I just wanted to mention here. I’ve been hanging in the IRC chatroom, and it’s used a lot by people because they have the button in the Welcome Splash Screen.
Thing is, after spending some time helping a fellow Frenchman with his setup using English I thought it would be nice for the chat screen to show two buttons for the two choices:
The dedicated #ubuntu-mate chatroom
A language specific choice, here it would have been #ubuntu-fr explaining this is the general, all versions chatroom for French users (detection should be possible using the locale settings amiright?)
Cheers
Edit: I’ve just realized I’ve posted this as the UI Freeze development milestone has been reached.
My bad.
I’ll try and be quicker about it next time.
Edit 2: While I’m at it, from a support perspective it would be nice to recommend that users joining the chatroom for help remember to say “I’m using Ubuntu MATE version $VERSION”
I don’t like the idea of separate chat-rooms based on language. I feel this might lead to group-ism at best and ghetto formation at worst. However, I do accept that language can be a barrier to participation. One solution might be (though I have no idea how technically feasible this is) to have some kind of universal translator built into a forum, such that a user could indicate what language they were composing in and also what language they would like all posted posts to appear to them as.
In other words, I could go onto a forum that was, say, predominantly frequented by French speakers and I could compose my posts in English and read both my own posted posts, as well as everyone else’s posts, in English. But, all other users would see all of the posts on the forum (including their own) in their own language.
However, where a post was composed in the same language as that selected to be read, no translation would take place. Thus, for example, my English composed post would not need to go through the unnecessary (and possible corrupting) process of being translated to French and then back to English in order for me to read it. But, it would go through the process of being translated to French for any user on the forum who wished to see it in French.
Like I said, I have no idea how feasible all of the above is. I am assuming not very, since I don’t think I have seen it on a forum anywhere.
I understand your point and I admit I was only considering things from the “how easy it is to get help” support / accessibility perspective.
The Ubuntu language-specific chatrooms already exist for a number of languages though, the list is officially maintained here.
In the French language chatroom there’s currently 150+ people connected.
I have no desire to split the community, but I think for some people the language in which they can get support is definitively a point to consider when making an OS switch.
I think having all posts in a parent forum with the ability to move a translator area might be nice. When I see a post that I sort of understand I use google to insure that my comprehension is correct and my limited foreign language ability doesn’t provide the wrong info or an insult.
Having totally separate areas might dilute knowledge composite.
I wonder if it is possible to add something like “Google Translate” to the forum(s)?,
It was put forward on this forum to have separate language links but who would mod them and also devote their time to each individual language?, I could do German but it isn’t my native language and I am sure that there are other native speakers that would be better at it than me!.
This all seems like a great idea, but to have the language translate would be very difficult, the computer would have to translate very fast and very often into multiple languages which cans cramble up the words, also IRC tends to have relaxed attitude on the way things are typed (e.g. wot is wrong with my pc, can u help?)and so the translation would have to pick up on these slang words and abbreviations.
Then again it could be entirely possible and could work fine, but that’s just what I think.
Just for a test (and a bit of a laugh), I ran your post through that translate-shell program I just downloaded (from the link I provided in the previous post):
Tout cela semble être une excellente idée, mais d'avoir la langue à traduire serait très difficile, l'ordinateur devrait se traduire très rapidement et très souvent en plusieurs langues qui peuvent brouiller les mots, aussi IRC a tendance à avoir l'attitude détendue sur le chemin les choses sont tapés (par exemple wot ne va pas avec mon pc, peut aider à u? ) et donc la traduction aurait à revenir sur ces mots d'argot et les abréviations.
Là encore, il pourrait être tout à fait possible et pourrait fonctionner très bien, mais c'est juste ce que je pense.
Nice!...
Took about 2 seconds to translate. No idea how accurate, mind you, cos I don't speak French. I do know, however, that the translate shell script is piggybacking the translation from Google translate. So, probably as accurate as it gets at the moment.
Here's an attempt at reversing the translation to English:
This all seems like a great idea, but having the language to translate would be very hard, the computer should translate itself very quickly and often in several languages that can scramble words, also IRC has a tendency to have a relaxed attitude on the path things are typed (for example wot don't go with my pc, can help at ù?) and so the translation would have to come back on those slang terms and abbreviations.
There again, he could be completely possible and could function very well, but it's just what I'm thinking.
This is my re-translation back from the French (translation) I did to English again, using the same program I used before:
All this seems like a great idea, but to have the language to be translated would be very difficult, the computer should translate very quickly and often in several languages that can blur the words IRC also tends to have a relaxed attitude on the way things are typed (eg wot is wrong with my pc, can help u? ) and so the translation would have to return to these slang words and abbreviations.
Again, it could be quite possible and could work very well, but that's just what I think.
And here is the original post, for comparison:
This all seems like a great idea, but to have the language translate would be very difficult, the computer would have to translate very fast and very often into multiple languages which cans cramble up the words, also IRC tends to have relaxed attitude on the way things are typed (e.g. wot is wrong with my pc, can u help?)and so the translation would have to pick up on these slang words and abbreviations.
Then again it could be entirely possible and could work fine, but that’s just what I think.
I don't think that's too bad at all given that it has been passed through the linguistic mangle twice
What translation service did you use, since it is clearly not as accurate as mine?
(a) Machines can’t translate meaning acurately. That’s the truth today and that’s the problem, otherwise it would be easy.
(b) Being an English native speaker living in Switzerland I hate things that automatically decide which language they will appear in. Bad idea. Language settings should always be manual settings. Some of us even need multiple languages on a single machine to be efficient (my work environment uses four languages - I speak three and understand the fourth).
I don’t know what the answer is - perhapse a separate forum section for “Posts requesting a translation” - forum members could then translate what they can for their fellow community colleagues. Perhapse the posts could then be moved into a specific forum topic. The problem remains, however, that if the person requesting help can’t understand the replies written in English…
Maybe there just isn’t a good solution to this problem at this point in time.
Unfortunately I’ve no solutions, only “warnings” to add to this debate. Hope it helps.
Trying to translate German to English (and vice-versa) can be a bit tricky sometimes, take the word “be” (“sein” in German) and you can get all sorts of meanings which often don’t have really anything to do with the original wording.
It would be nice (imo) to have language sections on this forum out of respect for the non English speakers, that said, it might close out other users from the forum if too many posts are in a different language!.
Using that same program (translate-shell) I mentioned:
Original English post:
This all seems like a great idea, but to have the language translate would be very difficult, the computer would have to translate very fast and very often into multiple languages which cans cramble up the words, also IRC tends to have relaxed attitude on the way things are typed (e.g. wot is wrong with my pc, can u help?)and so the translation would have to pick up on these slang words and abbreviations.
Then again it could be entirely possible and could work fine, but that’s just what I think.
Translated to German:
Dies alles wie eine gute Idee scheint, aber die Sprache zu haben, zu übersetzen wäre sehr schwierig, würde der Computer sehr schnell zu übersetzen haben und sehr oft in mehreren Sprachen, die die Wörter klettern kann, neigt auch dazu, IRC entspannte Haltung auf dem Weg zu haben Dinge sind typisiert (zB wot ist mit meinem PC falsch, kann u helfen? ) und so würde die Übersetzung müssen auf diesen Slang-Wörter und Abkürzungen abholen.
Dann wieder könnte es durchaus möglich sein und könnte gut funktionieren, aber das ist genau das, was ich denke.
Translated back from the (translated) German to English again:
This all seems like a good idea, but to have the language to translate would be very difficult, the computer would have very quickly to translate and often in several languages , which can climb the words, also, IRC tends relaxed attitude on the to have way things are typed (eg wot is wrong with my PC, can u help? ) and so would the French have to pick up on these slang words and abbreviations.
Then again, it is quite possible and might work well, but that's exactly what I think.
I agree, German does not translate to English as well as French. But, I would argue it's not too bad. That is to say, the meaning is still pretty much intact.
IMO most folks who would use the translator application would probably not expect exact translations. If a computer based translator is deployed a link to the original language post would be imperative.
BTW I had no problems discerning the actual intent of scramble and climb
Regards,
Pete
I am not multilingual so this will be my only post here.
I have tried to communicate with others in their native language using a translator (google) and have failed more than I have succeeded. Technical translations get lost and will not come across as clear as needed to be.
