Language translation: Developers help developer

All of my applications have multiple Languages. Theres is a big problem to translate an application, when you are not a native speaker. It is important to have your app in many Languages when you sell your app with the MAS. I have some application from you bought on the MAS. The translation into German Language is not very well and sometimes I do not know what it means. I think this forum can help all developers to translate our applications into different Language. To do this maybe are two ways available.

  1. Direct contact between developers
    Example:
    Developer “1” translate an app from developer “2” into his native Language and developer “2” translate an application from developer “1”
    Developer “1” translate an app from developer “2” into his native Language and developer “2” support developer “1” with some source code for special features like “Sync to Dropbox or iCloud”, “App in purchase from MAS” etc.

  2. We use a “Developer Database for translation”
    Features:

    • add default word/sentence in English Language
    • add some Languages translation for each word/sentence
    • import and export in Xojo/Lingua format

Or we share the Xojo/Lingua files on any server

I hope somebody will help us to make better applications. Any idea are welcome and any request for translation into German Language as welcome.

I could see this being something very useful on the Xippets website (Xippets) to get everyone contributing to. A new online app whereby people request and contribute translations and then export to Lingua file format.

This may be some time off though as we are currently rebuilding the website to move to our dedicated host at xippets.com but if there is any/much interest I don’t mind looking into it.

in my experience, translation can be done by native speaker but it need to be someone working in the similar industry. For example, our application is in the art gallery management and collection management, we need to ask people in the industry to check it out. in the first attempt, we use the google translate and these people give us lot so help to get it right.

We thought about this back in my ARBP days. It’s a great idea, but like most great ideas, it takes someone with the willpower to start it, oversee it, market it, and make it succeed.

Since this is a service that means additional software sales I could certainly see this being a pay or subscription service. I would be interested in using said service.

There are already lots of paid translation services online.
Google for “service to translate to foreign language”.

But to get it right you need subject matter experts.

If you’re building a developer tool then other developers should be able to help get the strings right in other languages for such a tool.
If you’re building a graphics app then you need graphics experts to get the terminology & verbiage right for that industry.

Yes, I know. But the price is too expensive. Example from Google Translation Service:

Translate this “With this application you can create a favorites menu of your most popular applications and documents.” into ES, FR, IT, PT will be charged at:
gengo $3.36
Translated $4.48

My apps in MAS has a price from tier1 to tier10 ($0.99-$9.99)

WOW - one sentence is that much ?
That’s crazy considering it probably takes the translator moments to do it

first a joke before my reply… and I dont mean to offend anyone…

me: what do you call someone that speaks two languages?
you: bilingual
me: what do you call someone that speaks three languages?
you: trilingual
me: what do you call someone that speaks one languages?
you: dont know?
me: American.

ok ok I didnt come up with the joke but it is so true. I have been thinking about translations of my apps into languages other than English (American not UK). Using the translating services that Norm pointed out, they can get very expensive very quickly. I spoke to one that does EN<->DE translations and they start out at $5k USD for an application or document set and go up from there. So if there was an “exchange” of sorts where people can translate apps for other developers here, it would be great. The other part of the “exchange” was thinking about was beta testing. I get emails/tweets/posts/direct messages/phone calls/etc for looking for beta testers. If the “exchange” could connect developer to beta testers (make the introduction) that would solve a lot of peoples issues.

now this “exchange” I have been thinking about, it was during bouts of insomnia (something I get from time to time), at 2am at the local Waffle House while pounding out code. So my mind wasnt clear nor rested, and I am at a place that isnt designed for thinking (noisy/busy). So my idea of what the “exchange” should look like is a little off base. I would want to sit down with people to discuss it during normal hours when we are in our full minds (ok maybe you guys are in your full minds).

sb

Well theres the problem - yer at the WAFFLE HOUSE - yer supposed to be EATING WAFFLES … sheesh !

I’d actually guess that a WE app where you could look up translations that already exist would work

It would need some way for others to register & see what new strings that need translating if they have offered to do translations

Maybe a way for people to offer “corrections” of existing translations

Honestly, I’ve thought about creating such an app (several times). It doesn’t sound too hard. I’m just too lazy to implement. :slight_smile:

Well, and getting people to do the translation might not be easy.

$5K to translate!??!? Holy expensive, batman!

We either hire professional translators who charge by the word (a few pennies per word - I don’t recall exact rates) or hire our end users to translate - which has been pretty affordable. Even our largest app that has LOTS of stuff to translate only cost a few hundred bucks per language.

I’ll echo the sentiments expressed above: You REALLY need to find someone with specialized domain language skills to translate your app in a way that your users will understand. For example, we primarily write software for the acupuncture market, and the vocabulary for it is quite specialized.

We mostly translate into Spanish, and we love our translator. We’ve also done French, German, and Portuguese.

[quote=69623:@Kimball Larsen]$5K to translate!??!? Holy expensive, batman!

We mostly translate into Spanish, and we love our translator. We’ve also done French, German, and Portuguese.[/quote]

I have worked as a localization engineer ages ago and we did different versions for Spanish (Castilian and Latin) and Portuguese and Brazilian Portuguese. There are big differences among Castilian and American Spanish, with common words being “common, normal” in Castilian and rude as heck in the Latin Spanish and viceversa. Brazilian was a must as well for our customers (Apple, Adobe, Filemaker, etc).

I find most Apps translated to Spanish-Castilian, but the ones are translated by Latin speakers should in my opinion only offered to American market.

Sorry Kimball I quoted your message, just want to let forum member know about the differences of Spanish and Portuguese.

I can do Spanish-Castilian localization if anybody needs them, by the way :wink:

French is like that as well
Ask Stephane about trying to understand the French spoken in Quebec vs Parisian
And I’m sure there are other dialects that are different

[quote=69670:@Norman Palardy]French is like that as well
Ask Stephane about trying to understand the French spoken in Quebec vs Parisian
And I’m sure there are other dialects that are different[/quote]

True! :slight_smile: I referred in particular to big differences in the grammar, f.i, a simple verb like “to get” or “take”, quite common, in castillian means the action of getting/taking something, while in Latin… quite obscene word for them! Imagine take an screenshot translated to Latin Spanish :stuck_out_tongue: In that case the right word to translate is “to grab”, the correct one for latin-american.

Translations is also something I’ll be needing soon for some of my own products.

There seems to be a need for a free translation service so I was thinking… what about setting up an website where you can request phrases to be translated. Native speakers of the language can then translate the phrase, as well as verify if a translation was done correctly.

The catch is… you need point to request translations. Each time you translate a phrase or verify a phrase yourself, you earn points. With these points you can then add your own requests for translations. It is a win-win situation for everyone, you don’t have to pay cash for your translations, but you need to give a small amount of time to translate and/or verify translations.

Anyone interested in such a service. I really don’t mind setting some time aside in my development schedule to set up such a website, and sponsor the hosting of the website.

1+ for the translation service. My software has about 50 klocs at the moment. I don’t want to guess how many error messages I would have to translate. Hundreds, easily.

Great stuff.

I just bought the “openphrase.org” domain for this service, and will announce here as soon as something is in place for a beta run.

[quote=69623:@Kimball Larsen]$5K to translate!??!? Holy expensive, batman!

We either hire professional translators who charge by the word (a few pennies per word - I don’t recall exact rates) or hire our end users to translate - which has been pretty affordable. Even our largest app that has LOTS of stuff to translate only cost a few hundred bucks per language.
[/quote]

Getting the end user to translate is probably the best since they will probably get it right in context since they will be the one using it.

Please do. Although I have no application of mine to translate right now I will try to make the time to help others translate theirs, just like other people helped me here offering their time.

It is true that in some cases the application will be used in a field with a certain jargon, and in such a case it will be difficult to use this non-specialized “service” for the translation. But I would guess more often the text will be common enough so that anyone can translate it.

Slightly off topic, yesterday I watched a webimar (by an important software company) in spanish and I noticed the talk was translated from english, and some sentences or words were translated in a too direct way (by the pronounciation, the speaker was spanish so it was not a matter of different uses of the language). This made a very bad impression on me.

Also, as amando mentioned, often applications translated into spanish don’t feel right (to me) because they have been translated into american spanish.

So, I wil be glad if I can give back some of the help I received in this forum.

Julen

Not just a joke:

If you sold 5,000 licenses, that would only cost you only $5 per license.

$5K is a bit expensive (unless your sofware weight is 1TB = so many text to translate).

After all, this is ony $4K more than xojo pro ;-:slight_smile: