1-st map autoselected by the game, tried also mainland with the same result. the game installed via .dmg file.

Welcome! To make sure you won't starve:  

I'm from England and preparing to move to Germany, and I'm trying to learn German as quickly as possible.

Which map was that ? Looks like a custom map. You used the DMG right? Or you did compile ?

@Stan` I've updated to 26.2 and really sounds are working now! Thank you! Speaking about Germans civ. I could not start game.   <p>'art/terrains/terrains.xml' does not exist. Using previous properties.</p> <p class="error">ERROR: RelaxNGValidator: Validation error: special/players/germ:1: Invalid attribute comment for element GenericName</p> <p class="error">ERROR: RelaxNGValidator: Validation failed for '(null)'</p> <p class="error">ERROR: Failed to validate entity template 'special/players/germ'</p> <p class="error">ERROR: JavaScript error: simulation/components/PlayerManager.js line 20 spam of  <p class="error">ERROR: CColor has to be an object</p> <p class="error">ERROR: Error calling component script function GetDisplayedColor</p> <p class="error">ERROR: CColor has to be an object</p> and also this warn <p class="warning">WARNING: GetPlayerByID: no player defined for id '1'