Si Fei wrote:
Other reason might be that even I consider myself a fluent english-speaker and even teach it in elementary school, it still ain`t my mother tongue.
Interesting thought. Maybe that is because of the language, but I often prefer the English language manual, even if there is a German one too. It seems like English is often much easier to understand, due to the use of straight-forward grammar and easier words. Interestingly, that even applies to those cases, where both the English and the German manual are translated from another language. Even if the original is in German, the English translation is easier to understand sometimes.
Not only with game rule books. Manuals for tools or electronic devices are even worse.
Maybe German is just not good as a technical language.
How about Finnish?
It is usually my customs to learn the rules of the game before I have the actual game in my hand. Here I had to start playing before everything made sense to me. Don't really know the actual reason. Once I played it everything clicked instantly.
My german is quite rusty at the moment but it ususally don't make any difference if rules are in english or finnish. Hardest thing is to find matching terms in finnish while I explain the game to friends if I only havee glish rules (ie term "realignment roll" in twilight struggle). Some things just don't translate so easily.