[sldev] Futzing with SNOW-93 (autotranslate) today

[Philippe (Merov) Bossut]

Hi,

I know that the viewer doesn't use gettext() and .po files (and that's too
bad if you ask me) and projects like pootle (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pootle). For first pass translation though (the
use case we're talking about), I always wondered why there's no "basic"
general purpose .pot catalog available on-line. I did a quick search and
didn't find any. Anyone knows better?

The good thing with such a catalog is that most of the short and cryptic UI
messages are common place across a wide variety of programs so using a base
of existing translation of other programs would avoid some of the pitfalls
described here above and meet Melinda's need.

Cheers,
- Merov


On Tue, Sep 15, 2009 at 8:00 PM, Melinda Green <melinda at superliminal.com>wrote:

> The question is not whether a machine translated UI can ever be good
> (I'm sure it can't), but whether it can be "good enough". When I imagine
> using a Second Life client with the Chinese characters (which I don't
> understand at all) and compare that with even the worst of the machine
> translations you gave below, I'd take the MT version any day because
> that would mean I'd have a chance to succeed in using it whereas with a
> quality Chinese version that would clearly be impossible. The language
> voting idea probably only works well with one or two word phrases, but
> that includes nearly all buttons, menus, menu items, etc. so I'd love to
> see how good it could be. None of that means we'd commit to using it but
> I'm open minded about the idea.
>
> -Melinda
>
> Kakurady Drakenar wrote:
> > Oh no, please don't.
> > A high quality interface translation is a work with a lot of effort
> > and require someone well versed in both languages. Machine translation
> > just doesn't cut it. And definitely not when Second Life has its own
> > jargon!
> >
> > "Verifying" it with multiple translations doesn't work either.
> > Translating is not as simple as replacing one word with another.
> > Indeed, translators of Second Life sometimes need to paraphrase to
> > obtain a more elegant translation. In addition, each language have
> > their own ways to express ideas, and Google Translate, while having a
> > large corpse, is far from infallable - even more so since it uses
> > English as an intermediate language, which means the accuracy largely
> > depends on the language's similarity with English. I'll demonstrate
> > this in a minute.
> >
> > (Please note that I oppose the autotranslate feature to begin with.)
> >
> > Kakurady / Geneko Nemeth
> >
> >
> > The text used is the tooltip of the check_fly checkbox of
> > floater_about_land.xml.
> > (I'm favoring Chinese because I re-translated the client into Chinese.)
> >
> > Original: If checked, Residents can fly on your land. If unchecked,
> > they can only fly into and over your land.
> > Translating into English:
> > zh If selected, then, residents can fly on your soil. If not selected,
> > they can only fly in or fly over your land.
> > da If elected, residents can fly to your country. If not selected
> > residents can only fly into your country and to your country.
> > de If enabled, people can fly to your country. If not activated,
> > residents can simply fly to your country and there (then again,
> > continues to land but not), or fly over your country to come.
> > es If checked, residents will fly in their field. If not, can only fly
> > to the cross or even landing on it.
> > fr If this option is checked, residents can steal your land. If
> > unchecked, they can fly only when they arrive and pass over your field.
> > hu If it was turned on, the flight allowed to land. If not, then it is
> > only possible outside the area.
> > it If checked, the other residents can fly on your soil. If unchecked,
> > it can only get on a plane or fly over the ground.
> > ja The flight will be checked in this land. Be able to fly only when
> > you enter the land and pass unchecked.
> > pt If enabled, the residents can fly on their land. If disabled, they
> > can only fly into and over their land.
> > ru If checked, residents can fly on your soil.
> > tr If you are selected, members can fly on your land. If it is not
> > selected, then you can fly and land in your land
> > uk If checked, the resident can fly on your land.
> >
> > Translating through English into Chinese:
> > en (Original) If checked, Residents can fly on your land. If
> > unchecked, they can only fly into and over your land.
> > zh (Original) 如果选中的话，居民可以在您的土地上飞行。如果不选中的话，
> > 他们只能飞入或飞过您的土地。
> > en-zh 如果选中，居民可以乘坐自己的土地。如果任其发展下去，只能飞入，并
> > 在你的土地。
> > zh-en-zh 如果选中，那么，居民可搭乘您的土壤。如果没有选择，只能在飞行
> > 或飞越你的土地。
> > da-en-zh 如果当选，居民可以前往贵国。如果没有选中，则只能飞入贵国和贵国。
> > de-en-zh 如果启用，市民可以前往贵国。如果没有激活，居民可以直接飞到你
> > 的国家和有（然后再继续土地，但没有），或飞越贵国来。
> > es-en-zh 如果选中，居民将飞往在各自的领域。如果没有，只能飞往两岸，甚
> > 至在它降落。
> > fr-en-zh 如果这个选项被选中，居民可以窃取你的土地。如果不加以控制，它
> > 们的飞行只有当他们到达，在你的领域通过。
> > hu-en-zh 如果是打开，飞机可以降落。如果没有，那么它只能在禁区外。
> > it-en-zh 如果选中，其他居民可以乘坐您的土壤。如果任其发展下去，它只能
> > 在飞机上获得或飞越地面。
> > ja-en-zh 这次飞行将检查在这片土地。能够飞行只有当你进入该土地，并通过
> > 选中。
> > pt-en-zh 如果启用，市民可以乘坐自己的土地。如果关闭，他们只能飞入和对
> > 自己的土地。
> > ru-en-zh 如果选中，居民可搭乘您的土壤。
> > tr-en-zh 如果你被选中，会员可搭乘自己的土地。如果没有选中，然后你可以
> > 在你的土地和土地
> > uk-en-zh 如果选中，居民可以乘坐自己的土地。
> >
> > 于 2009/9/15 18:34, Nexii Malthus 写道:
> >> That does bring a thought though, could the User Interface strings be
> >> able to be translated into unknown/unsupported languages? Would just
> >> need to send all english strings and converted into target language
> >> once. It would be cool, seems a bit over the top though. One could
> >> ensure accuracy of 'context' by converting several supported
> >> languages into target unknown language and comparing the words for
> >> which is the most likely word by which word was the most returned.
> >>
> >> - Nexii
> >>
> >> On Tue, Sep 15, 2009 at 8:29 PM, Rob Lanphier <robla at lindenlab.com
> >> <mailto:robla at lindenlab.com>> wrote:
> >>
> >>     Hi everyone,
> >>
> >>     I'm futzing around with SNOW-93 today (the translation patch).  A
> >>     couple of suggestions for changing the API:
> >>     1. Change "lljson" to "llstringtrans" ("lltranslate" is already
> >>     taken.)
> >>     2. Change " LLJSON::parseGoogleTranslate" to
> >>     "LLStringTrans::remoteStringTranslate"
> >>
> >>     One comment that Techwolf made was: "Please remember to update the
> >>     patch cmake files to look for system or LL supplied libraries for
> >>     STANDALONE and NOT STANDALONE".  I'm hoping someone here can make a
> >>     "FindJsonCpp.cmake" file to help out with that effort.
> >>
> >>     https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/SNOW-93
> >>
> >>     Rob
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