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#84741 31/05/04 02:38 PM
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maybe mIRC can be in different langauges? Not just english?
Tha would be cool smile


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#84742 31/05/04 02:56 PM
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Multi-lingual support is important, I'm unsure of what Khaled's stance is on the issue and can't, off the top of my head, remember particular discussions to refer to. I don't think there is a planned release of an mIRC in another language due to the simplicity of mIRC's use of the English language (excluding the help file). Most of the time simple one-word buttons are all you have to deal with.

There have been a number of translations done of the 'How To Install' page, that should help people get online. After getting online, it's mainly up to you to join channels/networks that support your language. Mainly, particularly in the area of help and support, English is the dominant language. There's nothing that can be done about that.

I don't think an mIRC in a different language is particularly necessary. It would be nice for the help file/mIRC FAQ to be translated, but this would take an extremely long time.

Regards,


Mentality/Chris
#84743 01/06/04 06:45 AM
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Khaled's stance on this is stated in his FAQ:

Quote:
Question: Will mIRC be translated to other languages?

Answer: I'm currently working on making mIRC easy to translate, so we should be seeing mIRC in languages other than English in the near future.


Hope this helps!

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#84744 03/06/04 01:58 AM
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Quote:

I don't think an mIRC in a different language is particularly necessary. It would be nice for the help file/mIRC FAQ to be translated, but this would take an extremely long time.


I'm usually on a German IRC network which is primarily intended for beginner users. Many of them have problems understanding English properly. Because of that, there are some multi-purpose scripts around on that network which aim at providing configuration dialogs and popups in German to make life a bit easier, but not all things can be scripted, so these scripts are often combined with resource-hacked mIRC versions. So I think it would be a good idea to have a localized version of mIRC. If this isn't possible, another solution would be if the scripter was able to access all mIRC options via script, so a script-user could do anything via the German configuration dialogs provided by the script.

BTW, there are also some advanced users there who have difficulties understanding english. Most of them don't have problems using mIRC, the problem here is that some of them would like to write some scripts and don't get along with the documentation. I always planned to provide a German mIRC scripting forum helping with that, but unfortunately that's another project for which I really don't have the time. ;-)

When living in Germany, you generally don't have to use English if you don't want to unless you have very special profession or hobbies. Yes, you usually learn English in school, but that's -obviously- often insufficient, remember Berti Vogts in Scotland or Lothar Matthäus in New York? smile Since the early 1990s, most of the popular computer programs are translated to German, including computer games. Also, nearly all popular movies are translated to German -- since ages. I think that's the problem. Now from that point of view this could even be a reason for not localizing mIRC, giving some people a good reason to improve their English. laugh

#84745 03/06/04 03:10 AM
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There are German scripting websites out there, I think irc-befehle.de and mircscripte.de are examples of such. Perhaps they will be of use?

I still don't think there is a particular need for a translated help file. It would be great if there was one and would be helpful to quite a number of people, but as far as the general IRC population is concerned it's not in high demand. For a fluently speaking German to translate the entire help file would take months, perhaps even a year if keeping your sanity intact is important to you! Then it would have to keep being updated with the new features, the changes etc. and I don't think Khaled's going to give people pre-release mIRC information.

As for popular games/movies etc. they have teams of people working on them, for the big releases you literally have hundreds of people involved in production in some way or another. Khaled is the only person who has the source code and can change it, so the scale is a little different! Nevertheless, as PastMaster pointed out, Khaled will hopefully have a translated mIRC version in the future. Whether this includes the help file, I don't know.

As there seems to be more focusing upon language issues lately perhaps there will be some amazing volunteers who do translate everything, but for it to be put up for release it needs to be equally as good, perhaps even better (!) then the current file. I doubt anything less will do. As mentioned before, there are a lot of website out there that are already written in some of the more popular languages (i.e. French, German, Spanish), so there is not a total gap in the multilingual area of IRC.

That's what I think anyway smile

Regards,


Mentality/Chris
#84746 03/06/04 04:40 AM
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I've probably mentioned this before, but perhaps not at great length. I did actually try to translate a certain IRC client once, but what I found was that in order to translate most portions of it, I had to invent entirely new words. So I gave up.

I think that in regions where English isn't widespread, translating a client is certainly an option. But in regions where most people master English, teaching people to understand the terminology might actually be more desirable than trying to invent new words on the fly.

#84747 03/06/04 06:37 AM
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Hmmm, well, as a professional translator (amongst other things) I suppose I should stick a metaphorical toe into the water and comment here.

Quote:
I don't think an mIRC in a different language is particularly necessary.


Having a localised (i.e. local language) version of a piece of software is desirable for several reasons:

[*] It will encourage more people to use the software - specifically, those who don't speak English, or who don't speak English well.

[*] Following on from the last point, it will encourage more people to REGISTER the software, thereby encouraging future development thereof! laugh

[*] It is, quite frankly, arrogant to expect everyone else in the world to speak English. YES, English is the international language - but that does not mean that anyone has the right to FORCE other people to use it. Indeed, over the last few years there has been something of a backlash, with far more languages now being more widespread on the Internet

[*] Given how mIRC has developed, I would assume that mIRC users will be asked to provide (whole or partial) translations into other languages, which will then be made available for download and which can themselves be updated. This will increase the "community" feeling among regular users (very touchy-feely, I know, but...)

and lastly...

[*] It's good manners to allow people to use their own language... grin

Incidentally, I think the currently accepted norm is that a moderately competent translator should be able to handle 1 "normal page" of 1500 characters (excluding spaces) per hour. Just in case anyone was wondering.

Just my 2 bhat's worth

PM


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#84748 03/06/04 04:27 PM
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Quote:
There are German scripting websites out there, I think irc-befehle.de and mircscripte.de are examples of such. Perhaps they will be of use?


I often try to point those people who ask me for something to some location where they can look up their stuff themselves. But often, they come back with the same question again because they aren't able to find sufficient information.

Quote:
For a fluently speaking German to translate the entire help file would take months, perhaps even a year if keeping your sanity intact is important to you! Then it would have to keep being updated with the new features, the changes etc.


But you did already hear about utilities like CVS or RCS which make it easy to maintain text-based documents with even hundreds of people, didn't you? ;-)
So your idea to let people do this voluntarily would do the trick, I think. And I don't think it would be a problem to find people who'd do this job good enough. It's primarily a time-consuming job, but no difficult thing to do.

Quote:
and I don't think Khaled's going to give people pre-release mIRC information.


Well, this might be true. But as soon as a new mIRC version reaches the point where Khaled starts to update the documentation, would it be such a big problem even if one of the translators leaked some information? I don't really think so...

Quote:
As for popular games/movies etc. they have teams of people working on them, for the big releases you literally have hundreds of people involved in production in some way or another. Khaled is the only person who has the source code and can change it, so the scale is a little different! Nevertheless, as PastMaster pointed out, Khaled will hopefully have a translated mIRC version in the future. Whether this includes the help file, I don't know.


Well, the point wasn't to say "The movie makers are able to translate their stuff, so Khaled should be able to translate mIRC too". I was rather going to say that as an explanation for why you don't need to use English here and why many people are not used to getting along with English things, that's it.


#84749 05/06/04 01:51 PM
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Quote:
It is, quite frankly, arrogant to expect everyone else in the world to speak English. YES, English is the international language - but that does not mean that anyone has the right to FORCE other people to use it. Indeed, over the last few years there has been something of a backlash, with far more languages now being more widespread on the Internet


I'm kinda puzzled by this argument. Who is it that expects everyone in the world to speak English? Do you really think that the lack of a localized version of a piece of software indicates arrogance? I would say that arrogance would be to demand that every app has a localized version and to feel "forced" because it is written in the international language and not your language.

Of course, this doesn't mean that I don't agree with having localized versions, on the contrary: I believe it is a very nice thing that would enable people who cannot or will not learn English to use the app. But it is certainly not a right; it is a luxury, implemented because the author is either a nice person or wants to target a larger part of the market (or both).


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#84750 05/06/04 05:42 PM
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Hello.

Quote:
Do you really think that the lack of a localized version of a piece of software indicates arrogance? [...] because it is written in the international language and not your language.


In defense to PastMaster's argument: it was addressed to those who don't see particular necessity in making other languages available. If you already know English, of course you don't need a translation; in fact, software translators often lack elementary grammar knowledge, and you're better off with the original. The arrogance comes from users who, because they understand English, say: we don't need localizations. I consider, as yourself, better to allow the user choose its language -- be it English.

As to the state of English as international language, you may read a discussion in Kissinger's book Clash of civilizations. The percentage of English speakers worldwide, contrary to what some think, is in constant decline: 9.8% in 1958 down to 7.6% in 1992. Do the math: you're leaving out 92% of the world population.

Regards.

#84751 05/06/04 06:41 PM
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Everything I've seen about English and language in general suggests that English, far from declining is growing, but in such a way that you find many different variants, all mutually (to some degree, at least) intelligible. I haven't read Clash of Civilisations (though it is now something I'll look out for) - but I wonder if what was being referred to as the decline of English was the decline of English as a single language, the 'official' language that noone really speaks.

An, just for the record, I'm all for Internationalisation. Reading something in your first language is (usually*) so much more comprehensible than in a second. Even if the native language translation is slightly rough.

(*) Some languages of course have ways of expressing certain concepts that just don't exist in others.


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#84752 05/06/04 06:56 PM
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Quote:
In defense to PastMaster's argument: it was addressed to those who don't see particular necessity in making other languages available


Yep.

And as ever, I was trying not to name specific names, as that just gets people's backs up. laugh

There are unfortunately a lot of people - even on this board, see this thread for a recent example - who think everyone should be required/expected to speak English. Personally, I disagree.

While it's impractical to expect every piece of software to be released in lots of languages, I think it is GREAT if said software can be configured to accept different translations of itself - e.g. with plug-in language modules. Especially a proggie dedicated to communication, like wot mIRC iz. wink

All that said... I'm quite happy to agree to disagree about it!

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#84753 05/06/04 08:01 PM
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Quote:
The percentage of English speakers worldwide, contrary to what some think, is in constant decline...

This is irrelevant. That 7.6% refers to people who speak English as their first language. The percentage of people who can speak English is much much higher, as is the percentage of web sites/software products/international organizations that use English (what language are RFCs written in?). In the computer world, if there is one language that can be called "international", that is most definitely English.


PastMaster:
Glad to hear it was not directed at software developers. The part from your post that I quoted was in the list of the reasons why "Having a localised (i.e. local language) version of a piece of software is desirable". So, that part sounded as if you were referring to software developers and my point was that the lack of internationalization (for whatever reason) has nothing to do with arrogance or forcing anything to anybody (ie that even if a software author is simply not interested in making localized versions of an app, that doesn't make him arrogant in any way).


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#84754 05/06/04 09:53 PM
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Hello.

Quote:
7.6% refers to people who speak English as their first language


That's not true. The statistics table I was referring to, says: estimates include both "mother-tongue" and "nonmother-tongue" speakers. It's true that English is the language of commerce, industry and science. Because computers and media rely on those, you get a mistaken image of language use. 68.3% of web pages are in English apparently (*). But so what? Are you to believe that 2 out of 3 people speak English? How are web pages or software reflective of say rural population?

But I don’t deny that English is a widely used method of communication. Just, let’s not forget that, proportionally, it’s accessible to very few. OK, that's no longer a mIRC discussion... laugh

Regards.

(*) According to http://www.clickz.com/stats/big_picture/demographics/article.php/5901_408521


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