Translating technical terms

[diogo]

I'm opening this topic so people can discuss translations. I was thinking of opening one only for Portuguese, but some doubts apply in general. Maybe I will still open a new thread specifically for Portuguese down the road when it makes sense.

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Now, the questions that brought me here: What are you guys doing with computer terms like "cache", "template", "email", "URL" and "link" to name only few, or more PW specific terms like "page tree" or "fieldgroup"? Are you translating them or leaving them in English between quotation marks? Also, should we discuss general Best Practices for all languages or just let the people responsible for each language to decide?

[ryan]

Good questions. I'm not sure I can add anything to this since I've not had to deal with this particular issue before (I only know English, unfortunately). But thinking that anything that relates back to a function/property/class name that you would use in PW should probably use the same term, or repeat it in parenthesis or something? Just to avoid API confusion.

[DaveP]

I am no language expert, but I speak some French as well as Native English. (It isn't British English, it's English! 8) )

My suggestion would be that where the 'international' or 'technical' term is likely to be understood by the reader, then it is ok to leave it, but if there is a good translation in the target language, you could (and perhaps should) use it.

For example, most French speakers would understand 'email', but 'courriel' would mean the same thing using a French word, albeit a neologism created by the Académie française (more here).

[diogo]

Here in Portugal everyone would also understand email. My problem is with words like templates for instance. In Portuguese the correct translation for template is "modelo", but then you will have to use "$template" with the API, and put the files in a folder named "template". Since we are translating also the parts that are also for the developer, we should think of those things. Ryan's solution sounds good. I'm ok with putting the English word in parenthesis, whenever it makes sense.

EDIT: Ryan, one sugestion -- On the translation files, the translations that are equal to the English phrase are being cleared. This is a bit annoying because I always get "blank" alerts on the list of files.

[DaveP]

@diogo I see your point. In that case, Ryan's suggestion makes perfect sense, and improves understanding, which translation should be aimed at.

[Nico Knoll]

Funny fact about german: We use "anglicisms" so "cache", "template", "email", "URL" and "link" are used in the german language as well (Only difference is that the first letter is uppercased in german)

[Pete]

The real question is what to do when you're workin with a very different alphabet - Cyrillic, Chinese etc.

I think that most programmers are used to English spellings (or rather American spellings in the case of HTML - "color" ) and will be aware that they have to use the correct function names and API methods etc, but I would imagine that in vastly different alphabets we'll find that in the admin interface everything will be translated but they'll still be able to use it just fine.

When we get members interested in translating into those languages then I would also suspect that the Cheatsheet might have its descriptions localised too, which would be cool.

[ptjedi]

Funny fact about german: We use "anglicisms" so "cache", "template", "email", "URL" and "link" are used in the german language as well (Only difference is that the first letter is uppercased in german)

I believe that most of those terms are acceptable in Portuguese as well. The terms Template and Layout are more often used within the designer community rather than their translation. The only word I would translate is "link" because is something that has already a real-world meaning (ligação). So Diogo, I think we can manage with a few english words among our own

[diogo]

Bem-vindo ao fórum jedi

I think we can manage with a few english words among our own

I also think so, but it's certainly not the rule that has been applied to other PT translated applications. Take Drupal for instance: http://localize.drupal.org/node/664

I personally don't agree that everything has to be translated like they say, because it leads to confusion among developers that are used to the English terms (that's maybe all of them)... but should we just ignore what all the main applications are doing concerning this?

We also have to establish where is the limit... would you translate "tab"? what about the verb "to link", it would be "ligar" or "linkar"? I don't know any Portuguese developer that would say "ligar", but, unlike "clicar, "linkar" simply doesn't exist on the dictionary ("lincar" looks strange)...

I don't have time right now to complete, or change the PT translation, but I'm planning to review all of it based on these discussions. Any help is welcome