[cuidaBeja]

I'm an American running SR6 for my family, and I don't speak German

That said, the campaign I'm running is in Luxembourg and centers around the Yakuza. It seems to me that the English edition of the core rules don't really work well for a place like Luxembourg where most people speak more than one language well, so I'm wondering if the German rules have any insights for me.

[Stainless Steel Devil Rat]

I don't recall if Pegasus' version treated languages the same way.

But, there's nothing wrong with saying for your game, set in a place that is more multi-lingual than North America is, that you can pick more than 1 "native" language.  Or give more starting karma to go towards languages.

[cuidaBeja]

Yeah I've pretty much just handwaved it for my players. All languages are first languages, and I don't put too much stress on whether people are speaking French or German or Japanese at any specific time.

[Reaver]

Yiu can also kind of 'handwave' it away through techno-babble if you really want to as well.

Speech to text auto-translation through AR matrix support, AR lingosofts (not as hood as the chipped version, but hey, FREE!)... speech to speech AR translation.. the list goes on.

Keep in mind though, even in these countries where people speak 2 to 4 languages, some people still can't talk to each other ;P After all, just cause you speak english  doesn't mean you speak English

[Beta]

Fifth and Sixth have both had a very american view of language skills, where it is far easier to learn (say) astro physics than a second language.  Personally in 6e I'd just say a language is one knowledge skill point and gives you functional fluency (but still an accent), or you can buy bilingual as many times as you want.  And introduce a new negative quality worth just a few points that reverts you to the actual 6e rules