Re: [OctDev] How can I help with translation?

[Michael D Godfrey]

On 09/03/2012 01:50 PM, Carnë Draug wrote:

 Or, maybe I could translate the manual on this website
> http://www.gnu.org/software/octave/octave.pdf
>

It would not be good to start from the current English PDF.  This
is created by the Octave build system from a set of input files.
An important challenge will be how to keep the translation in step
with the English version.  The English language files are updated
quite often, but the people doing this typically do not know Chinese.
Some fairly automatic means to telling the translators that a English
file has been updated will be needed.

First, you need to learn how the current Manual gets built.  You
can learn this by studying the build process from the Octave
source.  This will take some work, but it would be of major
value if you could complete a translation, and I am sure that
other maintainers would help with technical issues about the
Octave system.

I have done translations of German and French technical
material lately and one thing I know (for these languages) is
that Google translate is very helpful.  I think that it knows Chinese,
too.  It cannot handle whole sections (Chapters, say) of text, but
it is good at phrases and sentences -- it lets you ask for alternate
translations, for instance.  So, it helps recall particular words that
you were searching for, for example.

So, I hope you will not get discouraged by how much you need to
learn -- it will not be all that hard.  And, it will be of great value to
the user community.

Good luck!

Michael