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Translators' feedback & opinion needed

Discussions of the development process of the game.
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Voom
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Re: Translators' feedback & opinion needed

Post by Voom »

Duvalon wrote: Tue Jun 06, 2017 2:34 am 4. Was there a search function? I can't seem to find one...
What would the search function be used for? Weblate has a search, is it similar to that?
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Re: Translators' feedback & opinion needed

Post by Duvalon »

It would be to search for particular strings to find conversation context. The problem with Weblate is the flow of strings doesn't follow conversations. Conversations are more like decision trees, while Weblate is just a linear list of strings. Thus conversations end up out of order. Also, it's not always obvious who's talking, and if it's a man or woman. Gender comes up more often in French than in English.
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Re: Translators' feedback & opinion needed

Post by Voom »

Oh, I see now. If there are multiple sentences in a paragraph, Weblate doesn't show when the conversations start stop. This might be an issue for translating in context, but I don't know how...
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Re: Translators' feedback & opinion needed

Post by Voom »

Zukero wrote: Mon Apr 10, 2017 3:36 pm
  • #1 - What do you think about Weblate, our new translation platform? Is it easy to use? Is it working well?
  • #2 - Do you feel the need for better tools to gain context from a translatable string in Weblate?
Is Weblate used for other projects or for the translating needs of other software/programs? If this translating tool is used by many people throughout the world, then wouldn't it be neat if previously translated words or phrases of a specific language are displayed as suggestions to future translators of the same language. For example, if the word "light" has already been translated into Bulgarian as "светлина" in a different text for a different purpose than AT, then when I hover my mouse over the word "light" as it's shown in a Weblate sentence to translate for AT, "светлина" would pop up as a button to insert into the text box if I decide it's correct. Does that make sense?
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Re: Translators' feedback & opinion needed

Post by Zukero »

Weblate is developed by one of the phpBB authors. It is used by many open source projects, and commercial ones too.

You can use it in three different ways:
- You host and administer your own instance for free
- Weblate hosts your project privately for cash
- Weblate hosts your open-source project for free

We are in the third case.

Your suggestion is interesting. You should email the weblate team, and I'm sure they will get back to you. They always have with me, in a personal and helpful manner.
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Re: Translators' feedback & opinion needed

Post by zizkin »

#1-6 I use it an I like it. Some small improvements are on the way!
#7 female character would be rather big complication. My mother tongue (well, IIRC, all Slavic languages like Polnish, Russian...) distinguish male/female/neuter not only for his/her/its, but also for (nearly) all verbs, adjectives and so on. Here are some correct translation examples:
(Male) Little horse fled the battle. -> Malý kůň utekl z boje.
(Female) Little fox fled the battle. - > Malá liška utekla z boje.
(Neuter) Little kid fled the battle. -> Malé dítě uteklo z boje.
Right now, when translating the content, it is a bit tricky, but there exist some nice workarounds (like changing it from past simple to present simple and choose correct verb which is same for masculine, feminine and neuter), so imagining there is an option for female character makes the translation even more complicated. Even a simple question of Mikhail "Did you get my bread..." would need male and female version...
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Re: Translators' feedback & opinion needed

Post by roberto »

In italian language the problem is the same: quite everything has a gender, also objects.
refere to male/female character/object imply you must "give a gender" also to the verb.

animals are considered objects, bust still have male/female caracterization.
In English there is only "THE", but in italian it can be translate i 6 -SIX!- different way to reflect the gender and the numberi of what you refer to: "il, lo , la, i, gli, le".

the king = il re (single human male)
the wood = il bosco (single male ojbect)
the sugar = lo zucchero (single male object) this is not "il" because start with "z".... gramatical exception for word that start with "z".
the queen = la regina (single human female)
the sword = la spada (single female object)
the lake = il lago (single male ojject)
the womans/swords = le donne/spade (multiple female humans/objects)
the warriors/horses = i guerrieri/cavalli (multiple male humans/objects)
the gross men = gli zotici (multiple male homans) same exception of "lo".


the sword (female) is broken. la spada è rott"A".
the elmet (male) is broken. L'elmo è rott"O".

the sentence "i went to lake and i take it with me" give not clue about the gender of "I" and "it", that are necessary for a correct translation.
"I" can be male or female, and "it" can be male or female.
lets assume "it" can be a sword(female) or a elmet (male).
so we can have 4 different translations

"Io sono andatO al lago e l'ho portatO con me" (I=male, it=male)
"Io sono andatO al lago e l'ho portatA con me" (I=male, it=female)
"Io sono andatA al lago e l'ho portatO con me" (I=female, it=male)
"Io sono andatA al lago e l'ho portatA con me" (I=female, it=female)

(by the way, also Spanish and in general, all Latin-derivated Languages has the male/female thing, so the problem is not only in Italian)

Many times during translation i was perplex to how to translate a sentence because there are no refer to the gender of who is talking and about who/what he/she is talking about.

the sentence to translate are just a list of sentences, not correlate between them but placed randomly one after the other.

Another topic: the time of the sentence.

in italian there are 2 time of past: "Passato Remoto" (meaning: "far past" like "100 years ago",) and "passato Prossimo" (meaning: "neal past" like "this morning", "yesteray", ecc). Unfortunately, the "Passato Remoto" is going to be dismissed because many people use "Passato Prossimo" even if it will be more correctly to use Passato Remoto.
some time it is easy to choose how to translate: i.e. "the tower was build centuries ago"
is clearly a far past "la torre _fu_ costruita centinaia di anni fa"
and not near past "la torre _è stata_ costruita centinaia di anni fa".

But many times there ambiguous sentence than does not explicit the time, i. "some times ago he gone there to kill a dragon"

in this case I can translate
"tempo fa egli andò lì per uccidere un drago" (far past) or
"tempo fa egli è andato lì per uccidere un drago" (near past)
because "some times ago" can be interpretated in both "far" or "near" time ago.

Unfortunately, because the sentences are place randomly into the database, it is not possible to follow the logical path of the conversation and this make impossible give a coherent translation.

Maybe weblate is perfect to translate technical sentence (i.e. the menu of a program than hae sentence as "open", "save as..", "cancel" and so on), but I think is not the perfect one for a "story" like "andor's trail".

In short: to produce a good translation the translators need to have the complete view of the conversation tree and not only one sentence here and the correlated sentences after 20-30 sentences. Sometimes, the conversation generate a "decision node" and to reply "yes/no" generate 2 different possibility to talk that bring to further "decision node" and so on. It is necessary to have a "flow chart" of the whole conversation and for this, weblate is not the right one. In my Honest Opnion.
Last edited by roberto on Mon May 06, 2019 5:48 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Translators' feedback & opinion needed

Post by Nut »

Weblate is not that bad. You are right of course that it is essential to have the context. But many phrases are neighboured. I remembered having played the scenes and thus have the context.
Btw a complete dialogue network can be found in ATCS

But another thing interests me:
How is the impact of male/female problem for the subject? Is "I can handle myself" different if I am male or female?
Or an NPCs reply "I told you" or "Take this sword" or "You look like your brother", is it different if the hero is male or female?
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Re: Translators' feedback & opinion needed

Post by roberto »

Nut wrote: Sat Sep 01, 2018 9:35 am Weblate is not that bad. You are right of course that it is essential to have the context. But many phrases are neighboured. I remembered having played the scenes and thus have the context.
Btw a complete dialogue network can be found in ATCS

But another thing interests me:
How is the impact of male/female problem for the subject? Is "I can handle myself" different if I am male or female?
Or an NPCs reply "I told you" or "Take this sword" or "You look like your brother", is it different if the hero is male or female?
Nut,
yes, there are impact. All other are not a problem, but "i can andle myself" is
"posso cavarmela da solo" (male)
"posso cavarmela da sola" (female)

But allow me to be more clear: a simple sentence like "give it to me" can be translated, in italian, as follow:
"dammelo" (if "it" is a male object, i.e. a helmet)
"dammela" (if "it" is a female object, i.e. a sword).

More:

"kill him!" and "kill her!" are clearly male first, female the second.
but what about "kill them all and bring me their heads as proof!"?

if ALL people in the group are females i must translate:
"Uccidile tutte e portami le loro teste come prova!",

if there is in the group at least one man, i must translate
"Uccidili tutti e portami le loro teste come prova!".

to make short the long story: (quite) all the sentences in italian are genderized, so to know the gender of subject and object is NOT an option but is necessary to assure the right translation.
Last edited by roberto on Mon May 06, 2019 5:50 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Translators' feedback & opinion needed

Post by roberto »

Addendum: to make all more complicated, in italian there are words that when singular are male, when plural are female.
(one) the ear = lo orecchio (male)
(two) the ears = le orecchie (female)
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