[Xfce-i18n] About German translations

[Enrico Tröger]

On Sun, 19 Oct 2008 16:17:39 +0200, Jannis Pohlmann <jannis at xfce.org>
wrote:

Huhu,

>Am Sun, 19 Oct 2008 13:46:24 +0200
>schrieb Fabian Nowak <timystery at arcor.de>:
>
>> Am Sonntag, den 19.10.2008, 02:49 +0200 schrieb Jannis Pohlmann:
>> > Hey,
>> 
>> Hey back (I guess I was meant),
>> 
>> > 
>> > I just gave the German translations of xfce4-settings some love.
>> > Please don't take this as a rant even though I know it is one. I
>> > just think the translations could be significantly improved if
>> > they 
>> > 
>> >   a) were consistent,
>> >   b) were correct,
>> 
>> hey, these are beta translations -- I did not yet revision them. Do
>> you apply as voluntary revisor? That'd be cool.
>
>I didn't you know there is something like 'beta' translations. But as I
>plan to improve strings in Xfce before the next beta I can as well try
>to revise the German translations for them.

Why are you so panic about translations? We didn't even reach the
string freeze so things still might change. This only complicates the
translating process and making the string freeze less important.


>> > 	     - If a group of labels ends with ":" in English, don't
>> > drop the ":" in some of their German translations but not in
>> > others.
>> 
>> 	Ah yes, when there are 20 strings marked fuzzy and you repair
>> one by one, some msgstrings might stay unchanged with the colon left
>> or removed -- part of the revisioning process.
>
>Ideally you'd translate, then install the translations and see how they
>look in the actual UI. If you do that, you'll notice the differences.

Isn't this the way all translators should work?
Translating without testing/viewing the translation doesn't seem
reasonable to me. At least with some basic testing(install the updated
translation and start the app) most typos and errors can be killed
before anything is committed.


>> Though, it sometimes is better to use an individual style for the
>> translations, thus always using the colon or never in contrast to the
>> original strings. In most cases, tooltip texts are concerned where
>> ending them with a regular period is preferrable independently from
>> what the developer chose formerly.
>
>What do you mean by "individual style"? Of course whether to append
>colons or not depends on how it is usually done in your language. And
>that has to be consistent.

Well, in German we have a pretty clear ruleset for sentences, the most
simple one is S-P-O, "Subjekt-Prädikat-Objekt", if these three criteria
are met, it's a sentence and has to be ended with a full stop. Of
course this is not the only rule but it's pretty good as a base.


>> > 
>> >   b) - "Enable" does not mean "einstellen". It means "aktivieren",
>> >        "einschalten", "verwenden", "benutzen" or whatever depending
>> > on the context it is used in. 
>> 
>> Uuh, you can't say that in general. The thing is that sometimes the
>> devs themselves just use *some* string; and the translators have to
>> fix it by choosing the correct words, not the direct translation. Of
>> course, you might still be right; please point to the exact
>> translation then.
>
>It's right, a lot of our English strings could use some improvements.
>But "einstellen" is neutral (it doesn't say whether something is
>going to be activated or deactivated) whereas "enable" clearly is the
>opposite of "disable" and thus explains what it does.


Full ACK.
"enable" has never a similar meaning as "einstellen".


>> >      - "Button" is not "Knopf" - it's "Schaltfläche"! 
>> 
>> Button is "Knopf". See your given URL, way more translations for
>> "Knopf". Thus, I asked a MAC user how she would translate it. Her
>> first reply was "Knopf". Asked about what to expect from
>> "Schaltfläche", she answered "a wide button", meaning like a toggle
>> button. She later admitted, that Apple might have chosen
>> "Schaltfläche" everywhere, but asked on how to label the OK buttons
>> on the small information dialogs etc, she answered "Knopf" again. So
>> it depends on the context; but in general, "Knopf" is correct,
>> "Schaltfläche" is something different. (Actually, one part of my
>> in-depth examinations at university was usability in real-time
>> systems such as big terminals etc.: Human-Machine Interfaces in
>> Production Environments)
>
>(That doesn't impress me too much. My minor subject at the University
>is all about user interfaces and usability as well.)
>
>Personally, I strongly prefer "Schaltfläche". But I agree that you can
>argue about that. If you check
>http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schaltfl%C3%A4che or
>http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grafische_Benutzeroberfl%C3%A4che you'll
>not find "Knopf" anywhere. To me it sounds just wrong.

Full ACK again.
'Knopf' sucks. It reminds of the buttons I have on my jacket to close
it when I'm freezing :D.


>> >      - Don't upload translations like "... udn den
>> > SChwellwert ...", will you? 
>> 
>> Uh, depends ;) That's what revision and revisors are for, aren't
>> they?
>
>Additional revisions are good, but translating carefully right from the
>start doesn't sound too bad either ;)

And again full ACK.
Fabian, you don't really want to say that you don't care about typos
and sub-optimal translations because someone(including you) might be
revise this later?
IMO this is a bad approach to start any work.
Do it the best as you can and your time permits, then check it, then
release it (i.e. commit to the repo or send a patch).



Jannis, inspired by your first posting in this thread, would you like
to update/extend the wiki page on http://i18n.xfce.org/wiki/team_de?
Just to get a base we can work on.


Regards,
Enrico

-- 
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