Re: [opensuse-translation] Error messages translation

2007/10/24, Stanciu-Lixandru Alec <stanciulixandru@gmail.com>:
On Wednesday 24 October 2007 12:57:49 you wrote:
Can you give an explaining example, please? I have no idea how is the translation loosing meaning in your language. And I don't understand Romanian. Regards Ladislav Let me try. NOTE: I will try to explain in square brackets the meaning of the romanian words
File: /trunk/lcn/ro/po/apparmor-parser.ro
1. Original string (msgid): PANIC bad increment buffer %p pos %p ext %p size %d res %p\n Translated string (msgstr): PANICĂ [as in fear in case of emergency] creştere [as in increase, no bad meaning here] greşită [best meaning for bad in this case] tampon [as in a means or device used as a cushion against the shock of fluctuations. The word has a meaning in IT in the phrase 'memory buffer' but not as a standalone 'buffer']
2. Original string (msgid): Conflict 'a' and 'w' perms are mutually exclusive. Translated string (msgstr): Conflict [the same meaning as in English] 'a' şi 'w' permanente [here 'permanente' is a noun meaning something which has stability, permanence and blows off the meaning of the translation in Romanian] se exclud reciproc.
There are many more phrases/words which can loose the meaning when translated in Romanian (I'm speaking only of error messages). If you take into consideration that: - there are no standards/rules in my country regarding the translation of IT words/phrases (ex: for the mouse (pointing device) we have 'maus' / 'şoricel' / 'mouse') - most of the IT people have a good command of English language (even if there is only the understanding part of it :D) - those who use the computer for the daily use (e-mail, web browsing, gaming, multimedia, office productivity) are trained the way monkeys are trained (you want to do this then click here then here and then here and you have saved your file, without of the slightest explanation of the meaning of their actions) - MS WIndows translation is something we have a good laugh about due to the funny and misleading meaning - we are trying (by translating) to make the openSUSE a friendly and usefull OS for the Romanian people then what shall we do? Leave the error messages as they are OR translate what has meaning and leave the rest of them in English thus resulting in Romglish (you know, like Spanglish :D) OR translate the way MS did and give people another good laugh? My vote is 65% for leaving the error messages in English and 35% for the Romglish version. What do you think?
The best way how to translate strings is to use a sentence which will have the same meaning for the people regardless how you translate it. I sometimes totally change the sentence and use a longer description for some IT words which have no equivalent in Slovak. Then it is understandable for non IT people who even don't understand English. They start to feel comfortable if they don't see foreign words, even if they don't understand everything because they lack a knowledge e.g. what is memory controller. But they think it speaks their language to them. And that's the point I think. Well, it has one side effect. People who uses often English version of the software and suddenly switch to native language just wonders how the words are translated. They aren't familiar with it. This need only time. We don't have such problems like mouse can be translated three ways. Some funny mistakes appears sometimes. For example: somebody translated RSS feeder like "RSS krmítko" [feeder, but only for animals]. To preserve the meaning the better translation we use is "čítačka RSS kanálov" [the reader of RSS channel] . The meaning is similar but not the same. I would advice you to make a wiki web page where anybody could write a Romanian translation of IT English words to unite which words would be used for. Involve as many (not only IT) people in your country as you can. BTW. the biggest problem for us is that some English words has more meanings so it should be translated differently in one case than in other. The result is sometimes you see a nonsense word in an application.
Yours, Alec
Regards Ladislav.

Дана среда 24 октобар 2007, Ladislav Michnovič је написао:
The best way how to translate strings is to use a sentence which will have the same meaning for the people regardless how you translate it. I sometimes totally change the sentence and use a longer description for some IT words which have no equivalent in Slovak.
One nice saying / joke about this problem: "Translation is much like a woman; if it's beautiful, it's not faithful, if it is faithful, it's not beautiful" Faithful = literal... There must be some accommodations if we intend not to be just another good laugh ;-) -- Стојте, галије царске! Спутајте крме моћне! Газите тихим ходом! Опело гордо држим у доба језе ноћне Над овом светом водом. http://www.cirilica.org/dokumenti/dokumenti.jezik.html
participants (2)
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Ladislav Michnovič
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Жарко Михајловић