On 10/12/2001 08:10:12 "Martin v. Loewis" wrote:

>> Maybe you wanted to say that many Europeans speak English so well,
>> that they do not need translations?
>
>It is my observation as well: Some users are hostile towards the
>notion of translated software. Those are typically not native English
>speakers, but people who found, at one time or the other, reason to
>complain about translations. They do so for all operating systems,
>making fun of erroneous translations (such as the infamous "Pfeife
>zerbrochen" of SINIX, or translations that an MS employee came up
>with).
>

>From an ancient DR-DOS (version 3.something)

Nicht breit __reading__ laufwerk A:

This was clearly an oversight (the message was probably pasted together
from various places).

My native language is Hungarian, and I don't remember using ANY software in
Hungarian (with the possible exception of Recognita, which is written by
hungarians). For the few I tried, I found the hungarian translation
incredibly awkward (this is exacerbated by the fact that Hungarian is
neither germanic nor latinic), even if not at the level of "all your base
are belong to us" :-) It was easier to use the english version (this was
all commercial software).

Complaining about the *presence* of translation is silly, IMO. Presumably
gettext has a way to decide what language to use (LANG environment
variable, or suchlike; LANG=en_gb should do).

Decoupling translations is a good idea, if the logistics can be sorted out.

Csaba

--
Csaba R�duly, Software Engineer                           Sophos Anti-Virus
email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]                        http://www.sophos.com
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