just silly.
"...today consumers have been conditioned to think of beer when they see a bullfrog..."
I'm not going to defend the status quo in Quebec or the shaky relationship they have with the rest of Canada. Those struggles are up to the the Canadians to figure out.
HOWEVER, I will defend the right of the Quebecois government to uphold their laws and the laws of Canada. Those laws were put in place for a reason, a legitimate reason, and, being an American who lives in Detroit and travels to Canada (including Montreal) quite frequently, I think it is an imperfect, but workable, solution to the social and cultural issues Canada faces.
As for the software publishers:
Everyone else can translate their packages for the Canadian market. You can, too. It just isn't that hard of an undertaking. My suggestion is that the publishers take a hint from many of the DVDs sold in Canada: use reversible cover inserts in the keep cases. One side is Canadian English, one is Quebecois French.
Please.. don't say things about 'and you wonder why we don't like the french'.. The people of france don't like people from Quebec either. They are our equivalent of the Deliverance movie.
Anyways, on a real note, the law is FRENCH must be 2x larger writing than english on all signs (and I'm assuming video games cases)
Game not available because the Frogs cleaned out the local gamestore for not complying with their language policies? Look no further than broadband my friend! PC, PS2, Xbox, and GBA games - all in English/Engrish. Be sure to tell the local Quebec politicos that they're losing money because of language bias. Meanwhile, in the US, businesses can sell stuff in whatever langauge they want.
Well, the thing is moving to France isn't an option.
Not simply in the sense that uprooting yourself and moving to a different country is a difficult, and in some senses risky, proposition. Rather, French as spoken in Canada, and French as spoken in France are such different 'dialects' that they border on speaking different languages...
At least, that's what my obsessed with linguistics, raised on the Canadian border, lived a few years in France fiance says on the matter... And given that she speaks both Quebecois French, and actual French, I'd say she's probably right.
Have you lived in Montreal? I've lived there, and have good friends who were born and lived there 20+ years. We don't speak french. There's no need to. I mean, sure, I could learn and converse with the sam people I speak to now, but in a different language. But calling Montreal a Francophone market is ridiculous. Freedom to choose, not laws to coerce.
If it made business sense in such a competitive industry, EA/Sony/MS/Nintendo would be doing it anyways. But they don't. They do it, reluctantly, because the large companies do not want to be branded as not conforming to the laws (bad PR). Before the laws, I assure you that no large game publishers were losing sales in Quebec because of english packaging.
Le Quebec peut me manger. Etat bilingue stupide...
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
You know, if Sony et al. decided not to translate their game covers to English for U.S. release, you know what would happen? No one would buy them. Thus any respectable profit-driven company would quickly recify the situation.
Bingo, problem solved -- without adding more bureaucracy to the system. "Take THAT" indeed.
[PowerPoint] is a tool for capitalist presentation
Hope that helps.
Ryan T. Sammartino
"Ancora imparo"
Then just write the French translation onto the boxes, or better yet, print up a bunch of stickers and slap them on.
"Seulement sur XBoite".
Well, I know from people who can speak the languages, that there is a real significant difference between Quebecois French, and 'true' French. Such a big difference that many people raised speaking one of them cannot understand the other. In other words, dialects that vary enough they border on being different languages in some senses...
Now, these differences are a combination of pronunciation, slang, and legitimate vocabulary. My question is, are the two dialects, in their written forms, similar enough to get by with a single French translation for a video game? If not, then I really see the silly language laws biting them on the ass in Quebec, since their market is a tad small to justify a translation, and 'true' French translations possibly not being entirely 'legible...'
Anyone here know enough about the two dialects to comment on the differences between them, and whether a single translation would suffice?
This concept boggles my brain. I don't have any contempt for the government of Quebec, but the fact that there are at least 2.5 million people (assuming a majority of Quebec citizens support the law) who think that a law requiring media/art to speak a certain language is reasonable scares me a wee bit. Am I alone in this? This runs somewhat parallel to the vehemence I observe here in the states toward the proliferation of Spanish; some people talk of legislating it out of existence. Stuff like this makes it difficult for me to have faith in humanity. It also reminds me that the source of 99.999% of all our woes stem not from bad policy or legislation or other societal mechanisms which could be altered like any other piece of machinery, but from a vast majority of, IMHO, warped individuals.
However, so many video games have such shaky audio dialogue that there's really no point in keeping the original. Might as well dub the entire game.
Menus are no problems. Any idiot can figure out what "save" and "load" are in French.
The only problem I see with this law is games such as Daggerfall and Morrowind. Imagine translating *every* single line of text from these games from English to French! How many thousands of scraps of books are there in the game? This was a daunting task in English, let alone for a translator.
If these laws mean that games like Morrowind cannot be sold in Quebec, then these laws suck. It's a lot easier for a Quebecois youth to learn English to play a game than it is for me to learn Japanese to watch anime or Spanish to read _Don_Quixote_ (ah, the time in my youth!)
Condemnant quod non intellegunt.
The problem is that this is a cynical anti-competitive law, designed to make it difficult for other countries to sell products into Quebec.
There clearly is a market for English-only products, or they wouldn't be on the shelves. The removal of these games harms the consumer who can't buy them and the games company who is losing a sale.
The only beneficiary of this restriction on free trade is the Quebec economy.
A pizza of radius z and thickness a has a volume of pi z z a
Quebec is one of the harder to understand parts of Canada because of the French bit.
Quebec's nationalists are of the opinion that their culture is eroding because of the diminishing prevalence of French. To them, the language essentially is the culture, and if their own citizens do not use the language, then they are culturally screwed. Aside from the language, the only thing that Quebec has to set it apart from the rest of Canada is a vague reputation of flagrantly indulging in social substance abuse (heavier incidence of smoking, drinking and drugs).
And so they try to preserve their culture through arbitrary legislation. And like the RIAA suing its users, it wont really accomplish too much in the long run. You cannot protect a culture by passing laws that punish those who do not participate in it. And you cannot protect a failing buisiness model by going to court to attack your customers.
For Quebec culture to mean something, it must have an audience to appreciate it. If it has no audience, then it has no purpose.
The proof in this is that every province in Canada that is not Quebec does not particularly care for their whining.
END COMMUNICATION
Because if I want to buy the English version of a game, I can hardly tell which box has the English version in it because both versions have boxes written in both languages (predominantly French)...
I've been had a couple of times
This has struck me as borderline insane for quite some time. In fact, it doesn't just apply to products, but even signs. If you put up a sign in Quebec, it has to be in French; and if it has both French and English, the French has to be at least twice the size of the English. It's pretty messed up, I mean, you don't see us getting mad 'cause the game boxes and signs in EB aren't in l33t.
It's sad when choosing an installation directory on your own qualifies you as an "advanced user."
Fear not, you are not alone. Louisiana has a fairly sizeable population of french speakers. Good food too. I don't know if there are any similar laws in french speaking areas of Louisiana.
Q.
I WAS a French Canadian, and I have left because I could speak english and pursue better opportunities. (...but that's besides the point...)
This is a superficial law. The Quebec laws require the PACKAGING to be bilingual. The handbook and instructions will be bilingual as well. However, the actual game itself (speech, sound, and subtitles) remains the same.
Have people ever noticed that you pay slightly higher prices in Quebec because of that? The extra revenue apparently goes into "language programs" such as these. Quebec did the same thing with the Hollywood movies. France is the same way with American culture.
An easy fix? Regional coding for Quebec / France only. I believe they already have this. If Quebec wants exceptions, then let themselves be seperated from the everyone else.
Oh, you want that leet new First Person Shooteur, little Laurant? I'm afraid you can't have it ShootEmUp Games doesn't translate their box into la belle langue. You'll just have to envy the American kids and the kids in British Columbia you chat with in IRC. Maybe you'll end up so warped you become the next "Star Wars Kid", playing with your "light-sabre" in a closet.
But I think there's a simple solution that will allow Laurant his game (and his dignity), while sticking a finger in the eye of the tight-assed Quecbec goverment.
I call the solution Frauxcais. It's the French equivilent to "Engrish".
The Japanese (and other Asian countries) produce "English" translations that seem almost to be parody -- but are sincere but inept attempts to translate into English, because they want to sell to the large English speaking market.
There's no large Francophone market (apparently, or else the companies would produce translations just for the market share), so we'll intentionally produce fractured, ambiguous, meaningless French, and slap it on bozes for export to Quebec:
- "Les salivates verts de vache violemment." ("The green cow salivates fiercely.")
- "Actuellement bientot le bouton au fondle." ("Presently soon the button to fondle")
- "Baton sur la lumiere artificielle lentement, pleasuring la boisson." ("Stick upon lamplight slowly, pleasuring beverage.")
We print these out on sticky address labels, plaster them on the game box, and, as the French say, viola!, violin!, chello!Opinions on the Twiddler2 hand-held keyboard?
It is not asking, it the guys with guns forcing you to do it.
not twice as large, just larger (signs must have predominant french)
francophones do account for 80% of the population in quebec after all
No, they're not passing laws encouraging the use of french.
They're passing laws restricting the use of any other language.
You can't program in C because all the keywords aren`t in french.
si{x==0)
{
travaillez
}
autrement
{
effectuez l'autre travail
}
Quebec Cracks Down On Non-translated Video Games
The rule is valid only on the manuals, not on the product themselves. There are ten of thousand of CDs and DVDs that DON'T HAVE french on them and are legal. The law only states that manuals should be in french.
The Law 101 is about the displays in commerces. It says that you must at least have a display in french twice as big at the english one. Whether you agree or not with this, this law doesn't have anything to do to a products cover.
That is one obvious solution. Simply ignore Quebec and sell you wares to the remaining 60% of North America that speaks English.
Of course, Quebec is the second most populous province of Canada, so you would certainly give up a large portion of the market. I would guess that the cost of translating the minimal amount of text to French (game package, manual) is more than offset by the profit generated by the Quebec market.
Game manufacturers obviously translate their games for other countries, so what is the big deal?
Why do they care that every sentence ends with "eh?"?
Healthcare article at Kuro5hin
Actually, you're quite off in terms of main-spoken language and bilingualism
(from the 1996 Census)
Population by knowledge of official language
(Knowledge of official language: Refers to the ability to conduct a conversation in English only, in French only, in both English and French, or in neither of the official languages of Canada)
Total Population: 7,125,575
English Only: 327,045 (4.59%)
French Only: 3,831,350 (53.77%)
Both English and French: 2,907,700 (40.81%)
Neither English nor French: 59,485
Of the Both English and French category: 1,792,750 (61.66%) of those people live in Montreal
(from the 2001 Census)
Population by mother tongue
Total Population: 7,125,580
English: 557,040 (7.82%)
French: 5,761,765 (80.86%)
English and French: 50,060
Population by home language
(Home language: the language spoken most often or on a regular basis at home by the individual at the time of the census)
Total population: 7,125,580
English: 480,040 (6.74%)
French: 5,484,280 (76.97%)
English and French: 477,955 (6.71%)
So English *far* from being the main spoken language in Quebec. In fact 408,185 out of 557,040 of people identifying english as their mother tongue live in Montreal and 376,620 out of
480,040 'home language' as english people.
So it would be *far* more accurate to say that outside Montreal, english is barely used.
If Quebecois only by games with all-French packaging, then the game companies would be forced to supply them. The fact that people are actually buying products with mixed-language packaging would seem to indicate that the average citizen doesn't really care. I personally cannot comprehend why some people are so fanatical that they feel compelled to legislate what is best handled by simple economics.
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
I have had the misfortune of buying a french translation of the game "No one lives forever 2".
I only realized this after the purchase.
The character voices were very bad and this game is usually praised for funny and original dialogues.
Also, the multiplayer part of the game required the new version to play with. There was no french version of the patch and it didn't install if you didn't have the english version. I had to search through a lot of forum posts to find a way around this limitation. The end result was a bunch of different language text.
If I had known this, I would have just taken the original version.
Now, if I can't get my next game in it's original language the moment it shows itself in every other province/country/continent, I will Not hesitate to download a pirated version.
This is especially true for FPS because some of them have excellent single player campaigns but not too interesting online play. People play with others on the internet for a while to get their money's worth and then quit. If there is any sort of delay for the translated version to see the light of day, you won't get to play with anyone!
Normally, I don't post angry on /. but some of the posts in this thread are pissing me off. People who post trash like "Damn Quebecers!" and trash all Quebecois for a stupid law are either assholes, trolls or just stupid.
/.ers should know that the DMCA, the Patriot Act etc does not necessarily reflect them or their opinion personally. Most Quebecois could care less about the language laws. Francophones usually just boycott products that are not geared to them or make due if there's no alternative; Anglos living in Quebec are used to the French packaging.
/.ers would chime in saying people in that state were inbred arrogant moron loser hicks (regardless of what state it was) - and those /. would be either assholes, trolls or just stupid.
There are some incredibly stupid laws on the books in the US lately but it doesn't occur to anyone to blame the guy on the street.
This is analogous to warning labels on games in the US. If some state passed a law saying that games rated T or higher were illegal - sure some
Lay off the Quebecois, or at least go there and get to know a few before you start mouthing off about them being arrogant, stupid or whatever.
Is Quebec really 40% of North America? I find that very hard to believe, considering in 1999 Quebec was 25% of Canada's population alone.
And that would be a bad thing because?...
If the people themselves value their culture, they will expend the effort to preserve it themselves. If the do not value their culture, no amount of laws can force them to. I think the reason this is so upsetting is that it is yet another example of the "We're the government, so we know better than you do how you should live your own life" arrogance that government seems to assume. There is a reason why people always disagree and don't all do the same thing: diversity is a survival factor. A species that all thought exactly the same and all did exactly the same thing would prosper 99.99% of the time. But in that 1 in 10,000 situation where the obvious choice turned out to be the wrong choice, they would ALL die out! We have survived for so long precisely because we differ in opinion, not because we all think the same or speak the same.
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
Blah blah free markets.
Look, I'm as down with that as the next person, being an Economics student, but this is about people trying to protect their linguistic heritage, surrounded as they are by 300 million anglophones.
They're not forced to do it, they just can't sell their products unless they do it. They still have 300 million other customers (albeit a good 23million Canadians will still get evenly billingual packages).
What does this even have to do with free markets?
-- "Is this death or is this Ohio?"
That's exactly why the law was passed, because without it, the engligh majority in north america would not bother with translating their product for quebec. 30-40 years ago, almost everithing was in english (a rich english minority ruled a working class french majority) and in some places in montreal (like at the Eatons store in downtown) you could not even get service in french. The law may be a bit rough on the foundamental freedoms, but i think it was justified (less freedom, but more cultural security i guess ;)
Obviously, they are afraid that if all the intelligent people learn proper English, they will ALL get the hell out, leaving only those too stupid to be bi-lingual? (And no, I'm not predjudiced against French speakers, it's my wife fourth language. And when our housemates kids come over, I put on DVDs in French, as that's their first language. I recommend Spirit, it's watchable without understanding the language, but the speech, captions, and even the music vocals are all done in English, French, and Spanish.)
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
You are correct. They have a right to pass this law. However, while trying to avoid repeating what's been said here already : They are alienating any manufacturer or business that cannot afford to dual-market theier products.
For example, dual-language markets are always smaller, since businesses have to pick their battles, and multi-language isn't always worth the investment. But in some markets (Southern US), dual markets are great; Spanish/English commercials, labels and instructions attract a wider audience.
Quite frankly, Quebec suffers from a lack of purchasing clout. If/When their population grew in (and stayed agressive in accepting only) the French-only purchasing, we'd see businesses releasing dual-language products from the start. But right now they don't unless Quebec is tied to their survival (CA originated businesses mostly).
Curturally, I enjoy multilanguage environments, if they are ubiquitous. For people who don't know remedial Spanish, a trip to some areas can send them reeling. Same for Quebec; if we had French everywhere, I wouldn't mind, but since I don't know it, when I'm there i'm frustrated as hell to figure out things.
India is a prime example of a multi-language environment. There has been some cronyism and lack of cooperation due to language barriers, but since Hindi survives as a common level, India manages to form a cohesive country. If Quebec became too strict on the French-only rules, they may find themselves locked out of a lot of innovations or products that have no French equivalents.
PS. I doubt they'll ever impose this rule this for medical devices, car parts, or anything else deemed "essential" to their way of life.
mug
Actually, Canada does not have free market capitalism, at least not in the sense that Americans know it. We lean heavily towards socialism, and generally we are content with it that way. And that does in fact mean that the government should enforce these sorts of things, that's part of what socialism is all about.
Personally I think it is nice to have a government you can hold accountable for the companies they regulate being able to abuse consumers, rather than being forced to blame it on free market economics and 'vote with your wallet' which is not always feasable. Not that it's perfect, or anything, but it does have some advantages.
Random and weird software I've written.
If it costs me $10,000 to translate the game and it only sells 100 copies, that is not good policy, it's stupidity. That's just like saying "All games should be ported to Linux, because then they would sell 1% more copies." Sometimes pleasing everyone just doesn't make economic sense.
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
I understand that Quebec wants to maintain its heritage, but outside of the city of Quebec, English is the main spoken language, right?
Wrong.
Are there many French Canadians left who aren't bi-lingual?
Many, possibly millions.
You can't take the sky from me...
What about games written in C++?
:\
Do they have to translate those too? I don't even know if French is Turing complete
This is true, but misses a big key point.
Oftentimes, especially for companies other than the EAs and Sonys of the world (read: the smaller companies, the ones being called out here), a certain company's game is published by one publisher in North America, and a completely different publisher in Europe.
So, yes, someone is out there creating a French translation of the packaging and documentation for a certain game, but that's the publisher in Europe, not your company. You don't have access to that. Your company and that company are not related in any way - they're not going to just give you their stuff.
So that leaves two options. Either create your own, completely separate translation, or don't do it. A third possibility might be "buying" the translation from the European publisher, but that means they have to be willing and interested in selling. Not to mention that many games come out in the US before Europe, so if you're wanting the European company's translation, you'll be waiting a while after the North American release before you can provide a release to the French Canadians.
Long term, publishing deals may need to be altered. Perhaps in order for a publisher to secure the European deal, they have to be willing to give their French translation to the North American publisher - but again, that means a potentially lengthy delay before a French release in North America.
try spanish & it's other vairants.
you sir, are full of crap
... lol
I remember specifically Final Fantasy X's french manual.. Every item and character status condition was translated in french...
HAHAHA! It made my day.
(for the record, i'm francophone)
Quebec isn't the only place in North America where English is not the language ;)
http://www.archive.org/details/ThePowerOfNightmares
Then we, US, can invade and make them speak English and be done with this.
Mange moi cru.
...and the beer sucks too!
If bad puns were like deli meat, this would be the wurst
Here in Oklahoma I order my food in spanish. It was way worse in Texas. Soon the quebecois will be surrounded by spanglish. Hola, Je besoin de crap. Donde esta el banio. lol frspanglish.
Pigeon, Quebecen (yes and not?), let know to me that plays which do not comprise sections of French-language in handbooks of English language are cars of the racks of store as well as the plays which are not available in English if a French version is available.
The pigeon provided this translation of law:
They are the sections of law 101 about the software:
Any inscription on a product, its contents or its packing, a document or an object accompanying the product including/understanding the instruction manual, certificates of guarantee must be written in French
[ this article ] also includes, examining article 91, that no inscription written in another language can regner above the inscription written in French.
The instruction manual and documentation are connect has a computer sold in a store must in French, the same thing for the software.
Any software, including the utilites or operating software, which east installs or not, must be available in French, has less than there is no French version which exists.
Are prohibited on the market of Quebec the toys and plays, [... ], that operation requires a vocabulary other than the French has less than the this toy or the play is not available in French in conditions like favorable.
Fines for the stores which will not obeiront the law is 250$ with the Canadian 7000$ according to case's.
It has continuous for saying that the tastes of the Web arts, Sony and Microsoft had followed this law during some time, but each one A ignoree differently.
Thus, probably, the law now is imposee causing the rupture for stores, customers and editors.
Much of thanks to the pigeon of that.
L'hospice se moque de l'hopital!
I wonder if they translate games to Spanish for the Mexican market or release them in English?
Considering how much Spanish I see on packages in the U.S. alone, I would assume they do.
Texans [...] do not need to pass silly laws
42.11. Destruction of flag.
(a) A person commits an offense if the person intentionally or knowingly damages, defaces, mutilates, or burns the flag of the United States or the State of Texas.
[...]
(1) "Deviate sexual intercourse" means any contact between the genitals of one person and the mouth or anus of another person.
On the other hand, there is one recent product of Texas that I would happily send to Motreal if you would agree to keep him. Fancy GWB?
President Bush was born on July 6, 1946, in New Haven, Connecticut.
You can't take the sky from me...
How about you show us your low ID unless a low IQ is all you got ?
Go back to your crops redneck >:
Intelligence shared is intelligence squared.
Nope, literally, twice as large.
Personally, I think their fears of being assimilated are understandable.
Bullshit, this is like when people tried to enact anti-miscegenation laws because they thought that the "white culture" in the US would be damaged if intermarriage were permitted.
If the near half billion people around them are English speakers, they run the risk of further marginalizing and isolating themselves by banning the use of non "Francais" products.
I say fuck them. I know Italian-Americans who speak Italian. I know Jewish people who speak Yiddish or Hebrew. I know Muslims who speak Arabic. Guess where they speak these other languages? In their own homes. You know what living in an English speaking world has done to their culture? NOTHING!
If it's important to you, you will preserve it.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
this is about people trying to protect their linguistic heritage, surrounded as they are by 300 million anglophones.
No, it's about a small number of people trying to force a large number of them to isolate themselves from the rest of the world's languages.
If the majority of Quebec's population wanted to speak pure French and nothing else, the government wouldn't have to do silly things like this, because English-labelled products wouldn't sell.
"...always new atoms but always doing the same dance, remembering what the dance was yesterday." -Richard Feynman
http://www.olf.gouv.qc.ca/english/charter/title1ch apter7.html
51. Every inscription on a product, on its container or on its wrapping, or on a document or object supplied with it, including the directions for use and the warranty certificates, must be drafted in French. This rule applies also to menus and wine lists.
The French inscription may be accompanied with a translation or translations, but no inscription in another language may be given greater prominence than that in French.
1977, c. 5, s. 51; 1997, c. 24, s. 24.
I don't know about the French, but it is apparently to complex for you.
There will be a sticker with U.S. standard nutrition facts applied somewhere on the foreign language packaging.
Tim
Omnia vestra castrorum habetur nobis.
I recall someone on the side of Quebec on this debate had a point: They release the games in French (and Spanish and German and...) in Europe. What would be so difficult about releasing a bilingual disk in North America? Hell, they won't even let you play the European French version on North American hardware. What's the worst that would happen if they gave Quebec multilingual software, Canada getting new games when Europe gets them instead of the US? Heck, I could even see potential for multilingual games in the US.
About the only reason I can see why they don't do it is that the game companies too stubborn to change the way they always did things. Kinda like what most of the posters here are accusing the Quebec government of being.
Who knows... Multilingual software for North America might actually force Japanese game companies to hire competent translators instead of just tossing the script to some high school student in his second semster of Engrish.
you insensitive clod! ;)
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It's a strange attitude for a country that colonized a good tenth of the world, with a language that's spoken around the globe even today. They're one of the big five, and even if France and Quebec were bombed off the face of the Earth right now, students would still be learning French a thousand years from now to read 18th and 19th century literature.
As long as there are many languages in the world (I'd love only one universal language, though) forcing everything to be in e.g., French, is the same as sticking your head in a bush. Here in Finland we get most of our software and games in English, but it hasn't stopped us from playing them. In fact, i dare to say that my English skills have gone up because of the English games I've been playing since I was a kid (and using English Linux and Windows). I'm actually pretty happy that not everything is in Finnish. Original English TV shows have only Finnish subtitles, so it's easy to learn English by watching the TV, too! Don't forget the educational value of foreign software.
Are all US tax forms available in Swahili?? Can you fill in the blanks in Finnish, and still have the form properly processed?
The language(s) that your government employs for it's tax, legal, etc. systems, are it's "official" languages.
Period.
-- Mike Greaves
In simple words: fuck thier linguistic heritage. Things die, thats how the world works. If it's truly that important, they'll preserve it themselves without protectionist laws. If you truly love something, set it free and all that.
I'm not surprised you don't know the English name. It is called the "notwithstanding clause" in English. If you're curious about this clause you can read more (in English).
"would European countries BAN the game from the shelves if there was not i18n version."
I'd be willing to wager that some would, yes. And banning based on the language used seems far more palletable and benign than the censorship that does go on over there (even to Europeans).
Don't forget that us USAians are in the minority who live in a country without an official legislated language.
Are there many French Canadians left who aren't bi-lingual?
:)
Lost. Too Many of them if you ask me. (Although anyone can at least say "yes", "no" and "Toaster")
People in the province of Quebec are that way because the anglophones were(some decades ago) the rich part of society, while the francophones were the vast poor majority... Modern (less than 40 years) laws helped drive English buisness out of the province, and so, the economical status has change but not the mentality... The tradionnalist (usually separatists) still some sort of revenge agains the anglophones, but they are not the majority...
Most of my friends are like me: we use the best tool for the best job. Watch a movie, read a book in the original language... Communicate with whatever goes for the occasion...
And we use an English version of most games and OS because they tend to have less bugs
(Of course, I still have to use a french dictionnary in Openoffice to type reports....)
----
Yeah. I know, my text is full of mistakes. Bite me.
I live in Soviet Canuckistan you insensitive clod!
In Louisiana, it is quite the opposite of Quebec, actually. Up until this generation, the use of French was strongly discouraged.
I have an Aunt who grew up in Acadiana (cajun country). She got her knuckles rapped with a ruler if she spoke French in school. The term 'cajun' was also a perjorative (somewhat akin to 'redneck' or 'hick', but with more venom). Only recently has it been seized upon as a way to market what makes this state (I live in New Orleans) unique.