Level 6 Oceanography unlock.

Gotcha.

Stundar (or stund) could be translated to "moment" or "a while".
Could possibly be a misspelling (EA, you know...).
Åstundradalen - Ås=hill, Tundra=biome in mountain areas without trees, dalen=valley

There are a lot of different translations depending on the language. It seems they're either based on "valley of wishes" or loosely on the landscape.

The Norwegian "Ønskedalen" + French "Vallée aux Souhaits" translates to "Wish valley"/"Valley of wishes", and the Dutch version "Wenswijk" to "Wish District", while the Danish one "Bækketoften" translates loosely to "stream + piece of fenced land".

A bækk is a narrow water stream. An Å is often bigger and runs slower, but not quite as big as what you'd call a river.

"Å" is used as a place name in Scandinavia (Norway has at least 10 places named Å, while Denmark and Sweden have some each, too. I can imagine the confusion ).

You put it much better than I did.

I'm not sure if it's EA that does the translation. I think translation is usually sourced locally. One of the "funniest" misspelling is the highest rank in military being "General" which they translated to "Generell" which means "common", not high ranking military. Which makes the LTW of reaching the top in that career "to be common".

Scrooge McDuck was also misspelled into "farbror" i.e father's brother when he's actually Donald's mother Hortense's brother. Swedish makes difference between maternal and paternal parents. The translators didn't know how Donald and Scrooge was related so they took a gamble. I think it wasn't until later that the family tree was materialized by Don Rosa.

Re; Å yeah there are like three "sizes" of rivers. Bäck is the smallest one, like a stream in the woods. Then there's Å, which is larger. Then there's Älv which is even larger and probably closer to what one would considered a river. There's also flod, but I think that's a more generalized name for waterways. Rivers in other countries is usually just called "flod".

"Generell" means the exact same as "general", for both translations of the word.
"As a general (generell) rule, sims should not go swimming without making sure a ladder is available."
"He rose to the rank of general (general)."

I have no idea how they missed that one




I think that's just a quirk to not overcomplicate family relations (which are confusing at best) - Huey, Dewey and Louie calls both Donald and Scrooge "Uncle" in some translations, and I think Donald (and some other characters) do, too.

He's called "Oncle Picsou" in French and "Onkel Skrue" (which would translate to "Farbror" in Swedish or "Uncle" in English), while a lot of other languages don't have any sort of relations in his name, though "Skrue McDuck" (similar to Scrooge McDuck) is also used in Norwegian. Most of the translations don't seem to use "Uncle", but it's possible some of the other characters use "uncle" when talking to/about him (Huey, Dewey and Louie, for instance - not characters without any family relations).

A fun one - he's "Paperon de Paperoni" in Italian, and Google translate insists it means "Paperoni's Paper" though other sources say it means "Goosey McGooseface"
And someone must be sleeping on the job, because the boys are "Qui, Quo, Qua"

Yeah, I know. Maybe they didn't have the proper context. If they were only looking at the text strings, for example.

Calling someone "farbror" in Swedish is also considered a polite way of speaking with elders as a kid. Maybe that also played in. In Swedish his name is Joakim von Anka. So the triplets (Knatte, Fnatte, Tjatte or just "Knattarna" to refer to all three at once) refer to him as farbror Joakim.

I never noticed this reflection on the back of the taxicab before.


I also didn't realize "tune up" was a romantic interaction for Servos! Adorable.

I know you've all moved on, but "Åstundardalen" for Desiderata Valley is clearly from "Åstunda" - verb meaning "to wish for or dream of", not anything to do with "å" and "stund".

Didn't know that - but it does make a lot more sense since most of the other translations are "valley of wishes." Desiderata Velley is described as "a place of dreams," so I'd think most of those translations are more true to the hood.

Still wondering about the Danish version, though. Seems to be the odd one out.

(By the way, "creek" could possibly be a better translation for Bæk/Bække - the difference seems to be the size; creek -> sream -> river. The water in Desiderata valley looks more like a lake, though...)

There's a Scandinavian/Danish saying, "Mange bække små gør en stor å" = ("many small creeks make a large river" or something like that), and there's an English saying with roughly the same meaning - "Many a little makes a mickle" or "many a mickle makes a muckle" (or some variation of this), which could poentially have something to do with wishing, although that's probably stretching it...

UK English or US English? Because I'm (west coast) American and never once heard this phrase ever be used.

Looks to have a Scottish origin. Wouldn't be surprised if it's an old/outdated one.
(Found it while searching. I was aware of the Scandinavian one. I often go on semi-random research-quests that take me on the oddest journeys, and trying to find translated proverbs has been a quest on multiple occasions ).

It essentially means "many small things make a big thing" - often used for situations like saving money, or for doing little things that have a greater impact when a lot of people participate. There are probably other proverbs and/or a more modern version that means roughly the same (but unless it's "many small streams make a big river" I can't think of one).

It's Scots actually, rather than standard English: "Mony a mickle maks a muckle". It's a phrase I know and might use.

I have to admit though that Scots today really only has the status of an English dialect, or a collection of related dialects, spoken and understood in Scotland (especially southern and eastern Scotland). If Scotland had remained independent in 1603 and 1707, Scots might have attained the status of a recognised language, but as it was, with "United Kingdom" rule from London, Scots grammar and spelling was never standardised, and standard English became the language of instruction in schools and colleges. (Scottish Gaelic in contrast is a completely separate language only distantly related to English -- both are Indo-European languages.)

I wish EA/Maxis had made Simlish into a proper language, with a grammar and vocabulary I could learn. I suppose it would have been a lot of investment for not much return, but artificial languages have occasionally been created in some similar circumstances: Klingon is possibly the best known example. Just think, if Simlish was a proper language, we'd probably all have to learn it, to be able to post here, and native English speakers like myself would no longer have an advantage over others. In fact the only ones who could enjoy such a advantage would be any Sims who came here and joined MTS in their own right. They'd be the only ones who could enjoy the luxury of being able to post here in their own native tongue.

What's funny is the other day I was teasing my sister with Simlish phrases because she kept going on how about how she knows Spanish, Arabic and Japanese. She doesn't actually know any of them fluently, but she was trying to play me as the fool because I only know English and a little Spanish and some rather broken Arabic (I get the feminine and masculine confused).

I said to her "Myshuno!", among a couple of other phrases, in a kind of playful way for saying the F word.



Edit: The great thing about Simlish though is that while some phrases such as "Sul Sul" are set in stone, others such as "Myshuno" are a bit more open to interpretation.

I would love it if there was a Simlish alphabet. I love learning new alphabets. The Aurora alphabet in particular is quite nice to write in.

I want to see someone make that house now. XD

I didn't know "åstunda" was a word either! I looked into it and it seems to have been first mentioned in a dictionary from 1870. Feels like one of those archaic words that has since been replaced. But yeah, with that in mind the name makes a lot of sense.

We have a similair phrase in Swedish "Många bäckar små, blir snart en stor å." Which pretty much means the exact thing as the Danish phrase.

Oh and speaking of small things leading to big things, there's a phrase in Latin "Sic Parvis Magna" which is translated to "Greatness from small beginnings" (I know that from Uncharted...) Seems to be in a similair vein.

Edit.
I did notice a nice detail in that the heating up interaction varies depending on the fireplace the Sim uses! They push their back up against the cheap barrel fireplace. While they warm their hands against the cone shaped metal fireplace.

There are similar versions of the same proverb in other languages, too.

"Mange bekker små blir en stor å." (Norwegian, same translation as the Swedish and Danish ones).
There's also a second Norwegian proverb that means roughly the same, "alle monner drar" ("every little bit helps")
“Little drops of water make a mighty ocean” or "Many small streams make a large river" (English)
“Les petits ruisseaux font les grandes rivières” (French, "Many small streams make a large river")
“Tanti pochi fanno un assai” (Italian) and “Muchos pocos hacen un mucho” (Spanish) - "Many small things make a big difference"),
“Kleinvieh macht auch Mist” (German, "Even small livestock poop", or more loosely translated, "Even small things can cause trouble.") - This one sounds like it's possibly more related to "A small leak can sink a great ship."
I'd think this one is fairly well distributed in some form on another, at least in the western/latin-origin parts of the world.

(Wiki + Google Translate... Can't guarantee it's 100% accurate, especially the translations)

There's a Swedish proverb which means a similar thing to that! "Liten tuva stjälper ofta stort lass" basically translates to "small hurdle overturns large cargo".

Danish and Norwegian also have that one. Wouldn't be surprised if most of the Scandinavian proverbs are pretty much the same, just translated to the different languages, possibly having their origins in old norse, and if so, chucking in Icelandic versions for good measure.

Speaking of Icelandic,
Margr lækr smár gjörir stórar ár = "Small streams make great rivers"

And Finnish (which has a different origin than most of the other Nordic languages):
"Apu kärväsenki apu." = "A fly's help is help, too" ("Every little bit helps")

Icelandic is the modern language closest to Old Norse. So if you wonder how vikings sounded, you should head there. (Or just... listen to Icelandic people online. I quite enjoy listening to Icelandic folk music. I don't understand many words but still, I enjoy it.)

It's the default daytime outdoor envcube; in case you are interested I found envcube textures in the game files for desert and city reflections, in case the standard grassy suburb texture doesn't suit your hood. I made defaults here:

https://modthesims.info/d/670794


https://modthesims.info/d/679926

I also made a custom one for one of my snowy hoods, it's easy to do so you could make one for yours!

That's so interesting! I had no idea. Obviously.