Re: GNOME Lovers Needed: l10n work for locations database

[Jan Morén <jan moren lucs lu se>]

tis 2004-12-14 klockan 14:31 +0000 skrev Alan Horkan:
> On Tue, 14 Dec 2004 danilo gnome org wrote:
> 
> > Date: Tue, 14 Dec 2004 01:44:33 +0100
> > From: danilo gnome org
> > To: Alan Horkan <horkana maths tcd ie>
> > Cc: GNOME I18N List <gnome-i18n gnome org>, gnome-love gnome org,
> >      GNOME Desktop Development List <desktop-devel-list gnome org>,
> >      gnome-utils-list gnome org
> > Subject: Re: GNOME Lovers Needed: l10n work for locations database
> >
> > Hi Alan,
> >
> > Yesterday at 21:50, Alan Horkan wrote:
> >
> > > Ideally translators should use standard grammar common to both if at
> > > all possible.
> >
> > Are you talking about translators or programmers here?
> 
> Well ideally programmers would use standard English common to British and
> American but in reality that doesn't always happen so I would hope that
> translators would try to fix the originals where possible (programmers,
> trust the translators) rather than creating unnecessary localisations.

Of course, the issue of "inter-country common words" or not will affect
perhaps two or three teams out of some fifty or more. And they will
still have to actually look at each string to determine if it still
needs translation or can be copied straight.

I'd say it's far more important to be consistent and to choose words
that really represent what you want to say in a clear manner. Oh, and
please avoid passive voice when you can. And never use the word "tile"
as a verb - it's hopeless to get right in Swedish :)


> That you need to ask should serve as evidence of what a bad idea it was to
> crosspost to four lists.

At least nobody is in doubt the i18n people are hard at work :)


-- 
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
 
Tel. (Japan) 090-3622 8920            Dr. Jan Morén (mr)
                                      Dept. of Cognitive Science
http://lucs.lu.se/people/jan.moren    Lund, Sweden