>>>>> Maris Nartiss <maris....@gmail.com> writes:
[...]
> I once was translating GRASS to Latvian language but I soon realised
> that it's nightmare to do.
The same could be said about Russian -- there just isn't a
common dictionary to translate most of the English terms
adequately.
Consider the following example. The word ``location'' has no
suitable translation into Russian (the most of the translations
the Mueller English-Russian dictionary gives are too close to,
say, a ``dwelling place''.) However, the word is translated in
grassmods_ru.po as, e. g.:
#: ../imagery/i.find/main.c:63
#, c-format
msgid "usage: %s location mapset element file."
msgstr "использование: %s область набор элемент файл."
Unfortunately, ``область'' is hardly a good translation for
``location'', as ``region'' readily translates into ``область'',
too:
>From Mueller English-Russian Dictionary [mueller7]:
region
[↗ri:dʒɜn] _n.
1) страна; край; область; округа; _перен. сфера, область;
[...]
To distinguish between the two the translators have chosen to
translate ``region'' as ``регион'' (also derived from Latin),
which doesn't seem to make much difference, in my opinion.
In the papers I co-author, I use a calque, translating
``location'' as ``локация'' (which, to be honest, doesn't mean
anything in Russian), while translating ``region'' as
``область''.
... And it's not hard to guess that this discrepancy easily
confuses my students even more than the English UI does.
> GUI is almost OK, still modules and libs don't play nicely with
> Latvian language and it also gives too little return for investment.
I always keep in mind that, whatever the effort will be put into
the translation, to communicate with the developers one would've
to learn English anyway.
To summarize, it's not that I think that the translation is
unnecessary or harmful, but I generally consider it a
lower-priority task.
On the other hand, the code still should be kept clean and
suitable for future l10n.
> Still if somebody does cosmetic changes to GRASS modules/libs
> messages, it would be nice to do this time things right.
Surely.
> Sorry for fuss, Maris.
--
FSF associate member #7257
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