On 11/06/2006, at 8:33 PM, Javier SOLA wrote:
We have to assume that contextual information in necessary. If you
are translating an OpenOffice help file, you really want to know
what are the prior and posterior strings are. You can either get
them from the DB, or just use the API access of the server, which
is already there... and use complete files. The present system uses
complete files, and it would probably be a lot of change to have to
move this to direct API access. I think that Otavio is right on
this one... but let's ask Friedle.
Please assume contextual information is necessary and often essential.
I have noticed that the quality of translations is so often
proportional to the amount of available context. The optimum
situation is where the translator is an experienced user of that
software, but you can't be an experienced user of everything you
translate. You rely on the available context. With the new gettext
version: (from the NEWS file):
* GUI program support:
- PO files can now contain messages constrained to a certain
context.
Most often such a context is a menu, dialog or panel
identification.
The syntax in the PO file is
msgctxt "context"
msgid "original"
msgstr "translation"
- The xgettext program can be told through the --keyword flag which
function/macro argument has the role of a context.
- The (non-public) include file gettext.h defines macros
pgettext, dpgettext
etc. that take a context argument.
For more information, see the node "Contexts" in the manual.
we have the opportunity to manipulate context more successfully.
I think lack of context has been the single most frustrating
situation I have encountered in software translation. Most files have
no contextual information at all, bar comparison with other strings.
In the huge GIMP main translation file, I was presented with the string:
msgid "S"
msgstr ""
There was no context. None of the strings in that section of the file
turned out to be related to it, or to provide any clue to its
meaning. When I queried the developer, he told me, "You should know
what it means."
Being presented with one string alone, even if it has more than one
character, is often of very little use. The Google translation
interface is an effective example of this problem. You are presented
with one single string, and the "Help" (context) field is usually empty.
By contrast, the Debian-Installer Level 1 file has the best
contextual support I have seen across the free software projects. I
would suggest it as a model when determining how to process context.
from Clytie (vi-VN, Vietnamese free-software translation team / nhóm
Việt hóa phần mềm tự do)
http://groups-beta.google.com/group/vi-VN
