English to English translations

Discussions about the original English text
Liallan
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Joined: 26 May 2014, 07:01

Re: English to English translations

Post by Liallan »

DrKarotte wrote:Like Victoria_La I have made no use of periods, not because I don't like them or because I don't know that a full sentence normally ends with a period, but because I have noticed that BGA game logs usually don't have periods. My aim was to create a game adaption which is as close to the BGA standard as possible. There are worse things than adding periods, though, for example:

I agree with the idea of matching their standard. I haven't been doing this that long, so the first thing I did was dig into a few games and see what others were doing. Interestingly, I saw more with periods than not. It also didn't take long to see who knew what they were doing, and who maybe didn't. ;) And I sort of just took my cue from them, or at least the ones who appeared competent.

Changing the sense of a sentence to the opposite ("winner" was changed to "last player"). I don't know why he did this. The sentence belongs to a future game variant not in the list and thus will never appear (ATM), so there is no possibility to check the context.

Changing terms taken from the original rule book, like "Bullseye chef".
Yeah, those are kind of a problem. And I do agree that periods aren't the most important thing in the world. (I really only notice that when it's inconsistent cause that jumps out at me.) But no one should be changing words like that, unless they understand the context and the word usage really is incorrect or awkward. I find it odd that the game only came around yesterday and people have already been through it changing all sorts of strange things. (I was going to try to learn it and get on it, but I'm not quite that fast.) I think it's obvious someone doesn't know the game. Changing a "bluff" to a "successful bluff"???? (That adds meaning that wasn't there. Maybe someone called their bluff.)

Would you like your capitalized Points changed back to capitals? (See, I don't change that sort of thing unless I see inconsistency.) By the way "w/" for "with" is really casual, I think even too casual for a game. I don't think I'd use that. (Of course, it's already been changed.) And if you do use it, it doesn't have a space after it. I need to hurry up and learn this. There's all sorts of inconsistencies in there that are driving me nuts. :P Like it's mostly present tense but some things have been changed to past, I think not on purpose but while they were changing something else.
Unfortunately these changed strings show up in the translation for other languages, so when someone does some ugly changes here minutes after the game is online these mistakes may find their way in many other translations?
That's a good question. I've always wanted to know what happens to the other translations if we change something. But certainly it will mess up a translator who comes along after the change. If they're confused they might ask here.
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DrKarotte
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Joined: 22 September 2015, 23:42

Re: English to English translations

Post by DrKarotte »

Liallan wrote:By the way "w/" for "with" is really casual, I think even too casual for a game.
Absolutely no problem with this one. I have copied these texts from the original cards. ;)
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ckwatt
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Joined: 18 December 2016, 01:13

Re: English to English translations

Post by ckwatt »

As someone who has gone to some lengths to improve the English on this site, I suppose I should chime in here as well. First, I'd like to mention that the quality of the language is, in my opinion, of crucial importance to this or any website when it comes to attracting new users. There are surely a large number of people who would be turned off by unidiomatic usage or even bad punctuation.

I'd also like to point out that it is a great idea to crowdsource the language processes here, especially for languages that would otherwise be difficult to include. It is also great that there are a few others who, like me, have gone to work here to improve things in English.

Having said all that, the reward system is in fact open to abuse (I have felt it as well) and may be the driving force behind one or two overeager users. I recently had to undo and rewrite a couple of phrases on a new game because the person who jumped in immediately after the launch did not play the game (enough) to realize that he twisted the meanings around to mean the opposite. I played the game (a lot) and people were genuinely confused. Perhaps the "knowing-the-game" guideline needs to be enforced better.

As for punctuation, I myself am never sure whether to fix all the punctuation or not. I actually do all of these things for a living, so it is an occupational hazard to want to edit everything. It would help if there were a guideline for that.
Liallan
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Joined: 26 May 2014, 07:01

Re: English to English translations

Post by Liallan »

DrKarotte wrote:
Liallan wrote:By the way "w/" for "with" is really casual, I think even too casual for a game.
Absolutely no problem with this one. I have copied these texts from the original cards. ;)
I'm not really sure if this means no problem with leaving "w/" or no problem that I think it should change? But mentioning the original cards kind of implies the former. I don't know about that particular game since I don't know it, but I would keep in mind that with so many games being a translation from some other language, I would not count on what the original says as being OK. If it's a "style" thing, then sure. (e.g. if the rules want to capitalize all the resources, I consider that a "style" in the game writing.) But it can also just be incorrect, or at least not totally appropriate.
Liallan
Posts: 1221
Joined: 26 May 2014, 07:01

Re: English to English translations

Post by Liallan »

ckwatt wrote: I recently had to undo and rewrite a couple of phrases on a new game because the person who jumped in immediately after the launch did not play the game (enough) to realize that he twisted the meanings around to mean the opposite. I played the game (a lot) and people were genuinely confused. Perhaps the "knowing-the-game" guideline needs to be enforced better.
I saw that. :) I do agree there's a problem with just "jumping in" to something unknown, which is what I feel like is happening. I still don't know, though, whether that person means well. I feel pretty strongly that someone should contact him about it, but since Een tends to stress this being a community project, I think that decision has to be an admin. Anything that changes a meaning should not be done, unless of course the meaning wasn't right. And you can only know that by knowing the game and the interface. Even if you have not played something here, it is so incredibly easy to watch a live game, and look through a game log to see how the interface works and find context. Or maybe that's the problem - that someone thinks that is a lot of trouble, but I personally think it is well worth it. But... there are also things that change on the site that can make some difference in how something is done, and someone can not be aware of it. (Like continuing to change "him" to "him/her" when it's not necessary.)

I'm pretty anal. I want everything to be as correct as it can, and sound as good as it can, so that word usage and awkwardness also come into play. I'm picky about consistency, and I like using the vocabulary the rules do, unless they are incorrect, which is common really.

As for punctuation, I myself am never sure whether to fix all the punctuation or not. I actually do all of these things for a living, so it is an occupational hazard to want to edit everything. It would help if there were a guideline for that.
That must drive you crazy. I can deal with the game log not having periods, if that's meant to be a "stylized" sort of thing. Though when there's two sentences and one has a period and the second one doesn't, I think that looks ridiculous. (Probably a solution to that is make it two boxes.)

Guidelines would be good, since there's no way to know what the admins want. The guidelines that do exist are for true translations, and don't always apply to fixing English, and for the English I think there's things we need since that's the basis for everything else. It would be nice to have a list of questionable things, and have a guideline that includes the answers, which can be edited as new questions come in. If you scour this forum, you can find some things, but it's more "general" stuff, and is time consuming.
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Een
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Re: English to English translations

Post by Een »

Liallan wrote:I do agree there's a problem with just "jumping in" to something unknown, which is what I feel like is happening. I still don't know, though, whether that person means well. I feel pretty strongly that someone should contact him about it, but since Een tends to stress this being a community project, I think that decision has to be an admin.
Yes. It seems that most of the comments revolve around changes made by a specific player.
From what I can see, this player seems well intentioned, if too eager.
I contacted him to ask him to be more cautious and point him to this thread for further discussion if needed.
Liallan wrote:Guidelines would be good, since there's no way to know what the admins want. The guidelines that do exist are for true translations, and don't always apply to fixing English, and for the English I think there's things we need since that's the basis for everything else. It would be nice to have a list of questionable things, and have a guideline that includes the answers, which can be edited as new questions come in.
It seems indeed that specific guidelines for English would be useful, especially considering that a bad change done early to the English reference text will propagate to translations in multiple other languages (a bad change done late is less harmful since most translations will already have been made and so the probability someone comes back to change them if they are adequate is low).

I would propose as a basic guidelines set:
- no punctuation for buttons and action bar messages
- always aim to improve consistency, never decrease it (if the developer mostly used ending punctuation in the logs, add missing punctuation in the logs; if not, don't)
- never change or add meaning to a string if you are not 100% sure (a mistake here is costly as it can propagate to other languages)
- for games, take the time to play and see strings in context before changing anything that is not just an obvious typo
- for games, when possible, refer to the game rulebook as a guide for style (but be aware that it's probably not perfect either).

Would that work? Other suggestions?
Should I make the warning popup show up at each change of a reference text (versus just for the first change currently)? Or would that be too annoying?
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DrKarotte
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Joined: 22 September 2015, 23:42

Re: English to English translations

Post by DrKarotte »

Liallan wrote:I'm not really sure if this means no problem with leaving "w/" or no problem that I think it should change? But mentioning the original cards kind of implies the former.
Sorry, this was misunderstanding. I really meant that I don't see any problem to change it if it is simply casual. I admit that I did not know this "w/", and I did not do any research. I thought that it might be some "cooking book English", and that would mean that it would indeed be a piece of style. Im German many recipes begin with the words "Man nehme" which means nothing more than "Take ...", but this is only used in cooking books, and so you would immediately think of a recipe when you read a sentence begining with these 2 words.
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ollyfish2002
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Joined: 29 January 2015, 09:32

Re: English to English translations

Post by ollyfish2002 »

just a small question :
How can we recognise button from log text ?
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Een
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Joined: 16 June 2010, 19:52

Re: English to English translations

Post by Een »

ollyfish2002 wrote:just a small question :
How can we recognise button from log text ?
You can't, except if you see it during the game or on the site (there is a thread somewhere in the forum about the absence of context if you are interested in the why of that).

Overall, except for typos or grammatical errors, English reference text should be changed only by searching for the string after seeing it while using the site/playing a game and spotting a mistake.
Liallan
Posts: 1221
Joined: 26 May 2014, 07:01

Re: English to English translations

Post by Liallan »

DrKarotte wrote:
Liallan wrote:I'm not really sure if this means no problem with leaving "w/" or no problem that I think it should change? But mentioning the original cards kind of implies the former.
Sorry, this was misunderstanding. I really meant that I don't see any problem to change it if it is simply casual. I admit that I did not know this "w/", and I did not do any research. I thought that it might be some "cooking book English", and that would mean that it would indeed be a piece of style. Im German many recipes begin with the words "Man nehme" which means nothing more than "Take ...", but this is only used in cooking books, and so you would immediately think of a recipe when you read a sentence begining with these 2 words.
I get you now. You literally just copied from the rules without getting the meaning.

It's an abbreviation for "with." It has nothing to do with cooking at all. So like "w/out" means without. And "w/noodles" is with noodles. It doesn't have a space. It's just a short-hand, like you'd scribble on paper just to be quick. Think of it like texting. Just my opinion, but it seems even more casual than normal casual. I'm surprised it was in the rules.
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