[Xfce-i18n] xfce4-weather-plugin: tip for dealing with long explanations of weather issues

[Harald Judt]

Am 27.01.2013 12:18, schrieb Pjotr Vertaalt:
> Hello fellow translators,
>
> xfce4-weather-plugin nowadays contains a lot of long explanations of
> weather issues and measurement standards. Like me, you might lack the
> time or inclination to translate these, as they don't seem very
> functional to me in this plugin....
>
> I find that in almost every case, a simple reference to Wikipedia could
> be considered sufficient. So that's what I have done in the Dutch
> translation, saving myself a lot of time.... Maybe a tip for other
> languages as well?
>
> Regards, Pjotr (Dutch translator)

I have given credit to Wikipedia on the details tab. Some strings are 
shorter now and easier to translate. Besides, there is no requirement to 
translate them *literally*, on the contrary - using your own words and 
phrases might make translation even easier and the result much better. 
The goal is to make the descriptions understandable and comfortable to 
read in your own language, and providing interesting information about 
the values.

I admit it's a lot of work, and some strings lacked quality, but I have 
tried to correct them, and I'm open for ideas for improving them. I've 
also spent quite some time reading up all that stuff and rephrasing the 
descriptions. For example, if you look at the apparent temperature, the 
resulting descriptions are already very compact and concise in contrast 
to the information I had to dig up for implementing all those models.

If you don't like to translate them, leave them in the original language 
and let someone else do the work, someone who is interested in it and 
likes to volunteer. The plugin will still show the temperature and other 
values for you. Telling the users of your language to look the 
explanation up on wikipedia certainly gives them the impression they're 
being treated like fools. Do you really want that? There is no need to 
spoil the user experience, and I see no folly in bringing information to 
people.

Harald

-- 
`Experience is the best teacher.'