Official PR Manual - A call for translators

[SserpensS]

I am here for Slovak translation. Add me in please I will contact Mineral.

[PatrickLA_CA]

If you guys need a Macedonian/Serbian/Bulgarian translation, I'm in.

[Mineral]

If you guys need a Macedonian/Serbian/Bulgarian translation, I'm in.

Let's start with one Which one will reach more people?

[PatrickLA_CA]

Well, I know there are only 3 Macedonians playing PR right now, I think there are more Serbians/Croatians. I don't know, I can do either. I know that there are Bulgarians as well, but not as many as Serbian/Croatians/Bosnians (Serbo-Croatian language will be understandable by all of these 3).

[BSR_Pheelz]

=ITW= and [EI] clans are translating for Italian version....

[Mineral]

no you aren't. I haven't send you the files yet. Hang on there

Patrick , I put you up for Serbo-Croatian then.

[BSR_Pheelz]

..but but .... Mineral-senpai, we starting from this one ....

https://www.realitymod.com/forum/f196-p ... ual-5.html

[Mineral]

First community translations have been completed today! Thanks to all who helped.

Spanish: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/646 ... ual_es.pdf
French:https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/646 ... ual_fr.pdf

These are now up for community review, so I look to all those Spanish and French speaking out there to proof read these manuals and report any bugs you see For the next 2 weeks these will remain in review status after which the final version will be uploaded and won't be changed again until the next PR update!

Soon these versions will also be available threw the normal PR manual btw, I just need to wait for another DEV to wake up for that

[pedrooo14]

Hello, in the page 12 of the spanish translation (I tell you cause I made that part) the word CACHE is translated as "Alijo" (WTF?). I don t known if that change was made by Blackgus (he was like the translator in chief) or by reality mod people but that is wrong. I mean, everybody tells cache to the cache. And if there exist a translation will sure not be "alijo" haha.

Cheers.


Edit: I talked with Blackgus, he tell me Pirutoko made that correction because he is from spain. But I never hear an spanish in game using that word to refer to the cache.

[Camel_Caravan]

[quote=""'[R-DEV"]Mineral;2074050']I look to all those Spanish and French speaking out there to proof read these manuals and report any bugs you see For the next 2 weeks these will remain in review status after which the final version will be uploaded and won't be changed again until the next PR update![/quote]

What is the preferred channel to make comments/suggestions about the translations? Here in this thread, or through some GitHub page? As I said, I will be on holidays for the next few weeks and I would like to contribute to the Spanish translation of PR. I already started translating some strings in GitHub, but I'm unsure whether or not they are going to be used, so I would appreciate some kind of confirmation either way.

About this question:
[quote="pedrooo14""]Hello, in the page 12 of the spanish translation (I tell you cause I made that part) the word CACHE is translated as "Alijo" (WTF?). I don t known if that change was made by Blackgus (he was like the translator in chief) or by reality mod people but that is wrong. I mean, everybody tells cache to the cache. And if there exist a translation will sure not be "alijo" haha.[/quote]
As a professional translator I can assure you that "alijo" would indeed be the proper translation for "cache". The English word "cache" comes from the French "cacher", which means "to hide". And "alijo" is exactly the same word, only that instead of having its origin in Latin, it uses an Arabic root, "addi??r", which means exactly the same as "cacher", to hide. The word "alijo" can be commonly found for example in relation to smuggling, in phrases such as "un alijo de drogas" (a drug shipment, or a consignment of drugs), or, indeed, "un alijo de armas" (an arms cache).

That said, it is entirely possible that in the variation of Spanish which you speak (Argentinian), you come across more frequently with the Latin-based "escondite" rather than with its Arabic-based counterpart "alijo".

[Grey_Echo]

I had lots of problem translating some of those words too. For example, even though the word "squad" doesn't exist in French (we would say "escouade"), I decided to keep it as "squad" in the manual because that's what is used on PR and on PRMumble.
It's probably way less literary, but I think it is more helpful for the newcomer who would read the manual.

In the end, I would advice this : what is understandable by an average guy reading your manual ? Would he understand "cache" ? If yes, use it, it will be more convenient for him when he plays. If not use the spannish word ("alijo" apparently)

Only my 2 cents though.

[Camel_Caravan]

I agree with you, Grey-Echo, in that the most important thing is that the manual helps the newcomer the most. Also, that there is this added complexity in translating PR because regardless of the localization, the game relies heavily in communication and the lingua franca is still English. For this reason, I also agree that in order to blend in smoothly, new players must be familiar with the English terminology. However, my suggestion wouldn't be to leave those terms untranslated, but to translate them offering at the same time the English original between brackets. For example: "Puesto Avanzado (Forward Outpost, or FOB)".

Which reminds me that something that I am missing in the manual is an appendix with the English version of the most common abbreviations and glossary. What's a LAT, a HAT, a BMP, a BTR, a FOB, a HMG, a IED, a TOW, etc... This might be very intuitive for an English speaker, but I see everyday what an added challenge it is for non-Natives new players.

Last question for you Grey-Echo is about the special French characters. Can you use ?, ?, ?, ?, etc?

[Grey_Echo]

For the untranslated terms, I assume the manual will be read in order, and the first time this kind of abbreviation appeared, I wrote it like that :
FOB (Forward Operationg Base, Base d'operations avancees). And then, for the rest of the document, I used FOB but i put it in italic.
Other example : LAT (arme anti-tank legere). Here, "tank" isn't really a French word (we would say "char"), but it is totally understandable by pretty much anyone in France, especially those who are interested to play an mod for BF2.
I also added a "translator notes" section at the beginning of the document to explain the above.

I don't really get your last question.

Can you use ?, ?, ?, ?, etc?

Of course I used question marks ?!

Hope it helps !

EDIT : Oh, ok, so apparently, on the forums, accents aren't shown and we get question marks. So, i used every special character I needed, like accents, "cedille",... No problem here since words know all of them, unlike these forums
And, BTW, I am probably nowhere near as good as you for translation, since you do that for your job and I'm just a future IT engineer who is learning english as part of his training...)

[Camel_Caravan]

Thanks Grey-Echo, I sent you a private message.

Can any of the DEVs please confirm whether or not Project Reality supports special latin characters, such as accents or umlauts above vowels and such?

[pedrooo14]

Thats a linguistic discussion of little importance. The important is that the manual can be understand by everybody, if they found a word which they never are going to see in game and have no idea what is referring then the translation has failed. Its not just about literally translate each word.

I repeat, the spanish with which I have played never used the word "alijo" to refer the cache.

[Pirutoko]

Here's the thing: Neither "escondite" nor "alijo" are used in-game as far as I know, even among spanish speakers.

In the documents I helped translate I chose to translate the word, and keep the original word between brackets for clarity. For example: "Alijo de armas (cache)" or "trinchera (foxhole)". That way, people reading the manual would not only understand everything, as it has been translated into their mothertongue, but they would also know the english term that it's used by pretty much everyone on the PR community. However after talking to BlackGus about it, he told me to keep words between brackets out of the translation, as it would add too many words and ruin the document format. So I did.

Addressing your point, pedrooo14. "Alijo" is a not only a correct word but a valid one, a quick google search can show you that, and I'm sure you have heard the term many times in the news. Does that mean that if a reader does not know a word the translation has failed? I for one, don't think so.

Edit: as Camel_Caravan said:

That said, it is entirely possible that in the variation of Spanish which you speak (Argentinian), you come across more frequently with the Latin-based "escondite" rather than with its Arabic-based counterpart "alijo".

Still, I'd like to review the spanish translation, since I feel that the current one is far from perfect, but it won't be possible for me until holidays.

o7

[Camel_Caravan]

I generally agree with Pirutoko's approach. I think introducing the words with the English original between brackets would be the ideal way to translate it. However, if that messes the format of the document, I suppose a different approach is needed. I also agree with Pedrooo14 in that knowing the English word is very important in order to be an effective player of PR. We have an understanding there. On the other hand, I think that in order to truly understand the mechanics of the game and the dynamics of the battlefield, it's also important for people to know what the heck we are talking about, when we talk about caches, pillboxes, BMPs, foxholes, etc, and for that they need to get these words translated.

But if the format of the document makes impossible to add the English word between brackets throughout the document, I very strongly feel that a compromise could be introducing both the English and the Spanish word the first time, and only the English word for the rest of the document. Notwithstanding, I do believe it is crucial to add a glossary list for reference at the end of the manual to find a compromise between the richness of information, and the length of the document. Such a glossary could list the English words, their abbreviation in-game, and their translation for reference. For example:

APC, Armored Personnel Carrier - Transporte Blindado de Personal
Cache - Alijo de Armas
HAT, Heavy Anti-Tank - Antitanque Pesado
MG or Fifty-cal, Machine Gun - Ametralladora

What do other translators think of this? Could we perhaps get BlackGus to give his opinion on the matter?

[pedrooo14]

Addressing your point, pedrooo14. "Alijo" is a not only a correct word but a valid one, a quick google search can show you that, and I'm sure you have heard the term many times in the news. Does that mean that if a reader does not know a word the translation has failed? I for one, don't think so.

The first time I saw it, it was like: "WTF is Alijo?". After thinking a while it has some sense. But I really not remember ever hearing or seen that word. It?s too spaniard. Mostly for Argentina/Uruguay wich our spanish even differs from the rest of Latinamerica.

Again, I never ever refer to the cache in all this years playing PR as another word that wasn?t cache

[BlackGus]

I have 5 years playing PR with people from Spain , Argentina , Mexico , Ecuador , Venezuela , Colombia , Peru and other Latin American countries , all new players understand the word "cache" in the first game, so i prefer to change the word "alijo" with " cache" and add a note before starting to explain the Insurgency mod.....by the way in my opinion learning new words is part of the game experience.

[Camel_Caravan]

... by the way in my opinion learning new words is part of the game experience.

How about the glossary list at the end as a way to learn new words and have a quick reference sheet?