[pmmail-list] German, French, Spanish versions (was: Install 2.20.2200)

[Warner Young]

On Mon, 12 Mar 2001 15:50:55 +0100 (MEZ), Lueko Willms wrote:

>On Sat, 10 Mar 2001 20:07:52 +0100, Henk Hendriks wrote:
>
>> Professionals in software translations with a thorough knowledge of e-mail clients (in this 
>> particular case) AND of the language they translate into (= university degree). That is what I 
>> mean by professionals.
>
>  But I have seen to many bad translations into German, where the DP
>company selected some professional translator who had no or very
>little experience with the product to be translated, and many of
>these translations are really bad. 


Having worked on the developer side and having had to deal with
translation services, I've found that the problem is *usually* a lack
of context.  The translator doesn't have to have experience with the
type of software, if the developer can provide some context for all the
words to translate.


>  For example OS/2 -- when I close an editor session with unsaved
>changes, I'm asked if I want to save the file, and I'm given five
>alternatives to select from: 
>   Save, Save As, Delete, Abort, Help

In this example, I can easily see how "discard" can be translated as
"delete" in some cases.  But if it'd been given to the translator as
"Discard" with a comment that it means "don't save, and ignore all
changes", then perhaps the translator would've gotten it right.

The problem is that a developer can't expect the translators to be
familiar with the software, or even the type of software, all the time.
 It's more work for the developer, of course, but providing that extra
bit of context for things will usually pay off in the end.

Of course, this is all based on my own experience from work.  Your
mileage may vary.


-Warner Young



- pmmail-list - The PMMail Dicussion List ---------------------------
To UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message to mdaemon@bmtmicro.com with the first 
line of the message body being...
UNSUBSCRIBE pmmail-list@blueprintsoftwareworks.com