Re: [PATCH] gitk: Update German translation

[Christian Stimming <stimming@tuhh.de>]

Am Donnerstag, 1. Mai 2008 23:10 schrieb Stephan Beyer:
> > I'd propose to talk about the newest or topmost commit,
> > but rather not about the "first".
>
> I agree, but s/newest/latest/ :)

Both is possible, and a third alternative is "most recent". I couldn't care 
less, as long as we get away from the ambiguous "first".

> Well.
> Although your patch does not cover the translations itself (and although
> I neither use the German translation of gitk and use gitk very seldom at
> all), I've taken a look at the given translations and want to drop some
> comments/corrections.

Thanks for the feedback about the German translation. Indeed there is no git 
translation into German, at least none that I know of so far. What exists is 
the translation of git-gui which includes a glossary of terms that are used 
throughout git-gui (and git). That glossary and the git-gui translation was 
created by myself as well. At the time when the glossary was created, it was 
also discussed here in the list quite a lot, see 
http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.version-control.git/53181 and more 
importantly this whole thread 
http://kerneltrap.org/mailarchive/git/2007/9/16/269956 (somehow gmane.org 
doesn't have this thread available?!?)

Hence, translations for terms like "commit" have indeed been discussed quite a 
bit, and I'm quite satisfied with the current wording. You're welcome to 
propose alternatives, but please be prepared to give really good reasons as 
for why an alternative is really better than the current version.

Nevertheless thanks a lot for the typos you spotted. I'll list those that are 
easy and I agree upon first, and I'll comment on the other and more difficult 
words later.

+++ The easy ones:

> > -#: gitk:264
> > +#: gitk:275
> >  msgid "Can't parse git log output:"
> >  msgstr "Git log Ausgabe kann nicht erkannt werden:"
>
> "git-log-Ausgabe" oder "Ausgabe von git-log"

Ok.

> > -#: gitk:650
> > +#: gitk:665
> >  msgid "List references"
> >  msgstr "Zweige auflisten"
>
> Hm, the button lists branches and tags.
> Is then "Zweige" (= branches) only correct?
> What about "Referenzen auflisten" or "Zweige/Markierungen auflisten"
> (or however "tags" is translated).

Ok.

> > -#: gitk:7966
> > +#: gitk:8024
> > +msgid "Auto-select SHA1"
> > +msgstr "SHA1 Hashwert automatisch markieren"
>
> "SHA1-Hashwert"

Ok.

> > -#: gitk:7985
> > +#: gitk:8048
> >  msgid "Background"
> >  msgstr "Vordergrund"
> >
> > -#: gitk:7989
> > +#: gitk:8052
> >  msgid "Foreground"
> >  msgstr "Hintergrund"
>
> Funny. It's vice versa!

Thanks a lot! No idea why nobody saw this so far, including me.

> > -#: gitk:8587
> > +#: gitk:8656
> >  msgid ""
> >  "No files selected: --merge specified but no unmerged files are within
> > file " "limit."
> > @@ -720,6 +891,6 @@ msgstr ""
> >  "Keine Dateien ausgew??hle: 
>                             ^
> 			    t

Ok, thanks.

> > +#: gitk:1354
> > +msgid "<Left>, z, j\tGo back in history list"
> > +msgstr "<Links>, z, j\tEine Version zur??ck gehen"
>
> I think it's still "zurückgehen" and not "zurück gehen" in the latest
> German spelling.

Ok.

> > +#: gitk:1355
> > +msgid "<Right>, x, l\tGo forward in history list"
> > +msgstr "<Rechts>, x, l\tEine Version nach vorne gehen"
>
> "nach vorne gehen" sounds so colloquial.
> Better, perhaps: "weitergehen"?

Ok. "weitergehen" IMHO has a similar problem as the first/last issue - the 
user doesn't know which direction is meant. But your proposal is better than 
the colloquial term.

> > -#: gitk:5719
> > +#: gitk:5781
> >  msgid "SHA1 ID:"
> >  msgstr "SHA1 Kennung:"
>
> Somewhere else it has been translated to "SHA1:", which is imho better.
> Otherwise it'd be "SHA1-Kennung".

The latter. Thanks. As for why it was "SHA1:" in one string, I'll explain 
below.

> > -#: gitk:6233
> > +#: gitk:6291
> >  msgid "Error writing commit:"
> >  msgstr "Fehler beim Version eintragen:"
>
> "Fehler bei der Eintragung:"
> "Fehler beim Schreiben der Eintragung:" (or "Version", if really used in
> other places)

"Fehler beim Schreiben der Version" it is, thanks.


+++ Now the more difficult ones

> > -#: gitk:141 gitk:2143
> > +#: gitk:151 gitk:2191
> >  msgid "Reading commits..."
> >  msgstr "Versionen lesen..."
>
> Is "Version" really the German translation for "commit" throughout the
> whole git suite?
> (Ehh, is git translated at all?)
> I'd recommend "Commit" or "Eintragung"...
>
> "Version" is so CVS/SVN-like.

"Version" is what came out as most convincing from last September's 
discussion. "Commit" is only for those who want the English version anyway, 
hence that's not the target audience of this translation. "Eintragung" would 
indeed be one possibility, but when I explain how git works to other Germans, 
I would always talk about the "Versionen" that you can browse and merge and 
add. The word works quite nicely, which is another argument for it. On the 
other hand I don't understand how "is so CVS-like" would be any argument in 
favor or against this particular German word.

> > -#: gitk:782 gitk:784 gitk:2308 gitk:2331 gitk:2355 gitk:4257 gitk:4320
> > +#: gitk:797 gitk:799 gitk:2356 gitk:2379 gitk:2403 gitk:4306 gitk:4369
> >  msgid "containing:"
> >  msgstr "enthaltend:"
>
> "enthält:"

No. Please have a look at the place where this is used. In fact this word is 
used as the part of a full sentence (which in itself is very bad i18n style, 
but that's another discussion), and the sentence reads "Suche nächste/vorige 
Version enthaltend:". The sentence is already quite "holprig" and I'm sorry 
for that, but at least it is still gramatically correct. Using "enthält" 
would make it gramatically wrong. Same for the other following strings that 
you mentioned.

> > -#: gitk:786 gitk:2388
> > +#: gitk:801 gitk:2436
> >  msgid "adding/removing string:"
> >  msgstr "String dazu/l??schen:"
>
> "ändert Zeichenkette:"

Hm... I'd say "Zeichenkette ändernd", but thinking about it, I'm not even sure 
anymore whether this is what this criterion will search for?

> > -#: gitk:797 gitk:2466 gitk:4225
> > +#: gitk:812 gitk:2514 gitk:4274
> >  msgid "IgnCase"
> >  msgstr "Kein Gro??/Klein"
>
> The translation is rather ambiguous. Or is it just me? ;)
> "Ignoriere Groß-/Kleinschreibung"  or
> "Groß-/Kleinschreibung ignorieren"

In principle yes, but again please have a look at where this string actually 
appears in the program. The multichoice box there really must not be very 
wide. That's why I came up with this weird short form 
of "Groß-/Kleinschreibung ignorieren", but the original string is just as 
well already a weird abbreviation.

> > -#: gitk:1026
> > +#: gitk:1061
> >  msgid "Cherry-pick this commit"
> >  msgstr "Diese Version pfl??cken"
>
> If I didn't knew that it means "cherry-pick", I'd have no idea
> what the function behind that German words does. ;-)
> (That's why I don't have locales set to my mother tongue. Just because I
> only have to understand the programmer and not the translator first.)

No, you're missing the point again. If you didn't knew what "cherry-pick" 
means, you would have no idea what the function behind it does. In other 
words: Git invented a new word here anyway. Hence, a new word will appear in 
the translation, too, and it isn't an argument that you didn't recognize it 
as your familiar english word at first. It *is* an argument if the actual 
action can be described in a better and more understandable way by a 
different German word, though.

> "Diesen Commit übernehmen"
> "Diesen Commit kopieren"
> "Diese Eintragung übernehmen"

"Diese Version kopieren" would be one possibility - but this bears the 
question why git itself doesn't call this action "to copy a commit". To 
me, "Version kopieren" rather sounds like the familiar "copy to clipboard" 
action in the Edit menu, but it misses the part that this commit will 
immediately be committed (heh) to the currently checked out branch.

> > -#: gitk:6081
> > +#: gitk:6143
> >  msgid "Error creating patch:"
> >  msgstr "Fehler beim Patch erzeugen:"
>
> "Fehler bei der Erzeugung des Patches"

I agree the original string is sub-optimal, but "Erzeugung"? Also not a nice 
word. Anything better?

Thank you very much for your feedback!

Regards,

Christian