Libreoffice products name (writer, cal, base,...)

Hi,

I checked about a dozen languages, and almost everybody translates
"%PRODUCTNAME Writer" (for example) as "%PRODUCTNAME Writer".

And I'm wondering... why is that so?
Is that a directive from the steering comittee?

I guess that most people opens LibO via "right-click-->new...", double
clicking a doc/spreadsheet/... , or even using the LibreOffice link (I mean,
the startscreen with link to the products, etc).
Anyway, the applications menu is left in english, and those (very little)
icons are not that well-know.

I think having those names translated should be a must. Keeping them in
english just puts up an entry-barrier for people who don't know english
(that's one of the reasons to have translations, isn't it?).
So, could we translate those names?

Hi Mikel,

I don't belong to steering committee, but for pt we don't translate Calc,
Writer and others because they are modules of the application. It makes more
sense to us that this should be as is. In fact there is no accurate
translation for those modules names. For instance, if You use Microsoft
office I guess that the application name remain equal for all languages. The
same thing for desktop applications. Imagine that You are translating Gnome.
Do You translate Gnome word for Your language? Or Shotwell, Openshot, VLC,
Mplayer and so on...

But remember, this is only our opinion and doesn't bond none of other
languages or steering committee.

Regards

It is not that uncommon, even more if your language is not written in
Latin script :wink:

Sometimes the name can be transcribed or you can ignore official grammar
rules and write the name in original script. But if the name is
something generic like "Disk utility" or contain a meaningful word
playing, it is popular to translate it.

Microsoft is translating application names like Paint and Notepad. For
marketing reasons they do not translate Windows, Office or Word.

Now, in this case Writer can be a "strategic marketing name that should
not be translated for any costs", or you can see only LibreOffice as
such and do translate funny word play that the program used for writing
is called "Writer", and the program used for drawing is called "Draw".

In the past, Sun was against translations of product names.

They even requested not to translate generic product names like "Report
builder" or "Presentation minimzer". Now if you are a user of localized
software not speaking English language, would you prefer "Presentation
minimizer" or a translated name like "Умањивач презентације" (Serbian)?

In the code itself translation of main product names is only partially
supported (you can translate entries in configuration panel and some of
the messages, but not in the window title bar or a shortcut title). It
would be fun to have a patch giving this option, but it is just not
worth it for me to dig in.

Cheers,
Goran Rakic

Why do we have this discussion at all? The product names are part of
the branding of the trademark and shouldn't be tampered with.

That's the thing. That's why I mentioned the Steering Comittee, and that's
why I didn't just translate those.
If "LibreOffice Writer" is the product's name, the logical thing is to keep
those and hope that they'll become as known as Word, Excel, etc. Right now,
they're just not known, and I myself have seen people going to the menu and
asking "Which one is Word? Which one is Excel?".

Gnome, VLC, Openshot,... obviously are product names, and obviously
shouldn't be translated.
The same thing goes for "LibreOffice"; that clearly shouldn't be translated.

"Writer?", "Base?",... I guess most groups decided that they should keep
them, but some DID translate those, so: "Why do we have this discussion at
all?", obviously 'cause it's not clear at all and I understand that
Marketing, Translating and Steering should decide about it and tell all
translators. I think that's the wise thing to do.

On another unrelated matter:

Mikel, I suspect you of being pretty new to this game...

Really? Come on... So cheap...

If this ever was to get implemented, it would have to be well thought through. At the moment you can get away with strings like "Open in %s" which then turns into "Open in LO Writer" and it looks ok even in many heavily inflected languages but then moment something like Spreadsheet becomes "Cliath-dhuilleag" (in Scots Gaelic in my case), then it gets complicated because depending on the context, that would have to show up as "Chliath-dhuilleag" "Cliath-duilleige" and "Chliath-dhuilleige".

So far, I haven't come across a l10n project that takes morphology beyong plural rules and though I'd really really love more morphology rules, I suspect they might be long in the coming. So even if "Spredsheet" was up for translation I suspect I would stick with the English term for now.

My tuppence worth :slight_smile:

le meas,

Michael

02/08/2011 01:26, sgrìobh Mikel Pascual - Akaita:

Why do we have this discussion at all? The product names are part of
the branding of the trademark and shouldn't be tampered with.

That's the thing. That's why I mentioned the Steering Comittee, and that's
why I didn't just translate those.

%PRODUCTNAME is just a variable in the source code which is set
accordingly to
the project which it shall reflect, in this case "LibreOffice".

If "LibreOffice Writer" is the product's name, the logical thing is to keep
those and hope that they'll become as known as Word, Excel, etc. Right now,
they're just not known, and I myself have seen people going to the menu and
asking "Which one is Word? Which one is Excel?".

Yes, but here's where the marketings skills come in, you make them learn
this.
Let's say by making a text table comparing components with full names and
functions. Or like we did here in Norway for OpenOffice.org, pamphlets
introducing people to the software.

And as part of this, you can re-educate them to use correct terms as
"spreadsheet" and "word processor" too. They should fair better with
the power of this new knowledge we take for granted in the future, making
your own life more comfortable as well.

Mikel, I suspect you of being pretty new to this game...

Really? Come on... So cheap...

Well, that was my first hunch reading your e-mail, no offence meant...

– Olav

If this ever was to get implemented, it would have to be well thought
through. At the moment you can get away with strings like "Open in %s" which
then turns into "Open in LO Writer" and it looks ok even in many heavily
inflected languages but then moment something like Spreadsheet becomes
"Cliath-dhuilleag" (in Scots Gaelic in my case), then it gets complicated
because depending on the context, that would have to show up as
"Chliath-dhuilleag" "Cliath-duilleige" and "Chliath-dhuilleige".

So far, I haven't come across a l10n project that takes morphology beyong
plural rules and though I'd really really love more morphology rules, I
suspect they might be long in the coming. So even if "Spredsheet" was up for
translation I suspect I would stick with the English term for now.

Just a remark: in KDE there is something called pology which is specially
for such languages which have many cases. But so far IMO only a few
languages are using this...

Interesting. The corresponding page http://techbase.kde.org/Localization/Tools/Pology looks a bit slim though, is this just brand new and in development or ancient and sadly dying?

Michael

02/08/2011 03:28, sgrìobh Marek Laane:

Hi Mikel, *

Von: Mikel Pascual - Akaita <mikel@akaita.com>

I checked about a dozen languages, and almost everybody translates
"%PRODUCTNAME Writer" (for example) as "%PRODUCTNAME Writer".

And I'm wondering... why is that so?

Because people are used to do it that way :slight_smile:

Is that a directive from the steering comittee?

No - and honestly I don't want the SC to get involved in that discussion.

It should be up to the local teams how they translate the module names. But
I'd personally strongly recommend *not* translating module / application
names, as they are just that: names.

There is also a marketing / product acceptance aspect. E.g. at consumer
events, we (in Germany) often get the Question "Do you have am equivalent to
PowerPoint?" We cannot just say that we have a "Module for presentation
files". People (who are used to MSO) think of *applications* not of file formats.

But this might be different for differnt local markets. So if your users
already think in file type terms - or have problems with the english
module names - you should be free to translate module names.

As Goran mentioned this is quite similar to the extension names that should
not have been translated. German team took the liberty to translate the
"Report Builder" to "Bericht-Designer", as "Report Builder" is quite
meaningless in German.

regards,

André

Interesting. The corresponding page http://techbase.kde.org/**
Localization/Tools/Pology<http://techbase.kde.org/Localization/Tools/Pology>looks a bit slim though, is this just brand new and in development or
ancient and sadly dying?

Michael

Probably neither brand new nor dying but just not with updated web

documentation. Still, it's own documentation (you can see it e.g. in
http://websvn.kde.org/trunk/l10n-support/pology/doc/user/) seems to be quite
recent.

Marek Laane

02/08/2011 03:28, sgrìobh Marek Laane:

So, summing it up, each translator can just choose whether translate those
names or not...
I really think that people from marketing or some comittee should decide
about it, so LibO keeps being consistent across every language.

I by myself am not sure if it would be more convenient to keep "base,
calc,..." so users can get to identify them, or translate them so new users
can understand everything easier.
Maybe, it could also depend on the userbase for each language... lot's of
strategic options here.

Hi Mikel,

So, summing it up, each translator can just choose whether translate those
names or not...
I really think that people from marketing or some comittee should decide
about it, so LibO keeps being consistent across every language.

In my opinion, we don't need a committee to decide but may be more a
clear decision between us and then document it in a FAQ that we should
have one day or another.

I by myself am not sure if it would be more convenient to keep "base,
calc,..." so users can get to identify them, or translate them so new users
can understand everything easier.

Like the others said, these are application names, so better not
translate them and keep them to not confuse the users already using
OOo.

Maybe, it could also depend on the userbase for each language... lot's of
strategic options here.

The names are already known and if you do some researches on the Web,
they appear in numerous documentation, sites, etc. in various
languages. So I'll keep the same rule available from OOo, keep the
names as they are.

Kind regards
Sophie

A question though - how are they handled in non-Latin scripts like CJK or Hindi/Urdu etc?

Michael

03/08/2011 14:50, sgrìobh Sophie Gautier:

We use Write, Calc, Impress, Base and Math respectively for each
program in Traditional Chinese.

I took the time to check all languages.
I left out "templates", Tatar (nothing translated) and Luxembourgish (can't
access O_o).

It seems like about 4-5 languages don't have it clear and sometimes
translate "%PRODUCTNAME% Writer" but mostly leave it unchanged. I'll put
them in the "unchanged group".
So, here are some numbers:

-elegible languages: 100
-unchanged: 75
-translated: 25

Easy stats: 75%-25%.

These are the 25 languages that seems to translate "%PRODUCTNAME% Writer":
bn, brx, my, dgo, dz, eo, et, hi, ks, kok, lo, lt, mai, mni, ne, or, fa,
pa_IN, sa_IN, sat, sd ,ta, bo, ts, tn

et?!
Could you say where it's translated for et? It shouldn't be...

Regards,
Mihkel

> [snip]
>
> These are the 25 languages that seems to translate "%PRODUCTNAME%
Writer":
> bn, brx, my, dgo, dz, eo, et, hi, ks, kok, lo, lt, mai, mni, ne, or, fa,
> pa_IN, sa_IN, sat, sd ,ta, bo, ts, tn
>

et?!
Could you say where it's translated for et? It shouldn't be...

Regards,
Mihkel

Note that I just said "seem" (sorry I wrote "seems", what a shame :frowning: ).
In 'et', for example:
https://translations.documentfoundation.org/et/libo34x_ui/translate.html?unit=3298935
https://translations.documentfoundation.org/et/libo34x_ui/translate.html?unit=3300025

in 'et', there are also at least some translations from "writer/web" to
"writer/veeb":
https://translations.documentfoundation.org/et/libo34x_ui/translate.html?unit=3302917

that's why I thought that we should decide about this. It seems like someone
in 'et' team thought that translating them would be fine?

I found the search tool in pootle very helpful. Just enter
https://translations.documentfoundation.org/et/libo34x_ui/ and use the
search box on the right-top.

>
> > [snip]
> >
> > These are the 25 languages that seems to translate "%PRODUCTNAME%
> Writer":
> > bn, brx, my, dgo, dz, eo, et, hi, ks, kok, lo, lt, mai, mni, ne, or,
fa,
> > pa_IN, sa_IN, sat, sd ,ta, bo, ts, tn
> >
>
> et?!
> Could you say where it's translated for et? It shouldn't be...
>
> Regards,
> Mihkel
>
>
Note that I just said "seem" (sorry I wrote "seems", what a shame :frowning: ).
In 'et', for example:

https://translations.documentfoundation.org/et/libo34x_ui/translate.html?unit=3298935

https://translations.documentfoundation.org/et/libo34x_ui/translate.html?unit=3300025

In these Writer is not translated - what you can observe here are case

endings as needed in Estonian (we have many cases and quite a few
prepositions or postpositions, most of them needs anyway some specific
case...)

in 'et', there are also at least some translations from "writer/web" to

Yeah, as Marek said, the name isn't really translated there.
Thanks anyway :slight_smile:

>
> >
> > > [snip]
> > >
> > > These are the 25 languages that seems to translate "%PRODUCTNAME%
> > Writer":
> > > bn, brx, my, dgo, dz, eo, et, hi, ks, kok, lo, lt, mai, mni, ne, or,
> fa,
> > > pa_IN, sa_IN, sat, sd ,ta, bo, ts, tn
> > >
> >
> > et?!
> > Could you say where it's translated for et? It shouldn't be...
> >
> > Regards,
> > Mihkel
> >
> >
> Note that I just said "seem" (sorry I wrote "seems", what a shame :frowning: ).
> In 'et', for example:
>
>
https://translations.documentfoundation.org/et/libo34x_ui/translate.html?unit=3298935
>
>
https://translations.documentfoundation.org/et/libo34x_ui/translate.html?unit=3300025
>
> in 'et', there are also at least some translations from "writer/web" to
> "writer/veeb":
>
>
https://translations.documentfoundation.org/et/libo34x_ui/translate.html?unit=3302917
>
>
> that's why I thought that we should decide about this. It seems like
> someone
> in 'et' team thought that translating them would be fine?
>

Yeah, as Marek said, the name isn't really translated there.
Thanks anyway :slight_smile:

Oh, didn't think about that. In fact, my language also uses postposition (we
optionally use a hyphen in order to keep the foreign name clearly
identified).
Not sure if "Writer/Web" is a name... I guess that if "Writer" is a name,
"Writer/Web" is also a name?

Anyway, I rechecked the list keeping possible prepositions and
postpositions, and 'et' is the only one that jumps out of the list. There's
a 24% of languages translating, 76% not translating.

On the bright side, it's great to see that there's people checking
everything that goes to this list. You people on 'et' have been really fast!