[sword-devel] question regarding Android front end

[Caleb Maclennan]

On Thu, Sep 30, 2010 at 01:31, Peter von Kaehne <refdoc at gmx.net> wrote:
> On 29/09/10 23:11, Caleb Maclennan wrote:
>> I love Google Translate and their various language tools, but let's
>> put the effort into finding local translators before throwing software
>> out there!
>
> Caleb, I agree and disagree at the same time.
>
> I am at this now for several years - a fair number of translations
> across the board in CrossWire in various languages are mine, inspired by
> me or mentored by me.
>
> There is an enormous power in a bad translation - it draws out guys who
> would never dream of doing something. Several translations we have and
> many many imporvements would never have come about if we had not
> presented a rough and ready "mock-up"
>
> With this in mind I am committing right now a google translated entire
> translation for Xiphos in Arabic. I am fed up to the core that we do not
> have an Arabic translation, I have tried to recruit translators for the
> language for 5 years and now I will make some people shame faced and
> steaming with anger when they see the poor translation. And - hopefully
> - next release we will have a nice one....
>
> Peter

Hey Peter,

I'm sorry if my posted sounded critical of work that HAS gone into
getting Xiphos and other sword projects localized. I do appreciate,
and thank you for your efforts.

I hear your frustration with not being able to get translations and
think think there is something to be said for your argument. I don't
sustain an objection to posting machine translations is a way to
attract real translations, but because of the general embarrassment
that they are I would suggest they be tagged as such. Translated
languages, untranslated languages and machine translated draft
languages or something like that.

Also, I'm wondering if the entry barrier could be lowered a little bit
for would be translators. The Xiphos website section on translating
yammers on about ide's and po files and there are all these hash marks
and other funky symbols. How do you think that makes average Joe or
Mustafa or مصطفى feel? Ya not too comfortable. I spend most of my day
in vim writing shell scripts, so it doesn't phase me but I know I
would have a hard time getting any of my Turkish speaking friends to
give us a translation by sending them to that page.

I see Xiphos has some translation stuff setup on launchpad. Can we
perhaps tweak the website so it walks people through getting setup to
translate there? I feel like anybody who knows what a po file is can
figure out how to deal with them on their own.

I'm sorry I don't speak Arabic but I'll keep my eyes open for somebody
to help with that translation!

Caleb