Hey there,
interesting translation feature! I hope it works the way you want it to (I have already translated websites from Italian to English and from English to German, and I know it's no easy feat!). I just want to say four things:
1)
As far as the question between "du" und "Sie" goes (informal and formal "you") I must clearly speak for the informal "du".
ALL the games in German use the "du" - all the descriptions, the guides, the manuals, the text on the playing cards, everything is kept in informal writing, using the "du" (and the informal form of the imperative). Having any of that with "Sie" would seem extremely weird to anyone who speaks German, it would stand completely alone amongst all other games (board games, card games, computer and online games) and it would conflict with the German versions of the printed games.
2)
As someone has pointed out before, it is in many cases simple impossible to offer an accurate translation for a single word or half a phrase without the proper context. There were many, many cases where I did enter a translation but could not have been sure if it was really correct (I pointed that out in the respecitve comments). Without knowing the context, many things can't be translated correctly. Knowing (an example) where the word or phrase is used would change that for the most part.
3)
It is very difficult, often impossible to correctly translate a game one doesn't know in the language that one is translating to - and it get's worse when one doesn't even know the game at all. I don't want to cast stones here or make accusations. If I have to point my finger, I'll point it to myself. Yes, I have done this in some cases yesterday and today, because apparently there was no one who was translating some games or prases from a game and hey, German is my mothertongue, there's no such thing as an English sentence that I can't translate into good German. So far, so good. But often that isn't worth much, because there are special elements in almost any game that may have a very special terminology - and often the "dictionary translations" of that aren't even good enough to make someone understand what is meant, and even that would still be far from being a correct translation.
Therefor my appeal: Don't translate a game (with the exception of elements that are obviously universal), if you don't know the game IN GERMAN. Yesterday I translated pretty much all of "Dominion" - which I could not do just because I know how to play "Dominion" and I'm fluent in German, but because I own the German versions of both the base game and "Intrigue". Therefor, I know what the cards are called, and I know the correct terminology for "draw pile" (Nachziehstapel) or "trash a card" (eine Karte entsorgen). Of course, "trash" can be "wegwerfen" in German - but not in "Dominion". Here the "Torturer" is the "Kerkermeister", not the "Folterer", and "treasures" are "Geldkarten", not "Schätze".
I don't know these things for other games, so I will no longer try to guess them or invent my own version, using the "right" German words. Which brings me to the last point I want to mention:
4)
DON'T translate something into German, if you don't know German. I don't want to be mean, and it's nice that you go to so much effort to help the guys from BGA with their translation project - but it doesn't do ANY good.
Yesterday I literally spent hours correcting wrong translations. I am in no way angry at the people who made those wrong translations and I don't mind correcting them - but all the work those people have done was completely pointless. There were very few where there were only some grammatical errors, like a wrong ending - most of them were just totally wrong. Two kinds of them were particularly bad: One, where some elements were translated (incorrectly, in most cases) and others not - I assume this might happen with "internet translations" - and one, where obsure words were used all the time instead of the common (and correct) German words. Again, I guess this is what happens, when someone uses a translation program or an online dictionary. In one case someone even translated "Board Game Arena" multiple times to something like "Vorstand-Spiel-Arena" - in this case one can at least guess, what is meant ("Vorstand" means "board of directors", whereas "board game" would be "Brettspiel" in German). But there were many mistakes that meant something completely different, or, in a large number of cases, made no sense at all. Such translations aren't just not helpful, they are harmful and hinder the process of creating a correct translation of a website.
In conclusion: Maybe there should be some ground rules for the conduct of these translations, but most importantly, people that don't know the language or a game need to exert self-restraint here.
Lord Nimrod
).
, but after reading these messages, I must agree that only native speakers should do the job.