Back when the three Rush Hour routes were renamed, we were told that those new names were to make them more marketable and attract more customers. Now while that sounded understandable, you have to remember that one of the routes was named "Nahverkehr Dresden" I thought it was quite a silly name to be considered "marketable". I still forget how to spell it. But then I realized that a lot of the German routes in Train Sim World have bad names. Every single route since HRR has included some long and complicated German word that the average English-speaking player would struggle to pronounce. I mean, come on: -Hauptstrecke Rhein-Ruhr -Schnellfahrstrecke Köln-Aachen -Hauptstrecke München-Augsburg -Hauptstrecke Hamburg-Lübeck -Nahverkehr Dresden -Tharandter Rampe The older preserved routes are also in German, but at least they have names that are easy to pronounce (Ruhr Sieg Nord, Main Spessart Bahn). So basically, what I want to say is that I think the names of the German routes are silly. I'm curious if anybody else actually likes these German route names, or if you dislike the routes having complicated names such as these. Edit: Maybe it's best to not question anything about the German language.
I actually quite enjoy trying to pronounce the German names out loud. I often repeat the in-cab announcements to anyone who's within earshot. My wife, who is first generation German, gets a kick out of it. I'm also amused when the DTG streamers get all tangled up trying to speak German. That last one though is a bit confusing. What does Tharandter Rampe mean in the context of a Dresden route?
The names aren’t silly, they are just in German. Those are real German words and place names. If you think they sound silly to us, what would the Germans think of ‘West Cornwall Local’ as a name. Gibberish, that’s what.
As someone with German ancestry (although my knowledge of the German language is minimal) I was about to say the same thing, And I never thought that Ruhr Sieg Nord was that easy to pronounce.
Yeah, it makes sense in the context that the names are in German. But do German players also see all of the foreign route names in English? I feel like that would be really weird for them to see "Cathcart Circle Line" instead of "Whatever the Name is in German".
Going by the streams, not that easy to pronounce if you know what German actually sounds like Though they do make a good effort. All of the terms you mention (Nahverkehr, Hauptstrecke, Schnellfahrstrecke, …) are well defined technical terms in German railroading, so they‘re not just there because DTG want to annoy speakers of English or something like that. They‘re just the most accurate terms to describe what‘s in the DLC. That‘s a location name. Calling it First German Route With a DMU is probably not quite as accurate
Oh shoot, have I been pronouncing these wrong without knowing? I guess it's easy to assume they're easy if there's nobody to correct you. I've been calling them "Roor Seeg Nord" and "Main Spess-art Bohn" (MSB sort of pronounces it for me). Maybe I'm the silly one. This makes sense of course, I believe that Hauptstrecke means "main line", Schnellfahrstrecke is "high speed line", and Nahverkehr means "local transport". I just remember seeing plenty of videos of people playing TSW 2 when it first came out and they simply decided to not pronounce "Schnellfahrstrecke", because it's long and it's German. No offense to the German language of course, but surely the routes could be called stuff like "Köln High Speed" and "Dresden Local Transport"?
You‘re quite close, but German is a tricky beast for English speakers (just as English is for German speakers, obviously). In case you‘re interested: Seeg should be more like Seek since German doesn‘t voice the last sound in a word (final-obstruent devoicing). Same thing for Nord - more like Nort. And Main is pronounced like Meyn would be in English. That‘s all I the help I can give without getting properly into phonetics and IPA charts You could get away with main line for Hauptstrecke and high speed line for Schnellfahrstrecke. Nahverkehr is a bit more tricky though. Maybe my knowledge of English is lacking here, but I think local transport has a different connotation. Nahverkehr is generally used to describe all trains run by DB Regio (or the private rail companies taking over from DB Regio), which can still travel long distances with varying stopping patterns. I think the point of the German names is more to stay true (for lack of better term) to simulating German railroading. A German name drives home the point that it‘s a product about Germany. In addition, most people familiar with German railroading (which is - admittedly - probably a somewhat small group in the English speaking countries) will know what these terms imply instead of relying on approximate translations.
I do agree that the naming scheme for German routes is not ideal. I don't get the use of the words "Hauptstrecke" and "Nahverkehr" those are horrible tongue twisters if your native language ain't German. They should use an English title like Rush Hour or Rapid Transit and use the station names as subtitle. Most of the time when they pronounce a German route on the stream I have to translate the English way of pronouncing to the German way to make sense of what title is being said. The German naming scheme almost makes the game sound elitish. if that is a word?
1. Why do people just assume most players are native English speakers? I think especially the German routes are played by a large number of German players. 2. It is realistic to name routes in the language of the country they are in. (LGV Méditerranée has a French name, UK routes have English names and German routes have German names) 3. "Tharandter Rampe" refers to a section of the line near Tharandt thas has a steep gradient of up to 2.6%. ("Rampe" = "ramp")
1. I find odd because German players likely wouldn't be playing the game in English, they would be playing it in German. So the presence of naming routes in German feels strange. 2. I find this to be a fair point, at least it's consistent (Rapid Transit is an outlier and shall not be counted) 3. Yeah, that was a silly thing for me to think "Tharandter" meant something. Not sure how I didn't consider it to be the real location. In general it seems like foreign route names are strange. I couldn't find any German videos or streams showing the route menus, but I did find a Polish stream which showed that routes like Great Western Express and West Cornwall Local were in English, which made me think that they actually did keep the English names. But then I saw that London Commuter and Boston Sprinter actually were translated, and the names were not in English. So overall, it's weird.
Arosa Linie: also German (Arosa and Chur are in a German-speaking area of Switzerland) LGV (Ligne à Grande Vitesse) Méditerranée: French
Why do you assume that everyone that has a problem with the German name scheming is a native English speaker? I speak Dutch and understand German. True, other languages are used like French but French is a sexy language. It's very common to use French words in titles. "Grand Prix" for example. There are also sexy German words like Kraftwerk so maybe it's not the language that is the problem but how the German name scheming is used because I presume if there where many French routes some of them might also get weird naming. If they would do a Belgian route I would think it would be weird if the title was "Forenzen Verkeer Antwerpen Centaal / Bruxelles Midi" because "Inter-City Antwerp - Brussels" is much easier to pronounce. I think naming most German passenger routes "Intercity Express: Station A / Station B" would be a huge improvement. But with all this being said what is the language used on these forums? It's English. Why is that? To make it easier for everyone.
I fully support them using the local language. Naming routes in their own language immediately points to their location and adds that extra bit of authenticity. I’m neither German, French or English but none of the words currently used are very problematic for me to pronounce or understand, especially as you don’t need to get them completely right. And since English is already widely used all over the world, a bit of insight into other languages won't hurt anyone.
I really had to think several times what Nar-vair-cair means. That's indeed how an English speaker would pronounce it and how I perceive it when a native English speaker says it. Sounds like Jibberish. Maybe it's because I speak Dutch and Dutch is a germanic language that it sounds so weird when German is spoken by English speakers. But even speaking a germanic language still makes a lot of German words tongue twisters.
Oh I know: but they represent vowel sounds not found in English, and it takes a while and some practice for us.
So as a German I can guarantee that our language is quite easy- except it isn’t your mother language. Even I get a little confused sometimes when I find myself reading a word like “Brandrodungswanderfeldbau” which is a quite long word (yes, it is one word and I didn’t miss a space). But I think almost every language is pretty hard if it’s not your mother language! I don’t have problems with englisch, but e.g. spanisch is a lot harder than english! The big problem with speaking German is the pronounciation! For example Schnellfahrstrecke: You would pronounce it like “Schnellfahrschtrecke”, Nahverkehr would be “Naaferker”, and Hauptstrecke would be “Hauptschtrecke”. I can give you an advice: If you want to know how something is pronounced, just take google translate. It’s not the best thing in translating, but the pronounciation is quite good! I did watch a video yesterday, there you go: (This is not an add, but it was very funny to watch, and I was really impressed on how good he did pronounce the words!) But apart from the well loved “Hochdeutsch”, did you ever speak Swiss German? I know there is nothing such as “the one and only Swiss language and Swiss German”, BUT if you really want to break your tongue, try to say that: “Chäschüechli im Chuchichästli” And yes…, the way you just pronounced it was wrong, and even I, who is quite familiar with Swiss German, am not able to pronounce it 100% correct! The way you would pronounce it properly would be: “KChräsKchrüechli im crhuchicrhäschtli”- and that’s impossible to say without someone who knows how to pronounce it haha
Well actually…. YES. BUT if you haven’t been in Switzerland, you have to hahaha And btw. one very unique thing in Switzerland is the „Li“ at the end of words, it‘s just the small form of sometging! And since the Germans often make fun of that, just think of what Berlin would be without the Li ;D
oh wait no what hahaha I think it’s just because there is nothing like a bigger version of broccoli like brocco… apart from the fact it doesn’t sound very delicious
It also seems to me that German-speaking Swiss tend to trill their Rs almost as in Italian, rather than the palatal fricative of Hochdeutsch
With the new German route Tharander-something Rampe it's time to open this can of worms again Still convinced they should go for a new naming scheme
I am German and I love my language but I also think the titles should be uniformly English. To be honest, I've always wondered how all the other poor people are going to pronounce the complicated long words (Schnellfahrstrecke etc)... I would just take a country abbreviation and the names of the places, so e.g. DE Dresden - Chemnitz or DE Dresden - Riesa. I think the long German names are a turn off for all non-German speakers because no one understands what is meant. The best example: Tharandter Rampe. I know what it means because I live there, but how should someone from England or France or Poland know that it means a route between Dresden and Chemnitz? Some of you may have heard of Dresden, so "Dresden - Chemnitz" would at least give you a rough idea, but "Tharandter Rampe"? I dont know.
joerg.lange May I ask you a question, since you are German? What does "sachs" mean that some stations on the latter route have in brackets? And since I think you know the area well, the tracks on the right side of Chemnitz station, which we can't access, what are they used for? Thank you!
You guys should be happy that DTG didn't give SAXON names to these routes. "Dorandor Rambe won Dräääsdn iber Freibersch nach Gemmnidds" wouldn't make much of a cover. Keep it Hochdeutsch for german routes, english for english speaking regions, french where it applies. Go and ask the proud French if they want their routes named in english. I don't think so.
There're several cities (towns) named "Freiberg" in Germany. The extension "Sachs." refers to Freiberg in the german State of Saxony - Sachsen in german. I.e.: Freiberg (Unst.) would refer to Freiberg an der Unstrut - Freiberg on the river Unstrut.
It’s an abbreviation for Sachsen which is the German term for Saxony. It’s there to distinguish different places sharing the same name, so that one knows which city is being refered to.
Exactly. Towns like Dresden, Hamburg, Munich, are well known. I think all the German routes in the game have one of those big stations in the game. The town names say more to me about what to expect than the German titles they are given at the moment.
I know Wuppertal. I don't know the other towns but they probably are linked to a well known city when they appear in TSW. And if the title just consist of the station names you immediately know they are the names of towns
The average American has probably heard of Berlin, Frankfurt, Hamburg, München (as Munich) and Nürnberg (as Nuremberg). The rest? Forget it.
The first question has already been answered. It remains to be mentioned that of course no one speaks the (Sachs) with. The city is simply called Freiberg (which, by the way, literally means "free mountain"). Your second question: the tracks in Chemnitz station are for the tram. Chemnitz has a very special tram, which runs inside the city as a tram and outside the city as a regional train to the surrounding cities. https://www.urban-transport-magazin...t-for-stage-2-of-chemnitz-tram-train-network/
Thank you all very much for the answers, it is very interesting. I'm really looking forward to making a trip to this part of Germany and travelling by train on these routes! Maybe this summer... I also want to visit Meissen, as depicted in TSW it must be very nice IRL. By the way, I am amused by a poster in every station with a picture of the castle of Meissen and it says something about Mallorca (I am Spanish). There really are a lot of Germans in Mallorca, they seem to love it!
The poster says "It doesn't always have to be Mallorca", which means that you can also have a nice holiday in Meißen (which, by the way, has a slightly mediterranean style). I can tell you that I love Mallorca and have been there quite often. Often in the Alcudia or Port de Soller area. It's a beautiful island. Once I was at Cap Formentor in February - that was fantastic. I was virtually alone with my wife, without any other tourists. And not to forget: the fabulous vintage train that runs between La Palma and Soller. I can only encourage you to visit Dresden and the surrounding area (for example Meißen). It's a very beautiful area. If you are interested in mining and want to visit an old silver mine, you can do that in Freiberg. You can also explore the Ore Mountains starting from Dresden.
I think all routes should use their authentic local names in TSW as far as licensing allows it. The routes names they eventually went with for the Rush Hour routes are kinda annoying and cringey, at least in-game. LOL!
