Re: [translations] Re: How to extract PDF of translated documentation?

[David Kastrup]

Federico Bruni <address@hidden> writes:

> 2013/1/14 David Kastrup <address@hidden>
>
>     The only translations that appear to be thoroughly maintained are
>     the
>     Spanish and French translation, with the German translation
>     following
>     close behind.
>     
>     
>
> Well, the italian translation is far to be completed but it _is_
> maintained.

I apologize for forgetting you.

> Probably the CG should be updated, improved and simplified.
> I think that at the moment it would be a bit hard for a new translator
> to get in.

And I think we could make of several new ones or, probably needing
similar measures, reactivate some old ones.

It would also be nice to have some redundancy.  I know that I am not
particularly fond of the German translation since its language is partly
awkward, in all likelihood partly due to the need of thinking of German
language structure and vocabulary independently from the English one:
the language flow and word choice is often stumbling a bit too close to
the English version.  Good "literary" translations are actually
something that does not come naturally even to people who are perfectly
able to express themselves well in either language in separation.

So it would actually benefit the material if a second person went over
everything again with the focus of getting it to read well independently
from the material, and then a third person checked that the original and
translated version still corresponded _factually_.

I can't actually speak for more than German here, but I would guess that
other translations might also bit from some independent polishing up by
people able to focus just on the target language rather than the
translation process.

Trevor is doing a tremendous job casting technobabble and information
into comprehensible English, but that is quite an undertaking with slow
progress, and I consider it somewhat comparable as it is also sort of an
English->English process.  While he is more freely rewriting information
than a "mere" translation usually would, the latter still needs a solid
dose of willingness to make more sense in the translation than a literal
translation would produce.

So how can we improve the efficiency of our current translation work
force, and how can we make it easier for people to help in a way that
does not step on anybody's toes and actually leads to better results?

-- 
David Kastrup