Re: Translations to spanish language ready (was: translations to turkish language ready)

Dear Thomas,

We are not only translators but also translations consumers. When I find a document that's relevant for me and I see there's available a spanish version, I expect a reasonably good quality translation, not a translation that's comparable to one made by an automated translation tool. It's frustrating having to go back to the original version to understand what's the document about. And also a loss of time. You are right when you talk about this is voluntary work, but this doesn't mean there are no rules and the result might be of lower quality.

 Best regards,
 ____________________________
 Fernando Gutiérrez Ferrerías
 Coordinator of SIDAR's Translators Group
 ferguweb@sidar.org
 http://www.sidar.org 


----- Mensaje original ----

De: Thomas Ziegler <info@thomas-ziegler.com>
Para: Fernando Gutiérrez <ferguweb2004@yahoo.es>
Enviado: jueves, 18 de septiembre, 2008 23:24:25
Asunto: Re: Translations to spanish language ready (was: translations to  turkish language ready)

Hello Fernando,

thanks for following up and clearing some points. As I wrote already I invited my translator to 
chime in and give his comment. He's based in Guatemala and until now I highly doubt that he used 
automatic translation aids to translate the material. I've done several projects with him and the 
output was flawless except some very frequent orthographic mistakes.

I would not risk my reputation and selfconfidence if I'm not sure. But as the saying goes, never put 
all your eggs in one basket. There is a chance that I got tricked here. We'll see soon.

The missing accents are my mistake since spanish was the first batch I've done over my homecomputer
and was not very sure on how to format utf-8 without BOM. At work the proofreaders take care of it 
and they are way better at this and have other programs. Since this is voluntary work I skipped the 
proofreader to cut the cost down. That was surely a mistake.

Let's wait what the translator has to add.

Thanks and regards, Thomas




Fernando Gutiérrez schrieb:
> Dear Thomas,
> Regarding the accents, sure I've not checked all the documents (since I 
> assumed all of them were automated translations, I thought it would be a 
> loss of time to review all of them). Have a look to the first document 
> (see enclosed with * those words who need and accent):
> 
> Un documento no necesita tener una hoja de estilo sencilla. Usted puede 
> darle un estilo predeterminado y cualquier n*u*mero de alternativas de 
> donde el lector pueda escoger. Esta p*a*gina, por ejemplo, tiene como 
> alternativas todos los Estilos Principales de W3C 
> <http://www.w3.org/StyleSheets/Core/>, m*a*s dos hojas de estilo 
> encontradas en otro lado en la Web (author: David Baron 
> <http://dbaron.org/>).
> 
> Como el lector puede seleccionar las alternativas depende en el 
> navegador Web. A*u*n no todos los navegadores Web ofrecen un men*u* para 
> esto, pero en Netscape 6, por ejemplo, puede encontrar todos los estilos 
> bajo el men*u* "Ver" -> "Usar Hoja de estilo".
> 
> Para incluir hojas de estilo extras, es suficiente con agregar m*a*s 
> elementos <LINK> en el encabezado, con los atributos REL y TITLE de 
> forma correcta, como a continuaci*o*n. (Dej*e* varios de los estilos; 
> vea el c*o*digo fuente de este documento para a*u*n m*a*s v*i*nculos.) 
> .../... Los grupos de v*i*nculos con el mismo TITLE (TITULO) son 
> autom*a*ticamente combinados de una hoja de estilo.
> 
> 
> Besides the accents matter, as I said before there are several 
> translated expressions that sounds very strange to a spanish native 
> speaker. You can try a simple test, try a reverse automated translation 
> (back to English) of your text. For english <-> spanish I recomend you 
> http://www.translendium.com. Then try the same test with the following text:
> Un documento no necesariamente ha de tener una única hoja de estilo. 
> Usted puede darle un estilo por defecto y varias alternativas entre las 
> que el lector pueda escoger. Esta página, por ejemplo, tiene como 
> alternativas todos los Estilos Principales del W3C, además de otras dos 
> hojas de estilo encontradas en la Web (autor: David Baron).
> El modo en que el lector pueda seleccionar las alternativas depende del 
> navegador. No todos los navegadores ofrecen aún un menú para ello, pero 
> en Netscape 6, por ejemplo, usted puede encontrar todos los estilos bajo 
> el menú "Ver" -> "Usar Hoja de Estilo".
> Para incluir hojas de estilo adicionales, basta con añadir más elementos 
> <LINK> en el encabezado, con los adecuados atributos REL y TITLE, como 
> sigue. (He omitido algunos de los estilos; vea el resto de enlaces en el 
> código fuente de este documento.)
> .../...
> Los grupos de enlaces con el mismo TITLE se combinan automáticamente en 
> una hoja de estilo.
> 
> Finally, I would like to invite you, Thomas, and your translator to join 
> the SIDAR's Translators Group [1]. There you will find any help you need 
> for doing your translations, and you can request proofreadings before 
> releasing your translation. One of the goals of SIDAR's Translators 
> Group is the improvement of the quality of the spanish translations and 
> also other co-official languages in Spain like català (catalan), euskera 
> (basque) and galego (galician). So, instead of contacting me directly, I 
> suggest you that your translator signs up for the mailing list of the 
> Group. All the information needed for that is in the link below.
>  
> [1] http://www.sidar.org/recur/desdi/traduc/index.php
> 
> Best regards,
> ____________________________
> Fernando Gutiérrez Ferrerías
> Coordinator of SIDAR's Translators Group
> ferguweb@sidar.org <mailto:ferguweb@sidar.org>
> http://www.sidar.org <http://www.sidar.org/>
> 
> 
> ----- Mensaje original ----
> De: Thomas Ziegler <info@thomas-ziegler.com>
> Para: w3c-translators@w3.org
> Enviado: jueves, 18 de septiembre, 2008 18:53:51
> Asunto: Re: Translations to spanish language ready (was: translations to 
> turkish language ready)
> 
> 
> Dear Fernando,
> 
> since I can see some accents here please have a look again.
> There is a chance however that some get lost due to wrong converting to 
> UTF-8 fileformat wich is my
> responsibility and will be corrected soon. Alternative css files will be 
> loaded and included for
> proper rendering just as the original.
> 
> I'll check back with my translator, forwarding him your emailadress and 
> ask him to get in touch with
> you directly. Once the quarrels and "guess"timates about 
> "machinetranslation" are solved please
> report back here at the list.
> 
> Until that time I'll resign from here since in my opinion there's too 
> less team-spirit wich would
> make it a pleasure to do voluntary work.
> 
> Best regards, Thomas
> 
> 
>