Being "Simlish-only" purist at one time, I used to think anything not Simlish looked weird and out-of-place in this game, and I would avoid any CC or downloads involving real entities. That was until one day I found myself staring at paintings that featured English font on them and my mind started to get into deep thought. I pondered that perhaps even though Sims can only speak Simlish, other languages could exist too and this would explain why English can be found on many CC items and I think even few official EAxis objects too. But on SimEarth English and other real languages are utilized only as written languages, hence why they never are spoken. Almost as if these languages are archaic to average Sims, but are still taught for academic purposes. Similar to how Latin is now.

What are your thoughts?

Can't recall ever seeing non-simlish inside gameplay. Weird... I don't have stuff packs, bon voyage and custom content (apart from hacks, but those are more global than anything, and others don't feature text)

The OP is talking about CC.

I've grown more to avoid anything but Simlish in recent years. I have a habit of extracting textures and replacing any lettering.

I've always thought the Simlish options for CC look a little too cartoonish, and often leaning toward some kind of Asian language - which kinda looks weird since my sims tend to live in something that more resembles Western/Northern Europe or North America, so I tend to prefer the English options. To me, English is a common enough language for it not to be weird seen ingame. I don't live in a country with English as the first language, but I'm still very used to having English all around me (signs, food labels, TV, internet, you name it), so it doesn't bother me at all on CC ingame.

In fact, I prefer English labels and CC text. I even use English text and labels on CC I'm not planning to upload, even though the rest of my game is in my own language (I would have changed my game to English if I could, but I'm not sure if it's possible). I hardly ever use Simlish on the CC I make, unless it's a conversion with Simlish as the only option.

The only bit of English I can think of in a Sims 2 EA pack was the H&M logo light from the H&M stuff pack. All of the other H&M items had optional logos on them, but the light was actually one big H&M, so pretty useless for a non-simlish game.

I hardly notice English in game, it's one of the two languages I grew up with so it's pretty non intrusive/invisible for me, But I agree that I prefer simlish CC, simply for consistency sake. In the same way as I prefer Sim posters to be made using posed Sims instead of photos of real people.Thankfully you can see a lot of properly simlish posters around here.

Personally I don't have any fanon concerning other languages within the Sims universe. I assume they speak some sort of Asian-Simlish wherever Takemizu village and that the aliens have at least one language of their own, but nothing relating to texts in real world languages.
Though i have heard that IRL places who don't primarily use the Western alphabet it still gets used in some areas or to seem "hip/cool" I was in Greece a bit ago and saw that some buildings there, like bars and such used western script and back home the various Chinatowns have street signs in Chinese.

Primarily yes. I only mentioned EAxis objects because there are small few with non-Simlish on them.


The official Ford and Montgomery Hawker cars, Alienware Computer, and the video games you can buy from the display have English on them.

I avoid any cc with English in them. I don't like seeing it on posters or tshirts, etc. My Sims only know Simlish . They wouldn't understand anything else and they don't travel anywhere else (no BV). Any non-western looking Sims that move to their town also miraculously speak Simlish. That's all there is.

...I never noticed

I like having English in my game...Probably in the minority on this

No clue if this can be done after your whole installation is done? but it is indeed possible to choose any of all the language options at installation stage. Raised in french, but installed all my games in English. This is how I first had it and I would never play any other way.
About Simlish...I think it is silly to think that all Sims are uni lingual Simlish...why would they?
Then again, it still make sense to me . So I too, will avoid anything that isn't in Simlish. There is no real languages in my game, so nothing to interpret, finally.

My game is strictly Simlish; a rule adopted to keep my CC folder from spiraling even further of control.

Ooooh, yes- I should have remembered those too, as I love in particular the Urbz game rack, and that has the logo in BIG letters! :lovestruc All of these were downloads from the site rather than in an EP or SP though, weren't they? Although were the games were in the EPS...?

Only EP that added new video games was FreeTime. All rest are base game or official downloads.

Usually all videogames are translated on to few most common language, so simlish (and my own native) is not one of them. I am used to have English games.
I assume that they learn English from games so it is hard for them to speak it if they don't know how to spell . The foreign things are always imported, small nations can't make everything by self.

Even the CC DeLorean car has English written all over it, although I would agree it would've been more fun to read the word 'DeLorean' in Simlish.

It's never bugged me. I have a mix of English and Simlish represented in art and clothing in the game. I fell like Simlish is the universal language though, spoken by every sims throughout time.

I agree, it would be really interesting to see how author of car would recreate car logo in Simlish. But actually, your image reminds me of that even if I don't mind English in game much anymore, It still annoy me when creators reference real location. I likely would replace Nevada plate with a blank plate texture like I do for most cars. I used to not download FPs older cars, until I learned how to replace textures.

You can change your installation language later, if you really want to. I can't remember how but it's in a config somewhere.

I prefer my CC to be in Simlish. The items in Earth languages (mostly but not all English) I assume to be loanwords in Xenosimlish (the language of aliens, which is taught as a "modern foreign language" to every Sim child, with the result that most adult Sims in SimHampton are bilingual). In case you are wondering, Latin, Elven, Drioru (a mix of Elven and Xenosimlish) and Gondorian are also language options at school in SimHampton, but only a minority of students take each of them.

For the most part, other references to real Earth remain - they are assumed to be a figment of someone's imagination, except for the flags (which represent Sim families rather than Earth countries - for example, the current ruling family uses the same flag as Sweden).

I not a real fan of Simlish in my game, I do have an all Asian custom neighborhood and I only use a limit amount of Simlish to be use for certain signs or places, in that neighborhood.
Only because it make a bit more sense to do so in the Asian hood, but in my other neighborhoods no.

In Maxis neighborhoods I try to avoid using CC with real-world languages on it. However, the problem is that most CC in Simlish is Maxis-match in style, and I prefer to play with a semi-realistic style. Sometimes I compromise and use something even though it's not in Simlish; sometimes if it's easy I will just edit the textures and remove the writing altogether. So basically, everything there is in Simlish or I pretend it is.

In my custom neighborhoods I will use Simlish and real-world languages pretty equally. I have one neighborhood that actually has a reason for this, since it's supposed to be a crossroads between a bunch of different universes, so it makes perfect sense for them to have a mish-mash of different languages around. Simlish is the official spoken language, but a lot of advertisements and products are in English, French, Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, or whatever other language creators have chosen to use on their CC. My legacy neighborhood and test neighborhood have no explanation for the different languages, I just go ahead and use the stuff anyway because I like it.

One thing that's absolutely banned in all neighborhoods, though, is world maps. None of my neighborhoods are on Earth, so why would they have a map of it? Photographs of humans are also banned, although drawings are ok. Actually, photographs are mostly banned altogether, although there may be a few landscape photos floating around in some painting recolor folder somewhere.

I've never really minded having a mix in my CC language-wise, and I only periphrially noticed the in-game English bits at best.

I also just used the idea that the game takes place in another country where English isn't the primary language, but, like most of those, there are still a good number of products and ads for products sprinkled about. Since the country is also very open to trade, there's also bits of Japanese, Chinese, and I think maybe a bit of German, Spanish and French sprinkled around (because of CC), though I unconsciously seem to limit those to only very certain uses (ex, a Chinese/Japanese restaurant or store, a winery or perfume section, or a hood which has an area with a large population of a certain ethnicity in a single place, a la N.Y.'s Chinatown).

You guys are making me want to make CC for the BV destinations with a different script, as a foreign simlish. Maybe Klingon for Three Lakes?

A bit like anothereyjana, I too think that my Sims live in another country (or countries) somewhere on our planet. I prefer them not to be in another world or universe because I like to fantasise about meeting them. I always think that, if Strangetown isn't in Nevada, it's in some place very like Nevada (or what I imagine Nevada to be like -- Monaghan in the Republic of Ireland is about the furthest west I've ever been!) Simlish is the native language where my Sims live, but English is just a modern foreign language to them, and they, or at least the brightest ones, learn it in school. So, as bright schoolboys, soon to be students, Andrew and Julian can speak reasonably fluent English -- certainly enough to be able to teach me basic Simlish. (I imagine them laughing themselves silly at my Scottish pronunciation of Simlish words.) Moreover Julian's family, the Moltkes are German, so he can speak German too. (So the "J" in his name is pronounced like and English "Y".) I wanted a German name beginning with "M" and for some reason "Moltke" was the first one that came to mind; don't ask me what was wrong with "Müller"! (For anyone with an interest in German history, I was thinking more of the German commander in chief at the start of the First World War than of the Kreisauer Kreis.) So, all in all, while most things will be in Simlish, there is nothing wrong with a few things in English or another foreign language. To a Sim, a sign in English is just a little bit exotic.

Having said all that, I can only think of one non-Simlish item in my game. Ever since Andrew gave it to him on Valentine's Day 2013, Julian has worn a silver pendant engraved with "Andrew loves Julian" in Palace Script. Actually the word "loves" is represented by an enamelled pink heart with a red border, so it's really just their names. To have their names written in an exotic foreign alphabet that they had both learned at school is the sort of thing that would appeal to both of them. To be honest I don't think Andrew was feeling very secure about Julian's love at the time -- he had done some pretty horrible things to Julian and his family, and could hardly have been surprised if Julian had split up with him. So I think part of the idea was that, if anyone else was near enough to Julian to be thinking of kissing him, they would read the inscription on the pendant and know that Julian was already "spoken for".

Well, that was a rather long post to say very little!!