Guidelines??
If many people work on a translation, there should be some general guidelines. Those will greatly improve the quality. Topics to cover are:
* Some languages have a formal and informal translation for "you" (french, dutch). Which one to use? Is looks very clumsy if they are mixed (which is happening right now).
* Translations for application specific concepts should be standardized. For example, the translation of "sign in", "case", "ticket" etcetera should be used consistently throughout the translation.
And I guess, 5-10 more. But I'm not a professional translator.
Willem
shared this idea
4 comments
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@Guillaume: Just wanted to let you know that we've added French (Canada) to the translation system. There are about 140 lines to be translated and then we can launch it. It lives here: http://translate.uservoice.com/sets/143-application-fr-ca/translations
Cheers!
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Hey Guillaume,
Fair point. I'll see if we can duplicate the french translation and call it French (Quebec), then let people improve that version.
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Guillaume Deschênes-Gilbert
commented
There's another problem regarding languages spoken in multiple countries. In Québec (french), we rely on the "Office québécois de la langue française", which decide the right word to use in particular context. In France, they rely on the "Commission générale de terminologie et de néologie" for the right use of technical terms. Both those bureau can have different opinions regarding a translation. My guess is that every french speaking country have his own way of translation an english word... A guideline should clearly state on which country's regulation is this translation based.
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adent
commented
Such problem can solve some kind of "translation guarantee". Single person, which can review all submitted translations and standardize these words.
And - you're right, in Czech we have "formal you" too ("Vy" vs "vy"), but the formal is for private personal letters (from human to human). Unfortunately, many people doesn't remember the second part of this rule :)
