The secret to Simlish, the infamous nonsense language of The Sims 4, is that "there is no Simlish," according to voice actor and musician Kid Beyond.
Kid Beyond (aka Andrew Chaikin) was a voice actor on The Sims 2 and dished out some secrets behind recording the infamous Simlish language. Not only is there no Simlish, but there's also no script, and actors just "make up gibberish" on the spot. This revelation came in the form of a quote tweet that Chaikin wrote in response to fellow musician Lolo Zouaï, who tweeted "How do I get my songs officially translated to Simlish?" Chaikin elaborates on Simlish further with a Twitter thread, giving us even more insight into the language.
So. I was the male voice on The Sims 2, and a bunch of other Sims games.I recorded hours + hours + hours of Simlish.When I started the gig, they told me a lil’ secret:🤯 There is no Simlish. 🤯🤖 — And no script. — 🤖The actors just make up gibberish.But...(1/4) https://t.co/ag0nmw6ex8June 28, 2021
"It had to sound like *American* gibberish. Not Swedish, or Japanese, or random nonsense. And since we're voicing hundreds of situations, it couldn't just be the same gibberish over and over. It had to be a whole vocab. Straight of the dome," reads Chaikin's tweet. In order to accomplish this surprisingly difficult task, Chaikin says he'd "grab a magazine, turn it upside down, read some juicy backwards words, turn the page and repeat" during recording sessions. Apparently after several lengthy sessions, he'd struggle to "get English back", which is unsurprising after spending hours speaking gibberish.
Lolo Zouaïi likely asked about getting her music translated to Simlish in response to the recent announcement that The Sims 4 will stage an in-game music festival. During that festival, recording artist Bebe Rexha will perform a Simlish version of her hit single 'Sabotage', along with performances from Glass Animals and Joy Oladokun. According to Chaikin, Lolo Zouaï's song 'Caffeine' "would sound killer in Simlish", although it's unclear if the artist has any plans to actually record it.
The Sims games have always had Simlish versions of hit songs that you can play from radios or jukeboxes - my personal favorite is the hilariously nonsensical Sims take on 'Hot in Here' by Nelly, which changes the lyrics "hot in here, so hot in here" to "haspa, so haspa heeee." If only that version played at my 8th grade dance...
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