Re: Translation of program names

[Christian Rose <menthos gnome org>]

fre 2003-10-31 klockan 13.22 skrev Danilo Segan:
> > Also, in GNOME I feel that the general philosphy of "fix the root of
> > the problem instead of doing workarounds" has won a tremendous amount  
> > of terrain among developers. And I think that's a good and healthy
> > philosophy. I think that we as translators definately should follow  
> > that too, and that's why I was worried above that you might be of an  
> > entirely different opinion.
>
> I don't neccessarily consider different styles "bugs" for one simple  
> reason: I expect those to be variations in language, that would make  
> user experience more interesting. I don't think any user will have a  
> problem understanding if she sees messages like:
> "Please update your software"
> "Your software needs updating"
> 
> These are lingustically different sentenses, but any user would  
> understand them the same: suggestion to update the software she's  
> using. So, I don't consider those bugs. Though, I haven't read the user  
> interface guidelines very carefully, so I wonder if I am wrong?

I think you are wrong on this point. Consistency is king in UI design,
and one of the main purposes of the HIG is just to do that; to bring
consistency into GNOME. There should be little room for major or subtle
differences that are just there for the reason of being different and
that has no other purpose in the UI. Such differences usually only add
up to confusion and/or irritation for users, and are rarely percieved as
"exciting". Computers and UI:s are for the vast majority of users simply
tools that one should not have to relearn for every single application. 

And this not only affects the UI but also the messages since those are
tightly related. Computers are tools. Non-technical books are there to
amuse, surprise, excite or otherwise entertain, while technical
literature on the other hand is there to act as references or
instructions that shouldn't surprise but instead be very clear and
consistent and easy to follow. So also for software docs or software UI
messages.

So if you discover seemingly unmotivated differences in style in the
original messages, don't hesitate to report those as bugs.

I can recommend every translator to also read the HIG
(http://developer.gnome.org/projects/gup/hig/), there's lots of good
stuff in there that are relevant also to message design and translation,
even if it isn't mentioned specifically.


> > In addition as a bug reporter I am sometimes wrong, or there might be
> > other good reasons for the style differences that I have overlooked.
> > If I stayed close in style in my translation I'm safe, but not so if  
> > I introduced a "workaround" on my own. Then I might have instead  
> > created a problem where none existed before.
>
> Yes, you *might* have. But why wouldn't you allow for a translator to  
> be really careful, and to more often than not, create a good  
> translation without creating any problems? There certainly will be  
> problems, but we have them anyhow.
> 
> Along the same lines, we might dismiss programming itself, because if  
> you code and you're not careful, you'll create bugs -- bugs that smash  
> your data. So, better not program at all? (Again, I know you're not  
> saying this, but logic you use can lead to this conclusion)

I was discussing workarounds here -- I don't know why you're trying to
extend this to doing translations or developing applications in the
first place.


> > What I call a "change in style" is for example when changing messages
> > from being very straight-forward and technical in the original to
> > being overly descriptive in the translation, or the other way around,  
> > or using an entirely different set of terminology that doesn't really  
> > match the choice of terminology used in the original, and so on.
> 
> As I said above, we might have talked about different "styles" :-)
> 
> Btw, I still even do some of that. For example, even as a long term  
> computer user, I don't see a difference in names like "Host", "Server",  
> "Address", "Location" or similar if you need to input your proxy  
> settings (there's difference in some other contexts, like "Apache  
> Server" or "Sound Server", "File Location", "Email Address"). And yet,  
> developers use them interchangeably. So sometimes, I even change the  
> terminology. I asked before for this to be standardized, but it seemed  
> hard to achieve (not that I'm running away from it). Just like in this  
> example, I think at least some translators are equipped with common  
> sense to know what is different, and what is not.

Again, if you see terminology that is used interchangeably, report that
as bugs.

[ snip more points that are just reiterations of the same things ]


Christian