Quality translations in GNOME

How to enrich the users' experience through a good translation

Sílvia Miranda Sánchez

Who am I?

I am not a developer.I am a translator.

Localisation.From a linguistic point of view.

Intro.What is localising?

Well. Wait. What is translating?

”Translation is the communication of the meaning of a source language text with the

equivalent target language translation (text) to help a reader understand a foreign (source)

language text.”

Wikipedia

Translation

It's been done for ages.

First in stone.

Then in paper.

Now in computers.

”the process of adapting software for a particular geographical region (locale).”

LISA

Localisation (l10n)

Date and time formatsCurrencies

Measurement unitsTerminology

Tone and style

Including:

Why should we care about l10n?

More languages = more users.

Why is it importantto provide good translations?

Why should developerscare about this too?

Bad translations are funny, but not very useful.

Bad impression of the product.

”The lift is being fixed for the next day. during that time we regret that you will be unbearable.”

(in a hotel)

Eat Wikipedia:

(in a menu)

”No entry for heavy good vehicles. Residential site only.”

____________________________________________________”Nid wyf yn y swyddfa ar hyn o byrd. Anfonwch

unrhyw waith i'w giefieithu.”

Which means:

”I am not in the office at the moment. Send any work to be translated.”

(bilingual sign in Wales)

(restaurant name)

Good translations.Requirements.

Good knowledge of the source language.

Excellent knowledge of the target language.

”I am an native english speakerand don't do alot of mistakes,

can I be a translator?”

Ability to paraphrase.

Knowledge of the field.

DOs and DON'Ts

DON'T:

✗ Force people to stay alive.

✗ Tell people to eat Wikipedia.

✗ Ask truck drivers to send you e-mails while they are driving.

✗ Don't rely on MT.

✗ Don't rely solely on bilingual glossaries.

✗ Don't skip the review process.

Or:

DO:

Use glossaries AND specialised dictionaries.

Use open-tran.eu for consistency.

Use translation memories.

Use a style guide.

Keep all the resources in one place. Make them accessible to all translators

and reviewers.

Run the spellchecker. Please.

Review the translation.

Review the translation(yes, twice).

If possible, check the translationin the actual UI.

In documentation, check for consistency with the actual UI options.

Process

Download po file

Translatefile

Self-review

Run QA checks

Run spellcheck

Download po file

Reviewfile

Run QA checks

Run spellcheck

Translator Reviewer

Commit file

Committer

Upload file

Upload file

Tools

Damned lies

Statistics and management

Gedit

Text editor

Gtranslator

CAT tool

Lokalize

CAT tool

Virtaal

CAT tool

Translate-toolkit

Converters, QA tools

TransifexLaunchpad

Pootle

Web tools

Web translations

Nice, but...

...what if our translation teams consistsof very few people? How can we find

good translators?

Money!

Students!

... (suggestions?)

www.silviamiranda.com

silvia.gnome@gmail.com

@silviamira

Questions, suggestions, complaints...

Thanks for coming!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Rosetta_Stone.JPG

http://www.flickr.com/photos/vlashton/1140669128/in/photostream/

http://galeria.badall.net/main.php?g2_itemId=3570

http://galeria.badall.net/main.php?g2_itemId=3574

http://galeria.badall.net/main.php?g2_itemId=3578

http://www.flickr.com/photos/arunjrk/2393439923/

http://ourfounder.typepad.com/leblog/WindowsLiveWriter/Menu.jpg

http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=301

http://www.flickr.com/photos/amagill/3366720659/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/m00by/2539347606/

Fonts: Raleway, Droid Serif, Droid Sans.

Credits