Re: [Gaim-i18n] Bad language in Gaim

[Richard L. <rl...@wi...>]

On Tue, 2006-04-25 at 12:58 +0930, Clytie Siddall wrote:
> You can't expect translators to know what you mean, especially if the  
> string is unusual in some way.

If you encounter a string you don't understand, you should ask about it.
In this particular case, I can see why people would argue we should
change the string. But, what about the case of "Handshaking" not
translating cleanly into PT_pt? Surely we shouldn't change our string to
work around that. If we had to change strings to make them unambiguous
for every language, we'd have a mess.

> You also can't expect them to  
> understand social nuances of your culture. All you will get is  
> ignored strings and/or a lower quality of translation.

Getting back to this case... If "lazy bum" is a strong insult in your
language, then don't translate it literally. If there's no appropriate
translation, you could translate that portion of the string to the empty
string.

If you take the approach of "I'll translate everything (often literally)
without understanding it", you're going to end up with a bad translation
that results in user complaints. It's entirely reasonable for us (and
users) to expect that translators fully understand what they're
translating.

Richard