From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Christian Stimming Subject: Re: English/German terminology, git.git's de.po, and pro-git Date: Thu, 16 May 2013 12:49:13 +0200 Organization: Alumni Technische =?UTF-8?B?VW5pdmVyc2l0w6R0?= Hamburg-Harburg Message-ID: <2181104.gkP5j47vG8@cs-pc> References: <87k3n36nvo.fsf@linux-k42r.v.cablecom.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: QUOTED-PRINTABLE Cc: Ralf Thielow , Sven Fuchs , Ralph Haussmann , git@vger.kernel.org, Jan Engelhardt , Jan =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Kr=FCger?= To: Thomas Rast X-From: git-owner@vger.kernel.org Thu May 16 12:49:37 2013 Return-path: Envelope-to: gcvg-git-2@plane.gmane.org Received: from vger.kernel.org ([209.132.180.67]) by plane.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1Ucvkc-0002N5-5O for gcvg-git-2@plane.gmane.org; Thu, 16 May 2013 12:49:34 +0200 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1752097Ab3EPKta convert rfc822-to-quoted-printable (ORCPT ); Thu, 16 May 2013 06:49:30 -0400 Received: from smtp3.rz.tu-harburg.de ([134.28.202.138]:55796 "EHLO smtp3.rz.tu-harburg.de" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1751763Ab3EPKt3 convert rfc822-to-8bit (ORCPT ); Thu, 16 May 2013 06:49:29 -0400 Received: from mail.tu-harburg.de (mail.tu-harburg.de [134.28.202.179]) by smtp3.rz.tu-harburg.de (8.13.8/8.13.8) with ESMTP id r4GAnIa8010899 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA bits=256 verify=OK); Thu, 16 May 2013 12:49:18 +0200 Received: from cs-pc.localnet (g224015159.adsl.alicedsl.de [92.224.15.159]) (user=alucst mech=LOGIN bits=0) by mail.tu-harburg.de (8.13.8/8.13.8) with ESMTP id r4GAnHNM011390 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA bits=256 verify=NO); Thu, 16 May 2013 12:49:18 +0200 DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=tuhh.de; s=x2013-20; t=1368701358; bh=9cspKKNjdpqvhAqHTLpWjAGAmIJMHwCvbZZqtl8v3Wk=; h=From:To:Cc:Subject:Date:Message-ID:In-Reply-To:References: MIME-Version:Content-Transfer-Encoding:Content-Type; b=Ysj609yn8Z1Hsl+K2gknGUzMggjD+FmQEpLWgR32j0r613aP9OpgxJhettIxH3/Ut kcyEjvpsNFergJ0gpts/Hl9KjPzSaMBoxEmv8DwkqhdHHoVqWVYMpo5T8JKZpT80Pk ihXobdc+cUg8Nin44+X9OamaBNNG9oMJTcE3ll4k= User-Agent: KMail/4.7.3 (Linux/3.0.0-32-generic; KDE/4.7.4; x86_64; ; ) In-Reply-To: <87k3n36nvo.fsf@linux-k42r.v.cablecom.net> X-Scanned-By: TUHH Rechenzentrum content checker on 134.28.202.138 X-Scanned-By: TUHH Rechenzentrum content checker on 134.28.202.179 Sender: git-owner@vger.kernel.org Precedence: bulk List-ID: X-Mailing-List: git@vger.kernel.org Archived-At: Dear translators, Here's the main point in this discussion: The translation is not for us= ! The=20 translation is for those who don't speak much English and who don't kno= w the=20 English git terminology very well. By definition, this target audience = is not=20 present here on this mailing list and in this discussion. Hence, argume= nts=20 such as "I like word x better" are rather weak. Instead, stating "Word = x gives=20 the intended target audience a better picture of what is going on" is p= robably=20 a better argument. Am Montag, 13. Mai 2013, 14:54:51 schrieb Thomas Rast: > However, an unfortunate and unsatisfactory situation has developed: > Christian Stimming's git-gui de.po uses a Ger translation, and Ralf > Thielow built core git's de.po on top of it, so it's also Ger. >=20 > Meanwhile, and independently, Sven Fuchs and Ralph Haussmann wrote a > translation of pro-git (which is also quite mature at this point, hav= ing > apparently begun in 2009), and as you probably guessed by now, it's G= +E. Thanks, Thomas, for spotting the conflicting translations in those exce= llent=20 book projects vs. the git core and git gui. I think it's rather obvious= why=20 the pro-git translators chose the G+E approach for their work: Their go= al is=20 to explain the command line usage of git, which means they inevitably h= ave to=20 use the git command names, which happen to be in English (and will sure= ly stay=20 so). Hence, any translation approach will have to deal with the English= =20 command names as useful words in the normal translated text. That's pro= bably a=20 constraint that is true for any translation of a command-line tool to s= tay=20 useful. I noticed with some amusement, though, that even in the pro-git book wi= th the=20 described constraint there are places where a "pure Ger" translation is= almost=20 shining through... Such as in [1]: "Jedes Mal, wenn Du committest (d.h.= den=20 gegenw=E4rtigen Status deines Projektes als eine Version in Git speiche= rst)..."=20 Can you notice how the translators identified "Version" as translation = for=20 "commit (noun)" and "speichern" as translation for "commit (verb)" :-) = ? Of=20 course this is just the explanation and not the actual translation late= r=20 during the text.=20 However, I take this spot as an example that there exist meaningful pur= e-Ger=20 translations even for the most important git terminology. In fact, to f= ind=20 useful Ger translations, I wonder how I would talk to someone from the = target=20 audience a sentence such as "Finde mal den richtigen Commit, also die V= ersion,=20 =2E.." When I find myself saying such an " - also das xy -" appendix of= ten=20 enough, I take this as an indication that the latter word can just as w= ell be=20 used as the main translation. Back to the original question: I think the book shows quite nicely that= for=20 working with the git command line, a G+E translation is more useful as = long as=20 the command names also appear unchangedly in the translation. However,=20 everything else that does not appear as a command name can be translate= d=20 either in G+E or in Ger. The argument can go on to state that someone w= ho is=20 geek enough to use the command line is probably more proficient in Engl= ish=20 language anyway. Hence, using more English terms in the translation is=20 probably fine as well and a full G+E translation is probably a good app= roach.=20 The pro-git book has some places where the translated word is not alway= s used=20 consistently (e.g. in [2] "Externes Repository" vs. "Remote Repository"= ), and=20 some G+E suggestions from this mailing list have been translated Ger in= the=20 book (they use "zusammenf=FChren" in [2] and [3] instead of "merge" wit= h only a=20 few exceptions). It is also a good point to make the pro-git and git co= re=20 translation consistent, once the approach is decided on. *However*: This argument is completely different when we talk about the= GUI=20 tools. The target audience of the git gui etc. are those developers who= write=20 great code, but #1 do not know the English language well enough, and #2= are so=20 far away from the geek corner that they use a development workflow pure= ly in=20 GUI tools. The question is: What GUI button labels helps those people t= he most=20 to get a good picture of what is going on? And in this case I still bel= ieve a=20 pure Ger translation is the better choice! I wonder how feedback on thi= s claim=20 can be collected from developers of the target audience. When I started= on the=20 git-gui translation, I asked some coworkers that fall into this categor= y for=20 feedback on the wordings, and their response indicated agreement to my=20 approach. What feedback have others here heard from people who fall int= o=20 described category? At the end of the day that sort of feedback has to = be the=20 ground for a decision on the approach in the GUI translation.=20 In the meantime I think a different translation approach between git co= re and=20 git gui is not a problem at all. For git gui I propose to stick to a Ge= r=20 translation. For git core and the books that describe the command line=20 interface, a G+E translation is probably a good choice but even in this= case=20 there is room for useful German words instead of taking all difficult t= erms=20 directly as English ones.=20 By the way, I'm puzzled why this sort of discussion appears only for Ge= rman=20 language translations and not others. Don't other languages have the sa= me=20 conflict of the English terms and potential translated words which are = then=20 unknown to the geeks on this list? Just curious. Best Regards, Christian [1] http://git-scm.com/book/de/Los-geht%27s-Git-Grundlagen [2] http://git-scm.com/book/de/Git-Grundlagen-Mit-externen-Repositorys- arbeiten [3] http://git-scm.com/book/de/Git-Branching-Basic-Branching-and-Mergin= g