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How to contribute a translation


TJ Kolev

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Greetings,

I searched this form, and the wiki, and came up empty handed. Is there documentation that describes the process for contributing a translation? Things like:

  • Is there source control? Where?
  • How do I go about submitting the translation sources?
  • Is there a review of the proposed additions/changes?
  • Test that need running and passing?
  • Are translations distributed via some other mechanism?

In my case I have a Bulgarian translation - /languages/Bulgarian-UTF8 set of files. How do I offer them to the project.

Now, on a somewhat tangent topic, I found the TNG localization facilities less than optimal. There were multiple entries for the same key. There's no context provided of what and where the usage would be. In addition there's no way to accommodate the complexity of words used in Bulgarian to describe kinship. To start the language is gender based, so there are different words depending if the subject is male or female. A lot of times I can do away by adding /suffix - съпруг/а. But then there's the case where a totally different word is used for my mother's brother than my father's brother. And it gets more complicated for the in-law relationships. I use one word for my wife's brother, but he uses a different one for me. Perhaps translators for other languages had the same trouble trying to fit into the provided limited set of keys that are based on the more simple English kinship words. Regardless - very interesting in the way languages differ.

Cheers,

TJ Kolev :)

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Rob Severijns

TJ,

Translations for the core TNG language files can be provided to Darrin directly.

Translations for Mods can be send to the maker/editor of the Mod.

 

Rob

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TJ,
     As Rob indicated, Darrin maintains the core TNG language files and mod developers maintain their language files.  If there are other users who would be interested in the Bulgarian translations and know the Bulgarian language well enough, they would be who you would get to work with on reviewing the translations.  I am guessing that there is not a large audience for Bulgarian yet, which is one reason that it has not been added and so you may get to make the determinations.  Since there is the custom text file, a word where you use one and your brother-in-law uses another could be set to use a different word between different TNG sites using the custom text file overriding the distributed text.

     Some of those text definitions that are the same in English for two different strings may be those relationship words like you say are different based on context.  French and German have both been mentioned as languages that do have masculine and feminine words that depend on the subject like you are having issues with in Bulgarian.  English having lost the context of differentiating between sexes from the language sometime between the Anglo-Saxon invasion (circa 500) and the Norman invasion (1066) leads to complications when doing translations and having the strings as you indicate.  With other Indo-European languages in TNG, the strings may be there and just look like duplicates in English.

     Hopefully some of the TNG users who have done translations and use languages with more complicated rules, especially with regard to the kinship, will respond and can help you to determine which strings are used in those cases that you mentioned.  Also just by knowing this, if you happen to know any of the other languages that are currently in TNG, you can look and see what some of the differences may be between two language strings that look to be duplicate in English.

Brent

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Michel KIRSCH

Having translated many terms for French, I can say that we sometimes had to "juggle" with the terms to find a satisfactory translation for some English terms.
However, we always found the French ungendered and short enough term that translated very well (if not perfectly) the idea to put on the screen.
When it was really not possible, Darrin and Ken do everything possible to find a "fitting" in TNG
If I have one piece of advice to give in this matter, it is to work together to find the right term(s)...

But it's a long job! Even today, I have just found a "Clear filter" translated as "Filtre clair" (= light filter) 🙄

... And you're not alone : Pàl (username nacsaszta ) has just started the translations for Hungarian language !

Cheer Up !


Michel

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator

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