Quoting Marc Haber ([EMAIL PROTECTED]): > Being a German native speaker, I write everything in English.
Do you also daily speak English when going to the grocery store? Or when ordering a bier in a bar? I guess not and I guess I know why : mostly because the people you're talking with are not English speakers. These people also deserve a Linux distribution they may use daily which is mostly why some other German people care about translations. Just like the kids and teachers in Norway need a norwegian-speaking Skolelinux. Even though these Norwegian people most often speak damn good English as well. When working on l10n stuff, I think I work more for a much wider target than the geek community. That is the point. > Occasionaly, some other German native speaker decides to translate my > work to German. > > Usually, I am not impressed by the translations because they usually > feel clumsy and awkward to me, as if I were explaining the things to a They maybe feel clumsy because the german team does not have enough manpower...or because you're not used to them. And, believe me, the german translation uses far more englishisms than the french one for instance. But, as Martin wrote, they probably don't look more or less clumsy than some "English" things I see here and there in free software. As I mentioned elsewhere, English is probably among the worst translations in Debian.....:) So, you're maybe comfortable with (bad) English. I personnally am more comfortable with good French. This is also the reason I use my crappy french keyboard though it's definitely not geeky (a good french geek uses a US keyboard and just makes strange incantations for entering the appropriate characters with it)
