Don't get me wrong, I love my language, I just don't think there are many artists, especially voice actors and translators that are very skillfull in using it. Not since Goethe died.

OK, now the real problem: I have "Preferred Installer: English" always checked, downloaded, installer was in English, but the game is in German no matter what option I choose in the menu. How does that happen?

Maybe it's Ralph Baer's ghost...?

He is, after all, German-American... inventor of the video game.

:)

Hehe, so true!

Back to your question, something must have gone wrong with the download. You obviously got the German version and you can't change the language afterwards. Each language is a separate installer. I checked it myself and downloaded the current English installer of BG1 via browser (not with the GOG Downloader) and it is the correct language in-game. I'd simply download the English installer again and reinstall the game, it should work.

If you want to validate whether you've got the same installer as I do, here's the MD5 checksum of mine:
setup_baldurs_gate_2.0.0.20.exe
MD5 checksum: 99cf29eae93dc4de4b1dd219b4bccce0

EDIT: You should have written that you're talking about the EE version and not the classic BG1.

Hi guys,

I have the same problem. I downloaded the game twice (after checking that the dropdown menu in my GOG library says "English") and installed the game in English - that's what the setup dialog says. However the game is completely in German.

Do any of you have ideas how to fix this? I want to play the game in English.

There are as many bad English voice actors as there are German ones. Strongly depends on the game.

There's one big difference, though: You simply can't help but get the impression that video games are still being treated like peg-legged, red-haired step children in Germany when it comes to the effort (or lack thereof) being made to produce voice overs. Far too often the voice actors chosen are just bad and/or the voices are completely different (compare Winthorpe in Candlekeep Inn in Baldur's Gate; deep voice in English, squeaky voice in German), far fewer voice actors are hired and have to do more characters each than in the game's original language, and so on and so forth.

But it's not just about the quality of the voice acting, but also the quality of the actual translation. Far too often the translations are just wrong. Plain and simply wrong. And I don't mean the literal translation, but the meaning of it - the message or information it's supposed to convey. Just enable the original voice overs and German subtitles (or vice versa) and you'll soon notice that they're saying different things.

BTW, works like a charm.

It's not just that the meaning is wrong, like with the "Make sure he's dead" - line in Mass Effect.

Well I have a friend who insists on playing games in German. Almost every time we play a mulitplayer game of ... anything, he is not figuering out something that appears simply to me, because, surprise, I don't use the mistranslated version. Many things are just literally mistranslated and wrong. I noticed that already in school when we were reading English literature translated in German. It often seems like the work is done by Germanistik dropouts.