Translations

[jpeg]

So is the odd Irishy dialect translation on CDO an April Fools joke or an effort to test the translation system?

Is there an option or in game command to switch between translations?

ACK! The faux Irish was silly, but this poor Yiddish thing is killing me!

Both. It's an early April fool joke, and a way to test the translation system. And it's not Irish, it's Durkon's speech (from OOTS. And it's like Scottish accent). There's also Jäger's speech from girl genius.

Oh bwahahaha! I've got to see this... Götterdämmerung! <3 Girl Genius

EDIT: More seriously, what is the purpose of this testing? I thought the messages were supposed to be outsourced for translation.

[galehar]

EDIT: More seriously, what is the purpose of this testing? I thought the messages were supposed to be outsourced for translation.

It's a joke. The translation is automated through a filter, so it's not really like how real translations will happen. It probably doesn't test much of the actual translation infrastructure, but it can point to menus or other interface elements which might be too reliant on text length for example.

[dk]

This video has a slightly clearer explanation of how to use Transifex.

Pros and Cons:

Transifex pros:

dedicated translation environment - smooth interface
keeps project out of devs' hair until final stages

Transifex cons:

not immediately clear what the best way to use it is - help docs not great
not yet clear how to plug translations seamlessly back into Crawl
is yet ANOTHER place for Crawl activity

Mantis pros:

already integrated into Crawl coding
solves the "too many places" problem
devs can keep close eye on translation activity

Mantis cons:

would take some work to make it suitable for translation work
interface is not smooth
more noise for devs' uninterested in translation

I think we should use Mantis, because it works right now. Maybe Transifex is a great tool, but I believe Mantis is a better way for the reasons you mentioned, at least at the moment. When it is clear how to get the translations into crawl and when the code is ready to handle translations, we can still switch from Mantis to Transifex.

[Grimm]

I've uploaded unident.txt as a straight .txt file from the offline tiles package. It looks clean and easily translatable in Transifex's interface.

[jpeg]

I've uploaded unident.txt as a straight .txt file from the offline tiles package. It looks clean and easily translatable in Transifex's interface.

Cool, thanks! I've played around with it, and you're right. This does work rather smoothly. I don't like how sentences are split into chunks at the end of each line, for which it might not make sense to translate them separetely. Also, the translations are highly unlikely to reach the line end at the same word. Not sure what to do about that.

In general, we'll need to decide how to deal with look-up words/phrases. Whether terms like "potion" or "deck of cards" are translated in the look-up section of each description or not, either way we'll need a separate file containing translatings for these terms themselves. Actually, it might be easier to define clear keywords for each look-up term (e.g. ITEM_POTION, ITEM_DECK_OF_CARDS) and use those everywhere the item is referenced including the code. That way, English too would get a file listing the proper names for each item.

Also, for the credits file, it strikes me as overkill to start a new translation for every new version, even though the header and footer never change. With that in mind, it might be worthwhile to split those out into separate files, translate these as necessary, and have some kind of script cobble them together for the final file. The same applies to e.g. the aptitudes table.
In general, keeping translations of documentation files that get updated regularly might be tricky. Transifex is supposed to have a translation memory, but we'll have to try out and see how that works when a whole new file gets uploaded that only had a couple of sentences changed.

[dk]

Maybe I'm just stupid, but I can't upload a translation for unident.txt.

When downloading the file 'for translation', I get a file containing only the already translated strings. When downloading 'for use', I get the file with some strings already translated.

So I translated the remaining strings, but I don't know how to upload it again. Transifex complains about 'not the same number of strings'...

[MyOtheHedgeFox]

How many line breaks ("enters") do you have in your file?

[dk]

There are 41

[Grimm]

How does it look when you try to translate online?

[CommanderC]

What should we do with the key names? Translate them, copy them, or just do nothing?

[MyOtheHedgeFox]

Gastronok, ynoxinul, neqoxec and others?
Translate those you can, copy those you don't even need to translate, and make a few variations of the hardest ones (neqoxec) so that you would be able to choose the best one later.

Actually, translating "neqoxec" into a language that is not based on a Latin alphabet would be interesting times. I myself find it quite hard to grasp.

How do you pronounce "neqoxec", "ynoxinul", "Kikubaaqudgha" and "Yredelemnul", dear developers, barkeepers and adventurer manipulators?
Please, make a full phonetic transcription of your variation or record a short audio clip and PM me with it if you can.
And, please, use this thread so as not to clutter this topic.

[mumra]

I think he meant how do I translate the keys, not how to translate names.

Keys shouldn't be translated, they are used for the express purpose of looking up the correct text.

Made up monster names aren't translatable so shouldn't be. In non-Latin alphabets you will usually see Latin characters mixed in for proper names because it's far, far simpler than coming up with a system of conversion.

[galehar]

In general, we'll need to decide how to deal with look-up words/phrases. Whether terms like "potion" or "deck of cards" are translated in the look-up section of each description or not, either way we'll need a separate file containing translatings for these terms themselves. Actually, it might be easier to define clear keywords for each look-up term (e.g. ITEM_POTION, ITEM_DECK_OF_CARDS) and use those everywhere the item is referenced including the code. That way, English too would get a file listing the proper names for each item.

I talked a bit about this with kilobyte. I noticed that having the english names in translated description files was a bit weird, but he pointed out that homonyms can vary from one language to another, so using translated names as keys could be problematic. Using the enum instead of the english name is an interesting idea, I'll suggest that to him.

What should we do with the key names? Translate them, copy them, or just do nothing?

For now, keep them. Translations would need to be put in a separate file, but for now name translation isn't supported.

[MyOtheHedgeFox]

If you are talking about key names as in (S)trength, (I)ntelligence and (D)exterity...

A dilemma!

1) Translate them all! ([С]ила, [И]нтеллект, [Л]овкость)
[+] easy to understand
- breaks compatibility with the on-line games (due to keyboard layout incompatibilities)
- breaks compatibility with untranslated game
- different translations will use different keys, which is not that good

2) Leave them as they are! ([S]Сила, [I]Интеллект, [D]Ловкость)
+ compatible with on-line games and untranslated game
+ a single layout for all the variations
- slightly hard to remember for non-geeks ("Hey, where is the letter 'G' in 'Sila'?!")
[!] must be ready to accept input both in Latin and in native keyboard layouts! (Latin S and Russian Ы should do the same thing, since it is the same physical key)
[-] counter-intuitive

__

I'd say "Leave them as they are". This way, the old guys will be able to move easily.
But the new guys might, and will, find it tricky. Of course, the new guys will already be game-savvy and ready to tackle difficulties, but that would be the hardest of them.

By the way, are there any rougelikes that are already localized into many languages, including some with non-Latin layouts?


Added: I think we should still choose (2).
ALL the major games, even those made outside of English-speaking countries, use Latin for hotkeys (Space Rangers 1/2).
Even though our game relies on hotkeys heavily, a print-out cheat-sheet should solve this problem almost completely. And when the player's character reaches the Ecumenical Temple, the fingers will already adapt to the new control scheme.

[Grimm]

Maybe I'm just stupid, but I can't upload a translation for unident.txt.

When downloading the file 'for translation', I get a file containing only the already translated strings. When downloading 'for use', I get the file with some strings already translated.

So I translated the remaining strings, but I don't know how to upload it again. Transifex complains about 'not the same number of strings'...

The system seems designed to work best when one translator at a time works on a document. You're seeing jpeg's translations, and the offline translation system doesn't seem to want to let other people join in. I notice that it tries to lock the document when you download it.

Online translation doesn't seem to have that problem. Also, the sentences don't appear to get broken the the same way in the online translation interface - each string seems to be a whole sentence, apart from the ones that have already been translated.

[Grimm]

Also, the sentences don't appear to get broken the the same way in the online translation interface - each string seems to be a whole sentence, apart from the ones that have already been translated.

I take that back. In the original .txt files some lines have linebreaks in the middle, and some do not. This is what's creating the broken sentences in Transifex.

[galehar]

Also, the sentences don't appear to get broken the the same way in the online translation interface - each string seems to be a whole sentence, apart from the ones that have already been translated.

I take that back. In the original .txt files some lines have linebreaks in the middle, and some do not. This is what's creating the broken sentences in Transifex.

Those are safe to remove. Crawl works just as fine with or without them, it's just that some people don't like having long lines because they use editors that don't autowrap (or they don't want to enable the feature for some reason). Removing those line breaks before uploading should make translations easier. Of course, I can script it if you want

[Grimm]

It'd be pretty tedious to do it all by hand so a script would be ideal.

However we've still to decide whether to go with this method. dk is against. I am neutral since I don't translate or code.

[Saegor]

[french] i speak french as native langage, i speak horriblely english but i want to help !
i am short in time this month but i (think i) can translate some descriptions in french

but i am a little dumb so i can't figure wich option is chosen right now to translate the game

[Grimm]

Saegor: it hasn't really been decided yet. Please register on Transifex and join the DCSS project and try translating the couple of files that are already there.

I think I'll go ahead and upload the rest of the .txt from the current stable branch soon.

[BlackSheep]

How has that process been going, Grimm? I haven't heard anything about it in a while.

[Grimm]

Nothing's been happening. We need more people on board as translators, and we need a decision on what platform to use.

[BlackSheep]

Ah well. I wish I could help, but lack the necessary skills.

[galehar]

I think I'll go ahead and upload the rest of the .txt from the current stable branch soon.

I think it would be better to unwrap the files before uploading them. I'll try to push a script for that soon. I'll also try to fix unident.txt without losing the existing translations.

btw, something's wrong with credits.txt. It's riddled with html tags. The source file is just a plain text file. Better delete it.

[Grimm]

credits.txt has been deleted. I'll wait until the script appears to do anything else.

[galehar]

credits.txt has been deleted. I'll wait until the script appears to do anything else.

Done. It's not pretty but it works.

[galehar]

Please, don't upload other description files yet. There's still the issue of how to translate names. kilobyte is almost finished with the portal_branches so work on translations should be resumed soon. I'll experiment a bit with transifex and let you know when I have figured a way to use it efficiently.

[galehar]

Alright, I've re uploaded unindent using yaml format this time. Seems to work pretty well. We are not translating names yet, as it needs more complicated logic (gender and plural).
I've also uploaded item descriptions in yaml format too.

Grimm: shouldn't we create a "english improved" language for DCSS Text Improvement Taskforce?

[Jabberwocky]

What do you mean by improved English?

[Grimm]

He means a project for writing better descriptions/adding quotes/generally correcting the language as it stands. It's a good idea, I'll see how it would work.

What do I need to do to upload files in yaml?

[galehar]

He means a project for writing better descriptions/adding quotes/generally correcting the language as it stands. It's a good idea, I'll see how it would work.

The only problem with it is that you cannot easily add a missing string. But this is a problem only for quotes I guess.

What do I need to do to upload files in yaml?[/quote]
Install the YAML perl module, run the desc2yaml.pl script I pushed to trunk today, giving the description file as argument, and upload the resulting yaml file.

[Grimm]

The only problem with it is that you cannot easily add a missing string. But this is a problem only for quotes I guess.

We can continue to do quotes in the spreadsheet. They're not really a priority anyway.

What do I need to do to upload files in yaml?

Install the YAML perl module, run the desc2yaml.pl script I pushed to trunk today, giving the description file as argument, and upload the resulting yaml file.

Would someone who knows how to do that like to take over the uploading? I can give you manager status on Transifex.

[galehar]

Would someone who knows how to do that like to take over the uploading? I can give you manager status on Transifex.

Well I do And I already uploaded item descriptions.
And there's not that many files to upload. I just need to write the other script to convert back yaml files to description files and test the result of the first translations in-game. Once I'm sure everything is fine, I'll upload the rest of the files.

[TehDruid]

So, I'm wondering how to translate Skald... From Swedish, the word translates to what we refer to in Greek as a poet, pretty much. So, should I translate this into "poet warrior"? It sounds pretty lame in Greek though, . Perhaps the term "warrior bard" is better.

A small note:

This is a club's description;

A heavy piece of wood, to be held or thrown. Coshing someone on the head while they're asleep is a great idea. - This could probably mislead a new player into thinking that clubs are a great weapon to use for sneak attacks (aka Stabbing). I'm wondering if it's a good idea to keep the line and other similar ones... This is minor, I'm just pointing it out since in the past I've read that Crawl descriptions need to be laconic and concise, without personal flavour. There is room for creative commentary but this particular one doesn't really add much, imho.

[JeffQyzt]

Clubs actually have a chance for a special confusion effect when you stab with them, though it's in no way comparable to actually killing the target via a dagger stab. It does make it slightly better than your run of the mill blunt weapon for stabbing, at low enough levels that you'd actually still consider using a club.

[TehDruid]

Oh, I wasn't aware of such an implication. That's probably because I don't use clubs, like, ever. Thanks for clarifying. I've been slowly translating "items" on Transifex since yesterday and I ran into this;

transifex_items.png (7.13 KiB) Viewed 19239 times

What to do? Every line has been fine so far. There's some more. My question is more like; should we continue editing the file? I hope my work doesn't get lost since I've translated 40% of the file and it's not going extremely fast, frankly. I'm going to save the file from transifex anyway, to be more on the safe side.

[galehar]

I have some trouble with multi-line strings. Conversion to yaml, uploading, translating works well, but when I download back, the file is broken. So until I sort it out, I won't upload more files.
You can still translate items.txt, although making local copies is recommended

Also, I've pushed the translated descriptions of unidentified items to trunk

If you work alone on a translation, don't forget to check the reviewed checkbox once your happy with your translations. That allows me to download only reviewed translations and start testing files even if it's not fully translated.

[TehDruid]

Transifex just went down for maintenance. It's almost as if someone wants me to slack. I hope what I was editing atm wasn't lost.

EDIT: Scratch that, it just went up again.

@Galehar: I've finalised (I hope ) quite a few strings from "items". Feel free to try them out.

[galehar]

I have to change the format to use .ini instead of .yaml. The mult-line support is better. Stop translating for now. I have to delete and recreate the resource, but I'll try to put back the translations.

[TehDruid]

Ok, I saved the semi translated items file so feel free to burn it like Trog.

[galehar]

OK, we're good. I converted all the files to .ini. Converting from/to crawl format to .ini is straightforward. There are 2 perl scripts, and they don't need any fancy module.
I put back all the translations, but you should double check for any mistake. Especially greek since it was the most advanced and I can't understand a single word of it
Also, all the "reviewed" status are lost, you'll have to check again.

I'm quite happy with the new format. Formatting is handled smoothly, and everything is very simple. Next, I'll look experiment with the command-line client and see if I can automate things more. And upload more files of course

[galehar]

I've uploaded all the crawl text.

  Code:

The English translation is to submit improvements to the existing english text.
If a string contains @stuff@ in it, avoid translating it for now (most files in database do). The grammar isn't supported yet.
Quotes are not to be translated, but you can submit non-english ones in their original version.

For coordinators, don't forget to check the review box so I can download the translations.

[Grimm]

A post on http://crawl.develz.org/wordpress/ might recruit some more translators.

[SGL]

Does it support CJK characters?

[Grimm]

It looks like it does. I can start new language teams for those languages.

[TehDruid]

So, I did the Backgrounds section on Transifex and tried it on a local console of the latest stable. I may be doing something wrong, but I noticed two things. After 2 lines of text, the display goes like this;

Translation1.png (18.22 KiB) Viewed 19159 times

And then if you go to longer 3-line descriptions and go back to shorter ones;

Translation2.png (19.53 KiB) Viewed 19159 times

So, I suppose we have to cut descriptions down to 2 lines max?
Also, for some reason the line for Abyssal Knights doesn't display at all (and yes, the backgrounds.txt file contains the description and it's not different that the others, I'd say).

[galehar]

So, I suppose we have to cut descriptions down to 2 lines max?

Having an empty line between the description and the shortcut list does look better. On the other hand, english is a very concise language so we have to expect that most translations will have longer text. Here, increase the text box size is a trivial change, I'll do it. Try to keep them under 2 lines, but if you have to use more, it's fine. Keep reporting it if you notice this kind of problem.
And don't forget to check to "reviewed" checkbox!

[TehDruid]

And don't forget to check to "reviewed" checkbox!

I've pretty much checked everything I've translated so far, I'm pretty sure.

By the way, I've gone ahead and done "rand_all" and there's an issue here.

In English you say foorandart of "Xom's Malicious Joy" or foorandart of "the Malicious Joy of Xom" (randarts use the first way only I'm fairly certain) but in Greek there's no equivalent of the first way (unless you like Google Translate quality ) , so you have to re-order the words to put Xom after the definitive word/phrase. Just wanted to add this.

[galehar]

And don't forget to check to "reviewed" checkbox!

I've pretty much checked everything I've translated so far, I'm pretty sure.

Reviewed status has been lost when I changed file format. Could you recheck unident and items?

In English you say foorandart of "Xom's Malicious Joy" or foorandart of "the Malicious Joy of Xom" (randarts use the first way only I'm fairly certain) but in Greek there's no equivalent of the first way (unless you like Google Translate quality ) , so you have to re-order the words to put Xom after the definitive word/phrase. Just wanted to add this.

There isn't any grammar support yet. For now, focus on plain text and avoid anything that includes @foo@ keys that could problematic to translate. It will be addressed of course, and I'll let you know when and how to translate those.

[TehDruid]

I see. Well, I just made sure that "backgrounds", "rand_all" and "unident" are checked. Also, about half of "items" is checked as well as a small part of "abilities". I made some changes to "monflee" as well, not sure how it works out though.