Languages and Pokémon

[manaic]

This post is about those people who don't speak English or Japanese as a native.
I grew up in the Gaeltacht of Ireland, so have spoken Irish all my life, (not the accent, the language). Sometimes the storylines or the jokes and the clues went straight over my head in the games, as happened when a lot of friends in Britain imported the Japanese versions and translated directly word for word.
On the plus side i managed to give them Irish names, albeit trying to fit it into 10 characters
eg Castform Aimsíceoir aimsir "weather" + síogaí "fairy" + ceo "cloud"
Luxray Toirneleo toirneach "thunder" + leon "lion"
Just wanted to see what people's experiences have been for those who aren't native English or Japanese speakers trying to play the games.

 

[StellarWind Elsydeon]

Hn.

As most of you already know, I'm from Israel - But I don't have any special 'experiences' or difficulties with PokeMon.

Of course, my English is practically native speaker level (Frankly, I think/dream in English, not in my native tongue of Hebrew) - and it was already in this level when I got into PokeMon all those years ago (barring a few little quirks of grammar that mostly phased out over the years) so I'm not exactly a typical example. xD

 

[Shiny Motley]

Technically the first language I learned wasn't English, but Chinese. I remember when I first found out what my English name/official name was, I was like, "NO IT'S NOT! MY NAME IS LINLIN!" But back on topic. XD

Yes, even though the first language I have ever learned was Chinese, the language I'm most fluent in, be it reading, writing, listening, speaking or whatnot, is English, so I'm not exactly legit to reply to this topic. ^^; But oh well.

Anyways, due to my Chinese background, I tend to give Chinese nicknames to my Pokemon (though using pinyin, not the actual chinese characters, of course). For example, my Roselia in my Pearl game was named "Meihua", which means "beautiful flower".

 

[Ayumi]

My first language is Japanese, but I first played Pokemon in English, so I had to constantly check names from Japanese to English when I first played Green. Without individual sprites and a little Pokeball to tell me that I've caught the specie already, I found myself catching the same thing over and over again.

I also have Pearl in French, and the same thing happened again, though it was much easier this time around.