[DUG] Translations

[Stefan Mueller]

I expect this particular sentence "Are you sure you want to delete this
file?" has been asked for translation so many times that somebody actually
took the time to translate it properly. Google actually works with
pre-canned sentence translations (similar to how professional translation
packages like Language Weaver / Systran work).

As soon as you change some words the translation falls back to machine
translation quality:

Are you sure you want to rework this file?
=>Sind Sie sicher, dass Sie diese Datei bearbeiten?
==> Are you sure you work this file?

Are you positive you want to delete this file?
=>Sind Sie, dass Sie diese Datei löschen möchten?
==>Are you, that you want to delete this file?   

Testing google with some normal technical articles shows that the
English->german translation are about 60-70% understandable. When using
English->Japanese this percentage falls down to like 10-20%.

For usable GUI translations you will not be able to get around using a
native human translator.


Kind Regards,
Stefan Mueller 
_______________________
R&D Manager
ORCL Toolbox LLP, Japan
http://www.orcl-toolbox.com 



-----Original Message-----
From: delphi-bounces at delphi.org.nz [mailto:delphi-bounces at delphi.org.nz] On
Behalf Of Ross Levis
Sent: Tuesday, February 17, 2009 12:35
To: 'NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi List'
Subject: Re: [DUG] Translations

That could possibly happen if you translate from another translation, and do
that several times, but if you start from English each time then it's pretty
good these days.

For example, translating to French using Google becomes...
"Êtes-vous sûr de vouloir supprimer ce fichier?"

Translating the French to Spanish becomes...
¿Estás seguro de que desea eliminar este archivo?

And translating the Spanish back to English becomes.
"Are you sure you want to delete this file?"

Ross.

-----Original Message-----
From: delphi-bounces at delphi.org.nz [mailto:delphi-bounces at delphi.org.nz] On
Behalf Of Alister Christie
Sent: Tuesday, 17 February 2009 3:05 p.m.
To: NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi List
Subject: Re: [DUG] Translations

I'm certainly not going to disagree, a native speaker is the way to go.  
But for speed and price you can't go past Google ;-)
However, personally I'd use the following translation service
http://tashian.com/multibabel/

"are you sure you want to delete this file?"
eventually becomes
"is the fort safe you who you would want to be to the cancellation of 
this file?"
who would have a problem with that?

Alister Christie
Computers for People
Ph: 04 471 1849 Fax: 04 471 1266
http://www.salespartner.co.nz
PO Box 13085
Johnsonville
Wellington 



Phil Scadden wrote:
>> Ok, so I have created a demo app. and foloowed some steps, but what I 
>> am trying to find out, does IT or CAN IT do the translation, or do "I" 
>> have to do the translation using other tools like google tranalstion 
>> or babel fish etc.
>>     
> I really think getting a native speaker involved is a good idea. You 
> want the local idiom for "OK", "Cancel", "File", because you can run 
> into a lot of confusion with conteztless literal translation. We had a 
> client who wanted one in Hebrew - they want it badly enough that they 
> translated the string table just to get it. A good outcome for all. (and 
> a warning to anyone doing right-to-left languages that windows bugs can 
> be a right pain here).
>
>   

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