As story goes, I browsed through recent Sims 3 uploads on Mod The Sims, and noticed the pretty good stuff that is Fall ? Autumn (English) by swiffy. So I figured that if she had cracked the code to modify Maxis translation strings, then surely I could do the same, and to even do mass edits in Sublime Text and export it to a .package file.
How hard could it be? Turned out to be fairly difficult, but I eventually figured it out thanks to NRaas Packer and very immense RegEx skills. I worked on this over the course of 5 days, and am now ready to present to you all the initial late-beta version of the localisation.
As such, I officially present, a British English fan localisation of The Sims 3 and its expansion packs, the first such localisation to my current knowledge.
Around 2,400 strings of the circa 85,000 US Maxis base game strings (and a 3-digit number of EP strings) have been changed, so it’s not an overwhelming change compared to the official American English version.
From how I understand override mods, this mod can safely be considered base game compatible, yet also affects many expansion packs if they’re installed.
———Changes made———
————Summary————
———Standard stuff———
• Color > Colour
• Center > Centre
• Favorite > Favourite
• Customize > Customise
• Humor > Humour
• Honor > Honour
• Organiz(…) > Organis(…)
• Analyz(…) > Analys(…)
• Fertiliz(…) > Fertilis(…)
• Inch > Centimetre (Care has been taken to ensure the lengths would still make sense in a Sims town)
• Pounds > Kilograms (It sounded like too much that a Sim wanted to lose “a few stones”)
• Neighbor > Neighbour
• Gas (for cars) > Petrol
• Mile > Kilometre (with some exceptions)
etc.
———Lots———
• Diner > Eatery
• Hogan’s Deep-Fried Diner > Hogan’s Fritter Eatery
• Theatre > Cinema
• Grocery > Supermarket
• Consignment Store > Thrift Shop
• Dive Bar > Corner Pub (Calling it simply “Pub” turned out to have potential for confusion)
• Local Watering Hole > Classic Pub
• Sports Bar > Sports Pub
• Subway > “Underground metro”, “Underground”, or “Metro”, depending on context
———Food———
• Cookie > Biscuit
• Spaghetti > Spaghetti Bolognese (“Spag Bol” would be borderline derogatory in continental Europe)
• Goopy Carbonara > Spaghetti Carbonara
• Pancakes > American Pancakes (“Flapjacks” isn’t a widely enough known term)
• Peanut Butter and Jelly > Peanut Butter and Jam Sandwich
• Barbecue/Barbeque > Grill
• Eggplant > Aubergine
• Licorice > Liquorice
———Sports———
• Soccer > Football
• Football > American football
• Play Catch > Throw Ball
• Pool (sport) > Snooker (Though both are played in Britain, snooker gets 200x more media attention)
• 2 minor references to baseball > Cricket
• Curcuit (when referring to sports cups) > Tour (as in “World tour”)
• Collegiate sports > Varsity sports
———Career terms———
• Elementary School > Primary School
• High School > Secondary School (I opted against “Sixth Form” to make it more understandable on the continent)
• Minor Leagues > Lower divisions
• Governor > Regional Minister (despite the term being defunct in the UK since 2011)
• Vice President > Deputy Prime Minister
———Other———
• Labor > Labour (except when referring to birth)
• China (vase type) > Porcelain
• Gussy up > Freshen up
• Truck > “Van” or “Lorry”
• Gypsy > Fortune teller
• a la > à la
• Ubercritic > Übercritic
• GPA > “Distinction” or “Marks”
• Perfect GPA > Full Distinctions
• Win or lose > Win, draw, or lose
• Fourth quarter > Second half
• Cozinator > Cosinator
• News show > News programme
• Mile-High > Sky-High
• Dreamed > Dreamt
• Highway > Motorway
• Catalog > Catalogue
• “Peanuts! Popcorn!” (referring to stadium snacks) > “Chippies! Chocolate!”
• Mold > Mould
• 3-alarm fire > Class 3 fire
• Aluminum > Aluminium
• Tips and tax > Tips and VAT
• Globally syndicated > Globally distributed
• An absurd misspelling for the Cosmic Bowling wish in the official US version, was corrected from “rewarding feet” to “rewarding feat”
———Version 1.1 onwards———
• Junkyard > Scrapyard
• Cafe > Café
• Credit card > Debit card
• Veggi Rolls > Vegetable Sushi
• Vegetarian Chili > Chili Sin Carne
• Game (at stadiums) > Match
• Pinata > Piñata
• Daycare > Nursery
• Fire truck > Fire engine
• Mac and Cheese > Macaroni Cheese (as per BBC’s websites)
• Wagner’s Repose (Sunset Valley house) > Mozart’s Repose (Wagner’s name has been quite heavily defamed in Europe recently)
• 5th City Court of Decisions > SimCity Court of Appeals
• Resume (for jobs) > CV
• Crepes > Crêpes
• Some dialogues in Ambitions investigator missions were in very bad taste nowadays due to them resembling real-life conspiracy theories about COVID and the 2020 United States elections, so some words were changed to distance the missions from them. For instance, “pharmaceutical corporations” > “bribed food reviewers”, “postal fraud” > “postal spam fraud”, and the Ballot Buffoonery quest added mentions of exit polls.
• One-story > One-floor
———v1.2 onwards———
• Removed changes for Bell Pepper and City Hall.
• Snow Cone / Slush > Sorbet
• Game Record (Athletics career) > Match Stats
• “Every professional athlete knows that it’s not just about skill; it’s about winning, baby! Keep winning games by preparing properly, getting to work with a good mood, and getting there on time./n/nRemaining Games in Season: {0.Number}/nSeasonal Record: {1.Number}-{2.Number}/nOverall Record: {3.Number}-{4.Number}” > “Every professional athlete knows that it’s not just about skill; it’s about winning, baby! Keep winning matches by preparing properly, getting to work with a good mood, and getting there on time./n/nRemaining Matches in Season: {0.Number}/nSeasonal Record: {1.Number} wins, {2.Number} losses/nOverall Record: {3.Number} wins, {4.Number} losses”
• Cheesesteak > Philly Cheesesteak
For very detailed info on every one of the 2,900+ changed strings as of v1.1 (Will be updated for v1.2 soon enough), see this page on GitHub (External link). The list is so long that pasting the text into the description literally broke the BBCode description codebase system, which incorrectly made it look like the description was empty.
———Notes———
• v1.0 only covered the DeltaBuild0.package strings. As such, some (but far from all) stuff in expansion packs remain untranslated. v1.1 added rudimentary support for the FullBuild files of World Adventures, Ambitions, and Seasons, but this does not affect base game support.
• The Fall season currently remains Fall and not Autumn, as I have such respect for the “Fall ? Autumn” mod linked to above (as without it, this mod would not have existed), that I intend people to use both mods as of September 2023. Ironically, 1 text string does currently conflict between the two: “It’s everyone’s favorite/favourite season: Autumn! Your Sim wants to celebrate the season at the Fall/Autumn Festival.” It is unclear which effects this will have.
• I couldn’t figure out how to change the date format for savefiles from MM/DD/YYYY to DD/MM/YYYY.
• Players will need to set their game language to en-US in the registry (or whatever macOS’s equivalent is named) for the mod to work.
• Instances where the US strings already used “Kilometer”, retains that spelling.
• It was very tempting to change “Sports Game” to “Madden NFL”, and “Racing Game” to “Burnout Paradise”, but I skipped that for now.
• I am admittedly not actually from any of the countries whose flags are in the main image, but am in fact from Norway. As such, I admit there’s a more or less noticeable continental slant to the British translation, certainly for things like Supermarket and Sky-High. (Published on: 2023-10-17 12:00:00)
