Discussion Translations

Discussion about Translations

Although this is the german part of the documentation, this page is held in english cause it might be interesting to all translations. And all translators should be able to read this.

On this page we should gather and discuss some points to be considered before we start to translate the english documentation into another language. The first contents is what I picked up from the latest mails within the lists and other mails.

What do you think about it ? Can you support the translations ?

KAL

to be discussed:

how to start

  • get more info from PmWiki.PmWiki Philosophy for this topic
  • have a look to implemented translations (like PmWiki Fr.PmWiki Fr)
  • discuss the topics of this page and find a first solution
  • translate the Documentation Index and refered pages
  • maybe later this page could / should be moved in the development part of PmWiki ?
  • who will contribute this task (for direct access):
    • {{Profiles.KAL}}
    • {{Profiles.mkie}}
    • {{Profiles.bartolin}}

existing pages

Add XL Page(‘de’,’PmWiki De.XL Page’); and get German files, then it works fine.
=> pages should be added to the PmWiki De-Group. {{Profiles.KAL}}
  • I think it would be good if someone checks the translated pages regularly. I guess there won’t be much changes once most pages are translated so one has to check only changed pages. As Pm wrote on the mailing list it would be possible to get a notification by mail every time a page in the PmWiki De-Group has been modified. Someone interested? {{Profiles.bartolin}}
    • yes, I’ll do, asked Pm to setup the email notification {{Profiles.KAL}}
  • Also, it seems senseful to me that a second person cross-checks a page when it is translated the first time. As for the translations I added recently there might be some ‘second-best’ translations. {{Profiles.bartolin}}
    • would be done with the topic above {{Profiles.KAL}}

usage of wikiwords

different approaches:

  1. keeping the original english pagenames, when offered as a link, it can be displayed with german text using the format:
    [[EnglishPagename german Translation]]
I think a nice topic of this solution is the possibility of removing the “De” in the pages URL (e.g. “…/wiki/PmWikiDe/Installation”) to get the original one. So you could easily switch back and forth between two languages.
I would prefer this method to the next. Advantages: No need to find a translation that fits (or if to translate the pagename at all); easier to refer to other pages that might not even be translated yet (simply refer to the english page instead - change to the translated group name as soon as the page is translated). {{Profiles.mkie}}
  1. using translated wikiwords (like it’s done on the french translation, e.g. see: PmWiki Fr.Documentation Index)
  • some remarks from {{Profiles.Pm}} (excerpts from mail in the list):
My general approach to the translation of various pages is the same as the wiki philosophy itself — let those who are doing the work of writing decide how it can best be presented/done. Along with that, I’ve generally left the details of organizing language-specific documentation (including, to some extent, the English documentation) to anyone who’s willing to put forth the effort to write it.
That said, here are some thoughts, for what it’s worth-
  • I think it’s better for page titles to be written in the appropriate language (e.g., PmWikiDe.DokumentationIndex),
  • Translators are very welcome to create group-specific sidebars (PmWikiDe/SideBar),
  • I don’t think there necessarily has to be a one-to-one correspondence between the english version of pages and other versions; other structures might be better/more appropriate

how to translate

  • details of terms / abstraction
    • using “double-left-mouse-click” or “click with the left botton on the mouse twice” - how good must the details be described for non-IT-people?
      I think, we can start with short-term documentation. I can be expanded to a better (and longer) text later on
      we could create a groupspecific glossary for words (prefixing all containing pages with “Glossar”, that might be too technical
      example
      [[PmWikiDe.GlossarMaus Maus]] (resulting in “text including PmWikiDe.GlossarMaus Maus ?”)
      This glossary could be supplemented by an glossary index page containing a automatically generated word index
  • translation details
    • in german many english terms would be understand as well so the question is: what to translate? For example: nobody would translate the word “joystick”, at least not in the word-by-word-meaning.
    keeping common terms /words
    • How should we translate ‘you’? I prefer second person singular (‘Du’) but right now it is not homogeneously translated.
    • I would prefer either “Du” or “man” any “Sie” we should change {{Profiles.KAL}}

how to keep the translation up to date

suggestions:

  • adding a line on the top of page (maybe different style) which contains the link to the original english page with the date the translated page is last changed and / or the version of the original page (sample see: {{PmWiki De.Installation}}. I used a style named “ref” (this could be defined within a group-header. Thus a check can be done by a program or manually whether the original page has been changed since the last translation update and by displaying the original pages revisions you can determine what has been changed and add this to the translation. {{Profiles.KAL}}
  • during the initial translation the reference to both pages (english and translated) should be added on the documentations-index-page so it’s obvious which page has to be translated but also to find the original for an not-translated page. e.g.:
    an index line like
    • WikiStyleFarben (PmWiki.WikiStyleColors)
      will be shown as
    • Wiki Style Farben (PmWiki.Wiki Style Colors)
      as long as there is no translation. After the page is translated, the additional link to the englsih page can be removed.

others

  • {{Profiles.Pm}} suggested an own PmWiki De.Sidebar
  • btw, a short question: what’s right: “German and English pages” or “german and english pages” ? {{Profiles.KAL}}
I think it should be ‘German and English pages’. But I’m not absolutely sure. {{Profiles.bartolin}}
German, English etc always start with capital letters. In case of doubt ask http://dict.leo.org




This page may have a more recent version on pmwiki.org: PmWiki:DiscussionTranslations, and a talk page: PmWiki:DiscussionTranslations-Talk.