Pronouns update for non-English

LeGardePourpre · March 4

Hi,

Are there some news about the progress ? Will this update be available for French soon ? Is it abandoned ?

Customizable Pronouns are Now Available in English

Update 05/24/2022
PC: 1.88.213.1030 / Mac: 1.88.213.1230
Console: Version 1.59

Hello Simmers!

We didn’t just meet you, but it was crazy. We hope you enjoyed the visit from Callia Maebey! All kidding aside, summer is almost here and we’ve got an amazing update to share with you this month!

Not only do we have bug fixes to share, but we’re also releasing the new feature of Customizable Pronouns in The Sims™ 4!

Let's dive in and see what's included in this update.

-The Sims Team

What’s New?

Customizable Pronouns Now Available in Create A Sim

We’re happy to announce that as of today, you will be able to customize your Sims’ pronouns in Create A Sim (CAS) in The Sims 4 if your game client is set to English.

To change the pronouns for your Sim, simply click on the ‘Hello, my name is…’ tab next to the plumbob. You’ll see the ‘Custom Pronouns’ drop down menu where you’ll be able to select from They/Them, She/Her, He/Him, and Custom Pronouns.

If you’ve chosen to use custom pronouns the feature will automatically change pronouns that show up when referring to the Sim to match what you’ve chosen. While the feature has been fully tested, there may be instances where the incorrect conjugation of pronouns or the default pronoun of the assigned gender may still appear due to the intricacies of grammar in English. We’ll be working to improve the feature over time, so please let us know if you run into instances where the incorrect pronoun is displayed on this Answers HQ thread.

Initially, the customizable pronouns feature will only be available in English, however we plan on rolling out the feature to all 18 languages over time. At launch, custom pronouns can be uploaded to the Gallery and used in English only.

For this first iteration of the feature we focused on pronouns. While pronouns are a very important piece when it comes to greater inclusivity for The Sims 4, we understand that customizable pronouns will not make the game 100-percent gender neutral. You will still see instances of gendered language in the game such as mother, father, policeman, policewoman, etc.

Making The Sims 4 more inclusive of gender neutrality is an ongoing learning and development process for us and we will continue to update this feature over time. For now, we hope the ability to choose your preferred and custom pronouns for your Sims will make your game feel more welcoming and kind.

Atreya33 · March 5

I am also wondering if this is still being worked on. I am curious about the situation for the Dutch version of the game.

HermioneSims · March 5

I would also guess it depends a lot on the language. Romance languages, for instance, don't really have official neutral forms for pronouns, and have other elements in the sentence that need to be declined differently depending on the subject (like adjectives, or some verbs) and that cannot be easily expressed in a neutral way either. From a scripting standpoint, it honestly sounds quite harder to implement consistently in an old game than it was for English

As an Italian, I really don't know how it could work in my language for instance.

Gordy · March 5

HermioneSims wrote: »

I would also guess it depends a lot on the language. Romance languages, for instance, don't really have official neutral forms for pronouns, and have other elements in the sentence that need to be declined differently depending on the subject (like adjectives, or some verbs) and that cannot be easily expressed in a neutral way either. From a scripting standpoint, it honestly sounds quite harder to implement consistently in an old game than it was for English

As an Italian, I really don't know how it could work in my language for instance.

Yeah, I was thinking how it'd be pretty awkward to put into Portuguese and Spanish. I suppose they could just let people put in their own custom pronouns and just ignore a lot of the gendered words and grammatical mistakes, leave that up to the player to deal with. But I could see why people would find that super lazy, especially if they never come around to update it.

crocobaura · March 5

Gordy wrote: »

HermioneSims wrote: »

I would also guess it depends a lot on the language. Romance languages, for instance, don't really have official neutral forms for pronouns, and have other elements in the sentence that need to be declined differently depending on the subject (like adjectives, or some verbs) and that cannot be easily expressed in a neutral way either. From a scripting standpoint, it honestly sounds quite harder to implement consistently in an old game than it was for English

As an Italian, I really don't know how it could work in my language for instance.

Yeah, I was thinking how it'd be pretty awkward to put into Portuguese and Spanish. I suppose they could just let people put in their own custom pronouns and just ignore a lot of the gendered words and grammatical mistakes, leave that up to the player to deal with. But I could see why people would find that super lazy, especially if they never come around to update it.

How can you ignore the gendered words when the whole pronoun movement is about using the "right" gender pronoun. The feminist movement asked for gendered job descriptions and there are still jobs positions without a feminine counterpart, so I expect this right pronoun thing movement to take even longer to implement and make it into the mainstream.

alanmichael1 · March 5

I really hope they don't waste resources on inventing German pronouns. The current state of the translations is bad enough.

Gordy · March 5

crocobaura wrote: »

How can you ignore the gendered words when the whole pronoun movement is about using the "right" gender pronoun. The feminist movement asked for gendered job descriptions and there are still jobs positions without a feminine counterpart, so I expect this right pronoun thing movement to take even longer to implement and make it into the mainstream.

Yeah, basically. My big ol' thesis statement is that it'd be a mess, even more of a mess than the type of thing you're bringing up. What I posted would give us something like sims having whatever pronouns the player wants, while sentence structure might default to a masculine subject or have notable errors in them. But if someone thinks it's THAT important to have individual pronouns for sims, it's a solution. It's not a good solution, but it's something.

Though at the same time, it'd look pretty bad if they just did a slap-dash job. Which would be pretty bad, especially given the Sims 4's current state with... well, everything at this point.

LeGardePourpre · March 6

Note : 18 languages were already the goal in May 2021

https://www.ea.com/news/sims-411-recap-5-18-2021

Currently, we've been investigating the changes needed considering not only the size of our game, but the possibilities for all of our 18 supported languages to make sure that we do this work the best way possible.

crocobaura · March 6

LeGardePourpre wrote: »

Note : 18 languages were already the goal in May 2021

https://www.ea.com/news/sims-411-recap-5-18-2021

Currently, we've been investigating the changes needed considering not only the size of our game, but the possibilities for all of our 18 supported languages to make sure that we do this work the best way possible.

The issue I see with that statement is that they aren't just going to implement established language into the game but rather have taken upon themselves to investigate obscure language usage and even invent words to make up for the ones the world at large hasn't come up with to describe and address the various pronouns a minority of people would like to use.

LeGardePourpre · March 6

I can understand neutral pronoun is difficult to add to the game for each language but I don't understand why Maxis can't unlock the Pronoun feature letting the players choose between "he", "she", "they" (masculine or feminine) or custom pronoun (Your Highness).

Neutral pronoun could be added later. It would be better than nothing.

HermioneSims · March 6

Without changing the rest of the grammar, it would just be like customising the spelling for "he/she", I guess (?)

Also, not all languages use personal pronouns so often. For instance, in Italian we often drop the pronoun and have an "implicit subject" in the sentence. That information is already clear from the conjugation of the rest of the sentence anyway, and writing down all the pronouns sounds quite redundant to us.

This could also be why I'm a bit puzzled by this story, in my language we don't really write down the part that would be easy to implement in a game. Probably, the other 18 languages they have to work with have their challenges too, so I hardly see a common solution for everyone.

Edit: actually, with some sims, it could be at least nice to switch between he/she as pronouns, and this should work for all languages with gendered pronouns. If I'm not wrong, this can be already obtained from the custom gender options though.

Atreya33 · March 6

Custom pronouns are very complex because they are linked to grammar and grammar differs per language.

Just a few examples :
For some languages pronouns impact grammar of verbs and adjectives.

For example French
he is big = il est grand
she is big = elle est grande
There should already be coding to differentiate any notification for a male or female sim but I don't know if they all have the be reworked for custom pronouns

In other languages 'they' is not an option.

In Dutch 'zij' means they and she. Using the word 'zij' for a singular person is already in use. The conjugation of the verb shows which 'zij' is meant. In German it is similar, except that the word 'Sie' has a third possible meaning, next to meaning they and she it can also be the polite form of you.
Th solution in Dutch : 'die' which literally means 'this' but the non binary community seems to be OK with it. Oh and 'them' works OK in Dutch so die/hun (this/them)

In French the word 'they' itself can be gendered.
Ils is they for masculine or mixed groups
Elles is feminine plural, they for a group of exclusively females
and both are pronounced the same as the singular pronouns il (he) and elle (she)
The solution In French: they invented a new pronoun 'iel' but as far as I know this is far from being generally accepted.

Those are only the languages I know of but both have tried to find a solution that is not simply using 'they'

I don't expect the sims team to find a solution for every language, especially if the native speaker themselves haven't figured this out in real life yet. But a transparent communication about the progression (or giving up) on implementing pronouns would be welcome.

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Pronouns update for non-English

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