- This topic has 43 replies, 11 voices, and was last updated May 6-1:56 pm by blur13.
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marcelocripe
I ask people to respect the beneficial intent of this thread which is the explanation of English language terms that cause difficulties for translators.
If PPC doesn’t translate the list of themes to the “pt” language, then, I imagine that in Portugal they don’t translate the names of the colors. I translate to the “pt_BR” language, because Brazilians are not required to learn the English language to use antiX. In the same way, I imagine that Robin must translate to the “de” language.
Anyone who needs to read the original names of themes written in English can access the folder /usr/share/antiX/localisation/xy/jwm/ (where “xx” are the letters that identify the language) at any time and have access to the texts in any language from the “themes-list” file. In the absence of translation, the English language “themes-list” file will be used in displaying the JWM Themes submenu.
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Eu peço para as pessoas respeitarem a intenção benéfica deste tópico que é a explicação dos termos em idioma Inglês que causam dificuldades para os tradutores.
Se o PPC não traduz a lista de temas para o idioma “pt”, então, eu imagino que em Portugal não traduzem os nomes das cores. Eu traduzo para o idioma “pt_BR”, porque os Brasileiros não são obrigados a aprender o idioma Inglês para utilizarem o antiX. Da mesma forma, eu imagino que o Robin deve traduzir para o idioma “de”.
Quem precisar ler os nomes originais dos temas escritos em idioma Inglês poderá acessar a qualquer momento a pasta /usr/share/antiX/localisation/xy/jwm/ (onde “xx” são as letras que identificam o idioma) e ter acesso aos textos em qualquer idioma do arquivo “themes-list”. Na ausência da tradução, o arquivo “themes-list” em idioma Inglês será utilizado na exibição do submenu de Temas do JWM.
Brian Masinick
@marcelocripe Since this is such a crucial matter to you on behalf of the Portuguese speaking people of Brazil, I have no personal objections if you feel that additional translations are necessary in order for people to be able to use the system.
In general, this does go beyond what typically happens in localization efforts. When there are difficulties understanding the usage, operation and meaning of buttons, phrases, or the intent of an application, an alternative common practice is to utilize two other sources to assist new users – written documents with pictures, examples, and other means of help, written in the language and customs of a particular group. Similarly, just like Dolphin Oracle has created videos in English for MX Linux and antiX, there is no reason at all that prevents a Portuguese speaking person who has learned how to use a system to do the same, and that’s true for anyone in any region, language, culture, or custom, so either in addition to or instead of a massive localization effort, a few well written documents and/or video presentations may go a long way to help a community of users.
Do you have that ability or do you know anyone who does? If so, I think that would be a better use of time and it may attract a larger group, plus it may inspire someone who speaks another language to do something similar.
That would be my suggestion. If I had either the skill or the resources to hire someone with those skills, that’s what I would do; in the absence of those personal capabilities, that’s what I recommend; hope someone is able to pursue the idea. Best wishes!
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Brian MasinickRobin
I ask people to respect the beneficial intent of this thread which is the explanation of English language terms that cause difficulties for translators.
Sure, Marcelo, but obviously people don’t realise the need for complete translations at all. So here are the facts just to provide evidence of the statement there is a real need (also in Germany):
Only a few percent of all Germans (above the age of 14) do speak (and understand) English on a level needed to use the programs if these are not translated, and this includes the console input and output as well.
Please see attached image for details. (Source: Statista)Attachments:
Windows is like a submarine. Open a window and serious problems will start.
blur13
I think you are going beyond translation and into “explanation” when you start adding info about each program in the menus. Translation would be translating menu folders like “applications” “accessories” “games”. Prefacing each program with an explanation for what it does isnt translating since no such explanation exists in the original language. When I check the “Systems” folder I see, for example: Gparted, Grsync, Htop. Its not “Show System Processes Htop”. So when you render that menu item as “Mostra os processos do sistema Htop” you are no longer strictly translating, you are adding and extending.
Thats not to say that is wrong. Its a design decision whether or not to include such descriptions in the name. But if the original version doesnt have it then a translated version wouldnt either.
One argument for having simply the program name Htop and not the longer version including a description of what it is, is that the menus become convoluted. And once the user knows what Htop does, the description becomes redundant and irrelevant to display each and every time the user opens the menu. So, like Brian was indicating, a manual that includes a descripton of each program in the menu would be the usual way to convey the information.
My point is that its more of a design issue than a translation issue. Once a design is decided upon a translation would simply translate.
Brian Masinick
Documentation is a good thing to have. Unfortunately not that many people are really good at it. Most works are either incomplete or too verbose. I tend to err myself with too much information.
A good way to overcome lack of information and document bloat is to:
1) create a list of the functions and tasks you want to accomplish.
I like a short list, either a bullet list or at most 1-2 sentences for each function.
2) once the list is constructed add a brief description of the inputs, outputs and primary activity for each item in the list.
Unless it’s a complex system that’s enough to begin working. If it turns out you need something else, take the time to outline it, following the same simple process.
I think even an advanced project can be broken into components that can be assembled in a similar manner. When all of them are complete, you’re done and you have usable pieces along the way that may be reused again and again.
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Brian MasinickBrian Masinick
That sounds like project mumbo jumbo but I think it’s applicable to writing, localization and general development.
Even deeply detailed work ought to be broken into stuff that can be completed in hours or days, not months or years.
Only an entire project may take extended periods of time. The last operating system release I worked on had something like 19 base levels. I think I left the project around the 15th base level and the basics definitely worked.
The smallest interval was the nightly build as far as the full project. Some teams contributed to the nightly build every day, particularly kernel development. Occasionally a build would fail, and often another build with a fix would be generated the same day and definitely there was priority to ensure that the next nightly build worked.
I usually had two, sometimes three workstations from which I could test a nightly, weekly or stable build and we also had several servers containing stable released software. When you have resources available that’s an example of what you can do.
In our case we accomplish this through the collective contributions of the community.
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Brian Masinickmarcelocripe
I think you are going beyond translation and into “explanation” when you start adding info about each program in the menus.
Because that’s exactly what is done in books, movie dubbing and cartoons. In the movies, we hear “Verção Brasileira XYZ”, where “XYZ” is the name of the company that dubbed for the “pt_BR” language. If you’ve never watched a foreign film dubbed into your language, then you’ll never understand the difference between a headless and headless (or meaningless) machine translation and an adaptation of the translation, where the initial information in a foreign language has been shaped or adapted so that most speakers of the target language will be able to understand without having to search the internet. A good example of this is the animated series of the Japanese version, called “Saint Seiya” which was adapted into “The Knights of the Zodiac” (in Portuguese-speaking countries). The first dubbing was very bad, because the video and audio that the dubbing company received was a Spanish version, this led to several errors in the Brazilian dubbing. After the huge success of “The Knights of the Zodiac”, a new dubbing was made, but this time with the source language which is the Japanese language. The result was a hugely successful second in the series. The dubbing of the “Yu Yu Hakusho” series is the best of all, as there are no Brazilians who like the Japanese series who did not like the adaptation and the Brazilian version.
Why did I write all this text?
Because, you need to understand that for each people, country and culture, a different form is necessary for full communication.
And once the user knows what Htop does, the description becomes redundant and irrelevant to display each and every time the user opens the menu.
About the translations of the menus in the molds that I’m implementing, I need you to know that I didn’t invent this model and that I’m just following a model that I believe is perfect for the “pt_BR” language. This model is didactic and is what works perfectly for people here in Brazil. If, at some point in the future, one or more Brazilians come to complain about these models, it’s because they already know exactly what each program is for just by reading its name. When that happens, I believe I will no longer be here alive to see this miracle happen. Perhaps, when that happens all these users will be mastering the English language and translations are no longer necessary for these people and they will use antiX with the default language which is “en_US”.
I know in the Telegram and WhatsApp groups a few Brazilians who master the English language and do not use antiX in the “pt_BR” language, these people usually already master the Terminal and it doesn’t matter to them if zzzFM is installed or if it is translated. The translations are not intended for people who are at this level of knowledge about GNU/Linux and antiX.
The translations are intended for people who have no knowledge of GNU/Linux or antiX. They are intended for people like Teotonio, Rodrigo, felipecardope, both Matheus, Ydek, Boy, Vania, for me and for many other Brazilians who want and need to have antiX translated.Your argument serves your own vision and in your language, however BobC’s wife is a native English speaker and doesn’t understand the programs just by reading her name in the antiX menus (unfortunately I couldn’t find the thread where BobC wrote exactly his wife’s difficulty in using antiX). The other day a native English speaker tried to remove (or uninstall) antiX by clicking on the “antiX autoremove” menu. Do I need to give another example?
Whoever designed the structure of the “Name”, “GenericName” and “Comment” entries is probably not a good communicator and has not thought that in other languages this structure does not work and does not achieve full communication.
I’ll repeat here, program names are not translated and they are placed at the end of the sentence, as this is the natural order in my language. Brazilians hated the absurd amount of menus that had “MX anything”, when I corrected and translated them, we no longer had complaints like this “… that so much MX has in the menus, this is very annoying to read.” . It doesn’t matter to us if it’s Chromium or Firefox, what matters to us is having written “Chromium Internet Browser” and “Firefox Internet Browser”, that is, duly organized in alphabetical order. This is my language and my culture, whether you respect it or not, it will change absolutely nothing for more than 216 million people. However, I can only speak on behalf of the people who are present in the Telegram and WhatsApp groups of the Brazilian antiX Linux community.
Your thinking about communication between people cannot be restricted to your country, language or culture.
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I think you are going beyond translation and into “explanation” when you start adding info about each program in the menus.
Pois é exatamente isso que é feito em livros, dublagem de filmes e de desenhos animados. Nos filmes, nós ouvimos “versão Brasileira XYZ”, onde “XYZ” é o nome da empresa que dublou para o dioma “pt_BR”. Se você nunca assistiu um filem estrangeiro dublado em seu idioma, então você nunca irá compreender a diferença entre uma tradução automática sem pé e sem cabeça (ou sem sentido) de uma adaptação da tradução, onde a informação inicial em um idioma estrangeiro foi moldada ou adaptada para que a maioria dos falantes do idioma de destino sejam capazes de compreenderem sem ter que pesquisar na internet. Um bom exemplo disso é a série animada da versão Japonesa, chamada “Saint Seiya” que foi adaptada para “Os Cavaleiros do Zodíaco” (nos países lusófonos). A primeira dublagem foi muito ruim, porque o vídeo e o áudio que a empresa de dublagem recebeu foi uma versão Espanhola, isso acarretou diversos erros na dublagem Brasileira. Após o enorme sucesso dos “Os Cavaleiros do Zodíaco”, foi feita uma nova dublagem, mas desta vez tendo como fonte o idioma original que é o idioma Japonês. O resultado foi um segundo enorme sucesso da série. A dublagem da série “Yu Yu Hakusho” é a melhor de todas, pois não há Brasileiros que gostem das séries japonesas que não tenham gostado da adaptação e da versão Brasileira.
Por que eu escrevi todo este texto?
Porque, você precisa compreender que para cada povo, país e cultura uma forma diferente se faz necessária para que a comunicação seja plena.
And once the user knows what Htop does, the description becomes redundant and irrelevant to display each and every time the user opens the menu.
Sobre as traduções dos menus nos moldes que eu estou implementando, eu preciso que você saiba que eu não inventei este modelo e que eu apenas estou seguindo um modelo que acredito ser perfeito para o idioma “pt_BR”. Este modelo é didático e é o que funciona perfeitamente para as pessoas daqui do Brasil. Se em algum momento no futuro, um ou mais Brasileiros vierem a reclamar destes modelos, é porque eles já sabem exatamente para que serve cada um dos programas apenas lendo o seu nome. Quando isto acontecer, eu acredito que eu não estarei mais aqui vivo para ver este milagre acontecendo. Talvez, quando isso acontecer todos estes usuários estarão dominando o idioma Inglês e as traduções já não são mais necessárias para estas pessoas e eles irão utilizar o antiX com o idioma padrão que é o “en_US”.
Eu conheço nos grupos de Telegram e WhatsApp alguns poucos Brasileiros que dominam o idioma Inglês e não utilizam o antiX em idioma “pt_BR”, estas pessoas normalmente já dominam o Terminal e pouco importa para elas se o zzzFM está instalado ou se está traduzido. As traduções não são destinadas as pessoas que estão neste nível de conhecimento sobre o GNU/Linux e sobre o antiX.
As traduções são destinadas para as pessoas que não possuem conhecimentos sobre o GNU/Linux ou sobre o antiX. São destinadas para pessoas como o Teotonio, o Rodrigo, o felipecardope, os dois Matheus, o Ydek, o Boy, a Vania, para mim e para tantos outros Brasileiros que querem e precisam ter o antiX traduzido.O seu argumento atende a sua própria visão e em seu idioma, contudo a esposa do BobC é uma nativa do idioma Inglês e não compreende os programas apenas lendo o seu nome nos menus do antiX (infelizmente eu não consegui encontrar o tópico onde o BobC escreveu exatamente a dificuldade da esposa dele em utilizar o antiX). Outro dia um nativo do idioma Inglês tentou remover (ou desinstalar) o antiX clicando no menu “antiX autoremove”. Será que eu preciso dar mais algum outro exemplo?
Quem projetou a estrutura das entradas “Name”, “GenericName” e “Comment” provavelmente não é um bom comunicador e não pensou que em outros idiomas esta estrutura não funciona e não atinge uma comunicação plena.
Eu vou repetir aqui, os nomes dos programas não são traduzidos e eles são posicionados no final da frase, pois é esta a ordem natural em meu idioma. O Brasileiros odiavam a quantidade absurda de menus que tinham “MX qualquer coisa”, quando eu os corrigi e os traduzi, não tivemos mais as reclamações como esta “… que tanto MX tem nos menus, isso é muito chato de ler.”. Para nós pouco importa se é o Chromium ou o Firefox, o que importa para nós é ter escrito “Navegador de Internet Chromium” e “Navegador de Internet Firefox”, ou seja, devidamente organizados em ordem alfabética. Este é o meu idioma e a minha cultura, você respeitando isso ou não, não mudará absolutamente nada para mais de 216 milhões de pessoas. Contudo, eu só posso falar em nome das pessoas que estão presentes nos grupos de Telegram e WhatsApp da comunidade Brasileira do antiX Linux.
O seu pensamento sobre a comunicação entre as pessoas não pode ficar restrito ao seu país, idioma ou cultura.
marcelocripe
The main question I didn’t get here, which was to know the meaning of the word “coper” when referring to a theme or an appearance.
I know several phrases in my language that if translated into other languages will not make complete sense to a foreign person, however, I can explain several expressions, including those that were created miles away from where I live.
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A questão principal eu não obtive aqui, que foi saber o sentido da palavra “coper” quando se refere a um tema ou a uma aparência.
Eu conheço diversas frases em meu idioma que se forem traduzidas para outros idiomas não farão sentido completo para uma pessoa estrangeira, contudo, eu consigo explicar diversas expressões, inclusive as que foram criadas há quilômetros de distância da onde eu resido.
Brian Masinick
The other day a native English speaker tried to remove (or uninstall) antiX by clicking on the “antiX autoremove” menu.
Actually this is exactly the way you’ll find the very string being translated in antiX 22: „antiX automatisch vom Gerät entfernen” = “automatically remove antiX from your system”.
I have never felt like removing antiX, so I never have used it, and so I didn’t even know it won’t remove antiX, as the original name suggests. Keeping the original program name untranslated won’t make things any better: Everybody (well, only the ones able to read English language) in our country will translate this English term to „remove antiX automatically” on his own.
Another example might be cherry tree. Everybody will guess this is a special tool for farmers, e.g. for optimising the harvesting date or avoiding over-fertilising of the cherry-plantage. Who would expect to find a note taking application behind this? And now think of somebody who needs to look up the two words ”cherry” and „tree” in a dictionary first to get an idea what could be meant? He will be perfectly confused. Program names like that render the antiX program menu a pure chaos to non native English speakers, the worse when these names are not translated and a very brief description what actually will happen when clicking is added. (This would be different when tooltips were available in the menus in which the explanations then show up while hovering on an entry)
Please understand: Big concerns/corporations put lots of money into advertising and public relations to force their English product naming get common among people of foreign countries, including how to pronounce it. This is probably the single reason why Windows is called Windows everywhere in the world, otherwise we’d say Fenster for it. Btw, for somebody well trained in immediate understanding English language it sounds ridiculous all the same, while people not understanding English language are better off, for them it’s just a meaningless combination of syllables used as a name, just like in this conversation:
Q: What is the gostak? A: The gostak is what distims the doshes. Q: What's distimming? A: Distimming is what the gostak does to the doshes. Q: Okay, but what are doshes? A: The doshes are what the gostak distims.(by Andrew Ingraham, 1903)
This is how people not understanding English language feel when looking into antiX menus with untranslated program name entries.
Linux doesn’t have any advertising directors or public relations departments, so the silly names won’t have a chance to get commonly associated to the programs or even understood. So if you want to have a linux system usable not only for the linux nerds, you need to supply an intuitive accessibility to the items provided within the menus (what is one of the first things people will be aware of) by using names they can immediately understand in their language. And you may apply the original (in most cases English) program names as an addition, allowing for international correspondence when talking about it e.g. in a forum. Please keep in mind, you exclude a huge group of people by not translating, without any need. They even can’t pronounce what they find in the menus without this.
Last point: Why excluding 50-70 Percent of people in foreign countries from understanding by not translating (only seemingly) simple things like “red theme”, “celadon theme”, “russet theme” and “copper theme” to „Rotes Design”, „Blaßgraugrünes Design” (or better: „Mattgrünes Design”) and „Dunkelrotbraunes Design” (or better simply: „Rotbraunes Design”) and „Kupferfarbenes Design” which everybody knows immediately what colour it will do when you click on it? Even well trained non native English speakers won’t ever know all your shades names of colours (maybe except for painting artists having studied abroad). Don’t expect people to learn them in English!
Windows is like a submarine. Open a window and serious problems will start.
blur13
I agree with you both Marcelo and Robin. My point is that this is the exact same problem in the original english language version as well. How many english speakers know beforehand what CheeryTree does? Or Htop? Or Gparted? So the tradeoff is the same. Keep the menus simple and require the user to look up the programs that are unfamiliar. Or, include a brief description in the menu name. A faithful translation would render the menu just like the original, but with english words translated. If you add more information then you are no longer translating but also making changes to the original design. This could be beneficial. Just like it might be beneficial to make the same changes in the original language. But this is more of a preference than an issue of translation.
Brian Masinick
I agree with you both Marcelo and Robin. My point is that this is the exact same problem in the original english language version as well. How many english speakers know beforehand what CheeryTree does? Or Htop? Or Gparted? So the tradeoff is the same. Keep the menus simple and require the user to look up the programs that are unfamiliar. Or, include a brief description in the menu name. A faithful translation would render the menu just like the original, but with english words translated. If you add more information then you are no longer translating but also making changes to the original design. This could be beneficial. Just like it might be beneficial to make the same changes in the original language. But this is more of a preference than an issue of translation.
You’re right, of course. Keep in mind that we not only have a small distribution in the size of the image and the applications, we also have one of the smallest development teams.
They rank high in talent but like the rest of us they have other things to do. While they are very interested in putting effective things in our distribution they also want it to be efficient.
If we add additional features we need help so is anyone able and willing to help with a change, should we add descriptions to each application?
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Brian Masinickmarcelocripe
I’m going to call it Copper, a metal and a color like a copper penny.
Thank you mr. Brian, now I have peace of mind to make the merge request with the translation “pt_BR”.
Keep the menus simple and require the user to look up the programs that are unfamiliar.
The short answer to your comment is: “All programs”.
A faithful translation would render the menu just like the original, but with english words translated.
Unfortunately, communication doesn’t work this way. In the English language, you use the same word for a thousand different situations, whereas in my language this same word can be translated with a thousand different words, but only one word in my language will be understood for that specific function or action.
Your words confirm for me that you cannot understand that a literal translation does not guarantee that the target language can be understood. It seems your vision is still limited to “design” and not to communication, which are totally different goals.
The word “and” in English is in my language “and”. Whereas word “the” in my language can be “o” (masculine) or “a” (feminine).
The word “without” in English is in my language “without”. Whereas the word “wit” in my language might be “inteligência” or “perspicácia” or “engenhosidade” or “sagacidade” or “espírito” or “astúcia” or “entendimento” or “juízo” or “agudeza”, etc.Which of these words should I use? It depends on the context, but for me to be able to understand the context, the original sentence needs to be clear and unambiguous. So, it can’t just be an automatic translation, like the texts I send you because I don’t know how to read or write in English.
If we add additional features we need help so is anyone able and willing to help with a change, should we add descriptions to each application?
Wallon already brought us the solution to display the text of the translated “Comment” entry in the JWM menus, but this requires a lot of ingenuity to be implemented automatically for all languages and still be able to be disabled for veterans who will not want this feature activated.
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I’m going to call it Copper, a metal and a color like a copper penny.
Obrigado sr. Brian, agora eu tenho tranquilidade para fazer o pedido de mesclagem com a tradução “pt_BR”.
Keep the menus simple and require the user to look up the programs that are unfamiliar.
A resposta curta para o seu comentário é: “Todos os programas”.
A faithful translation would render the menu just like the original, but with english words translated.
Infelizmente, a comunicação não funciona desta maneira. No idioma Inglês, vocês utilizam uma mesma palavra para mil situações diferentes, enquanto que em meu idioma esta mesma palavra pode ser traduzida com mil palavras diferentes, mas só uma palavra no meu idioma será compreendida para aquela função ou ação específica.
As suas palavras confirmam para mim que você não consegue compreender que uma tradução ao pé da letra não garante que o idioma de destino possa ser compreendido. Ao que parece a sua visão continua limita ao “design” e não com a comunicação, que são objetivos totalmente diferentes.
A palavra “and” em Inglês é em meu idioma “e”. Ao passo que palavra “the” em meu idioma pode ser “o” (masculino) ou “a” (feminino).
A palavra “without” em Inglês é em meu idioma “sem”. Ao passo que palavra “wit” em meu idioma pode ser “inteligência” ou “perspicácia” ou “engenhosidade” ou “sagacidade” ou “espírito” ou “astúcia” ou “entendimento” ou “juízo” ou “agudeza”, etc.Qual destas palavras eu deverei utilizar? Depende do contexto, mas para eu conseguir compreender o contexto a frase original precisa ser clara e não pode ser ambígua. Então, não pode ser apenas uma tradução automática, como são os textos que eu envio para vocês porque eu não sei ler ou escrever em idioma Inglês.
If we add additional features we need help so is anyone able and willing to help with a change, should we add descriptions to each application?
O Wallon já nos trouxe a solução para exibir o texto da entrada “Comment” traduzidas nos menus do JWM, mas isso requer muita engenhosidade para ser implementada de forma automática para todos os idiomas e ainda poder ser desativada para os veteranos que não irão querer este recurso ativado.
blur13
Reminds me of Robert Frost’s remark that “poetry is what is lost in translation”.
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