If they're like me, they just seized the opportunity to practice their English. To say that language teaching in french high schools is subpar is an understatement. Remember, fellows: "Xavier is going to fac." ;)

But what does TheMysteriousG thinks of your French?

I'm apparently the opposite, according to my Russian teacher I speak Russian in a French accent :/

For the original question: There is almost as much Japanese-only games especially from the 90s. The most famous I can think of is most of Earthbound and Dragon Quest series.

There are many Japanese only games, but Earthbound and the Dragon Quest series aren't 'them'. They were released in the US in English but weren't released in Europe at all.

Can we have a spinoff thread to this one: "Worst translations from games".

I'd like to start out with, "Oh no! The Truck have started to move!"
or
"Oh no! I feel asleep!"

Or the ever classic "someone set us up the bomb", "all your bases are belonged to us"and "Conglaturation !!! You have Completed a great game. And prooved the justice of out culture. Now go and rest our heroes !"

The french amiga version of trivial pursuit used to congratulate you with a "well done, [your name]" translated as "bien fait", which actually means "serves you right". That was a bit odd.

Less we forget JFK announcing to the people of Berlin that he was a donut.

Actually it's "somebody set up us the bomb" and "all your base are belong to us"...yes, it's even worse than you remember.
Which is an urban myth that just won't die despite being wrong in every possible way...

Yeah, this is a little touchy and I was hesitant to post it. The consesus is that he did in fact say what he meant to say but there are a lot of people claiming that his accent, and his German, was so bad that to someone in the crowd it might have sounded different. I was only being a smart ass and I'm not one to perpetuate lies so I apologize if I came off that way.

Or my english baccalaureate exam where I had to write a summary of King Kong and did the whole thing with "monk" instead of "monkey".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=363ZAmQEA84#t=40s

That's funny. When I speak french, people think I'm Russian xD

Sound had nothing to do with it. "Berliner" in German means both "a citizen of Berlin" and a sort of "jelly donut" but it's pronounced the same way. It's both a homophone and a homograph.

This myth is based around a misconception of the grammar involved. Basically people who perpetuate this myth claim that the use of the indefinite article "ein" was wrong and that JFK therefore said "Ich bin ein Berliner" (I am a jelly donut) instead of the supposedly correct "Ich bin Berliner" (I am a citizen of Berlin).

However there's several things wrong with this myth:

1. If anything, the version without the article takes on a literal meaning. As in 'I am an actual citizen of Berlin' which I'm pretty sure JFK was not.
2. The infamous jelly donut is called "Berliner" in most of Germany, but not in Berlin where it's known as "Pfannkuchen" (lit. 'pancake').
3. While the version with the indefinite article could technically mean what the myth claims, it is nevertheless the grammatically correct one, allowing for the more figurative meaning 'I am a citizen of the free world'. It's just an ambiguity that comes with the language. But claiming he called himself a jelly donut makes as much sense as calling a lucky coincidence "a fluke" and then being ridiculed for not being able to tell luck apart from a fish. It's an inherently ambiguous phrase that can mean both things depending on context. As the context was very much given, the ambiguity is purely academic.

To cut a long, boring lecture short: He didn't call himself a jelly donut and this myth is virtually nonexistent in Germany because the phrase was perfectly correct.

That is a GREAT film! Have 10 internets, and +1 rep <3

The funny thing is, when I speak Russian I tend to get lost in French vocabulary (for example when I can't think of some basic word like "why" I instantly think "pourquois" for some reason and only come up with the Russian one a few seconds later). Some sort of flashback from high-school.

As for the "original question": The question was rather why GOG is only offering English versions of so many games which have official translations. I think most games on GOG did at least have a German and French version, probably also Spanish and Italian. Not to mention that many GOG titles were multilingual in their retail release and allowed you to choose the language during installation (for example the European release of Populous included the five usual European languages plus Polish for some reason), so it's actually odd that only a small selection of almost exclusively new titles is multilingual on GOG.

I must say though that people expect too much in case of some games. For example the Sierra adventures filled whole CDs with their audio data and there didn't exist multilingual versions, GOG would have to offer wholly different disc images for them and in some cases the legal issues may be more complicated (for example Polish versions of games are - or at least were - usually done independently by the Polish publishers and I can imagine that this means that they retain special rights to them).

This comment may've been intended as humorous, but as a linguist I find the ignorance staggering nonetheless.