there is a selftranslate python module

https://github.com/tuukka/selftranslate

that was developed for booktype and plug straight in but i think it hasnt
been tested with the newest booktype and also the interface could do with
improvement


adam

On Tue, Jun 12, 2012 at 7:35 AM, Boštjan Jerko <<br />booktype-dev@lists.sourcefabric.org> wrote:

> Anybody needs translation tools in Booktype?
>
>

ah yes

we do need to integrate a better translation process. I think we need two
types of process:
1. an easy 'community' process for translation
2. a workflow that could integrate with other tools for professional
translators

the first should be built in, and the second would be an integration import
/ export flow I am guessing.

While both are interesting I think the first one is most interesting since
there is a lot of need for community translation with a very light workflow.

What were you thinking?


adam

On Tue, Jun 12, 2012 at 2:39 PM, Boštjan Jerko <<br />booktype-dev@lists.sourcefabric.org> wrote:

> If I understand correctly selftranslate is a tool to translate the
> environment.
> I am talking about book translation tools (e.g. SDL tradosor
> Wordfast ). So a tool to help you translate a
> book - with term memory ...
>
>

what do you think of drag and drop uploading of images? ie. drag an image
to the page and it is placed and uploaded at the same time

adam

On Tue, Jun 12, 2012 at 2:49 PM, Douglas Arellanes <<br />booktype-dev@lists.sourcefabric.org> wrote:

> Also on the topic of translation of content, I'd like to repeat one of the
> main requests coming from One Laptop Per Child: Making it easier to handle
> screenshots in the translations. Booktype's current image handling makes it
> very difficult to work with screenshots (and I suppose all images) in
> translated versions.
>
> doug
>
>
>
>
> On Tue, Jun 12, 2012 at 2:44 PM, Adam Hyde <<br />> booktype-dev@lists.sourcefabric.org> wrote:
>
> > ah yes
> >
> > we do need to integrate a better translation process. I think we need two
> > types of process:
> > 1. an easy 'community' process for translation
> > 2. a workflow that could integrate with other tools for professional
> > translators
> >
> > the first should be built in, and the second would be an integration
> import
> > / export flow I am guessing.
> >
> > While both are interesting I think the first one is most interesting
> since
> > there is a lot of need for community translation with a very light
> > workflow.
> >
> > What were you thinking?
> >
> >
> > adam
> >
> >
> > On Tue, Jun 12, 2012 at 2:39 PM, Boštjan Jerko <<br />> > booktype-dev@lists.sourcefabric.org> wrote:
> >
> > > If I understand correctly selftranslate is a tool to translate the
> > > environment.
> > > I am talking about book translation tools (e.g. SDL tradosor
> > > Wordfast ). So a tool to help you translate a
> >
> > > book - with term memory ...
> > >
> > >
> >
> >
>
>

@Adam: agree with "community" translation tools. My wife did a short stint as a translator and tried to use one of the more powerful tools. Had a lot of troubles for a "one woman band" translation agency. So I am definitely in the let's start small camp.

@Doug: Hi :).. I wasn't thinking about images, but yes you are right. There should be some sort of flag for the images in the original and translation. I guess there should be some sort of a top "flag" to know which is original and then tree structure of translations with appropriate images.

Tomi
I'm not sure if I understand you correctly.
I was talking about tool where you have some sort of database of already done translations (mostly phrases etc.) so you don't bang your head with repeated phrases. Not to mention change the translation in the course of it.
So you can keep consistent terminology and also (for "let's call it professional tools") share translated terms with other users.

@doug Not sure if Wordfast works in Linux since it looks like it's tied to Word. It works on Mac though, so I'm checking it ... again :D

Yep, the whole thing is based on Eclipse, and it works just the same across
platforms. I've been using it on my Ubuntu install for a couple of years
now.

doug


On Tue, Jun 12, 2012 at 9:04 PM, Boštjan Jerko <<br />booktype-dev@lists.sourcefabric.org> wrote:

> Oops. I'm wrong. There is a Linux version.
>
>

One of the many problems with the above script is that Google Translate doesn't recognize that something is just one sentence when it is interrupted by some controlling keyword. and then, Google Translate is not free software, of course...

What do you mean by "You can use it as a helping tool, but not for a translation."? What else would you use it as a helping tool for?

Reply to @Douglas+Arellanes:

Douglas Arellanes said:

Making it easier to handle
screenshots in the translations.

in case this sparks some ideas, quote from the SVG Embed module for Drupal:

What this module does is to provide a text filter that
automatically embeds an SVG graphic into your html text and before doing
this, translates all the textstrings in the graphic. This has huge
advantages on multi lingual sites: the graphic always adjusts to the
surrounding content or the user preferences and gets displayed in the
correct language.

I suppose that for screenshots, first we would require a tool for taking SVG screenshots that preserve the text as text. Or maybe there's another way. I don't know enough about display managers to know if that's possible or not. Getting more complicated: in the SVG screenshots, put the text string identifier, and then in Booktype, or some other intermediary, pull in the most up-to-date version of that string in the correct language... hmmm, perhaps a problem if the length of the string changes significantly, thus changing the display layout (such as the size of a button) between languages and versions.

Patrick, thanks for pointing out the module. Sounds very good.

Worldwide Lexicon looks interesting. Has anyone taken a closer look?

Hi,


To continue the discussion, I noticed on a different mailing list that
Brian McConnell, one of the founders of the Worldwide Lexicon, has a new
project called Xlatn, which is a series of resources for translators,
localizers and software developers. I found their developer page to be
quite useful in bringing together a lot of different material.

http://xlatn.com/for-developers/

Hope this helps!


doug



On Tue, Sep 11, 2012 at 12:57 PM, Johannes Wilm <<br />booktype-dev@lists.sourcefabric.org> wrote:

> On Tue, Sep 11, 2012 at 12:54 AM, Sava Tatić <<br />> booktype-dev@lists.sourcefabric.org> wrote:
>
> > Patrick, thanks for pointing out the module. Sounds very good.
> >
> > Johannes, re: translation memory, no matter what you translate, be it
> > humanities or technical/legal texts, you want consistency. As a
> translator,
> > you want to know what term you have been using over the course of e.g.
> > novel for a particular type of say shovel they use in let's say the
> > Brazilian Northeast. It also makes it easier for a translator to go back
> > and change if she's actually found a better solution (translation) for a
> > particular phrase or word. So by all means, we need a translation memory,
> > regardless if you can get suggestions from Google Translate or any other
> > automaton.
> >
> > In any case, either machine translation or translation memory should be
> > just aids to a living, breathing translator(s), presenting suggestions
> that
> > one would accept or reject. It's great to have tools like GT evolving,
> and
> > we should try to build plugs for any number of them as time goes, but we
> > must implement a translation memory if we want to be serious about
> quality
> > translation. And users translation memories could either be aggregated
> on a
> > server (if one chooses to share) or peer-to-peer.
> >
> >
> I forgot what the discussion I opinionated in was about, and I cannot
> refind my own post. :)
>
> My point may have been that we won't be able to compete with Google
> Translate, especially if we do this as a side product hidden in some menu
> of Booktype. It would be hard to get the same level of user contributions
> which enhances the service as Google Translate and similar services do.
> Also Google Translate has some memory of previous translation it gave you,
> and I would assume that they work with per-user translation memories.
> Having an open solution would be of long-term benefit to the world, it
> would seem to me, but I would imagine that it would have to be independent
> of any other software in order to be successful.
>
>
>
> > I haven't done any research recently about what's out there (I remember
> > there was an Open Office plugin), but research we should. If we don't
> find
> > a way, we'll make one.
> >
> >
>
>

yes, I agree when it comes to application translation. I was the translator
of Biblatex, Scribus and Shotwell and a number of other programs I don't
remember to Danish/Norwegian in the past and having a tool that would let
me know what word I used for "file" and "close", etc. was very helpful. I
agree that exists and is nothing new.

When it comes to longer texts, such as books, it is a little different. I
have to translate not only individual terms, but sentence structure and
longer phrases. I have to make sure that my language is varied, that I
don't use the same adjective two or three times in a paragraph.

That's why Google Translate comes in handy. Even though the output is
garbled, it is still easier to "fix" this language than to do it all by
hand. My friends who are working only in translation therefore translate
first with such an online tool, and then adjust the language. But maybe
this is different depending on the language pair and how good the Google
translation is?


I noticed this project: http://tatoeba.org/eng/ It seems to be in it's
infancy, but it seems to be based upon sentence translation and if it's not
in there already, it should be extendable with a personal translation
memory.

Additionally one has to make adjustment for cultural differences and
knowledge of target audience. An extreme example may be: 

http://xlatn.com/for-developers/  makes the distinction between the two types of translation quite explicit and I don't see any automatic tools for the translation of dynamic content there. They seem to recommend the same as I do: use a web service and then improve it with human beings.

Worldwide Lexicon looks like it's a useful tool, but it doesn't seem to work for me. I've tried to use it to translate a simple word, but nothing (with using machine translation, of course).
I'll still keep an eye on it...