Re: Verbs form in UI actions
On 12/18/06, Thomas Thurman [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 18/12/06, Wouter Bolsterlee [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I was explicitly referring to Dutch here. Imperative style is just not friendly in Dutch, and it sounds a bit strange as well (all Dutch software uses infinitives instead of imperatives). I think it must vary a lot by language. Someone on LiveJournal told me that in Swedish they use the passive voice for such instructions. I can't say that I recognize that statement... Swedish uses imperative on all menu items and buttons, except for some old translations (like File menu = Arkiv) that are nouns by convention (that's what they were mistakenly translated to in the early days of GUIs, and that's what people simply expect them to be today). Any more recent menu/button terms are all imperatives (like Exit = Avsluta and Close = Stäng). People that learn Swedish as a second language are often surprised at how rude the language actually is. We simply don't use polite expressions very much. The equivalent of please is used extremely rarely, almost reluctantly, and we all say the equivalent of you (German: Du, French: Tu) to everyone, even our bosses, and it's actually considered improper to use the more formal equivalent of You (German: Sie, French: Vous). When translating software into Swedish, we actually spend a lot of time removing all extra politeness from the English phrases that would just be considered weird in Swedish (for example, Please restart your computer should just be translated into the equivalent of Restart your computer in Swedish). It would sound harsh and rude in English, but in Swedish the extra politeness would instead just sound weird, out of place, and cheesy... So the use of imperatives on menu items in Swedish software should not come as a surprise... Swedish-speaking people that learn English on the other hand, are forced to learn that they should add polite phrases everywhere in large amounts, just so as to not come out as being harsh and rude unintentionally. Christian ___ gnome-i18n mailing list gnome-i18n@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-i18n
Fwd: Verbs form in UI actions
Forgot to reply to all... -- Forwarded message -- From: Leonardo Fontenelle [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: 20/12/2006 00:20 Subject: Re: Verbs form in UI actions To: Christian Rose [EMAIL PROTECTED] 2006/12/19, Christian Rose [EMAIL PROTECTED]: Swedish uses imperative on all menu items and buttons, except for some old translations (like File menu = Arkiv) that are nouns by convention (that's what they were mistakenly translated to in the early days of GUIs, and that's what people simply expect them to be today). Any more recent menu/button terms are all imperatives (like Exit = Avsluta and Close = Stäng). I've thought of File as a verb :-o In Portuguese (both in Brazil and in Portugal) it is translated as a noun, and I never heard anyone complain about that. and we all say the equivalent of you Just for curiosity, in Brazil (AFAIK not Portugal) we do that a lot, although less than in Sweden. We are much less formal than most Europeans :) Leonardo Fontenelle ___ gnome-i18n mailing list gnome-i18n@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-i18n
Re: Verbs form in UI actions
2006-12-17 klockan 17:31 skrev Youssef Chahibi: In what form (Infinitive, Noun, Imperative) are UI actions like Open, Close, Show ... translated in your language? Do you have any idea about what is intended by the verb form in English, is Imperative or infinitive? In English, these words are written as imperatives (spelled the same as infinitive). However, in Dutch, we stick to infinitives only. Imperative form is considered bad style and impolite. mvrgr, Wouter -- :wq mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] web http://uwstopia.nl it's the last day on earth :: we'll never say goodbye -- marilyn manson signature.asc Description: Digital signature ___ gnome-i18n mailing list gnome-i18n@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-i18n
Re: Verbs form in UI actions
In Spanish we use infinitive, except for File, that we use the noun. El dom, 17-12-2006 a las 16:31 +, Youssef Chahibi escribió: In what form (Infinitive, Noun, Imperative) are UI actions like Open, Close, Show ... translated in your language? Do you have any idea about what is intended by the verb form in English, is Imperative or infinitive? ___ gnome-i18n mailing list gnome-i18n@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-i18n -- Francisco Javier F. Serrador Coordinador de localización GNOME Spanish GNOME l10n Team Contacto: serrador at #i18n irc.gnome.org ___ gnome-i18n mailing list gnome-i18n@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-i18n
Re: Verbs form in UI actions
On 12/18/06, Wouter Bolsterlee [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: 2006-12-17 klockan 17:31 skrev Youssef Chahibi: In what form (Infinitive, Noun, Imperative) are UI actions like Open, Close, Show ... translated in your language? Do you have any idea about what is intended by the verb form in English, is Imperative or infinitive? In English, these words are written as imperatives (spelled the same as infinitive). However, in Dutch, we stick to infinitives only. Imperative form is considered bad style and impolite. I don't know whether it makes any difference in terms of politeness, but I've always interpreted these menu items as imperatives directed at the software. Thus, the user is commanding the program to perform the action. ___ gnome-i18n mailing list gnome-i18n@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-i18n
Re: Verbs form in UI actions
On 18/12/06, Dale Gulledge [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 12/18/06, Wouter Bolsterlee [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: 2006-12-17 klockan 17:31 skrev Youssef Chahibi: In what form (Infinitive, Noun, Imperative) are UI actions like Open, Close, Show ... translated in your language? Do you have any idea about what is intended by the verb form in English, is Imperative or infinitive? In English, these words are written as imperatives (spelled the same as infinitive). However, in Dutch, we stick to infinitives only. Imperative form is considered bad style and impolite. I don't know whether it makes any difference in terms of politeness, but I've always interpreted these menu items as imperatives directed at the software. Thus, the user is commanding the program to perform the action. I remember I had this argument with a teacher somewhere around 1990 because of the French i18n on our town VAX. The French commands were all infinitives, and I'd thought they should be imperatives because that's what I'd always understood the English commands to be. The teacher maintained that the English commands were infinitives lacking the to. I wonder whether most English speakers think of them as imperatives, and what languages other than English don't think of them as infinitives. peace Thomas ___ gnome-i18n mailing list gnome-i18n@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-i18n
Re: Verbs form in UI actions
2006-12-18 klockan 15:19 skrev Dale Gulledge: On 12/18/06, Wouter Bolsterlee [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: In English, these words are written as imperatives (spelled the same as infinitive). However, in Dutch, we stick to infinitives only. Imperative form is considered bad style and impolite. I don't know whether it makes any difference in terms of politeness, but I've always interpreted these menu items as imperatives directed at the software. Thus, the user is commanding the program to perform the action. I was explicitly referring to Dutch here. Imperative style is just not friendly in Dutch, and it sounds a bit strange as well (all Dutch software uses infinitives instead of imperatives). mvrgr, Wouter -- :wq mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] web http://uwstopia.nl never thought i'd fill with desire-- placebo signature.asc Description: Digital signature ___ gnome-i18n mailing list gnome-i18n@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-i18n
Re: Verbs form in UI actions
On 12/18/06, Thomas Thurman [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 18/12/06, Dale Gulledge [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 12/18/06, Wouter Bolsterlee [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: 2006-12-17 klockan 17:31 skrev Youssef Chahibi: In what form (Infinitive, Noun, Imperative) are UI actions like Open, Close, Show ... translated in your language? Do you have any idea about what is intended by the verb form in English, is Imperative or infinitive? In English, these words are written as imperatives (spelled the same as infinitive). However, in Dutch, we stick to infinitives only. Imperative form is considered bad style and impolite. I don't know whether it makes any difference in terms of politeness, but I've always interpreted these menu items as imperatives directed at the software. Thus, the user is commanding the program to perform the action. I remember I had this argument with a teacher somewhere around 1990 because of the French i18n on our town VAX. The French commands were all infinitives, and I'd thought they should be imperatives because that's what I'd always understood the English commands to be. The teacher maintained that the English commands were infinitives lacking the to. I wonder whether most English speakers think of them as imperatives, and what languages other than English don't think of them as infinitives. I think it is important to keep in mind that none of us are representative of typical English-speaking computer users on this issue. All of us are users of an open source system that many of us are contributing to. So we are taking a more active interest in what the system actually does and why. Even more importantly, this list is about internationalization and localization. My guess is that nearly everyone reading it is at least bilingual, probably with a moderately high level of fluency. Even those who aren't are concerned with software internationalization, a topic which touches on liguistics in several ways. My guess is that most English-speaking users don't pay much attention to what form of the verb is used in menus. There are three reasons. The first is that in English, the imperative is the infinitive without the auxiliary word to in front of it. The distinction isn't one that draws much attention to it. Secondly, menu items are isolated words used without much context. Finally, regardless of the language, I don't think most users take much time to consider the exact meaning of the text in the menus. As long as the action performed is what the user wanted and expected, the exact words aren't that important. - Dale ___ gnome-i18n mailing list gnome-i18n@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-i18n
Re: Verbs form in UI actions
On 18/12/06, Wouter Bolsterlee [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I was explicitly referring to Dutch here. Imperative style is just not friendly in Dutch, and it sounds a bit strange as well (all Dutch software uses infinitives instead of imperatives). I think it must vary a lot by language. Someone on LiveJournal told me that in Swedish they use the passive voice for such instructions. peace Thomas ___ gnome-i18n mailing list gnome-i18n@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-i18n
Re: Verbs form in UI actions
On Mon, 18 Dec 2006 15:23:29 -, Dale Gulledge [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I wonder whether most English speakers think of them as imperatives, and what languages other than English don't think of them as infinitives. I think it is important to keep in mind that none of us are representative of typical English-speaking computer users on this issue. I think, as a native English speaker, I'll step in at this point... My guess is that most English-speaking users don't pay much attention to what form of the verb is used in menus. There are three reasons. The first is that in English, the imperative is the infinitive without the auxiliary word to in front of it. Strictly, this is an English grammatical argument which grammarians disagree on. The difference 'twixt the imperative and the infinitive is given by context and placement (generally the imperative will be first in the clause), sometimes they are indicated by prepositions or punctuation, e.g. go (infinitive) may become to go; go (imperative) may become go!. But, as Modern English has watered down verb tenses a lot, we don't really have an imperative case anymore (not since Olde Englisc). So imperative == infinitive (for most verbs). So in conclusion: As long as the action performed is what the user wanted and expected, the exact words aren't that important. It's really what makes sense in the language that is being translated to. I often wonder whether English, with its lax structure and promiscuous grammar, is the best language to be the base language. If it helps, even the flavours of English can get into arguments about what the best tense of the English verb is, especially when we come to made up verbs like colorize or ellipisize which do not translate from the American dialect of English to other dialects of English very well. dave ___ gnome-i18n mailing list gnome-i18n@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-i18n
Verbs form in UI actions
In what form (Infinitive, Noun, Imperative) are UI actions like Open, Close, Show ... translated in your language? Do you have any idea about what is intended by the verb form in English, is Imperative or infinitive? ___ gnome-i18n mailing list gnome-i18n@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-i18n
Re: Verbs form in UI actions
Dnia 2006-12-17 17:31, Użytkownik Youssef Chahibi napisał: In what form (Infinitive, Noun, Imperative) are UI actions like Open, Close, Show ... translated in your language? Do you have any idea about what is intended by the verb form in English, is Imperative or infinitive? IMHO imperative - in polish we translate this as commands for computer, but there are languages in which are translated as infinitive form (german, I think). This depends on conventions used in Your language. regards -- AviaryPL l10n team e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] jabber: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ gnome-i18n mailing list gnome-i18n@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-i18n
Re: Verbs form in UI actions
Most times we just follow original guidelines, but when it makes sense we use our own guidelines. The GNOME HIG states that the UI actions should be imperative (that's why they aren't To open, neither Opens), but in Portuguese we prefer infinitive. Leonardo Fontenelle ___ gnome-i18n mailing list gnome-i18n@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-i18n
Re: Verbs form in UI actions
On 18/12/2006, at 3:01 AM, Youssef Chahibi wrote: In what form (Infinitive, Noun, Imperative) are UI actions like Open, Close, Show ... translated in your language? Do you have any idea about what is intended by the verb form in English, is Imperative or infinitive? Imperative. But it really doesn't make much difference in my language. Verbs don't reflect case: in some situations, we add a temporal participle (more often a temporal adverb elsewhere in the statement), but context is best expressed in my language by the use of pronouns, for which gettext does not provide at all. If I ever get our first OOo release sorted out, Youssef, I'll be able to get on with the glossary work. How's it going from your end? from Clytie (vi-VN, Vietnamese free-software translation team / nhóm Việt hóa phần mềm tự do) http://groups-beta.google.com/group/vi-VN PGP.sig Description: This is a digitally signed message part ___ gnome-i18n mailing list gnome-i18n@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-i18n
