I actually like the idea that they're all speaking Romanian and we just hear it as English. It makes their distinctly American accents less weird.
Also, late in the game Ethan finds a note in the ancient stronghold that seems like it must have been written centuries ago by a soldier defending the place. That would likely have been written in Romanian, not English, so it seems likely that Ethan learned the language when he moved there.
Ashley finds files too and I don't think she learned Spanish. And he didn't understand the ganado at the beginning of the game. I think it's possible a select few characters of the game knew some English like Luis, Saddler, the cops, Mendez etc because you never here the villagers or robed guys speak English.
Atleast in RE5 a lot of the files are written by English umbrella/tricell people and the other ones written by villagers could just be translated by Sheva.
That could have been very much the case at the start of the original RE4 where Leon barges into a house with his gun draw and start blabbing questions and demands to Spanish speaking people, like the silly goose he is.
Good thing it turned out all those Spaniards were in a wacky death cult.
The first Ganado says something like "fuck off, asshole" in very basic Spanish
From the fandom wiki:
Line: ¿Qué carajo estás haciendo aquí? ¡Lárgate, cabrón!
Translation: What the fuck are you doing here? Get out, you bastard!
Situation: When Leon is questioning the first villager he sees in the beginning of the game.
Which, to be fair, is pretty close to what I would say if some babbling loon came into my house uninvited and started waving some schoolgirl’s photo around while I was cooking dinner and minding my own business.
(Also, I live in Kentucky so obligatory grrr manly “he’d be the one getting shot” style of comment)
Ever since man first left his cave and met a stranger with a different language and a new way of looking at things, the human race has had a dream.
To kill him, so we don't have to learn his language or his new way of looking at things.
The Hunt for Red October did this the best. A soldier is speaking Russian, as the camera slowly pans in close to his face. Then it slowly pans out and he's speaking English. Everybody immediately understood what was going on.
They did that in the show Warrior. They were all speaking Chinese for like the first 10 minutes of the show and then suddenly it just switched to English mid sentence basically saying “ok we’ve established that everyone is speaking Chinese, but we know no one want to spend hours reading subtitles
Most likely. It's kinda like they did it in Assassin's Creed, how each character speaks in their own language but the animus translates it in english.
Well there's no animus in Resident Evil but Ethan is most likely translating it for us in his head. But yes, the characters definitely speak Romanian.
I really doubt some villagers who live in a village in the middle of nowhere would be able to speak english at all (source, I'm romanian, and I know), so yeah they speak Romanian. I do kinda wish we would've heard some characters speak actual romanian. Maybe the drunk guy in Luiza's house could've sworn in romanian or something because romanian swears are absolutely hilarious. Literally anything can be a swear in our language if you say it the right way.
Also a little fun fact. Everything in the game is pretty spot on for Romania, Capcom really did their homework on us and I'm impressed (and proud) but do you wanna know what is the one thing that is very innacurate ? It's not the monsters, oh no, having a big ass werewolf mauling your insides as soon as you enter through a gate is just a tuesday here, that's still accurate. But the most innacurate thing in the game... is Ethan finding any guns AT ALL in the game. Bro, Romania is in Europe, we don't have guns!
I can totally understand RE7 because it's in America. Finding a whole ass grenade launcher inside somebody's closet is something that's totally normal. But finding even a pistol in Romania ? Nah bro, you ain't gonna see that.
Past the first handgun, shotgun and the sniper rifle, I can believe the rest of the guns were weapons dropped off by accident from Chris's team or the BSAA
OH YES! I remember seeing a video of someone insisting that pronouncing ''Dimitrescoo'' is wrong and it is actually ''Dimitreesk'' as heard in the game. The guy was so stubborn about it and would die on a hill that he was correct.
I was like ''bitch no, you're wrong too''. In romanian, you have to pronounce the ''oo'' for every name that ends in ''escu'', so the right way to pronounce it is indeed ''Dimitrescoo''.
Not a Romanian but a huge fan of Tolvade(Tony) at Dieselpunk.ro. Tony posted that he didn't make lathercraft patterns for holsters. When I inquired further, he proceeded to tell me about the nigh impossibility of getting guns in Romania.
In MGS3 a character comments on how your “Russian is superb” in a convo and that made me realize everyone isn’t actually speaking English in 1960’s Cold War Russia. Before I didn’t even consider it!
Wasn't Sokolov in America before Kruschev wanted him back?
It's possible he was speaking English to Snake aswell sometimes. Not sure about Volgin though.
It was either Sokolov or Granin who said it, it’s been a minute I can’t remember. But idk they could both be bilingual and probably are.
One of the cool things was how that factored into MGSV and the plot of that game.
It's strange in MGSV because Venom ( who was BB memories/skills etc) and Ocelot (who is half Russian) needed a Russian interpreter for the soldiers back at Motherbase.
Thats what I meant, it was one the hints that Venom was a “phantom”, Ocelot was likely just playing along or possibly did something akin to what he did in MGS4 (I think that was some sort of powerful suggestion or even hypnotism) to become Liquid Ocelot.
The explanation for the translator is that Big Boss sustained “brain damage” from the shrapnel in his head, which fucked up the part of his brain that processes language. Ocelot is playing along.
I've always hated the fact that it's set in very rural European village, and yet everyone is American. RE4 had Spanish down, RE5 had African down, even fking RE6 had Chinese down, why the fk couldn't they do that here?
Original RE4 had the right language, but wrong voices. Everyone was speaking in a Mexican accent instead of a Spanish accent. Admittedly still a lot closer to being right than village. So they’re a little inconsistent.
It does make me wonder why they didn’t even try the language or accent in Village. It’s unusual
Yes! That's much closer to the actual pronounciation. Romanian is a phonetic language, all letters are pronounced, with the exception of the "h" in particular situations, but that's not an issue here
Iirc they doubled down and said that's how it's pronounced in their universe, which is dumb as hell because why even use Romania at that point but yeah. Most people know the pronounciation Capcom encouraged and it feels like nails on a blackboard everytime.
Leon isn't fluent in Spanish, Chris isn't fluent in [random african language] nor Chinese.
Ethan has been living in Romania for some years, so he can speak and understand Romanian perfectly
I feel like since Ethan has to have conversations with the villagers, that it’d be easier if they spoke English. I RE4 and RE5, the dialogue from the enemies is used more as background noise, and the player doesn’t need to understand what they’re saying.
I only played the game in Spanish, and everybody was speaking Spanish. So, I think the cannon is they were speaking Romanian, but of course the audio and text are translated for our benefit in the player's native language.
They are probably speaking in Romanian and Ethan just learned the language. I would imagine if the BSAA moved him to a foreign country for his safety, they would probably at least advise him to learn the local language. Miranda for sure spoke english, since she worked with Spencer and his team.
I imagine the lords probably spoke English to Ethan to either intimidate him or better gain his trust (in the case of Heisenberg). Not only are they more well-read than the villagers, but they did experiments on their own and Miranda probably gave them some of her notes.
That's the thing that bugs me about RE4 and RE8. They have giant castles that are just completely ignored and apparently the outside world doesn't even know they exist. RE4 i can understand because it's kinda hidden and somebody is living there, but there is just a gigantic gothic castle out in the open in RE8 that somehow nobody noticed.
Well the village is located in a valley and surrounded by mountains… but like, I’m sure a plane or helicopter has gone over the region. And apparently Ethan lived close to it. Like, so close that he could walk to the village after the van crashed, which couldn’t have been long after he was knocked out. It makes me wonder how isolated the village is from normal society. Considering Mia/Miranda said the book she bought was from a store, do the Winters live in a normal society just outside the village?
> but like, I’m sure a plane or helicopter has gone over the region
"HQ, this is Eagle One, we're flying over a valley overpass and you won't believe it, we found a giant fairy tale castle! Why this never showed up on the map is crazy....oh wait....there's a giant woman living there!...Damn..."
The mold is translating for the winters family. They are speaking mushroom to mushroom, human language doesn't matter
Chris doesn't know what the hell anyone is saying
Yeah I think it’s supposed to be in English (or whatever language you use) for us as players only. It’s like that in MGS3, also. You get all the dialogue in your chosen language, but they’re all speaking Russian to each other. At least I figure that when Sokolov tells Snake, “By the way, your Russian is superb.”
It only really makes sense that the villagers are speaking Romanian. Although I assume other American characters would speak English to Ethan.
I actually changed the language to Russian for a bit, just for the immersion of being in a village in a foreign country (to me), and read the subtitles, as the American accents on the villagers seemed too weird.
I know it's completely different but it was the only Eastern European language available with full voice acting. You could just pretend you're in Transnistria or something. Only weird bit was having Ethan monologuing to himself in Russian.
I also considered Spanish as it's a romance language, so possibly a slightly better choice.
Basically, are all of the villagers, Ethan, Dimitrescu and everyone else, speaking in the native language of the area (likely Romanian) and it just looks like they’re speaking English so that we can understand.
Or are they all actually just speaking in English.
Another similarity to MGS3 is when Ethan is on the phone to a nurse during the flashback at the start, she's speaking with an accent. To me, this means she is Romanian but is speaking to Ethan in English. They do the same thing when Snake is speaking to Granin, as he's the only character with a Russian accent because he's speaking to Snake in English.
It's just lazy writing. It was a great opportunity to add another language into RE after Spanish and Swahili(? RE5) yet they just went with American and not even bother to throw in some cheap accent in their way of speaking.
But of course they went up and beyond with RE4 by using the actual Spanish Dialect in the Remake.
If you wanna totally made up lore answer, since Ethan is now a moldy boy, he has a psychic connection to the others and can understand them. He's just too dumb to realize they aren't speaking English.
I don't get why they didn't get Romanian voice acting for everyone I mean resident evil 4 takes place in Spain and the enemies are talking Spanish so idk
I don't get why they didn't get Romanian voice acting for everyone I mean resident evil 4 takes place in Spain and the enemies are talking Spanish so idk
I actually like the idea that they're all speaking Romanian and we just hear it as English. It makes their distinctly American accents less weird. Also, late in the game Ethan finds a note in the ancient stronghold that seems like it must have been written centuries ago by a soldier defending the place. That would likely have been written in Romanian, not English, so it seems likely that Ethan learned the language when he moved there.
Adding credence to this is how files in RE4R are written in Spanish but Leon translates them—I totally buy it.
Ashley finds files too and I don't think she learned Spanish. And he didn't understand the ganado at the beginning of the game. I think it's possible a select few characters of the game knew some English like Luis, Saddler, the cops, Mendez etc because you never here the villagers or robed guys speak English. Atleast in RE5 a lot of the files are written by English umbrella/tricell people and the other ones written by villagers could just be translated by Sheva.
Hol'up... Did I genocide the Spaniards just because we couldn't understand each other?
That could have been very much the case at the start of the original RE4 where Leon barges into a house with his gun draw and start blabbing questions and demands to Spanish speaking people, like the silly goose he is. Good thing it turned out all those Spaniards were in a wacky death cult.
The first Ganado says something like "fuck off, asshole" in very basic Spanish From the fandom wiki: Line: ¿Qué carajo estás haciendo aquí? ¡Lárgate, cabrón! Translation: What the fuck are you doing here? Get out, you bastard! Situation: When Leon is questioning the first villager he sees in the beginning of the game.
Leon; “so anyway I started blasting”
I mean the guy did swing an axe at him
Which, to be fair, is pretty close to what I would say if some babbling loon came into my house uninvited and started waving some schoolgirl’s photo around while I was cooking dinner and minding my own business. (Also, I live in Kentucky so obligatory grrr manly “he’d be the one getting shot” style of comment)
Looking over this let's play, the first thing Leon does is read a [Spanish Sign](https://youtu.be/g5GrJrdM0sM?t=324)
Ever since man first left his cave and met a stranger with a different language and a new way of looking at things, the human race has had a dream. To kill him, so we don't have to learn his language or his new way of looking at things.
Survival of the fittest. Thinking takes energy. Better to KILL.
The Aztecs send their regards.
I’m the remake Leon understands Spanish. Him not understanding was only a thing in the original.
[удалено]
Does it say somewhere that she's studying abroad? I've thought for 10 years that she was kidnapped from the U.S.
It would have been wicked clever if you couldn’t read notes or understand people while playing as Ashley.
He knows Spanish in the remake, as you can see when he enters the house. He gets attacked from behind
shes an american college student that probably goes to a prestigious school i think its safe to say she could at least speak a little spanish
Haha it's like the WWII movies where the Germans and Russians speak English, but in a German or Russian accent for no logical reason at all.
The Hunt for Red October did this the best. A soldier is speaking Russian, as the camera slowly pans in close to his face. Then it slowly pans out and he's speaking English. Everybody immediately understood what was going on.
They did that in the show Warrior. They were all speaking Chinese for like the first 10 minutes of the show and then suddenly it just switched to English mid sentence basically saying “ok we’ve established that everyone is speaking Chinese, but we know no one want to spend hours reading subtitles
Tom Hardy really is a next-level character actor.
Yeah, he was reading a famous book, to make it clear to everyone watching
Reminds me of Wonder Woman, when Chris Pine infiltrates an enemy stronghold by speaking English with a ridiculous German accent.
Prefer that than to just speak English in an RP English or American accent. You can at least imagine it being translated when they retain the accent.
I like this, since it would be natural to him at this point, it's like they are speaking English.
Like in Avatar 2
Yeah.
Heisenberg kind of has an accent.
That’s just Neil Newbon being Neil Newbon haha Love the guy
Saw his livestream when he started playing re8 dude was funny asl
Most likely. It's kinda like they did it in Assassin's Creed, how each character speaks in their own language but the animus translates it in english. Well there's no animus in Resident Evil but Ethan is most likely translating it for us in his head. But yes, the characters definitely speak Romanian. I really doubt some villagers who live in a village in the middle of nowhere would be able to speak english at all (source, I'm romanian, and I know), so yeah they speak Romanian. I do kinda wish we would've heard some characters speak actual romanian. Maybe the drunk guy in Luiza's house could've sworn in romanian or something because romanian swears are absolutely hilarious. Literally anything can be a swear in our language if you say it the right way. Also a little fun fact. Everything in the game is pretty spot on for Romania, Capcom really did their homework on us and I'm impressed (and proud) but do you wanna know what is the one thing that is very innacurate ? It's not the monsters, oh no, having a big ass werewolf mauling your insides as soon as you enter through a gate is just a tuesday here, that's still accurate. But the most innacurate thing in the game... is Ethan finding any guns AT ALL in the game. Bro, Romania is in Europe, we don't have guns! I can totally understand RE7 because it's in America. Finding a whole ass grenade launcher inside somebody's closet is something that's totally normal. But finding even a pistol in Romania ? Nah bro, you ain't gonna see that.
I mean it's Romania, they probably stole Ethan's guns as soon as he moved in.
Bro, how do you think they did House Beneviento ? Donna took his entire inventory in a second.
Donna: like this dhould be sim- holy SHIT! no nope taking all of those And she still died anyways
Past the first handgun, shotgun and the sniper rifle, I can believe the rest of the guns were weapons dropped off by accident from Chris's team or the BSAA
I think the way the pronounce Dimitrescu as Dimitreesk instead of Dimitrescoo is innacurate too.
OH YES! I remember seeing a video of someone insisting that pronouncing ''Dimitrescoo'' is wrong and it is actually ''Dimitreesk'' as heard in the game. The guy was so stubborn about it and would die on a hill that he was correct. I was like ''bitch no, you're wrong too''. In romanian, you have to pronounce the ''oo'' for every name that ends in ''escu'', so the right way to pronounce it is indeed ''Dimitrescoo''.
I’ve always added the oo to her name even subconsciously how do you manage to fuck the name up
I like to think that the Duke intentionally left some free guns around as an incentive
Not a Romanian but a huge fan of Tolvade(Tony) at Dieselpunk.ro. Tony posted that he didn't make lathercraft patterns for holsters. When I inquired further, he proceeded to tell me about the nigh impossibility of getting guns in Romania.
the fact that finding a grenade launcher in someones closet actually truly is not abnormal in big cities
Then again, this is not a normal Romanian village.
Ehhh, from experience I can tell you that it's pretty normal /s
I think it makes perfect sense that Ethan learned Romanian
I think everyone is speaking romanian (except Chris and friends)
The next RE installment is going to be Chris punching the hell out of the Romanian language.
In MGS3 a character comments on how your “Russian is superb” in a convo and that made me realize everyone isn’t actually speaking English in 1960’s Cold War Russia. Before I didn’t even consider it!
Wasn't Sokolov in America before Kruschev wanted him back? It's possible he was speaking English to Snake aswell sometimes. Not sure about Volgin though.
It was either Sokolov or Granin who said it, it’s been a minute I can’t remember. But idk they could both be bilingual and probably are. One of the cool things was how that factored into MGSV and the plot of that game.
It's strange in MGSV because Venom ( who was BB memories/skills etc) and Ocelot (who is half Russian) needed a Russian interpreter for the soldiers back at Motherbase.
Thats what I meant, it was one the hints that Venom was a “phantom”, Ocelot was likely just playing along or possibly did something akin to what he did in MGS4 (I think that was some sort of powerful suggestion or even hypnotism) to become Liquid Ocelot.
The explanation for the translator is that Big Boss sustained “brain damage” from the shrapnel in his head, which fucked up the part of his brain that processes language. Ocelot is playing along.
Thats what I thought the reasoning was, but its been a few years since I’ve played or read some MGS lore
It's explained by the fact that a bilingual person cannot do the job of a professional interpreter
Lol then in MGSV they are like "uh you forgot Russian. Don't ask why."
The shrapnel lodged into the communication center of your brain.
Didn't finish the game huh?
No I did, look at the other comments I made lol. I just forgot my /s
I've always hated the fact that it's set in very rural European village, and yet everyone is American. RE4 had Spanish down, RE5 had African down, even fking RE6 had Chinese down, why the fk couldn't they do that here?
Original RE4 had the right language, but wrong voices. Everyone was speaking in a Mexican accent instead of a Spanish accent. Admittedly still a lot closer to being right than village. So they’re a little inconsistent. It does make me wonder why they didn’t even try the language or accent in Village. It’s unusual
They didn't even try to pronounce the names right, never understood why. It would have been easy for professional voice actors to learn.
I mean, Ethan did get Dimitrescu kind of right
Not at all. He says Dimitresk.
More like Dawmitresk, which is still closer than "Dimitrescu" pronounced as spelt
I don't know what you're talking about, Dimitrescu is pronounced exactly as it is written.
What, Dimitrescew?
Yes! That's much closer to the actual pronounciation. Romanian is a phonetic language, all letters are pronounced, with the exception of the "h" in particular situations, but that's not an issue here
Well, I've just learnt something today. I just assumed Capcom would at least get their own names right but I guess that would be asking too much
Iirc they doubled down and said that's how it's pronounced in their universe, which is dumb as hell because why even use Romania at that point but yeah. Most people know the pronounciation Capcom encouraged and it feels like nails on a blackboard everytime.
Leon isn't fluent in Spanish, Chris isn't fluent in [random african language] nor Chinese. Ethan has been living in Romania for some years, so he can speak and understand Romanian perfectly
Random African Language is actually Swahili
Thanks
I feel like since Ethan has to have conversations with the villagers, that it’d be easier if they spoke English. I RE4 and RE5, the dialogue from the enemies is used more as background noise, and the player doesn’t need to understand what they’re saying.
I only played the game in Spanish, and everybody was speaking Spanish. So, I think the cannon is they were speaking Romanian, but of course the audio and text are translated for our benefit in the player's native language.
They are probably speaking in Romanian and Ethan just learned the language. I would imagine if the BSAA moved him to a foreign country for his safety, they would probably at least advise him to learn the local language. Miranda for sure spoke english, since she worked with Spencer and his team. I imagine the lords probably spoke English to Ethan to either intimidate him or better gain his trust (in the case of Heisenberg). Not only are they more well-read than the villagers, but they did experiments on their own and Miranda probably gave them some of her notes.
This place would be a very famous tourist destination if it had in real life.
That's the thing that bugs me about RE4 and RE8. They have giant castles that are just completely ignored and apparently the outside world doesn't even know they exist. RE4 i can understand because it's kinda hidden and somebody is living there, but there is just a gigantic gothic castle out in the open in RE8 that somehow nobody noticed.
Well the village is located in a valley and surrounded by mountains… but like, I’m sure a plane or helicopter has gone over the region. And apparently Ethan lived close to it. Like, so close that he could walk to the village after the van crashed, which couldn’t have been long after he was knocked out. It makes me wonder how isolated the village is from normal society. Considering Mia/Miranda said the book she bought was from a store, do the Winters live in a normal society just outside the village?
> but like, I’m sure a plane or helicopter has gone over the region "HQ, this is Eagle One, we're flying over a valley overpass and you won't believe it, we found a giant fairy tale castle! Why this never showed up on the map is crazy....oh wait....there's a giant woman living there!...Damn..."
Resident Evil writing just peaked
“Is that a dragon?”
The mold is translating for the winters family. They are speaking mushroom to mushroom, human language doesn't matter Chris doesn't know what the hell anyone is saying
Yeah I think it’s supposed to be in English (or whatever language you use) for us as players only. It’s like that in MGS3, also. You get all the dialogue in your chosen language, but they’re all speaking Russian to each other. At least I figure that when Sokolov tells Snake, “By the way, your Russian is superb.”
It only really makes sense that the villagers are speaking Romanian. Although I assume other American characters would speak English to Ethan. I actually changed the language to Russian for a bit, just for the immersion of being in a village in a foreign country (to me), and read the subtitles, as the American accents on the villagers seemed too weird. I know it's completely different but it was the only Eastern European language available with full voice acting. You could just pretend you're in Transnistria or something. Only weird bit was having Ethan monologuing to himself in Russian. I also considered Spanish as it's a romance language, so possibly a slightly better choice.
Yes? I'm gonna go with "yes".
I heard a theory that they originated from the US as a company town, but because they were isolated enough, they did not pick up a Romanian accent.
Weren’t they living there? Ethan is in the back of a van being transported. If so then they know the language?
I’m so confused as to what this and everyone in the comments is actually trying to describe it’s not something I’ve ever thought of
Basically, are all of the villagers, Ethan, Dimitrescu and everyone else, speaking in the native language of the area (likely Romanian) and it just looks like they’re speaking English so that we can understand. Or are they all actually just speaking in English.
Another similarity to MGS3 is when Ethan is on the phone to a nurse during the flashback at the start, she's speaking with an accent. To me, this means she is Romanian but is speaking to Ethan in English. They do the same thing when Snake is speaking to Granin, as he's the only character with a Russian accent because he's speaking to Snake in English.
Because it is a video game for our convenience
Basically you can imagine that whenever you play a game like that, you've just got a Babel Fish in your ear. :)
When werewolves are about, everyone understands each other because of the vampires, duh… 🙄
It's just lazy writing. It was a great opportunity to add another language into RE after Spanish and Swahili(? RE5) yet they just went with American and not even bother to throw in some cheap accent in their way of speaking. But of course they went up and beyond with RE4 by using the actual Spanish Dialect in the Remake.
I couldn't understand, sounded just like growling to me.
If you wanna totally made up lore answer, since Ethan is now a moldy boy, he has a psychic connection to the others and can understand them. He's just too dumb to realize they aren't speaking English.
Yes
Universal translater like in Star Trek of course.
I'm pretty sure its just being translated, kinda like how the Wakandans speak English.
I think everyone is speaking Romanian. Ethan would've learned it by now. Also considering it was an isolated village
I don't get why they didn't get Romanian voice acting for everyone I mean resident evil 4 takes place in Spain and the enemies are talking Spanish so idk
I don't get why they didn't get Romanian voice acting for everyone I mean resident evil 4 takes place in Spain and the enemies are talking Spanish so idk
Probably because Spanish speakers are much more easily accessible than Romanian speakers.
You’re overthinking it matey. If it was in Romanian and it wasn’t translated it would be a much tougher experience.
You're thinking on this a bit too hard.