Sorry I didn't realize that this is mostly an English-language list. Don't know if this is necessary but I'll try to recap what I said in Chinese earlier.
I'm talking about the intro text in the front page of www.ubuntu.com.cn, which is the mainland China's mirror site of Ubuntu. There are some significant problems in the text, which was translated from the English text found in www.ubuntu.com. In my post in a group blog called "TransNator" - which tracks translation errors in Chinese online and offline literature, I offered the original text, the Chinese text currently being used in ubuntu.com.cn, and my own translation for the sake of comparison. It occurs to me that there are several misreadings, and the target text doesn't really follow Chinese language convention. Here are three examples of misreading found in the ubuntu.com.cn text: 1. In the second paragraph, the original sentence "that software tools should be usable by people in their local language and despite any disabilities" was translated as "software tools should be usable by people in their local language and DON'T COMPROMISE IN FEATURE". The same sentence was translated into "software tools should be usable by people in their local language and DON'T HAVE ANY DIFFERENCES IN FEATURE" on the Ubuntu Taiwan (Traditional Chinese) page (http://www.ubuntu.org.tw/), apparently it's the same misreading. 2. In the third paragraph, "not only are the tools you need available free of charge" was translated into "not only ARE THEY free tools that you need". 3. In the first paragraph, "freely available with both community and professional support" was translated into "community and professional support are freely available". Please note that the Chinese word for "free as in free lunch" and that for "free as in freedom" are different, in this very instance, free as in free lunch was used in the text found on ubuntu.com.cn. My post on the TransNator blog about this (including a newly translated version by yours truly) can be read at: http://www.chinesenewear.com/transnator/?p=32 It's in Chinese only. I'm doing this not to show off, but it's my belief that such a near-machine-translated text on the FRONT page of ubuntu.com.cn would not only put potential Ubuntu users off, but would also stagnate the spreading of Ubuntu. all the best, Lawrence On 05/08/06, Zhengpeng Hou <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Thanks for pointing it out, we will correct it as soon as possiable. > BTW:, please use english in this mailing list, > > 在 06-8-5，Lawrence Li<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 写道： > > 大家好，我是广州的一名 Linux 用户，主要使用 Debian 及 Ubuntu，刚刚加入 Ubuntu Translators list。 > > > > 我想和大家探讨一下 ubuntu.com.cn > > 首页那段介绍文字在翻译上的一些问题，有错译，也有译文不合中文语言习惯的问题。具体请参见这个地址（我是该帖作者）： > > > > http://www.chinesenewear.com/transnator/?p=32 > > > > 我列出了原文、现有译文以及拙译，还有简单的分析，望大家批评指教。 > > > > 祝好， > > > > > > Lawrence > > -- > > ubuntu-translators mailing list > > [email protected] > > https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-translators > > > -- ubuntu-translators mailing list [email protected] https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-translators
