Forum .LRN Q&A: Spanish Translation Info

Posted by Windell Dubois on 06/10/03 05:11 PM

Id like to know what must I do to get translation package(s), I need it for a Spanish version of dotLRN Im working on, but I dont know where to get it, or how to install or use it, detailed information about this would be greatly apreciated.

Also, what do I have to do or who do I have to talk to to be a part of the translation editing team? Ive seen some typeos on the spanish translation, and I would be glad to help out in correcting them. Thanks.

Windell Dubois.

2: Re: Spanish Translation Info (response to 1)

Posted by Rocael Hernández Rizzardini on 06/10/03 05:25 PM

http://translate.dotlrn.collaboraid.net/

ask for permission to do that.

3: Re: Spanish Translation Info (response to 1)

Posted by Windell Dubois on 06/10/03 06:58 PM

where or who do I have to ask permission to?

4: Re: Spanish Translation Info (response to 1)

Posted by Rocael Hernández Rizzardini on 06/10/03 08:45 PM

to 'Peter Marklund' mailto:peter@collaboraid.biz

5: Re: Spanish Translation Info (response to 1)

Posted by Carl Robert Blesius on 06/10/03 09:21 PM

I have added you to the translation team Windell.

There are some instruction on the index page of the server.

The translation admin interface is here:
http://translate.dotlrn.collaboraid.net/acs-lang/admin/

Please stay within the languages that you know (we will eventually add some infrastructure to support small teams of translators, right now we are all one big team which can be dangerous).

You can get the newest language packs from Peter after you are finished cleaning up Spanish.

Carl

6: Re: Spanish Translation Info (response to 1)

Posted by Windell Dubois on 06/16/03 05:56 PM

I believe Spanish is almost completely clean now, Ive been checking it out, and it seems to be ready, but there are some things that are bothering me, like the "male approach" given to some phrases, I understand that its due to the nature of the languaje, but it would be wise to change them to what I would call "unisex approach". I didnt want to start on this before I got some response from other members who worked on the translation as well.

Also I would like to ask for a copy of the package so I could test it live.

Windell Dubois.

7: Re: Spanish Translation Info (response to 1)

Posted by Emmanuelle Raffenne on 06/17/03 10:59 AM

Hi Windell,

In the spanish translation (and other contexts), we assume that the "male form" is used as the neutral form too. On the other hand, writing all words, like "usuario/a" or "usuaria/o" (which one should come first, male or female?), in the 2 gender forms maybe can result in a difficult reading. My personal opinion, it's that it's not really important but if you think that it would be more correct to write the 2 genders forms, for me, it's ok.

8: Re: Spanish Translation Info (response to 6)

Posted by Malte Sussdorff on 06/17/03 11:26 AM

I'd say that making a unisex approach complicate matters considerably. Same is true for formal/informal style of translation. For the stock OpenACS I'd vote to have a male/formal translation, but as you can change this you could have a female/informal translation whenever you need it (e.g. for a shopping site for Young Miss). Which brings me to the dialect and metaphors used. We should stay with the language officially taught at ".... for foreigner" classes. This way we circumwent problems with e.g. Spanish Spanish and Argentinian Spanish. Furthermore we do not get into local dialects (e.g. German, Swiss and Austrian German). And last but not least it is a matter of style. You most likely want to have a translation that suits your target group (a site for kids will definitly use a different language than one designated to elderly people). Though this primarily affects content, it might also affect the translation of embeded phrases.

9: Re: Spanish Translation Info (response to 8)

Posted by Tilmann Singer on 06/17/03 02:19 PM

Malte, I'm not sure if spanish and german can be compared in this matter. What I know for sure though is that in german the gender neutral form is standard, even required, in a lot of contexts like NGOs and universities (unless it's only about professors of which the majority are still male unfortunately, at least where I studied).

I know that you don't mean it that way, but in your post it sounds like you are implying there is only choice between male/formal and a female/informal style. Let me emphasize that there is also a _gender neutral_ style in german, which won't sound annoying or informal if the translator applies a little thought and stays coherent.

I'm working on a site for a free radio, on which it would be unthinkable to use the old fashioned male form, and I think that is not the only project with this requirement. I think the conclusion of the related discussion on dotlrn translation was to avoid gender specific phrases whenever possible, but I can't remember what has been decided for those cases where it's not possible to avoid - I sincerely hope that we use a neutral form for those.

10: Re: Spanish Translation Info (response to 1)

Posted by David Arroyo Menéndez on 06/17/03 04:52 PM

Sometimes in spanish we can choose unisex and formal language forms. For example, we can say "los alumnos" or "el alumnado". This forms have interest due to that it is more simple than "los/as alumnos/as" or "las alumnas y alumnos" or similar.

11: Re: Spanish Translation Info (response to 1)

Posted by Windell Dubois on 06/17/03 05:20 PM

Thank you for your responses, Ive taken into consideration all of your points of view, and I mostly agree with you. In fact, there is a genderless formal way to approach the translation. The thing is, I would have to switch from the original wording of the phrases, which are in a gender-oriented manner, to an equivalent all-gender form. e.g. "Are you sure you want to delete file X" must be translated in a gender-oriented way, whereas "Do you confirm your desire to delete file X" can be translated in the all-gender form. I wouldnt change the original wording, of course, I would just use the changed form in the translation. But this presents another issue, not all gender-oriented phrases can be changed to the all-gender form, in that case, what would you recomend? Sticking with the male formal wording?

12: Re: Spanish Translation Info (response to 1)

Posted by Jon Griffin on 06/17/03 06:38 PM

I don't think even in Politically Correct portions of the world many would take offense at a male gendered translatation. I would even argue that in all the Spanish speaking countries I have visited/lived in it is the norm.

The translation to me should not be like they teach in the Spanish for non-speakers classes. Those classes also depend on who is teaching and what part of the world they are in (i.e. in Southwest USA you will probably be taught in a Mexican/Central American dialect. Camarones not Gambas for example).

The first time my wife heard Gambas (on our trip to Galicia) she had to ask what it was. The word simply meant nothing to a Cuban (or Mexican for that matter).

Spanish is a tough language to translate because there are so many dialects. I would suggest a Castillian version and if dialects are supported (I don't remember if that is done yet) Mexican and Argentinean or some other representation that covers the major geographical areas.

My non-native speakers 2 cents, fwiw.

13: Re: Spanish Translation Info (response to 1)

Posted by Robert Locke on 06/18/03 04:19 AM

<blockquote> "Are you sure you want to delete file X" must be
translated in a gender-oriented way, whereas "Do you
confirm your desire to delete file X" can be translated
in the all-gender form.
</blockquote>

How is the first sentence gender-oriented? Wouldn't it simply be translated to: "Estas seguro que quieres quitar el file X" or something like that? The second one would be something like: "Confirmas tu deseo de quitar el file X?".

I guess you could use the more formal "Ud", but I'm not sure I see the gender difference between the two sentences, except that the first is clearer. Could you clarify?

Ofcourse it could have something to do with the fact that I didn't pay enough attention in class. =)

14: Re: Spanish Translation Info (response to 13)

Posted by Oscar Bonilla on 06/18/03 04:41 PM

Robert:
In the first case you would write "Estas seguro" for males and "Estas segura" for females. In the second case "Confirmas tu deseo de quitar
el archivo X" there are no gender dependent words.

I think gender neutral would generally work with people, even when
rewording is necessary. What I don't know how to handle are things
like classes and departments. Sometimes the same transaltions are
reused and we end up with "Asignatura nuevo" which is wrong (should
be "Asignatura nueva") and "Departamento nuevo" which is right. This comes from the fact that the "new" part is translated as "nuevo" without considering what we're creating. A better solution would be to change
the whole phrase (at least in spanish) to "Add Department" and "Add Subject" which could both be translated as "Agregar Departamento" and "Agregar Asignatura". The latter phrases are gender neutral, so Windrell's Idea is a good one.

15: Re: Spanish Translation Info (response to 1)

Posted by David Arroyo Menéndez on 06/18/03 08:59 PM

Hi!

I'm entusiastic with this thread due to that the gender question is an important and dificult problem in the spanish language.

Oscar:

I don't think that exist gender problem when we refer to things.

Jon:

Don't worry about the spanish of other countries that isn't Spain. We can use the locale using es_country thanks to http://ftp.ics.uci.edu/pub/ietf/http/related/iso3166.txt. I think that it's the norm.

16: Re: Spanish Translation Info (response to 15)

Posted by Oscar Bonilla on 06/18/03 10:58 PM

David,

I disagree. The gender problem exists even for things since things in spanish have gender. House is female while cat is male. Department is male while class is female. Reading "Asignatura nuevo" is unnatural and looks like a typo. We should strive to get it "right".

Regarding locales, we should copy & paste as much as we can between spanish from Spain and latin amercian spanish, but there are differences. Some words are so uncommon among a particular group that I'm sure they would have problems understanding. For instance, while in spain a computer is usually called "El ordenador" in Latin America it is "La computadora" and most people not familiar with the former would have a hard time understanding just what an "ordenador" is.

Regards,

-Oscar

17: Re: Spanish Translation Info (response to 14)

Posted by Robert Locke on 06/19/03 04:50 AM

<blockquote> In the first case you would write "Estas seguro" for
males and "Estas segura" for females.
</blockquote>

Yes, ofcourse, you are right.

Quick question: what does Spanish MS Windows say? For instance, when you try to delete a file. Or when it confirms any action.

From what I remember, when you are referring to a mixed crowd of males and females, you use "ellos". So, the masculine form becomes the gender neutral default, so to speak. I guess I assumed this was also the case when you are addressing a single person of unknown gender. But I guess not.

18: Re: Spanish Translation Info (response to 1)

Posted by Windell Dubois on 06/20/03 05:29 PM

Well, if I remember correctly, the Spanish version of MS Windows uses the male single form as the gender neutral form, (e.g. when creating a new file or folder) but it also uses gender neutral phrases, (e.g. when you want to delete a file or folder), and it doesnt look so good because its so ambiguous, so Ill begin using gender neutral forms in the translations. I hope I can get the job done before next week, so the translation package can be commited and I can finally get it!!!

Thanks to you all,

Windell.