Changing the language of gnus menu entries

Changing the language of gnus menu entries

[Uwe Scholz]

Hi gnus users,

does anyone know if it is possible to change the language of the menu
entries in gnus? If yes, how?

I'ld like to change them into German, but I didn't find a hint in the
internet.

Thanks in advance,
Uwe

Re: Changing the language of gnus menu entries

[Peter Dyballa]

Am 24.09.2013 um 09:29 schrieb Uwe Scholz:

> does anyone know if it is possible to change the language of the menu
> entries in gnus? If yes, how?

I "Germanised" calendar. The only way I found was to edit the original EL files and store my versions in the local Lisp path that was given at configuration time. This makes GNU Emacs load my "patched" files before it searches for the standard versions. From time to time one has to update the private files…

--
Mit friedvollen Grüßen

  Pete

Chicago, n.:
        Where the dead still vote … early and often!

Re: Changing the language of gnus menu entries

[Joost Kremers]

Uwe Scholz wrote:
> Hi gnus users,
>
> does anyone know if it is possible to change the language of the menu
> entries in gnus? If yes, how?
>
> I'ld like to change them into German, but I didn't find a hint in the
> internet.

I suspect the discussion in this thread:

<http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/help-gnu-emacs/2007-07/msg00479.html>

still apply.

The short version is that (a) there is no localization for Emacs and (b)
setting up localization for Emacs is likely to be an enormous amount of
work that no-one has volunteered to do (yet?).


-- 
Joost Kremers                                   joostkremers@fastmail.fm
Selbst in die Unterwelt dringt durch Spalten Licht
EN:SiS(9)

Re: Changing the language of gnus menu entries

[Uwe Scholz]

Joost Kremers <joostkremers@yahoo.com> writes:
> I suspect the discussion in this thread:
>
> <http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/help-gnu-emacs/2007-07/msg00479.html>
>
> still apply.
>
> The short version is that (a) there is no localization for Emacs and (b)
> setting up localization for Emacs is likely to be an enormous amount of
> work that no-one has volunteered to do (yet?).

Thanks for that hint. The thread above is really interesting! But it's
sad to read that i18n support probably will never show up in emacs. At
least, I don't know anyone to volunteer. :-)

Thank you,
Uwe

Re: Changing the language of gnus menu entries

[Stefan Monnier]

> Thanks for that hint. The thread above is really interesting! But it's
> sad to read that i18n support probably will never show up in emacs. At
> least, I don't know anyone to volunteer. :-)

Doing good i18n of Emacs is indeed a very difficult undertaking, since
Emacs's design makes the source code very visible to the end-user, where
i18n would require some "mapping" layer to translate source-code words
to the language used by the user.

This said, I'd welcome an effort to start on this long road.
Handling most of the menus shouldn't be hard, for example.


        Stefan

Re: Changing the language of gnus menu entries

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca>
> Date: Tue, 24 Sep 2013 15:48:55 -0400
> 
> Handling most of the menus shouldn't be hard, for example.

I think infrastructure for translating the doc strings and the text
shown by 'message' is a much more important step forward.  Menus, by
contrast, are an extremely small part of Emacs.

Re: Changing the language of gnus menu entries

[Stefan Monnier]

>> Handling most of the menus shouldn't be hard, for example.
> I think infrastructure for translating the doc strings and the text
> shown by 'message' is a much more important step forward.  Menus, by
> contrast, are an extremely small part of Emacs.

I don't really have a strong preference for what should be done first.
Messages, doc strings, menus, tooltips, and mode-line elements are all
reasonable and not too hard (at least for a first cut that can cover
more than 90% of the ground).


        Stefan

Re: Changing the language of gnus menu entries

[Michael Heerdegen]

Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca> writes:

> >> Handling most of the menus shouldn't be hard, for example.
> > I think infrastructure for translating the doc strings and the text
> > shown by 'message' is a much more important step forward.  Menus, by
> > contrast, are an extremely small part of Emacs.
>
> I don't really have a strong preference for what should be done first.
> Messages, doc strings, menus, tooltips, and mode-line elements are all
> reasonable and not too hard (at least for a first cut that can cover
> more than 90% of the ground).

I don't have a good feeling about that.  It's already lots of work to
keep the English docstrings up to date.  And if some volunteers leave,
people are left with outdated docstrings in their language they count
on.

I'm not against localizing menus, but docstrings?  Most of programmers
will understand English, and binding so much work, constantly, for very
few users?  IMHO we should spend our time with other important tasks to
improve user experience.


Regards,

Michael.

Re: Changing the language of gnus menu entries

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Michael Heerdegen <michael_heerdegen@web.de>
> Date: Wed, 25 Sep 2013 15:30:11 +0200
> 
> I don't have a good feeling about that.  It's already lots of work to
> keep the English docstrings up to date.  And if some volunteers leave,
> people are left with outdated docstrings in their language they count
> on.
> 
> I'm not against localizing menus, but docstrings?  Most of programmers
> will understand English, and binding so much work, constantly, for very
> few users?  IMHO we should spend our time with other important tasks to
> improve user experience.

You are, in effect, saying that Emacs should not be localized.  If doc
strings, echo-area messages, and help-echo messages are not to be
localized, what's the value of having single-word menus localized?

Re: Changing the language of gnus menu entries

[Michael Heerdegen]

Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes:

> > From: Michael Heerdegen <michael_heerdegen@web.de>
> > Date: Wed, 25 Sep 2013 15:30:11 +0200
> > 
> > I don't have a good feeling about that.  It's already lots of work to
> > keep the English docstrings up to date.  And if some volunteers leave,
> > people are left with outdated docstrings in their language they count
> > on.
> > 
> > I'm not against localizing menus, but docstrings?  Most of programmers
> > will understand English, and binding so much work, constantly, for very
> > few users?  IMHO we should spend our time with other important tasks to
> > improve user experience.
>
> You are, in effect, saying that Emacs should not be localized.  If doc
> strings, echo-area messages, and help-echo messages are not to be
> localized, what's the value of having single-word menus localized?

There are some beginners that even don't know M-x - localized menus
would be cool for such users, as a start in using Emacs - nothing more.
But you're right about me saying that Emacs should not be localized, in
general.

Why?  Even if I ignore the massive amount of work that could be invested
at other places for more benefit, I see many disadvantages:

- Half of docstring words are Emacs-specific technical terms.  How
  would you translate such words as "frame", "point", "face" into, say,
  German?  There are now words for that.  When I talk about Emacs with
  my friends (in German), I also say "frame", "point" etc.

- If you don't speak English, how will you memorize hundreds of command
  names?  We would have to localize command names, too.  But then,
  keybindings are hard to remember, because lots of them are
  abbreviations of (English) command names.

- Do we do people a favor?  Not speaking English, you won't be able to
  get help from gnu.emacs.help.  You won't write bug reports.  Yes,
  that's possible - theoretically.  But Emacs community is too small to
  keep this alive in practice.  You won't be able to talk to developers.
  You just can't participate.

- A great feature of Emacs is that there are third party packages for
  lots of stuff.  Packages that are explained in English and nobody has
  time to translate.

At the end, I think, we would make some progress, and after most of the
work is done after some months or years, development will stop, and
nobody is there keeping things ticking over.  Because work having to be
done continuously must be fun, else, nobody cares.  We already see this
today with the English docs: how many reports arriving at gnu.emacs.bug
contain patches that are concerning documentation?


Regards,

Michael.

Re: Changing the language of gnus menu entries

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Michael Heerdegen <michael_heerdegen@web.de>
> Date: Wed, 25 Sep 2013 20:29:55 +0200
> 
> > > I'm not against localizing menus, but docstrings?  Most of programmers
> > > will understand English, and binding so much work, constantly, for very
> > > few users?  IMHO we should spend our time with other important tasks to
> > > improve user experience.
> >
> > You are, in effect, saying that Emacs should not be localized.  If doc
> > strings, echo-area messages, and help-echo messages are not to be
> > localized, what's the value of having single-word menus localized?
> 
> There are some beginners that even don't know M-x - localized menus
> would be cool for such users, as a start in using Emacs - nothing more.

How do the menus help, if the help-echo tooltips are still in English?
It's not like Emacs's menus are self-explanatory, at least not most of
them.

> But you're right about me saying that Emacs should not be localized, in
> general.

Then I think you should refrain from participating in this thread,
which is about how to get Emacs localized.  Perhaps you should start a
separate thread regarding why it shouldn't.

> - Half of docstring words are Emacs-specific technical terms.  How
>   would you translate such words as "frame", "point", "face" into, say,
>   German?  There are now words for that.  When I talk about Emacs with
>   my friends (in German), I also say "frame", "point" etc.

Take a look at the German tutorial, some of these problems are already
solved there.  Whatever the solution is (and I don't even care which
one), the same one can and should be used elsewhere in Emacs

> - If you don't speak English, how will you memorize hundreds of command
>   names?  We would have to localize command names, too.

No need to localize command names.  This situation is not different
from any programming language, where the reserved words are in
English.  It doesn't prevent computer book stores in Germany from
being chock-full of books in German -- so much so that it's hard to
find a book in English in those stores.  If users of C++ and Python
and Ruby can overcome this problem, why cannot users of Emacs?

And, btw, if someone whose first language is German wants to have
their Emacs speak US English, there should be nothing to prevent them
from doing so, so they won't lose anything.  Localization is for those
for whom a non-native language presents a tremendous obstacle -- and
there are enough of these all over the world.

> Not speaking English, you won't be able to get help from
> gnu.emacs.help.

There's a huge difference between talking on a forum with someone you
can ask questions and request clarifications, and reading terse,
formal documentation that tries to be both rigorous and concise.
Besides, no one said that it's "verboten" to ask questions in German
on gnu.emacs.help -- you will just get fewer answers, that's all.

> You won't write bug reports.

Sorry, that's a red herring: there's always Google translate.

> A great feature of Emacs is that there are third party packages for
> lots of stuff.  Packages that are explained in English and nobody
> has time to translate.

A perfect 100% bulletproof solution that translates everything is
indeed very hard.  But I'm sure you've heard about the 80-20 rule, and
perhaps even applied it in some of your work.

> At the end, I think, we would make some progress, and after most of the
> work is done after some months or years, development will stop, and
> nobody is there keeping things ticking over.

If that's what will happen, then the conclusion is that no one really
needs that, and it's not a big deal that whatever progress was made
eventually went up in smoke.  But at least we will have known that we
tried.  By contrast, today, we have nothing, so people who perhaps
could have taken this feature forward cannot do that.

> We already see this today with the English docs: how many reports
> arriving at gnu.emacs.bug contain patches that are concerning
> documentation?

Excuse me?  Have you checked the bug tracker lately?

Re: Changing the language of gnus menu entries

[Michael Heerdegen]

Hi Eli,

> How do the menus help, if the help-echo tooltips are still in English?

Yes, tooltips must be included, of course.

> > But you're right about me saying that Emacs should not be localized, in
> > general.
>
> Then I think you should refrain from participating in this thread,
> which is about how to get Emacs localized.

I prefer to participate, the "how" affects me, because I care
about Emacs. I don't say that the goal is not desirable, I'm just
skeptical about the realization.

> > You won't write bug reports.
>
> Sorry, that's a red herring: there's always Google translate.

Uff, I don't want to have to read these.

> > We already see this today with the English docs: how many reports
> > arriving at gnu.emacs.bug contain patches that are concerning
> > documentation?
>
> Excuse me?  Have you checked the bug tracker lately?

That's great!


Regards,

Michael.

Re: Changing the language of gnus menu entries

[Joost Kremers]

Drew Adams wrote:
> FWIW, Google translates node (emacs) `Keys' to what is below, in German.
> (And it provides a spoken reading of the result.)

Well, the translation sucks. :-) Word order is so messed up that it's
often difficult to make heads or tails of a sentence...

Such a translation would probably scare off more people than having no
translation at all.

> IOW, does such automatic translation get us something at least a little bit useful or not?
>
> I don't understand German, so I cannot tell, here.  I would say that the translation to
> French is usable, however.  It is not great, but it can be helpful, IMHO.

That's not entirely surprising, because French word order is much closer
to English (both are subject-verb-object), while German word order is
quite different and more complex (i.e., more difficult to get right
without human intervention).

> Such automatic output could perhaps also be used as a starting point, to be improved by
> human translation.

Actually, I'm not sure what would be more work: correcting a Google
translation or starting from scratch. I'm pretty sure, though, that the
latter is more satisfying and less frustrating.

-- 
Joost Kremers                                   joostkremers@fastmail.fm
Selbst in die Unterwelt dringt durch Spalten Licht
EN:SiS(9)

Re: Changing the language of gnus menu entries

[Óscar Fuentes]

Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes:

[snip]

>> At the end, I think, we would make some progress, and after most of the
>> work is done after some months or years, development will stop, and
>> nobody is there keeping things ticking over.
>
> If that's what will happen,

It already happened: http://www.nongnu.org/emacs-man-es/

> then the conclusion is that no one really needs that,

I don't agree with that conclusion. Localization would be good for
certain target users of Emacs but, sadly, I'm afraid that it is too much
work extending for too much time. And those target users would face
other difficulties, such as the technical-oriented nature of Emacs which
requires a considerable initial effort for being (more) efficient (than
when using other tools.)

[snip]

Re: Changing the language of gnus menu entries

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Óscar Fuentes <ofv@wanadoo.es>
> Date: Thu, 26 Sep 2013 10:56:02 +0200
> 
> Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes:
> 
> [snip]
> 
> >> At the end, I think, we would make some progress, and after most of the
> >> work is done after some months or years, development will stop, and
> >> nobody is there keeping things ticking over.
> >
> > If that's what will happen,
> 
> It already happened: http://www.nongnu.org/emacs-man-es/

That doesn't surprise me: translated user manuals is something that
doesn't exist in most projects.  What is usually translated is the UI.

> Localization would be good for certain target users of Emacs but,
> sadly, I'm afraid that it is too much work extending for too much
> time.

There were 2 unsuccessful attempts to add support for bidirectional
editing to Emacs, before the third one succeeded.  Motivated
individuals will not be averted by the fears and difficulties, and if
they do a good job, it will stay, and be used and maintained.

I don't know if you have ever translated a message catalog for some
program, even a small one (such as gawk, wget, make, etc.)  If you
did, you know that even a small catalog requires an un-proportionally
large effort to make a good translation.  And yet the translations for
most Free Software packages get regularly updated for many languages,
and succeed in tracking upstream development.  I guess there are
enough motivated translators out there to do the job, and continue
doing it through the years.  Up front, I see no reason that this
wouldn't be the case for Emacs as well, although I have no data to
prove it or even back it up.  We will have to wait and see, but before
that experiment can begin, we need an infrastructure that will enable
translators to begin their work, as they are usually not programmers.

> And those target users would face other difficulties, such as the
> technical-oriented nature of Emacs which requires a considerable
> initial effort for being (more) efficient (than when using other
> tools.)

Having most of the UI in your first language is known to ease these
difficulties quite a lot, at least for some users.  There's no other
reason for the message catalog translations to be so popular.

Don't get me wrong: I use US English all the time, and always set up
my machines to be in the US English locale, if I can.  Maybe so do
you.  But you and I, and others like us, are not the target audience
for whom these features are important.  We should see this issue
through their eyes, or at least try to.

RE: Changing the language of gnus menu entries

[Drew Adams]

FWIW, Google translates node (emacs) `Keys' to what is below, in German.
(And it provides a spoken reading of the result.)

Maybe such automatic translation would be a start?  Maybe it would even be a good
(optional) fallback: translation on the fly of final output (e.g. *Help* buffer,
*Info* buffer)?

Maybe someone will write an Emacs command that sends the text in the current *info*
node to such a translation URL or web service, recuperates the translated text, and
builds an *info*-node presentation of it...

IOW, does such automatic translation get us something at least a little bit useful or not?

I don't understand German, so I cannot tell, here.  I would say that the translation to
French is usable, however.  It is not great, but it can be helpful, IMHO.

Such automatic output could perhaps also be used as a starting point, to be improved by
human translation.

--------------8<---------------------------------------------

File: emacs.info , Node : Keys, Next: Befehle , Prev: User Input , Up: Top

3 Schlüssel
******

Einige Emacs Befehle werden von nur einem Eingabe-Ereignis aufgerufen wird , zum Beispiel ,
`C -f ' vorwärts bewegt ein Zeichen im Puffer. Andere Befehle nehmen
zwei oder mehr Eingabe-Events zu berufen , wie ` Cx Cf 'und` Cx 4 C -f' .

   A " Tastenfolge " oder " Schlüssel" für Kurz gesagt, ist eine Folge von einem oder mehreren
Eingabe-Events , die sinnvoll als eine Einheit ist . Wenn eine Tastenfolge ruft ein
Befehl , nennen wir es eine " vollständige Schlüssel " , zum Beispiel `C -f ',` Cx Cf "und
`C - 4 x C -f ' sind alle komplett Tasten . Wenn ein Schlüssel -Sequenz ist nicht lang genug
einen Befehl aufrufen , nennen wir es ein " Präfix-Taste "; aus dem vorangegangenen
Beispiel sehen wir, dass ` Cx 'und` Cx 4' Präfix Tasten sind . Jeder Schlüssel
Sequenz ist entweder ein vollständiger Schlüssel oder ein Präfix-Taste .

   Ein Präfix-Taste kombiniert mit der folgenden Eingabe-Ereignis zu einem machen
mehr Tastenfolge . Zum Beispiel ist `C -X ' ein Präfix-Taste , so dass die Eingabe
` Cx ' allein nicht einen Befehl aufzurufen , sondern wartet Emacs für weitere
Eingang ( wenn Sie länger als eine Sekunde Pause , hallt es die ` Cx 'key
für diesen Eingabeprompt ; * note Echo Bereich :: ) . `C - x ' kombiniert mit der
nächsten Eingabe-Ereignis , um eine zwei -event Tastenfolge zu machen, was könnte sich
sein ein Präfix-Taste ( wie ` Cx 4 ') , oder eine komplette Taste (zB ` Cx
C- f ') . Es gibt keine Grenze für die Länge von Tastenfolgen , aber in
Praxis werden sie selten länger als drei oder vier Eingabe-Events .

   Sie können keine Eingabe-Events auf einen vollständigen Schlüssel . Zum Beispiel ,
weil ` Cf ' ist eine Taste , die zwei - Ereignissequenz ` Cf ck "
zwei Tastenkombinationen , nicht ein.

   Standardmäßig sind die Tasten in Emacs Präfix `C -c ' , ` C -h' , `C -x ',` Cx
<RET> ', ` Cx @ ',` Cx a ', ` Cx n ',` Cx r ', ` Cx v ',` Cx 4 ', ` Cx 5',
`C -x 6 ', <ESC> , ` M- g ' und ` M- o ' . ( <F1> Und <F2> sind Aliasnamen für `C -h '
. ` und Cx 6 ' ) Diese Liste ist nicht in Stein gemeißelt , und wenn du anpassen Emacs ,
Sie können neue Präfix Tasten . Man könnte sogar zu beseitigen einige der
Standard diejenigen , obwohl dies für die meisten Benutzer empfohlen, für
Wenn Sie beispielsweise das Präfix Definition von ` Cx 4 ' zu entfernen, dann ` Cx 4
C -f ' wird eine ungültige Tastenkombination . * Hinweis Key Bindings :: .

   Tippen Sie die Hilfe-Zeichen ( ` Ch ' oder <F1> ) nach einem Präfix-Taste
zeigt eine Liste der Befehle beginnend mit diesem Präfix . Die einzige
Ausnahme von dieser Regel ist <ESC> : ` <ESC> Ch ' ist äquivalent zu ` CM -h' ,
was tut etwas völlig anderes. Sie können jedoch mithilfe <F1>
eine Liste von Befehlen beginnend mit <ESC> .

RE: Changing the language of gnus menu entries

[Drew Adams]

I hasten to add, to try to forestall replies...  Yes, such a translation
*is* laughable.  I can see that for the French version, for example
("la semelle exception").  I still think it might be better than nothing.

Best might be to be able to see the original English as well, side by side
as in Google translate, for comparison.

Re: Changing the language of gnus menu entries

[Peter Dyballa]

Am 25.09.2013 um 21:54 schrieb Drew Adams:

> FWIW, Google translates node (emacs) `Keys' to what is below, in German.
> 
It chooses to translate the word "key" to "key", meaning that thing which locks a door or a lock.

> Maybe such automatic translation would be a start? 

No. Except for those of us Germans who can't read. They won't see the difference between the Google gibberish and our written mother tongue.


Wouldn't you like to translate the German tutorial into English with Google? Maybe this helps to understand.

(I hope the NSA has better translators. Otherwise they would be a ridiculous heap.)

--
Greetings

  Pete

A blizzard is when it snows sideways.

RE: Changing the language of gnus menu entries

[Drew Adams]

[Quoted replies are from 3 people - replying to all.]

On the quality of the Google translation to German:

1.
> It chooses to translate the word "key" to "key", meaning that thing which
> locks a door or a lock.
> 
> > Maybe such automatic translation would be a start?
> 
> No. Except for those of us Germans who can't read. They won't see the
> difference between the Google gibberish and our written mother tongue.

Or maybe those of you Germans whose English is not so great.  There might
still be a few such folk.  Not here no doubt, but somewhere.

> Wouldn't you like to translate the German tutorial into English with
> Google?  Maybe this helps to understand.

What makes you think I do not understand that Google does not translate
very well to your written mother tongue?

But that is an excellent suggestion!  Done.  And it certainly does help
us understand.

Result: I CAN READ IT.  I have no real problem understanding it.  And I
CANNOT understand one word of the German tutorial (well, maybe one or two
isolated words).  The difference between night & day, for me.

Thank you very much for supporting my hypothesis with another good experiment!

Here's the beginning of the translated text, for all to judge both it's
general comprehensibility and its weaknesses - parts that are unclear or
incorrect:

  Emacs commands generally involve the CONTROL key ( sometimes
  labeled as CTRL , CTRL or CTL ) as well as the META key ( also
  EDIT or ALT called ) . The following abbreviations are used:

   C <character> means that the CONTROL button must be pressed
                while the character <character> you type . Example:
                  Cf Hold down the CONTROL key and press
                       Then the f key .
   M <character> means that the META key must be pressed
                while the character <character> you type . instead
                You can also press the ESC key and then <character>
                press ( after the other , not both ) . Example:
                  Mf Hold down the META key and enter
                       The letter ( small) f a .

  ">>" In the left margin is an indication to try a command :

  Cv >> Press to scroll forward to the next screen .
          From now on you should always do when you finish a page
          have read.

  Please note that when you scroll the bottom two lines of the
  previous screen page as the top two lines of the new page
  appear to have some continuity while reading allow .

  Important: You can quit Emacs with the command sequence Cx Cc .

  Furthermore, the ESC key is denoted by <ESC> .

  [If the German umlauts correctly on the screen appear , please read
   the section " MULE " shortly before the end of this Introduction . ]

  First, you must know how to be in a document can move. As you scroll
  one screen forward , know You have ( C v) . With Mv scroll back one
  screen (hold down the META key and enter v , or press First <ESC>
  and then v) .

Yes, Google is not so great with Info's key-sequence notation.  And yes,
some of the wording is gobbledygook.  But for the most part, I can
UNDERSTAND it.  Can't you?  It is something I can USE - it is USEFUL.

My guess is that you are perhaps too good at English to appreciate the
plight of someone who hardly understands it.  My trying to learn Emacs
from the German tutorial is the use case I am speaking to: someone who
has real trouble with the source language.

For such a user, I think Google translation can clearly make a HUGE
difference.  And thank you once again for demonstrating this to us so
clearly.
 
2.
> > Maybe such automatic translation would be a start?
> 
> It's understandable, but you nonetheless would have to rewrite 95%
> of the text to fulfill the simplest Grammar rules etc.

"It is understandable."  Thank you - QED.  The #1 goal is comprehension.
It is not fulfilling German rules. ;-)

The latter is only a nice-to-have, when you do not understand the doc
language and you are trying to learn Emacs.  We do NOT "have to rewrite
95% of the text" for it to be a real help to some people.

3.
> Well, the translation sucks. :-) Word order is so messed up that it's
> often difficult to make heads or tails of a sentence...

Often, or sometimes?  Difficult, perhaps, but not always impossible,
unlike the case for someone who does not understand the source language.

> Such a translation would probably scare off more people than having no
> translation at all.

I doubt it.  That's quite an exaggeration.

Even someone such as yourself, whose English is excellent, should not be
"scared off" by the translated text shown above.  You might laugh a bit,
and you might scratch your head a bit here and there.

But the person who has real trouble with English won't be laughing, whether
with or without such help.  And without it, s?he might become completely
discouraged.

> > IOW, does such automatic translation get us something at least a little
> > bit useful or not?
> >
> > I don't understand German, so I cannot tell, here.  I would say that the
> > translation to French is usable, however.  It is not great, but it can be
> > helpful, IMHO.
> 
> That's not entirely surprising, because French word order is much closer
> to English (both are subject-verb-object), while German word order is
> quite different and more complex (i.e., more difficult to get right
> without human intervention).

Sorry, I'm not convinced of that last part.  I used to be in charge of a
group of professional translators who translated from French into English
and German, among other languages.  I know they (including the Germans)
would not agree with you that it is more difficult to translate into
German because of its different word order (or for any other reason).

No, their experience does not necessarily apply to automatic translation.
But I'm guessing it does.  And Google translation is apparently NOT just
automatic translation.  It is apparently based on zillions of human
translations by professional translators such as my former colleagues.
(So much so that translators are complaining that Google is ripping off
their intellectual property.)

Google translation is not the same thing as having a professional translator
concentrate on Emacs docs, of course, but it's not the same thing as
automatic translation either.

Laughable, sometimes incomprehensible, but also useful, I think.  Again,
compared to no translation at all.

> > Such automatic output could perhaps also be used as a starting point,
> > to be improved by human translation.
> 
> Actually, I'm not sure what would be more work: correcting a Google
> translation or starting from scratch. I'm pretty sure, though, that the
> latter is more satisfying and less frustrating.

Really glad I picked German for that test, BTW. ;-)

I wonder how you might feel if the original Info doc were ONLY in Chinese
or Japanese or Korean or Thai, and you had a choice between ONLY that or
also a translation to German (or English or...)?  Think about it.  Think
twice.

I agreed that even for French (and now for English too; thank you) the
result can sometimes be laughable.

You point out that "key" is translated to the wrong kind of key.  Big deal.
I pointed out that, for French, "sole" (for "sole exception") was translated
to the sole of a shoe.  Good jokes.  But hardly roadblocks.

I think the result is generally USABLE, especially if the English original
is placed side by side.  I'm not comparing Google translation to careful
human translation.  I'm comparing it to NO translation, and I'm thinking
about someone who has real difficulty with English.

In sum, it's about understanding content.  It's not so much about getting
the grammar right etc.  Obviously, for best understanding, the grammar etc.
need to be good.  But it should be just as clear to us all that it is
communicating the technical content that is most important, however that
might be done.


On using Google translation on the fly, recuperating the result in Emacs:

> > Maybe it would even be a good (optional) fallback: translation on the
> > fly of final output (e.g. *Help* buffer, *Info* buffer)?
> >
> > Maybe someone will write an Emacs command that sends the text in the
> > current *info* node to such a translation URL or web service,
> > recuperates the translated text, and builds an *info*-node
> > presentation of it...
> 
> That would not be very GNUish, no?

Dunno - depends how narrowly you define GNUish.  (We're all at least a
little GNUish, no?)  My guess is that if someone implemented it, the code
might be (a) off-GNU, as in off-Broadway, i.e., not included in GNU Emacs,
even if GPL, and (b) appreciated by some users whose English is not so great.

For some people, GNUishness is next to godliness, and that's OK.  For me,
(b) is more important than true-blue-GNUness-thru-&-thru.  Help people use
GNU Emacs.  GNU will only benefit from that, even if Google somehow had a
hand in helping them learn.

Re: Changing the language of gnus menu entries

[Joost Kremers]

Drew Adams wrote:
>> Well, the translation sucks. :-) Word order is so messed up that it's
>> often difficult to make heads or tails of a sentence...
>
> Often, or sometimes?  Difficult, perhaps, but not always impossible,
> unlike the case for someone who does not understand the source language.

Well, *I* would not have been able to understand enough to learn Emacs
basics from it.

(I should probably point out that German is not my native language
either. Though I've lived in Germany for almost ten years and my actual
native language, Dutch, is of course closely related to German.)

>> Such a translation would probably scare off more people than having no
>> translation at all.
>
> I doubt it.  That's quite an exaggeration.

Perhaps. But I was thinking of people who understand enough English to
get through e.g., the tutorial with some effort, who'd prefer a
translation in their own language and are then put off by the Google
Translate translation. It creates a bad first impression, which might
rub off on Emacs as a whole.

> Even someone such as yourself, whose English is excellent, should not be
> "scared off" by the translated text shown above.  You might laugh a bit,
> and you might scratch your head a bit here and there.

The English translation you provided was a lot better, I'll admit.
However, part of the problem is that the quality of the translation is
so unpredictable. Sometimes you get something that is quite usable,
other times it's, well, slightly less usable.

>> That's not entirely surprising, because French word order is much closer
>> to English (both are subject-verb-object), while German word order is
>> quite different and more complex (i.e., more difficult to get right
>> without human intervention).
>
> Sorry, I'm not convinced of that last part.  I used to be in charge of a
> group of professional translators who translated from French into English
> and German, among other languages.  I know they (including the Germans)
> would not agree with you that it is more difficult to translate into
> German because of its different word order (or for any other reason).
>
> No, their experience does not necessarily apply to automatic translation.

Yup, that was my point, hence the "without human intervention" part. For
a human, translating from English to French is not more or less
difficult than from English to German. For a human, word order is hardly
an issue, provided s/he is fluent in the relevant language. For a
computer, things are different, however.

> Google translation is not the same thing as having a professional translator
> concentrate on Emacs docs, of course, but it's not the same thing as
> automatic translation either.

I'm inclined to call any translation that is done by a computer
"automatic". The fact that Google has access to large parallel corpora
and probably has some very nifty machine learning algorithms to exploit
those corpora doesn't really change that fact. I'm not saying it doesn't
improve the translation, I'm sure it does, but it's still automatic IMO.

> I wonder how you might feel if the original Info doc were ONLY in Chinese
> or Japanese or Korean or Thai, and you had a choice between ONLY that or
> also a translation to German (or English or...)?  Think about it.  Think
> twice.

Rather than think, let's do a little experiment. For fun, I tried
translating a bit of Japanese. Taking the third paragraph from
<http://cx4a.org/pub/emacs-is-dead.ja.html> (after the header "Emacsの思
想") and feeding it to Google Translate produces the following:

,----
| And I should say first, but the "thought of Emacs" to speak here is
| what I personally made ​​up on its own. I have never as far as I know, I
| saw no one from telling "thought of Emacs", including Stallman. It will
| place for such Stallman continues to exercise toward the "spirit of
| freedom" is a great more his goal in particular, and said not to Ganchu
| small problem of such "thought of Emacs". I want to say anyway, is that
| ideological value is significantly lower because no one is sponsored by.
| Please take care only that point.
`----

Which is complete gibberish to me. Not a coherent thought in sight.

> You point out that "key" is translated to the wrong kind of key.  Big deal.
> I pointed out that, for French, "sole" (for "sole exception") was translated
> to the sole of a shoe.  Good jokes.  But hardly roadblocks.

I once tried to find the German equivalent for the Arabic term «waziir
al-wuzaraa'» ('council of ministers') using Google Translate and was
baffled to see it translated as "Schrank" ('cupboard, closet')... I'll
leave it up to the reader to figure out around which corner Google was
thinking there. ;-)

> I think the result is generally USABLE,

And I think that the quality of the result is too unreliable. It'll be
useful sometimes, but completely unusable at other times.



-- 
Joost Kremers                                   joostkremers@fastmail.fm
Selbst in die Unterwelt dringt durch Spalten Licht
EN:SiS(9)

RE: Changing the language of gnus menu entries

[Drew Adams]

> >> Well, the translation sucks. :-) Word order is so messed up that it's
> >> often difficult to make heads or tails of a sentence...
> >
> > Often, or sometimes?  Difficult, perhaps, but not always impossible,
> > unlike the case for someone who does not understand the source language.
> 
> Well, *I* would not have been able to understand enough to learn Emacs
> basics from it.

Even if your only alternative were in a language you could not read at all?
Thai?

I'm guessing you're thinking that your alternative is reading English, which
you happen to understand well.  Put yourself in the place of someone who
does not know English well.  That's the use case this is for.

> >> Such a translation would probably scare off more people than having no
> >> translation at all.
> >
> > I doubt it.  That's quite an exaggeration.
> 
> Perhaps. But I was thinking of people who understand enough English to
> get through e.g., the tutorial with some effort, who'd prefer a
> translation in their own language and are then put off by the Google
> Translate translation. It creates a bad first impression, which might
> rub off on Emacs as a whole.

That's not the use case I'm talking about.  Such a person would not try
an on-the-fly Google translation.  Circulez, il n'y a rien a voir.

And I care much less about Emacs docs making a "bad impression" than I
do about Emacs providing some help to users who currently have *none*.
This extra help would be optional, better than nothing, and advertised
clearly as such.  Anyone would be free to refer to only the English doc,
just as now.

[And even some people who don't need this feature, such as yourself,
might experiment with it anyway and send in corrections (just as you did,
*immediately*, signaling that the "key" translation for German was off).]

> > Even someone such as yourself, whose English is excellent, should not be
> > "scared off" by the translated text shown above.  You might laugh a bit,
> > and you might scratch your head a bit here and there.
> 
> The English translation you provided was a lot better, I'll admit.

Consider too the possibility that you might find it better because you
are better at German than English?  I cannot judge which is better, knowing
little-to-no German.

> However, part of the problem is that the quality of the translation is
> so unpredictable. Sometimes you get something that is quite usable,
> other times it's, well, slightly less usable.

Right.  Which is why this better-than-nothing option would be just that:
(a) better than nothing and (b) optional, on-demand.
 
> For a human, translating from English to French is not more or less
> difficult than from English to German. For a human, word order is hardly
> an issue, provided s/he is fluent in the relevant language. For a
> computer, things are different, however.

> > Google translation is not the same thing as having a professional
> > translator concentrate on Emacs docs, of course, but it's not the same
> > thing as automatic translation either.
> 
> I'm inclined to call any translation that is done by a computer
> "automatic". The fact that Google has access to large parallel corpora
> and probably has some very nifty machine learning algorithms to exploit
> those corpora doesn't really change that fact. I'm not saying it doesn't
> improve the translation, I'm sure it does, but it's still automatic IMO.

Doesn't matter much what we call it.  What matters is how helpful it is.

The fact that people use Google translate (and they do) is proof that it
can be helpful.  And that's the point: it often - in fact typically, I
think - is better than no translation at all.

> > I wonder how you might feel if the original Info doc were ONLY in Chinese
> > or Japanese or Korean or Thai, and you had a choice between ONLY that or
> > also a translation to German (or English or...)?  Think about it.
> 
> Rather than think, let's do a little experiment. For fun, I tried
> translating a bit of Japanese. Taking the third paragraph from
> <http://cx4a.org/pub/emacs-is-dead.ja.html> (after the header "Emacsの思
> 想") and feeding it to Google Translate produces the following:
> 
> ,----
> | And I should say first, but the "thought of Emacs" to speak here is
> | what I personally made ​​up on its own. I have never as far as I know,
> | I saw no one from telling "thought of Emacs", including Stallman. It will
> | place for such Stallman continues to exercise toward the "spirit of
> | freedom" is a great more his goal in particular, and said not to Ganchu
> | small problem of such "thought of Emacs". I want to say anyway, is that
> | ideological value is significantly lower because no one is sponsored by.
> | Please take care only that point.
> `----
> 
> Which is complete gibberish to me. Not a coherent thought in sight.

;-)

But all you've shown is that you can find Japanese text that Google cannot
translate well.  Instead, compare apples with apples & oranges with oranges.

Let's take the exact same Emacs tutorial text (your suggestion) as we used
for the last experiment, and this time translate from Japanese to English:

  You can enter the command of Emacs, in general control key (key top
  META meta key (the key top and and ) that says CTL such as such as CTRL CONTROL
  You use it to ) that says EDIT such as such as ALT . So , META such as CONTROL
  You decide instead of writing such as , to use a notation such as the following .

   Press and hold the C-< > character control key , and then press the < >
  character key . For example, Cf is to press the key of f while holding down the
  control key .

   Press and hold the M-< > character meta key , and press the < > character key .
  Na meta key if If not , you press and release the Escape key , then the < >
  character key I press . I write and <ESC> things escape key later .

  ! Important ! : If you want to exit Emacs, and then type Cx Cc.
  ** Cc has been rebound, but you can use Mx mode-specific-command-prefix instead
  [More] **
  Lines beginning with ">>" is , tells what to do at that time . For example,

  >> Now continue to the next screen by typing to see (see the next page ) Cv.
  ( Come on , it is v while press . Control key Let's do it )
  Later , read on to the next screen in the same manner each time you finish
  reading one screen .

  In the next screen and the previous screen , there is overlap of some lines to
  what you see . This Re is because that what is displayed is continuous is to
  be seen immediately .

  First , you need to know how to go to move through the file . And by the C-v
  That you go to the next screen Te have found already . To return to the
  previous screen , M-v ( meta-key It is a v) press and release the <ESC> or
  v, hold down the .

  >> Try C-v and M-v several times .

That's nowhere near as good as the German-to-English translation, but it is
also nowhere near the gibberish of the passage you offered.  There are some
"coherent thoughts in sight", for example: "For example, Cf is to press the
key of f while holding down the control key."

And it would be good to hear from a Japanese speaker familiar with English:
perhaps s?he could guess some things from this English, based on word order
etc., that you and I cannot guess.  Dunno.

But these experiments also miss the point, in a big way.  We are using them
as a substitute test, only because we understand English.  But the use case
is not translating to English; it is in translating from English.  We (I, at
least) cannot judge how helpful Google translate is when going from English
to Japanese.

Let's assume, as is apparently the case, that Google translation takes
advantage of oodles of existing human translations that are out there.

My guess is that there is a *lot* more such translation out there from
English to Japanese than there is from Japanese to English.  Especially
for technical info.  And especially *quality*, professional translation.

(And I've seen plenty of lousy English that is presumably human-translated
from Japanese.  Such stuff surely does not help Google DTRT, does it?)

Based on that, I'd conclude that it is probable that Google translate
does a (much!) better job translating English to Japanese than vice versa.
(I'd be curious whether I'm right about this guess.)

And the more there is a skew wrt the hypotheses, i.e., the more there is
a difference in available quality translations from English to Japanese
vs from Japanese to English, the more support for my argument that Google
translation *from English* can be helpful.

> > I think the result is generally USABLE,
> 
> And I think that the quality of the result is too unreliable. It'll
> be useful sometimes, but completely unusable at other times.

If it is unusable sometimes, then it simply won't be used those times.
No problem.

"Unreliable" means little (nothing) here: we are not basing nuclear power
plant security on such optional, on-the-fly translation being "reliable".

If this translation is USABLE SOMETIMES, then it CAN BE HELPFUL.  Users
won't expect wonders from such translation, but some will sometimes find
it helpful.

The point is (still) that this would be more helpful than having no
translation at all.

Re: Changing the language of gnus menu entries

[Peter Dyballa]

Am 26.09.2013 um 06:05 schrieb Joost Kremers:

> I once tried to find the German equivalent for the Arabic term «waziir
> al-wuzaraa'» ('council of ministers') using Google Translate and was
> baffled to see it translated as "Schrank" ('cupboard, closet')... I'll
> leave it up to the reader to figure out around which corner Google was
> thinking there. ;-)

How did you find the proper meaning? Did you google for it?

--
Mit friedvollen Grüßen

  Pete                                           0
                                           %-/\_//
                                            (*)(*)

Re: Changing the language of gnus menu entries

[Dale Snell]

On 26 Sep 2013 04:05:27 GMT
Joost Kremers <joostkremers@yahoo.com> wrote:

I can't really contribute much to this discussion, since I'm a
native speaker of (American) English, and have only a smattering
of other languages.  However, I do have a couple of observations.

> Rather than think, let's do a little experiment. For fun, I tried
> translating a bit of Japanese. Taking the third paragraph from
> <http://cx4a.org/pub/emacs-is-dead.ja.html> (after the header "Emacsの思
> 想") and feeding it to Google Translate produces the following:
> 
> ,----
> | And I should say first, but the "thought of Emacs" to speak here is
> | what I personally made ​​up on its own. I have never as far as I know, I
> | saw no one from telling "thought of Emacs", including Stallman. It will
> | place for such Stallman continues to exercise toward the "spirit of
> | freedom" is a great more his goal in particular, and said not to Ganchu
> | small problem of such "thought of Emacs". I want to say anyway, is that
> | ideological value is significantly lower because no one is sponsored by.
> | Please take care only that point.
> `----
> 
> Which is complete gibberish to me. Not a coherent thought in sight.

To be honest, that looks like something that was machine
translated in both directions.  Yikes!

I suspect that a native Japanese speaker would understand text
translated from English to Japanese better than a native English
speaker would understand Japanese translated to English.  Japanese
is extremely difficult for (human) Western translators to get right
because Japanese is so very dependent on context.  Much more so
than other languages that I have any knowledge of.  It's hard for
me to see a machine getting it right.  No translation program I've
encuntered had any sense of context.

> I once tried to find the German equivalent for the Arabic term «waziir
> al-wuzaraa'» ('council of ministers') using Google Translate and was
> baffled to see it translated as "Schrank" ('cupboard, closet')... I'll
> leave it up to the reader to figure out around which corner Google was
> thinking there. ;-)

I think I've got an answer to this one.  A "council of ministers" is
also known as a "cabinet".  A different kind of cabinet can also be
called a "cupboard" or (maybe) a "closet".  Again, no sense of context.
Hence the odd translation.

--Dale

--
Vir: "I thought the purpose of filing these reports was to provide
      accurate intelligence."
Londo:  "Vir, intelligence has nothing to do with politics."
    --  "Babylon 5" episode, "Point of No Return"

Re: Changing the language of gnus menu entries

[Dan Espen]

Drew Adams <drew.adams@oracle.com> writes:

>> >> Well, the translation sucks. :-) Word order is so messed up that it's
>> >> often difficult to make heads or tails of a sentence...
>> >
>> > Often, or sometimes?  Difficult, perhaps, but not always impossible,
>> > unlike the case for someone who does not understand the source language.
>> 
>> Well, *I* would not have been able to understand enough to learn Emacs
>> basics from it.
>
> Even if your only alternative were in a language you could not read at all?
> Thai?
>
> I'm guessing you're thinking that your alternative is reading English, which
> you happen to understand well.  Put yourself in the place of someone who
> does not know English well.  That's the use case this is for.

I think sooner or later we, as humans, need to shed this multiple
language ball and chain we have tied around our necks.  But that's just
my opinion.  Using Emacs to achieve this goal isn't my objective.

I did notice this:

http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/TextTranslator

Which allows for an Emacs user to get pretty easy access to machine
translation, (which might get better over time).  So, despite not being
automatic, there is an existing interface to translation.

Sorry, not following this thread closely.  If this was already
mentioned, check with Emily Litella.

-- 
Dan Espen

RE: Changing the language of gnus menu entries

[Drew Adams]

> http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/TextTranslator
> Which allows for an Emacs user to get pretty easy access to machine
> translation, (which might get better over time).  So, despite not being
> automatic, there is an existing interface to translation.

Great!  That does indeed provide on-the-fly Google (and other) translation
of text in Emacs.

I gave it a quick try.  Had to customize a few options for my context:
`text-translator-proxy-server' (company firewall),
`text-translator-default-engine' (test Japanese-to-English, instead of
the default, which is English-to-Japanese, so set to "google.com_jaen",
not "google.com_enja").

Works like a charm.  Just select some text in the Japanese Emacs tutorial
or some other buffer with Japanese text, and then hit `C-x M-t'.  You
get the output in buffer `*translated* [google.com_jaen]'.

One odd thing that would need to be massaged: The displayed output
from Google shows a few untranslated Japanese phrases followed by this:

 " onmouseover="this.style.backgroundColor='#ebeff9'
 " onmouseout="this.style.backgroundColor='#fff'">

Dunno whether that represents a Google translation web-site bug or is
an artifact of the text-translator.el code.  When you use the web site
interactively both the untranslated phrase and the Javascript are not
shown.  Perhaps the text-translator.el code just needs to strip this
stuff out.

Re: Changing the language of gnus menu entries

[Joost Kremers]

Drew Adams wrote:
>> Well, *I* would not have been able to understand enough to learn Emacs
>> basics from it.
>
> Even if your only alternative were in a language you could not read at all?
> Thai?

Not having an alternative does not make me understand the translation
better. ;-) It might make me try a little harder to make sense of it,
though.

>> Perhaps. But I was thinking of people who understand enough English to
>> get through e.g., the tutorial with some effort, who'd prefer a
>> translation in their own language and are then put off by the Google
>> Translate translation. It creates a bad first impression, which might
>> rub off on Emacs as a whole.
>
> That's not the use case I'm talking about.  Such a person would not try
> an on-the-fly Google translation.  Circulez, il n'y a rien a voir.

Ok, then perhaps I'm misunderstanding what you have in mind. I thought
you wanted to automatically provide a Google translation of Emacs help
texts if no human-made translation exists. That way, someone wanting to
try out Emacs and installing it on a machine with say a German locale
would get a Google-translated tutorial if they pressed `C-h t'. If that
were to happen to me, with a translation as problematic as the example
you posted, I'd probably uninstall Emacs again, thinking that if a piece
of software isn't able to provide a decent translation of the tutorial,
the rest of the software probably isn't much good either.

As an extra option, one that is not provided automatically but only at
the user's request, and clearly indicated as being a machine
translation, that's a different thing.

> [And even some people who don't need this feature, such as yourself,
> might experiment with it anyway and send in corrections (just as you did,
> *immediately*, signaling that the "key" translation for German was off).]

Actually, that wasn't me. :-) (I had noticed it, but I haven't comment on it.)

>> > Even someone such as yourself, whose English is excellent, should not be
>> > "scared off" by the translated text shown above.  You might laugh a bit,
>> > and you might scratch your head a bit here and there.
>> 
>> The English translation you provided was a lot better, I'll admit.
>
> Consider too the possibility that you might find it better because you
> are better at German than English?

I'm not sure how that would allow me to understand the English
translation better than the German one...

Besides, I think they're just about the same. (Though others would have
to be the judge of that.)


-- 
Joost Kremers                                   joostkremers@fastmail.fm
Selbst in die Unterwelt dringt durch Spalten Licht
EN:SiS(9)

Re: Changing the language of gnus menu entries

[Joost Kremers]

Drew Adams wrote:
> No.  Provide a command that lets users (on demand) send the current Info
> node (or whatever buffer text, including, e.g., just the active region)
> to a web-based (or other program) translation service and recuperate the
> translated text in another buffer.

Of course, I wouldn't be opposed to something like that.

> But I was mistakenly thinking that German was your first language.  I guess
> Dutch was your first language.  Anyway, in The Netherlands you pretty much
> have multiple "first" languages. ;-)  That is, you are often very good at
> several languages.

Actually, I often feel that I have three second languages an no first
language anymore. ;-) My Dutch has deteriorated to a point where people
in the Netherlands aren't always sure whether I'm Dutch or German...


-- 
Joost Kremers                                   joostkremers@fastmail.fm
Selbst in die Unterwelt dringt durch Spalten Licht
EN:SiS(9)

RE: Changing the language of gnus menu entries

[Drew Adams]

> >> Perhaps. But I was thinking of people who understand enough English to
> >> get through e.g., the tutorial with some effort, who'd prefer a
> >> translation in their own language and are then put off by the Google
> >> Translate translation. It creates a bad first impression, which might
> >> rub off on Emacs as a whole.
> >
> > That's not the use case I'm talking about.  Such a person would not try
> > an on-the-fly Google translation.  Circulez, il n'y a rien a voir.
> 
> Ok, then perhaps I'm misunderstanding what you have in mind. I thought
> you wanted to automatically provide a Google translation of Emacs help
> texts if no human-made translation exists. 

No.  Provide a command that lets users (on demand) send the current Info
node (or whatever buffer text, including, e.g., just the active region)
to a web-based (or other program) translation service and recuperate the
translated text in another buffer.

For an Info node, it would be great if additionally we could put the
resulting text in Info mode, complete with working xrefs etc.  But that
is something additional, which would not be free from extra work.

[If we had not recently removed `Info-edit' from Info (deprecated it)
then we might even have allowed users to easily replace an English node
with a translated equivalent node (however translated).]

> That way, someone wanting to
> try out Emacs and installing it on a machine with say a German locale
> would get a Google-translated tutorial if they pressed `C-h t'. 

No, only if they explicitly asked for a translation - that was the idea.

(Of course, someone might configure things to always automatically give
them a translation. But even in that case I would propose that this be
provided in a separate buffer.)

> As an extra option, one that is not provided automatically but only at
> the user's request, and clearly indicated as being a machine
> translation, that's a different thing.

Yes, that's what I had in mind.  And text-translator.el seems to come
close already to what I was thinking of.

> > Consider too the possibility that you might find it better because you
> > are better at German than English?
> 
> I'm not sure how that would allow me to understand the English
> translation better than the German one...

My thought was that you might not be as sensitive to English problems as
some might be for whom English is their first language.  Even if that were
not so, you might be more sensitive to German that is not perfect than to
English that is not perfect.

But I was mistakenly thinking that German was your first language.  I guess
Dutch was your first language.  Anyway, in The Netherlands you pretty much
have multiple "first" languages. ;-)  That is, you are often very good at
several languages.

Re: Changing the language of gnus menu entries

[Joost Kremers]

Peter Dyballa wrote:
>
> Am 26.09.2013 um 06:05 schrieb Joost Kremers:
>
>> I once tried to find the German equivalent for the Arabic term «waziir
>> al-wuzaraa'» ('council of ministers') using Google Translate and was
>> baffled to see it translated as "Schrank" ('cupboard, closet')... I'll
>> leave it up to the reader to figure out around which corner Google was
>> thinking there. ;-)
>
> How did you find the proper meaning? Did you google for it?

I already knew what it meant, I just wasn't sure about the best German
translation. Probably «Ministerrat» or «Kabinett», depending on context.

-- 
Joost Kremers                                   joostkremers@fastmail.fm
Selbst in die Unterwelt dringt durch Spalten Licht
EN:SiS(9)

Re: Changing the language of gnus menu entries

[Joost Kremers]

Dale Snell wrote:
>> I once tried to find the German equivalent for the Arabic term «waziir
>> al-wuzaraa'» ('council of ministers') using Google Translate and was
>> baffled to see it translated as "Schrank" ('cupboard, closet')... I'll
>> leave it up to the reader to figure out around which corner Google was
>> thinking there. ;-)
>
> I think I've got an answer to this one.  A "council of ministers" is
> also known as a "cabinet".  A different kind of cabinet can also be
> called a "cupboard" or (maybe) a "closet".  Again, no sense of context.
> Hence the odd translation.

Yup. Which made me wonder whether Google was using English as an
intermediate language in cases where a direct machine translation wasn't
available or advanced enough.

-- 
Joost Kremers                                   joostkremers@fastmail.fm
Selbst in die Unterwelt dringt durch Spalten Licht
EN:SiS(9)

Re: Changing the language of gnus menu entries

[Michael Heerdegen]

Drew Adams <drew.adams@oracle.com> writes:

> FWIW, Google translates node (emacs) `Keys' to what is below, in
> German.
>
> Maybe such automatic translation would be a start?

It's understandable, but you nonetheless would have to rewrite 95%
of the text to fulfill the simplest Grammar rules etc.

> Maybe it would even be a good (optional) fallback: translation on the
> fly of final output (e.g. *Help* buffer, *Info* buffer)?
>
> Maybe someone will write an Emacs command that sends the text in the
> current *info* node to such a translation URL or web service,
> recuperates the translated text, and builds an *info*-node
> presentation of it...

That would not be very GNUish, no?

Michael.

Re: Changing the language of gnus menu entries

[Jason Rumney]

On Thursday, 26 September 2013 03:14:10 UTC+8, Eli Zaretskii  wrote:
> 
> How do the menus help, if the help-echo tooltips are still in English?

Having the menus translated helps because it is a first step that breaks the barrier for others to continue with help-echo, doc strings etc.  As long as there is an insistence that the solution be all or nothing, potential volunteers will see the task as too daunting to take on.

Re: Changing the language of gnus menu entries

[Eli Zaretskii]

> Date: Thu, 26 Sep 2013 23:26:09 -0700 (PDT)
> From: Jason Rumney <jasonrumney@gmail.com>
> 
> On Thursday, 26 September 2013 03:14:10 UTC+8, Eli Zaretskii  wrote:
> > 
> > How do the menus help, if the help-echo tooltips are still in English?
> 
> Having the menus translated helps because it is a first step that breaks the barrier for others to continue with help-echo, doc strings etc.  As long as there is an insistence that the solution be all or nothing, potential volunteers will see the task as too daunting to take on.

I never said "all or nothing".  I said start with doc strings and
echo-area messages.  That's far from being "all".

And I don't see how translating the menus would break the barrier for
help-echo, as these two are displayed by 2 very different
infrastructures in Emacs: the former can be caught on the toolkit
level and translated there using the existing facilities in the
toolkits, while the latter is displayed by Emacs itself (except when
using GTK), and must be handled in Emacs with infrastructure that
currently simply doesn't exist.

OTOH, if localization of the echo-area display is solved, then
help-echo is almost trivial.  _That_ would indeed break the barrier.

Re: Changing the language of gnus menu entries

[Stefan Monnier]

> I don't have a good feeling about that.  It's already lots of work to
> keep the English docstrings up to date.  And if some volunteers leave,
> people are left with outdated docstrings in their language they count
> on.

AFAIK Usually localization works by replacing known strings with
translated version, so if the source changes, the translated version is
simply not found (rather than showing the outdated translation).

> I'm not against localizing menus, but docstrings?

Then don't work on localizing docstrings.  As I said, it doesn't really
matter where we start.  And not everyone needs to start at the
same place.  There's no much work to do here, that there's no strong
need for coordination.


        Stefan

Re: Changing the language of gnus menu entries

[Stefan Monnier]

> Then don't work on localizing docstrings.  As I said, it doesn't really
> matter where we start.  And not everyone needs to start at the
> same place.  There's no much work to do here, that there's no strong
                       ^
                       s

> need for coordination.

Sorry,


        Stefan

Re: Changing the language of gnus menu entries

[Uwe Scholz]

Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes:
>> From: Michael Heerdegen <michael_heerdegen@web.de>
>> Date: Wed, 25 Sep 2013 15:30:11 +0200
>> 
>> I don't have a good feeling about that.  It's already lots of work to
>> keep the English docstrings up to date.  And if some volunteers leave,
>> people are left with outdated docstrings in their language they count
>> on.
>> 
>> I'm not against localizing menus, but docstrings?  Most of programmers
>> will understand English, and binding so much work, constantly, for very
>> few users?  IMHO we should spend our time with other important tasks to
>> improve user experience.
>
> You are, in effect, saying that Emacs should not be localized.  If doc
> strings, echo-area messages, and help-echo messages are not to be
> localized, what's the value of having single-word menus localized?

Just to throw in some words, too: My wife uses Emacs often because she
creates LaTeX printouts for her physics classes. As she does only speak
some English, a localization of the "Preview" and the "LaTeX" menu would
be very helpful for her. Even the documentations of both packages are in
English. So I showed here the things she wanted to know and what I think
of are some nice to knows, but there may be even more. You know? :-D

The problem here is more or less related to AucTex and Preview and not
Emacs itself. But an effective infrastructure of Emacs could help here.

Basically, what I want to say is: If there would be the possibility to
localize at least the menus and the documentations, much more people
would use this great piece of software. :-)

But I guess, this is already known...

Ciao,
Uwe

Re: Changing the language of gnus menu entries

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Joost Kremers <joostkremers@yahoo.com>
> Date: 24 Sep 2013 15:14:09 GMT
> 
> The short version is that (a) there is no localization for Emacs and (b)
> setting up localization for Emacs is likely to be an enormous amount of
> work that no-one has volunteered to do (yet?).

It's not an enormous amount of work.  It just needs a well designed
infrastructure, and yes, motivated volunteers are needed.