Re: [Firebird-docs] Choosing the translation service
Alexey wrote: In the original Russian text there is a term which is directly translated as operator parentheses, which is commonly used in Russia (and, as operator parentheses, exists as English term). (...) So, text should look like this: Each block of statements must be put within the operator parentheses BEGIN and END I think this proves my point that the translation should be done by a native English speaker. Of course we can't expect a translator to know all about SQL terminology, but if you don't know what parentheses are, you're not fit to do translations into English. Paul Vinkenoog -- Download BIRT iHub F-Type - The Free Enterprise-Grade BIRT Server from Actuate! Instantly Supercharge Your Business Reports and Dashboards with Interactivity, Sharing, Native Excel Exports, App Integration more Get technology previously reserved for billion-dollar corporations, FREE http://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/clk?id=157005751iu=/4140/ostg.clktrk ___ Firebird-docs mailing list Firebird-docs@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/firebird-docs
Re: [Firebird-docs] Choosing the translation service
So, text should look like this: Each block of statements must be put within the operator parentheses BEGIN and END Not very good? Fine, then something like this: Each block of statements must be put within block delimiters BEGIN and END. I think the original text seems to be weak here. BEGIN statements END is a Compound Statement and not a bracket. You don't have to put a block of statements between a BEGIN and an END. The idea is different: A procedure or an IF THEN/ELSE/WHILE block or whatever is made up of one statement. And if you want to have more than one statement you have to use a compound statement. (A procedure body always being a compound statement, but that's another story.) I think it's extremely difficult for a translator who is used to translating commercial or legal texts to do such a highly technical translation. Isn't there somebody out there in the Russian speaking Firebird community who could do a first translation? Regards Stefan -- Download BIRT iHub F-Type - The Free Enterprise-Grade BIRT Server from Actuate! Instantly Supercharge Your Business Reports and Dashboards with Interactivity, Sharing, Native Excel Exports, App Integration more Get technology previously reserved for billion-dollar corporations, FREE http://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/clk?id=157005751iu=/4140/ostg.clktrk ___ Firebird-docs mailing list Firebird-docs@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/firebird-docs
Re: [Firebird-docs] Choosing the translation service
Hello Alexey, I think this proves my point that the translation should be done by a native English speaker. If you know someone, please give me his contacts. I already recommended proz.com. This is probably the best site in the world for finding qualified translators and information on their experience, credentials, peer reviews etc. If you select Russian - English without specifying the native language of the translator, you get loads of interesting results, including some native Russian or bilingual translators who live in England or America or had their education there. If you specify that the native language must be English, you still get 313 (members) or 2169 (non-members) results. You can even go further and stipulate that they must be living in Russia. This narrows it down to 13 members and 256 non-members. Now I'm not saying that these are all good candidates for the job at hand. But the top of the list usually consists of people with long experience, verified credentials, etc. You can also give Concorde Translations a try. (https://www.concorde.nl/en/translations/contact-info). I did a lot of translation and correction work for them a number of years ago, and they were very professional. They work with target language natives and/or in-country translators exclusively; see https://www.concorde.nl/en/about-our-translators However, for a project this size a test translation is always necessary, and should ultimately be judged by native English speakers. Errors due to non-familiarity with technical lingo are acceptable, errors betraying an inadequate command of the target language are not. Which brings me to the 'parentheses' issue. Believe me, I did read your message carefully. But someone who translates into English should know what 'parentheses' are, just as he should know what a 'comma' is, or a 'semicolon'. This has nothing to do with SQL or programmers' jargon, but with the English language itself. These are parentheses: ( ) Words, like BEGIN or END, or word pairs, are not parentheses. Also, there is no English term operator parentheses (and if there was, it would mean something like parentheses around an operator). There is a parentheses operator in some languages, but that's an entirely different beast. It's perfectly OK for you and me to make this kind of mistakes. But for a professional translator doing a $7000 job, it is not. Cheers, Paul Vinkenoog -- Download BIRT iHub F-Type - The Free Enterprise-Grade BIRT Server from Actuate! Instantly Supercharge Your Business Reports and Dashboards with Interactivity, Sharing, Native Excel Exports, App Integration more Get technology previously reserved for billion-dollar corporations, FREE http://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/clk?id=157005751iu=/4140/ostg.clktrk ___ Firebird-docs mailing list Firebird-docs@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/firebird-docs
Re: [Firebird-docs] Choosing the translation service
On 21-11-2014 09:18, Helen Borrie wrote: Each block of statements must be put within the statement parentheses BEGIN and END. Statement parentheses? BEGIN and END are block delimiters. If the whole of their work is like this, the result would need some pretty close editing before being approved and released for translation into other languages. All statements except the BEGIN…END blocks must be separated by a semicolon.. - terminated, not separated. I think separated is actually correct here (although terminated is as well). The statement is terminated by the semi-colon, but multiple statements are separated by the semi-columns I'm in negotiations with another company for test translation too, it should be ready next week. Definitely I think we need to consider an alternative, if only to demonstrate that another translator choice could be worse! Agreed -- Mark Rotteveel -- Download BIRT iHub F-Type - The Free Enterprise-Grade BIRT Server from Actuate! Instantly Supercharge Your Business Reports and Dashboards with Interactivity, Sharing, Native Excel Exports, App Integration more Get technology previously reserved for billion-dollar corporations, FREE http://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/clk?id=157005751iu=/4140/ostg.clktrk ___ Firebird-docs mailing list Firebird-docs@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/firebird-docs
Re: [Firebird-docs] Choosing the translation service
Hi All, I have submitted your feedback to translators, and they provided new version https://yadi.sk/i/vavPQbm7cqjK6 Please review it and let's decide - should we give these guys a chance or need to turn to another? I'm in negotiations with another company for test translation too, it should be ready next week. Regards, Alexey Kovyazin -- Download BIRT iHub F-Type - The Free Enterprise-Grade BIRT Server from Actuate! Instantly Supercharge Your Business Reports and Dashboards with Interactivity, Sharing, Native Excel Exports, App Integration more Get technology previously reserved for billion-dollar corporations, FREE http://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/clk?id=157005751iu=/4140/ostg.clktrk ___ Firebird-docs mailing list Firebird-docs@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/firebird-docs
Re: [Firebird-docs] Choosing the translation service
Hi Alexey, will we get the final documentation in DocBook format? Kind regards, Martin it synergy GmbH -Ursprüngliche Nachricht- Von: Alexey Kovyazin [mailto:a...@ib-aid.com] Gesendet: Montag, 10. November 2014 09:38 An: firebird-docs@lists.sourceforge.net Betreff: [Firebird-docs] Choosing the translation service Hi All, As you know, we are going to translate recently completed Firebird Language Reference in Russian into English. For this purpose we are working with translation services. I need input from English speakers (native and not native :) about quality of the following test translation from one of the services: https://yadi.sk/i/uh1WeVY9ccChv Obviously, this translation needs some additional work, and also we can supply translator with some kind of guideline how to translate certain things in better way, but the question is: should we choose them or need to try another one? Regards, Alexey Kovyazin IBSurgeon -- ___ Firebird-docs mailing list Firebird-docs@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/firebird-docs -- Comprehensive Server Monitoring with Site24x7. Monitor 10 servers for $9/Month. Get alerted through email, SMS, voice calls or mobile push notifications. Take corrective actions from your mobile device. http://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/clk?id=154624111iu=/4140/ostg.clktrk ___ Firebird-docs mailing list Firebird-docs@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/firebird-docs
Re: [Firebird-docs] Choosing the translation service
Hi Martin, I think so. However, translation requires docx or odp formats. Regards, Alexey Kovyazin IBSurgeon Hi Alexey, will we get the final documentation in DocBook format? Kind regards, Martin it synergy GmbH -Ursprüngliche Nachricht- Von: Alexey Kovyazin [mailto:a...@ib-aid.com] Gesendet: Montag, 10. November 2014 09:38 An: firebird-docs@lists.sourceforge.net Betreff: [Firebird-docs] Choosing the translation service Hi All, As you know, we are going to translate recently completed Firebird Language Reference in Russian into English. For this purpose we are working with translation services. I need input from English speakers (native and not native :) about quality of the following test translation from one of the services: https://yadi.sk/i/uh1WeVY9ccChv Obviously, this translation needs some additional work, and also we can supply translator with some kind of guideline how to translate certain things in better way, but the question is: should we choose them or need to try another one? Regards, Alexey Kovyazin IBSurgeon -- ___ Firebird-docs mailing list Firebird-docs@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/firebird-docs -- Comprehensive Server Monitoring with Site24x7. Monitor 10 servers for $9/Month. Get alerted through email, SMS, voice calls or mobile push notifications. Take corrective actions from your mobile device. http://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/clk?id=154624111iu=/4140/ostg.clktrk ___ Firebird-docs mailing list Firebird-docs@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/firebird-docs -- Comprehensive Server Monitoring with Site24x7. Monitor 10 servers for $9/Month. Get alerted through email, SMS, voice calls or mobile push notifications. Take corrective actions from your mobile device. http://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/clk?id=154624111iu=/4140/ostg.clktrk ___ Firebird-docs mailing list Firebird-docs@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/firebird-docs
Re: [Firebird-docs] Choosing the translation service
He is not out of touch , MD and github is proved to be better for getting more translations and docs and code contributions After we have docbook it can be converted to MD http://johnmacfarlane.net/pandoc/index.html pandoc -f docbook firebirdinternals.xml -t markdown On Tue, Nov 11, 2014 at 12:07 PM, Helen Borrie hele...@iinet.net.au wrote: At 10:49 p.m. 11/11/2014, Jiřà ČinÄ ura wrote: Wouldn’t it be easier to have it in MD and on i.e. GitHub where people can easily contribute? SF is not making this easy. Jiri, you seem to be out of touch with this thread. It is about translating the Russian version of the Language Reference into English, from which point volunteers can set about translating it into other languages. We currently have a crowd-funding going on to raise the money to pay a professional translator for the Russian-to-English task. Helen -- Comprehensive Server Monitoring with Site24x7. Monitor 10 servers for $9/Month. Get alerted through email, SMS, voice calls or mobile push notifications. Take corrective actions from your mobile device. http://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/clk?id=154624111iu=/4140/ostg.clktrk ___ Firebird-docs mailing list Firebird-docs@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/firebird-docs -- Comprehensive Server Monitoring with Site24x7. Monitor 10 servers for $9/Month. Get alerted through email, SMS, voice calls or mobile push notifications. Take corrective actions from your mobile device. http://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/clk?id=154624111iu=/4140/ostg.clktrk___ Firebird-docs mailing list Firebird-docs@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/firebird-docs
Re: [Firebird-docs] Choosing the translation service
On 10-11-2014 20:57, Norman Dunbar wrote: 1. The title - should it not be Firebird SQL Database Guide as opposed to SQL Firebird Database Guide? The latter seems a bit back to front. 2. There are some strange language constructs - This language subset is used for developing the stored - the the is superfluous in this sentence. There are other examples through-out the text. I actually don't think the translation is very bad, but it will need a lot of work in editing after translation if the entire translation is done like this with incorrect use of the/a/an, weird language use (eg operator instead of statement, launched instead of executed) and domain-contextually incorrect language. But I think translating technical documentation on a subject you are not familiar with is simply hard. Maybe the translator should take a crash course databases and read the old IB 6 documentation ;) 3. Some of the examples of SQL language seem to have lost spaces - we have DECLAREVARIABLE and EXECUTEPROCEDURE etc. As it also (sometimes) happens inside the code examples, I have the feeling this might be a problem with the source used for translation, and not with the translation itself. 4. The use of A when the is required - A header of a trigger must ... should be The header of a trigger ... for example. 5. The section on triggers (section 3) has an interesting first paragraph. Perhaps it's just me, but I found it very hard to understand it as written. Who knows, maybe the original Russian text is not that good either; we have no way to know :P. Using google translate on the same paragraph gives a very similar text. 6. Overall, I'm not sure the quality of this translation is very good. As I mentions, I'm loathe to criticise, but to me, the text doesn't read very well at all. Yes, but I think that is largely due to selecting the wrong terms; that is something that needs to be addressed no matter what translation service you use. And finally, a comment on the layout, the indenting of the section headings is strange when the text of each section begins further to the left. Sub-sections should probably be numbered as section.sub-section rather than starting again at 1 for each. So the following on the first page for example: That is probably more a 'feature' of the selected Word styling than anything else. When talking about translations this is the least of your worries ;) Mark -- Mark Rotteveel -- Comprehensive Server Monitoring with Site24x7. Monitor 10 servers for $9/Month. Get alerted through email, SMS, voice calls or mobile push notifications. Take corrective actions from your mobile device. http://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/clk?id=154624111iu=/4140/ostg.clktrk ___ Firebird-docs mailing list Firebird-docs@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/firebird-docs
Re: [Firebird-docs] Choosing the translation service
Mark Rotteveel wrote: I actually don't think the translation is very bad, but it will need a lot of work in editing after translation if the entire translation is done like this with incorrect use of the/a/an, weird language use (eg operator instead of statement, launched instead of executed) and domain-contextually incorrect language. I think the main problem with this translation is that it was almost certainly done by a native Russian speaker, which explains the trouble with the articles (Russian has none). I've done a lot of translation work myself and rule number one is: always let a native speaker of the target language do the translation. Sometimes, someone who has lived for a long time in another country and speaks the language on a daily basis can be just as good, but that is rare. A Dutch person living in the Netherlands and teaching English at a Dutch high school, for instance, should *not* do Dutch - English translations, even if he studied English at the university and may have a bigger vocabulary than the average Englishman. To me like to others, the translation sample doesn't feel right. It's as if the person who wrote it isn't really comfortable with the language. But I guess native English speakers should have the final word on this. After all, I'm also a non-native English speaker (as well as a non-native Russian non-speaker ;-)) Cheers, Paul Vinkenoog -- Comprehensive Server Monitoring with Site24x7. Monitor 10 servers for $9/Month. Get alerted through email, SMS, voice calls or mobile push notifications. Take corrective actions from your mobile device. http://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/clk?id=154624111iu=/4140/ostg.clktrk ___ Firebird-docs mailing list Firebird-docs@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/firebird-docs
Re: [Firebird-docs] Choosing the translation service
At 09:37 p.m. 10/11/2014, Alexey Kovyazin wrote: Hi All, As you know, we are going to translate recently completed Firebird Language Reference in Russian into English. For this purpose we are working with translation services. I need input from English speakers (native and not native :) about quality of the following test translation from one of the services: https://yadi.sk/i/uh1WeVY9ccChv Obviously, this translation needs some additional work, and also we can supply translator with some kind of guideline how to translate certain things in better way, but the question is: should we choose them or need to try another one? On a quick read, 1. I sense that this translator does not have a good command of the use of articles in English (the, a/an, some. and constructs with no article). At best, it makes the text awkward to read for an English native speaker; at worst, the misuse of articles can make a difference to meaning, which could be a problem when translating the English version to other languages. It is a tedious editing task to go through text and correct these errors. (Believe me, I'm doing that all the time!!) If the person is being paid to translate, we should not be put in the position of needing to do such basic corrections. 2. Vocabulary choice in some cases needs to be reviewed. Referring to statements as operators is a bad choice in a language reference. The term operator has a distinct meaning in SQL and it is not that one! Similarly, use of the word events when talking about operations will cause confusion, even to native English speakers, given that the word event has a specific meaning in Firebird's procedural language. I found some other examples where vocab choice was inappropriate. Possibly the translator(s) should be given a set vocab of the terms most used in English for the various concepts. 3. Is the merging of keywords into one invalid word intentional? e.g. DROPPROCEDURE and other examples. If so, why? As far as I can tell, this occurs only in the explanatory text, not in the syntax patterns or the examples. I downloaded the sample, in the hope that I will have more time to study it when I get clear of release notes for a while. Helen -- ___ Firebird-docs mailing list Firebird-docs@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/firebird-docs
Re: [Firebird-docs] Choosing the translation service
Hi Helen, thank you for feedback. I'll submit more texts for translations and present them here. Certainly we will need to provide some vocabulary for any translator - SQL is pretty narrow topic... Regards, Alexey At 09:37 p.m. 10/11/2014, Alexey Kovyazin wrote: Hi All, As you know, we are going to translate recently completed Firebird Language Reference in Russian into English. For this purpose we are working with translation services. I need input from English speakers (native and not native :) about quality of the following test translation from one of the services: https://yadi.sk/i/uh1WeVY9ccChv Obviously, this translation needs some additional work, and also we can supply translator with some kind of guideline how to translate certain things in better way, but the question is: should we choose them or need to try another one? On a quick read, 1. I sense that this translator does not have a good command of the use of articles in English (the, a/an, some. and constructs with no article). At best, it makes the text awkward to read for an English native speaker; at worst, the misuse of articles can make a difference to meaning, which could be a problem when translating the English version to other languages. It is a tedious editing task to go through text and correct these errors. (Believe me, I'm doing that all the time!!) If the person is being paid to translate, we should not be put in the position of needing to do such basic corrections. 2. Vocabulary choice in some cases needs to be reviewed. Referring to statements as operators is a bad choice in a language reference. The term operator has a distinct meaning in SQL and it is not that one! Similarly, use of the word events when talking about operations will cause confusion, even to native English speakers, given that the word event has a specific meaning in Firebird's procedural language. I found some other examples where vocab choice was inappropriate. Possibly the translator(s) should be given a set vocab of the terms most used in English for the various concepts. 3. Is the merging of keywords into one invalid word intentional? e.g. DROPPROCEDURE and other examples. If so, why? As far as I can tell, this occurs only in the explanatory text, not in the syntax patterns or the examples. I downloaded the sample, in the hope that I will have more time to study it when I get clear of release notes for a while. Helen -- ___ Firebird-docs mailing list Firebird-docs@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/firebird-docs -- ___ Firebird-docs mailing list Firebird-docs@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/firebird-docs
