Why English?

[solsword]

Well... for what it's worth, I'd be glad to see IftU make mainline. From what I've seen so far, however, it needs a lot of dialogue fixes... as I play through the rest of it, I'll be providing those to some extent. Of course, I don't know what other languages it's in. To me, it seems as though if there's a translation of it that has perfectly fine dialogue, the fact that the English dialogue has problems shouldn't be held against it: after all, most mainline campaigns probably only have really good dialogue in a couple of languages, and I see no reason to maintain that the English version of the campaign must be the best version in terms of spelling/grammar/flow/etc.

[Iris]

The English version must be the one with correct/best dialogue, and the translators should mimic that in their work.

[Turuk]

after all, most mainline campaigns probably only have really good dialogue in a couple of languages, and I see no reason to maintain that the English version of the campaign must be the best version in terms of spelling/grammar/flow/etc.

Right, but if you have a multilingual community where the common language that most users share is English, and as you pointed out, there may only be the proper dialogue available in a few languages... why should that not be the language that most people might translate the dialogue from?

EDIT: SM addressed it as well.

[solsword]

Alright, I see how that's a rational basis for mainline inclusion standards, at least... but taking this point a bit further, does the translation system include a method for specifying the original language of the campaign? Let's say for example that I write all of the dialogue in my WML files in Japanese, and then someone creates English translation files. I haven't worked with the translation system, but what would things look like to a translator in that case? Would it be clear that translations should be made from the Japanese original if at all possible, because that has the original meanings of the phrases?

On another note: The WML files that I have for Invasion from the Unknown (and even the svn copy that I checked out) have text in English. Unless the translation system works in a vastly different way than I expect it to, this means that whoever wrote those files wrote them in English. At the same time, it appears that English was not that person's native language. Is there a good reason to force people to write their campaigns in English rather than their native languages? It seems silly to have someone who is not a native English speaker write in English and then provide a <their native language> translation, rather than writing in their native language and providing (or letting other people provide) a translation into English. This also seems like it would encourage translation from the non-native English into other languages, if the translation system presents what's in the WML files as the "original" to be translated.

[Turuk]

Alright, I see how that's a rational basis for mainline inclusion standards, at least... but taking this point a bit further, does the translation system include a method for specifying the original language of the campaign? Let's say for example that I write all of the dialogue in my WML files in Japanese, and then someone creates English translation files. I haven't worked with the translation system, but what would things look like to a translator in that case? Would it be clear that translations should be made from the Japanese original if at all possible, because that has the original meanings of the phrases?

Uh, what is this, hypothetical? If I was to take the English to translate into Italian, it does not help me if I know the original dialogue was written in Japanese. Not only do I not speak Japanese, I am not from Japan so any nuances or phrases would be lost on me anyways. That is why the dialogues are written in English to begin with, so that the writer will convey his meaning in one language, and then the translation only has to be made once, and not from Japanese to English to whatever.

Is there a good reason to force people to write their campaigns in English rather than their native languages? It seems silly to have someone who is not a native English speaker write in English and then provide a <their native language> translation, rather than writing in their native language and providing (or letting other people provide) a translation into English.

See above.

[solsword]

Let me make the example more clear. Let's say that I'm a native Spanish speaker writing a campaign, and I write the campaign in English, effectively translating from what I mean (in Spanish) into English for the campaign. Then, a translator comes along and translates it from English into French. It has now been translated twice, with the accompanying further distortions of meaning, etc.

Now, suppose that the translator who speaks English and French also speaks Spanish. It would be better if the original author had written it in Spanish, because then the French-speaking translator could have translated it directly to French from Spanish, resulting in a better translation. You're right in that if you don't know Japanese (in my first example) then there's no benefit. But if you (or someone else) does, then there is a benefit.

In this example, even if the French translator only speaks English and French, it's still better for the original to be in Spanish with an English translation: the French-speaker can make their translation based on the English, but a third translator who speaks French and Spanish but not English would be able to translate directly, and it would be clear that the Spanish->French translation was the direct one, not the English->French one.

Forcing people to write in English to begin with doesn't reduce the number of effective translations, it just forces the original author to perform the first translation (to English) after which other people translate further based on an already-translated copy. This is especially inefficient if the original author is not terribly good at translation from his/her native language to English.

Of course, some of what I've said is predicated on the availability of translators... It may be better to have the original author write in English because this means that there will definitely be an English translation, and if the majority of translators can only translate from English to language X and vice-versa, this results in more translations than there would be if the original author had written in his/her native language, since there's a (probably good) chance that the native text would never get translated into English and thus never translated by anyone who couldn't speak the native language.

I'd still say that it's better for the original author to write in their native language and, where possible, provide an English translation (to enable further translations) than for them to force themselves to write in English (and possibly provide "translation" files for their native language). Of course, a number of factors influence this, including how much the original author wants a chance to use/develop his/her English skills.

Just to clarify and for the curious: I'm a native English speaker who also knows some German and some Japanese. All examples so far are purely hypothetical.

[Turuk]

Of course, some of what I've said is predicated on the availability of translators... It may be better to have the original author write in English because this means that there will definitely be an English translation, and if the majority of translators can only translate from English to language X and vice-versa, this results in more translations than there would be if the original author had written in his/her native language, since there's a (probably good) chance that the native text would never get translated into English and thus never translated by anyone who couldn't speak the native language.

You vastly overestimate the number of people who do the translating for Wesnoth. Take a look at the translations page and see how many languages actually have translators who properly translate all of the lines into the right language. As I said before, there is a reason that everything is done in English so that anyone can look at the dialogue and translate it to their own language, without having to wait for someone else to translate it to English first, especially since the translators are already busy with other tasks.

[Iris]

A IftU-specific note:

I started this campaign by the end 2007, writing prose in pretty poor English. However, I was already in the process of learning to think in English, rather than translate the ideas in my mind from Spanish* to English; at a very early point of this campaign's development, I tried writing directly in Spanish and then translating to English, but I noticed that I was forcing my mind to a non-optimal manner of thinking. Writing in Spanish was slower and more awkward than writing in English because I was *thinking* in English already.

So I have coded the entirety of this campaign (including WML comments, satellite documentation files and translatable tstrings) in English for that reason. Lately I have been improving my writing and fixing old text as I feel like doing it, mostly inspired by the prose in some of the mainline campaigns which have been edited by ESR.

I'd even dare to say that I removed the last relic of my former writing style with 1.10.5:

Code: Select all

- 8 - final cutscene (A Royal Meeting):
    - Fixed probably the most half-assed dialog sequence in this campaign's
      history. Damnit, there were even a few plot contradictions in it.

I don't claim to be perfect or to have finished learning now, but I have certainly improved my English in the process of writing and maintaining this campaign. And I would not write it again in Spanish if I could go back to the beginning of this long journey.

* Spanish may be my native language, but I have never thought in pure Spanish in my brain. Nowadays it is a horrendous combination of Spanish, English, and a really obfuscated mind language based on ideas and objects**, rather than words, which I translate into the target language as I speak or write. For that reason, I'm very error-prone when I speak or write in English or even Spanish in real time.
** Apparently my brain is Object-Oriented.

[JW]

With what language they use, people can publish whatever they want for UMC. If you want to go mainline you have to have an English version of your text.

You can always later update your English translations of your native text and have that then re-translated into the third language, or you can speak directly to your translator to collaborate the translation between the non-English languages.

You're thinking too "in-the-box."

ps, no English means fewer playthroughs.

[Max]

Let me make the example more clear. Let's say that I'm a native Spanish speaker writing a campaign, and I write the campaign in English, effectively translating from what I mean (in Spanish) into English for the campaign. Then, a translator comes along and translates it from English into French. It has now been translated twice, with the accompanying further distortions of meaning, etc.

i guess the best approach would be to find someone fluent in both Spanish and English to make sure that the English translation is done properly. maybe providing some kind of checklist for important parts of the dialog might help or something like a script with additional background information?

[VS]

Well, I don't see a translator replying to OP's idea/question, so here you go.

a) The assumption that direct translation from language x to y is better might be correct.
b) Also, quality would be higher if the author wrote in his language rather than English.
But that would not work.

...because we don't have people who could translate that! Most of the translators is just a bunch of hobbyists who rephrase the idea they get after reading the English in their language. It is not horrible because they know their language well. But the process is far from something you could even remotely call "professional".

Consider that English is today's lingua franca - lowest common denominator. As long as you use that, most users should understand somewhat - and some become translators. We don't hire professionals; we do what we can ourselves, or it is not done at all.

Take a look at this:
http://www.wesnoth.org/gettext/index.ph ... ion=branch
Translation statistics for the stable release line, quite a few months old and with few changes to set back progress. Yet it looks quite bleak... indeed the world is not abundant with translators

So it effectively boils down to:
Different language -> no translations -> it is in only some "obscure" language -> most players can't play.

You can choose - either please the part of community fluent in the language & throw over board the rest, or provide opportunity for more translations. Nothing prevents you from doing this with addons. But it's quite understandable why nobody goes that route...

[Viliam]

Seems to me that the best solution (given all current limitations) for writing a campaign in other language would be this:


On your hard disk, make two folders. One will be "My Campaign", other one "My Campaign (development)". Develop in the second folder, in your language. Then copy it to the first folder, and ask someone to translate the source code to English. Then publish the first folder on internet.

Because the campaign will need fixes and updates, it would be good to separate the texts from code. It can be done using WML macros. You can make a new CFG file called e.g. "language.cfg" and put all localization data there, as macros. In scenario files, use these macros. Then, the only difference between the two folders will be in this "language.cfg" file, and it will be easier to update translations.

The rest of translation (from English to other languages) is done as usual. Also you will need to translate to your original language, but that means copying data from the original "language.cfg" into PO file editor.


As a bonus, you (or someone else) could make a script which will add your original phrases as comments to the PO template. This way other translators would see both the English texts and your original texts, so if they know your language, they can avoid double translating.

(Actually, once I made a Perl script that added translations from one PO file as comments to another PO file. Ironically, it was written to allow double translation in situation where I was not able to find an English-speaking volunteer.)