When internationalization can be confusing

[B98]

Hi,

the work done on adding support for locally spoken languages is much appreciated. Still, that's also a source of oddities that can become time consuming, see below. Short question: What sources do you use for national languages, and is everything that was translated also covered by the various translation.xml files? How could I fix things locally, or contribute suggestions?

Using oXygen XML Editor requires that I perform several ad-hoc translations myself, back and forth: first, read the help text in English, or remember XML vocabulary. That tends to be English, too. Then, try to guess what the technical terms might be in the local language, and then, finally, see if I can find the guess in the UI. When no official translations have been used for oXygen, or for XML terms, or when speakers of a national language will typically use the original technical term, i.e. English, then finding anything the UI becomes difficult. (I do know I could switch the UI to English. Technically.)

One puzzling example that I have seen is this: "Verbosity" of messages generated when resolving via XML catalogs. The current (18.1) translation of "Verbosity" here is confusingly given as "Wortarten" (DE). This is actually the plural of "kind of word". When verbosity of the resolver/parser is meant, "kinds of words" would be a misnomer, too:

Code: Select all

Kinds of Words: () None  () Unresolved Entities  () All Messages

the context being Options > XML > XML Catalog. Other examples need less thinking, but the overload (both senses) is present.

(If you can influence the translation of "verbosity", copying from one actual option, viz. "all messages", is perhaps good enough, but again, IANATranslator.)

[Radu]

Hi,

Please see some answers below:

What sources do you use for national languages, and is everything that was translated also covered by the various translation.xml files? How could I fix things locally, or contribute suggestions?

We have about 5 XML configuration files, each containing various keys, each key with various messages translated in the languages that we support.
If you want to review the German translations, you can write to support@oxygenxml.com.
The German translation was usually done using a specialized company but we realized that the translators did not know much about software so some translations sounded bad.
So one of our German users offered to take the translation task, he also went through some of the messages (they are quite many) and reviewed them.

Using oXygen XML Editor requires that I perform several ad-hoc translations myself, back and forth: first, read the help text in English, or remember XML vocabulary. That tends to be English, too. Then, try to guess what the technical terms might be in the local language, and then, finally, see if I can find the guess in the UI. When no official translations have been used for oXygen, or for XML terms, or when speakers of a national language will typically use the original technical term, i.e. English, then finding anything the UI becomes difficult. (I do know I could switch the UI to English. Technically.)

Yes, it would have also been great if our user's manual was in German. But we make so many changes to it all the time and it also has so much content that we somehow are forced to only have it in English.

One puzzling example that I have seen is this: "Verbosity" of messages generated when resolving via XML catalogs. The current (18.1) translation of "Verbosity" here is confusingly given as "Wortarten" (DE). This is actually the plural of "kind of word". When verbosity of the resolver/parser is meant, "kinds of words" would be a misnomer, too:
....

So what exact change should we make here?

Regards,
Radu

[B98]

Hi Radu,

apologies for the delay.

So what exact change should we make here?

In this particular case, I'd consider streamlining: if this setting is about diagnostic messages of the parser, then I think it seems reasonable to imagine the three options as "quantifiers" of messages. There are at least two translations of "messages" in DE, "Nachrichten" and "Meldungen". The former is overloaded and tends to be used for "news" and, technically, in telecommunication, rather abstract and general; also in MoM. The latter, "Meldungen", is more like the sentences that will constitute a "report" in the sense of what is being announced, and is more likely used with compiler messages, I think. So, I'd write something like

Code: Select all

Parsermeldungen: () Keine () Umaufgelöste Entitäten () Alle [Meldungen]

where the bracketed "Meldungen" is repeating part of the compound word before the colon, so it could be dropped in the end, but IANATranslator. A translation of "verbosity" seems hardly possible, since German equivalents, such as "Wortschwall" have retained their derogatory connotation. So, this word, or some other, does not usually appear in technical documentation. In either language, the word is rather unspecific, anyway, …

Also, in general, whenever an English verb is used to command the computer, as in "Prefer: () system () public", it might be better to not use (in DE) the polite form ("Benutzen Sie") of addressing the computer. Rather, use the more familiar singular instead, "Benutze". (You'd also use that form when addressing pets or young kids.) Then it becomes clear that any phrase using "{verb} Sie" is addressing the user.

[Radu]

Great,

Thanks for taking the time to explain this, I will add an issue on our side to rectify things.
If you find anything else please tell us. You can also use the Oxygen Help menu->Report problem to send us quick messages about various changes.

Regards,
Radu