Chinese translation: traditional or simplified or both?

[sourisdudesert]

Hello,

Sorry for my ignorance about Chinese language. As it is now, there is only one language pack which is identified as "中文".

As I understand, there is at least 3 different Chinese languages:
_ Simplified Chinese (China)
_ Traditional Chinese (Taiwan)
_ Traditional Chinese (Hong-Kong)

Question to all Chinese translators: should I have 1, 2 or 3 languages pack for BGA?

Note: More language packs are of course better, but mean more translation work (as there is no way to copy strings from one language pack to another, right now). For example there is only one French pack for both France and Canada, and one Portuguese pack for Portugal and Brazil. Of course if simplified and traditional Chinese are too different it is better to have 2 packs.

Cheers,

[oktryit]

Because there are 2 different fonts in writing in Chinese at least, I bet that we should take them in regards as 2 different langauage system first. So we should have 2 language packs for sure. Considering the users and the works to establish the translations, I think it's okay and better. If you worry about the works for people from their countries, my suggestion is no worry in Chinese. The number of users from 2 part of Chinese systems are worthy enough to let you feel okay. (I don't know how many Chinese from China stay on BGA now.)

by the way, are French from France and Canada much different?

Dino

[sunrise]

I brought up the Traditional/Simplified Chinese, but I don't even know for sure if it will really be an issue. I'm not an expert on the Chinese language either, especially in terms of character encodings. Maybe someone with more knowledge can chime in. I think written Chinese is mostly mutually intelligible, meaning that the characters are the "same", but they are just represented in two different ways. As you mentioned, there's only one language pack for French, Portuguese etc. I think the situation is similar--the variations in the languages won't be a major issue--and that having just one language pack for translation into Chinese will work.

If that's the case, I think it would be better to have only the Traditional Chinese language pack for translating. This might mean that only those who know Traditional Chinese can translate though. From the Traditional Chinese language pack, it should be possible to generate a language pack in the Simplified character set. I think both versions should be offered because people who learned Simplified will not be able to read Traditional, and people who are used to Traditional generally do not like Simplified since the characters lose a lot of their symbolism. Translation should only need to occur once though.

[oktryit]

Then we choose Traditional Chinese as sunrise said. The problems leave and solve in the future.

[Laszlosaurus]

I brought up the Traditional/Simplified Chinese, but I don't even know for sure if it will really be an issue. I'm not an expert on the Chinese language either, especially in terms of character encodings. Maybe someone with more knowledge can chime in. I think written Chinese is mostly mutually intelligible, meaning that the characters are the "same", but they are just represented in two different ways. As you mentioned, there's only one language pack for French, Portuguese etc. I think the situation is similar--the variations in the languages won't be a major issue--and that having just one language pack for translation into Chinese will work.

If that's the case, I think it would be better to have only the Traditional Chinese language pack for translating. This might mean that only those who know Traditional Chinese can translate though. From the Traditional Chinese language pack, it should be possible to generate a language pack in the Simplified character set. I think both versions should be offered because people who learned Simplified will not be able to read Traditional, and people who are used to Traditional generally do not like Simplified since the characters lose a lot of their symbolism. Translation should only need to occur once though.

I studied Mandarin Chinese and then lived in Taiwan for several years. I'm familiar with both Simplified and Traditional characters. Despite the two character sets being very similar (and mutually understandable to many), I recommend that both be supported. However, translation need happen only once--with a Traditional source, automatic machine conversion to Simplified characters is possible.

[Laszlosaurus]

As I understand, there is at least 3 different Chinese languages:
_ Simplified Chinese (China)
_ Traditional Chinese (Taiwan)
_ Traditional Chinese (Hong-Kong)

Question to all Chinese translators: should I have 1, 2 or 3 languages pack for BGA?

There are actually many more! Chinese is a huge language family encompassing many branches and myriad local dialects. Much like European languages, some are quite similar and mutually understandable to a large degree. However, quite a large number of tongues are grouped under the umbrella of "Chinese". For reasons of national unity, the many Chinese languages are all referred to as "dialects". This would be similar to calling all Romance languages, or even all Indo-European languages "dialects" of a single "European" language.

Yet despite the great phonetic differences, there is something that binds all the Chinese dialects: Chinese characters. No matter how you read them, Chinese characters are written the same and readable everywhere in China. Lucky for us, huh? However, mainland China started using simplified characters to reduce writing complexity and increase literacy rates. This switch was not universal, so in Taiwan and among many overseas Chinese communities, traditional characters still reign. Still, only two character sets to reach 1,000,000,000+ people. That's quite a bargain!

[florawang]

There are MANY, more than the three, local Chinese dialects (such as those spoken in Mainland China, in Hong Kong and in Taiwan), but if we talk about the written characters, there are only TWO variants:

Simplified Chinese and Traditional Chinese.

Traditional Chinese is the writing system that Chinese-speakers have used for thousands of years. These characters have grown very subtle and complex over the years, and learning to write Chinese is a challenge even for Chinese natives. For foreigners, even trained translation services providers, it can be a very difficult process indeed.

Simplified Chinese is exactly that – simplified. The Simplified Chinese writing system differs in two ways from the Traditional writing system: (1) a reduction of the number of strokes per character and (2) the reduction of the number of characters in common use (two different characters are now written with the same character).

There is an article (read it if interested) talking about the difference between the Simplified and Traditional characters. To my experience, many people versed in one writing system can usually read the other, however, fairly easily.