Subject: Re: gitk : french translation

From: Maximilien Noal <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 09 Nov 2009 00:15:45 +0100

Maximilien Noal a écrit :
> Nicolas Sebrecht wrote :
>>>> I disagree here. Words like "diff", "commit", "patch", etc should be
>>>> kept as is. Translation of those terms make things harder for the 
>>>> users.
>>> I agree with you when those terms refers to _commands_ names, but the
>>> main goal of a
>>> translation is to _translate_ and we have to make the best effort to
>>> use french word if they _exist_
>>
>> I don't think so. Here is _why_: the user-frienliness of a translated
>> software comes from "how hard is it to connect a word with the
>> underlying concept".
>>
>> IOW, we want to have good words to refer to the _concepts_. In the
>> computer science world (and more _specially_ for a SCM), those concepts
>> are much more well-known with the english terms. Keeping english words
>> help users to directly understand what it is about, without making the
>> users have to search for "what the fucking translators are refering to
>> here?".
> Why not put the translation first, then the english word between () ?
> At least for English words above that are not used by French devs "as 
> is" (not like "diff") ?
> 
> That way, newbies to SCMs' concepts get the idea, and old SCM users 
> don't have to translate back.
> 
> But if it isn't done _everywhere_ (and not used anywhere for words we 
> don't want to translate because there's no need or no good translation, 
> like "diff" for the first case, and "patch" for the second one), it will 
> make the situation worse.
> 
> Just my two cents.
I had in mind a man page when I wrote this, not gitk! Oh well.. Instead 
of "French Translated Word (<English Word>)" idea, may be the tooltip 
text (the text that pops up on a mouse over a control) can be used when 
there is no pixel space left in the UI for the extra (<English Word>) text.