was: Steward election issues
On Wed, Mar 9, 2011 at 7:55 AM, Thomas Goldammer thogol@googlemail.com wrote:
Why don't we just write in our respective native language, all of us. XD Would make communication much funnier, I guess. :p
I agree, that it would be funnier, but I doubt most folk on foundation-l will agree.
Do we have a multilingual mailing list?
I think it would be a good idea to have a general discussion list where anyone, especially newbies, can write in their preferred language. Someone in our community is sure to understand and be able to respond.
-- John Vandenberg
On Tue, Mar 8, 2011 at 4:17 PM, John Vandenberg jayvdb@gmail.com wrote:
On Wed, Mar 9, 2011 at 7:55 AM, Thomas Goldammer thogol@googlemail.com wrote:
Why don't we just write in our respective native language, all of us. XD Would make communication much funnier, I guess. :p
I agree, that it would be funnier, but I doubt most folk on foundation-l will agree.
Do we have a multilingual mailing list?
I think it would be a good idea to have a general discussion list where anyone, especially newbies, can write in their preferred language. Someone in our community is sure to understand and be able to respond.
This *is* a multilingual list. All languages are welcome here. The issue with Meria's messages have been that she's just been saying the same thing over and over again: "please write in Spanish". If she wanted to respond to something in Spanish, that would have been fine.
What Thomas says may seem like a joke, but it's actually something that's happened on this list in the past. :-) I remember a thread where I was talking with someone in English while they responded in German. We used Google Translate to figure out what each other was saying and then we responded in our own language.
On Wed, Mar 9, 2011 at 8:21 AM, Casey Brown lists@caseybrown.org wrote:
On Tue, Mar 8, 2011 at 4:17 PM, John Vandenberg jayvdb@gmail.com wrote:
On Wed, Mar 9, 2011 at 7:55 AM, Thomas Goldammer thogol@googlemail.com wrote:
Why don't we just write in our respective native language, all of us. XD Would make communication much funnier, I guess. :p
I agree, that it would be funnier, but I doubt most folk on foundation-l will agree.
Do we have a multilingual mailing list?
I think it would be a good idea to have a general discussion list where anyone, especially newbies, can write in their preferred language. Someone in our community is sure to understand and be able to respond.
This *is* a multilingual list. All languages are welcome here.
While they are welcome, they are typically shoveled away to another list very quickly.
A multilingual space is one where English is not the principle language, and/or people are not expected to use English if they can. foundation-l *does* expect people to use English if they can. My guess is that English is not the preferred language for over 50% of the regular posters on foundation-l, and yet they use English.
Pedro's assessment is the reality:
On Wed, Mar 9, 2011 at 7:13 AM, Pedro Sanchez pdsanchez@gmail.com wrote:
2011/3/8 Huib Laurens sterkebak@gmail.com:
Lo sentimos, pero el Inglés es el idioma principal en esta lista.
:Not only is english the main idioma, dare I say the only one (any thread started on another language would raise complains and quickly turned into english)
-- John Vandenberg
John Vandenberg writes:
This *is* a multilingual list. All languages are welcome here.
While they are welcome, they are typically shoveled away to another list very quickly.
A multilingual space is one where English is not the principle language, and/or people are not expected to use English if they can. foundation-l *does* expect people to use English if they can.
I don't want to anthropomorphize the list, but it's certainly true that having 99 out of 100 messages in English makes people who want to write in other languages feel shy.
Most of the deeply eloquent people whose posts I enjoy reading on lists in other languages do not post here; possibly because they don't care for the topic but possibly because it takes more effort to be eloquent in English. And presumably this assumption makes some people not sign up at all.
It might not be a bad idea to have a multilingual foundation list where the expectation is inverted -- that most people won't use English unless it is their best language, or they find it necessary to communicate.
Hi there, I personally welcome multilingual mailinglists, officially including it, but not sure if the community at large welcome such regardless its efficiency in general. I use my twitter account for speaking in Japanese and mostly, and have seen many non Japanese people including Wikimedians have unfollowed me + on Wikimania I've met several people who uttered "oh you have an twitter accout? Lovely! Oh you don't tweet in English ... no thanks".
I'm not sarcastic, but we need lingua franca, not only our beloved mother tongue. That's an reality of this "jenseit" world.
On Wed, Mar 9, 2011 at 7:55 AM, Samuel Klein meta.sj@gmail.com wrote:
John Vandenberg writes:
This *is* a multilingual list. All languages are welcome here.
While they are welcome, they are typically shoveled away to another list very quickly.
A multilingual space is one where English is not the principle language, and/or people are not expected to use English if they can. foundation-l *does* expect people to use English if they can.
I don't want to anthropomorphize the list, but it's certainly true that having 99 out of 100 messages in English makes people who want to write in other languages feel shy.
Most of the deeply eloquent people whose posts I enjoy reading on lists in other languages do not post here; possibly because they don't care for the topic but possibly because it takes more effort to be eloquent in English. And presumably this assumption makes some people not sign up at all.
It might not be a bad idea to have a multilingual foundation list where the expectation is inverted -- that most people won't use English unless it is their best language, or they find it necessary to communicate.
-- Samuel Klein identi.ca:sj w:user:sj +1 617 529 4266
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Zen is very good way to contemplate limitations of human nature.
One of the limitations is very limited ability to learn languages. There are more than 5000 languages in the world and just extraordinary individuals are able to speak more than 10. And when I say "speak", my ru-2 is not counted.
Because of that genetically inherited disability, humans tend to learn one language common for the cultural context in which they live, which is called "lingua franca". With some pauses, from ~100BC to 1900 it was Latin in Western Europe. In Eastern and Central Africa it is Swahili. And today it is English in the world. Or at least on Internet.
So, there are a couple of options: (1) Change gravitational constant locally with the aim to catapult all English language out of Earth. (2) Learn all languages of the world. (3) Invent new lingua franca and teach everybody to use it.
Or just try Zen. It is not American, you are safe.
On 8 March 2011 23:03, Milos Rancic millosh@gmail.com wrote:
Because of that genetically inherited disability, humans tend to learn one language common for the cultural context in which they live, which is called "lingua franca". With some pauses, from ~100BC to 1900 it was Latin in Western Europe. In Eastern and Central Africa it is Swahili. And today it is English in the world. Or at least on Internet.
"Karibu foundation-l. Lugha rasmi hapa ni Kiswahili na Kiingereza."
- d.
----- "David Gerard" dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
"Karibu foundation-l. Lugha rasmi hapa ni Kiswahili na Kiingereza."
Nini ni lugha ya si Kiklingoni? Ingekuwa kwamba kuwa sawa na haki kwa wote. Au Kiesperanto labda?
Alison
2011/3/9 Alison M. Wheeler wikimedia@alisonwheeler.com:
----- "David Gerard" dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
"Karibu foundation-l. Lugha rasmi hapa ni Kiswahili na Kiingereza."
Nini ni lugha ya si Kiklingoni? Ingekuwa kwamba kuwa sawa na haki kwa wote. Au Kiesperanto labda?
Hovercraft yangu ni kamili ya Eles.
- d.
Kusema Kiswahili ni kuzuri! Kutoka leo tunataka kuandika Kiswahilini. Huko munakupendeza.
Th.
2011/3/10 David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com:
2011/3/9 Alison M. Wheeler wikimedia@alisonwheeler.com:
----- "David Gerard" dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
"Karibu foundation-l. Lugha rasmi hapa ni Kiswahili na Kiingereza."
Nini ni lugha ya si Kiklingoni? Ingekuwa kwamba kuwa sawa na haki kwa wote. Au Kiesperanto labda?
Hovercraft yangu ni kamili ya Eles.
2011/3/8 Casey Brown lists@caseybrown.org
\ What Thomas says may seem like a joke, but it's actually something that's happened on this list in the past. :-) I remember a thread where I was talking with someone in English while they responded in German. We used Google Translate to figure out what each other was saying and then we responded in our own language.
I remember a French case also :-)
On Tue, Mar 8, 2011 at 10:21 PM, Casey Brown lists@caseybrown.org wrote:
On Tue, Mar 8, 2011 at 4:17 PM, John Vandenberg jayvdb@gmail.com wrote:
Do we have a multilingual mailing list?
I think it would be a good idea to have a general discussion list where anyone, especially newbies, can write in their preferred language. Someone in our community is sure to understand and be able to respond.
This *is* a multilingual list. All languages are welcome here. The issue with Meria's messages have been that she's just been saying the same thing over and over again: "please write in Spanish". If she wanted to respond to something in Spanish, that would have been fine.
Casey's right—this is, in fact, the official policy of the list. You can write in whatever language you want, just don't expect much of a reply if you do it in a language that only three other people on the list understand.
My reply to Maria was overly simplistic and dismissive, but only because (a) she was just writing "I don't speak English, Spanish please," and (b) she did it like six times. If my head were back in California, I could perhaps have given her a better reply, and it's somewhat regrettable that my Spanish skills went down the toilet when I moved to the (no longer Spanish) Netherlands.
(As an aside, does anyone know the appropriate Spanish verb for "to moderate" in this context? I didn't actually ban her, I just couldn't come up with a better word.)
Austin
On Tue, Mar 8, 2011 at 5:01 PM, Austin Hair adhair@gmail.com wrote:
(As an aside, does anyone know the appropriate Spanish verb for "to moderate" in this context? I didn't actually ban her, I just couldn't come up with a better word.)
I'm pretty sure that it's "moderar". http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/moderar That seems to be the translate that mailman uses too.
Austin Hair, 08/03/2011 23:01:
On Tue, Mar 8, 2011 at 10:21 PM, Casey Brown wrote:
On Tue, Mar 8, 2011 at 4:17 PM, John Vandenberg wrote:
Do we have a multilingual mailing list? [...]
This *is* a multilingual list. All languages are welcome here. [...]
Casey's right—this is, in fact, the official policy of the list.
Another list where this is official policy (and more clearly stated) is Internal-l (for those who are subscribed: check the first messages). A really (and not only formally) multilingual list is the new iberocoop list, started after the last Wikimania (http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Iberocoop ).
Nemo
On 12 March 2011 14:53, Federico Leva (Nemo) nemowiki@gmail.com wrote:
A really (and not only formally) multilingual list is the new iberocoop list, started after the last Wikimania (http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Iberocoop ).
I didn't know about that list. That's very interesting - thanks for the heads up! It is a lot easier to manage a multilingual discussion where all the languages are, to at least some extent, mutually intelligible, though. It would be useful to hear what measures, if any, that list has taken to make things easier, though. They might work more generally.
On Sat, Mar 12, 2011 at 16:32, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
On 12 March 2011 14:53, Federico Leva (Nemo) nemowiki@gmail.com wrote:
A really (and not only formally) multilingual list is the new iberocoop list, started after the last Wikimania (http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Iberocoop ).
I didn't know about that list. That's very interesting - thanks for the heads up! It is a lot easier to manage a multilingual discussion where all the languages are, to at least some extent, mutually intelligible, though. It would be useful to hear what measures, if any, that list has taken to make things easier, though. They might work more generally.
Willing to hear how Basque language is used on that list.
In such situation, ordinary person has to choose between two choices: (1) to make one time effort and learn English; no matter how it is bad at the beginning, it becomes better and better because of its usage; (2) to make constant efforts in combining Google Translate with partial intelligibility or the other language.
Besides that, there will be always less equal languages. For example, any list for Former Yugoslavia may start with the aim to have all languages, but, the language usage flow goes in this way: Albanians will never try to use their language, as it is obviously that almost nobody else understands it. Serbians don't use Cyrillic, as it makes problems to the younger generations of Croats and Slovenes. Then, Macedonians start not to use Cyrillic, but as Cyrillic is the only script of Macedonian language, they tend to write Serbian in Latin. Finally, Slovenes realize that it is stupid that just they don't use Serbian/Croatian/Bosnian, so they switch on it. Usually non native speakers will make mistakes, but it would be more understandable than if everybody writes in their native languages. It is not poetry, but using words from Latin and English, as well as other internationalisms makes discourse very rich.
Consequently, before very good automatic translators -- which means that it should be approximately 100%; if efficiency is 99%, there will be ~5 errors in this email, which could significantly change the meaning of it -- lingua franca is superior model.
That doesn't mean that we should prohibit usage of any other language. Yes, someone could make very good points in Spanish and someone else could translate them into English. However, at this point of time, English is the only reasonable option.
Milos,
Basque is not spoken on that list. I haven't heard of any interest in creating a Basque chapter (and I've recently been in contact with a few people from the Basque Wikipedia, for a chapter-like activity, so I believe I would know if such interest existed), and the Iberocoop list, on the other hand, is focused on existing and planned chapters.
In any case, although we firmly defend a multilingual setup, we've thoroughly discussed this and agreed that it can only work when the languages are, like Thomas said, mutually intelligible. Basque would not fit there, because of this, but AFAIK most Basque people speak Spanish as well, so that wouldn't be a (hypothetical) problem.
Cheers, Waldir
On Sat, Mar 12, 2011 at 10:00 PM, Milos Rancic millosh@gmail.com wrote:
On Sat, Mar 12, 2011 at 16:32, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
On 12 March 2011 14:53, Federico Leva (Nemo) nemowiki@gmail.com wrote:
A really (and not only formally) multilingual list is the new iberocoop list, started after the last Wikimania (http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Iberocoop ).
I didn't know about that list. That's very interesting - thanks for the heads up! It is a lot easier to manage a multilingual discussion where all the languages are, to at least some extent, mutually intelligible, though. It would be useful to hear what measures, if any, that list has taken to make things easier, though. They might work more generally.
Willing to hear how Basque language is used on that list.
On Thu, Mar 31, 2011 at 05:08, Waldir Pimenta waldir@email.com wrote:
Milos,
Basque is not spoken on that list. I haven't heard of any interest in creating a Basque chapter (and I've recently been in contact with a few people from the Basque Wikipedia, for a chapter-like activity, so I believe I would know if such interest existed), and the Iberocoop list, on the other hand, is focused on existing and planned chapters.
In any case, although we firmly defend a multilingual setup, we've thoroughly discussed this and agreed that it can only work when the languages are, like Thomas said, mutually intelligible. Basque would not fit there, because of this, but AFAIK most Basque people speak Spanish as well, so that wouldn't be a (hypothetical) problem.
I supposed that it is so.
However, my point wasn't about inclusion of people from Basque region in regional cooperation -- as I am sure that initiative for chapters cooperation on Iberian peninsula will include them -- but about linguistic issues. And I described that above in relation to the situation in former Yugoslavia. Albanian speakers from Kosovo are in very similar position as Basque speakers from Basque Country are: their language is distant from the surrounding languages and they use regional lingua franca when they want to communicate even on the lists intended to be multilingual.
So, nothing organizationally, just about the fact that even on multilingual lists there are more and less equal languages. And that's not because some group wants to discriminate other group, but because it is communication reality.
Ik denk dat dat niet helemaal eerlijk is om zo te stellen - als jij er wat moeite voor zou doen, zou je de meeste andere talen ook prima begrijpen. Hetzij door gewoon langzaam te lezen, hetzij door vertaalprogramma's die op het internet beschikbaar zijn te gebruiken.
Het belangrijkste bij meertalige maillijsten is niet zozeer dat mensen er gebruik van moeten maken, maar juist dat er een acceptatie is en een positieve atmosfeer in het geval dat iemand besluit er gebruik van te maken. Wanneer je een bericht vervolgens niet begrijpt, kun je natuurlijk nog altijd vragen om een toelichting.
Het enige lastige van meertalige lijsten is dat spelfouten ineens veel grotere consequenties hebben.
Met vriendelijke groet,
Lodewijk
2011/3/12 Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com:
On 12 March 2011 14:53, Federico Leva (Nemo) nemowiki@gmail.com wrote:
A really (and not only formally) multilingual list is the new iberocoop list, started after the last Wikimania (http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Iberocoop ).
I didn't know about that list. That's very interesting - thanks for the heads up! It is a lot easier to manage a multilingual discussion where all the languages are, to at least some extent, mutually intelligible, though. It would be useful to hear what measures, if any, that list has taken to make things easier, though. They might work more generally.
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Let's assume that you don't know English. I don't know Dutch and Google Translator is my only option. (Similarities with English are not so big, while my knowledge of German is so poor, that it's not useful at all.)
2011/3/14 Lodewijk lodewijk@effeietsanders.org:
Ik denk dat dat niet helemaal eerlijk is om zo te stellen - als jij er wat moeite voor zou doen, zou je de meeste andere talen ook prima begrijpen. Hetzij door gewoon langzaam te lezen, hetzij door vertaalprogramma's die op het internet beschikbaar zijn te gebruiken.
Sometimes yes, sometimes not. Machine translation systems are not quite good, as well as I am definitely not able to understand Dutch by reading it slowly.
Het belangrijkste bij meertalige maillijsten is niet zozeer dat mensen er gebruik van moeten maken, maar juist dat er een acceptatie is en een positieve atmosfeer in het geval dat iemand besluit er gebruik van te maken. Wanneer je een bericht vervolgens niet begrijpt, kun je natuurlijk nog altijd vragen om een toelichting.
I agree here partially. Yes, I agree that if someone wants to say something very important (at least to him or to her) and she or he is able to say something just in some other language than English -- yes, it should be said in other language. However, the most of conversation here is not on that level. It is much about giving not so crucial arguments about many things, like your and my points in those two emails are.
Het enige lastige van meertalige lijsten is dat spelfouten ineens veel grotere consequenties hebben.
If Google Translator has given the right sentence structure, this sentence is not so structurally complex. However, translation is not guessable. May you word your sentence in some other way? (Translation is: The only tricky multilingual spelling lists is that suddenly many greater consequences. )
* * *
I've spent 20 minutes for writing the part above. I used the most of the time for trying to understand your words better.
It could be an interesting multilingual practice to talk this way. OK, it would be better if I chose Serbian instead of English. Maybe we should try, actually.
But, note that it would require much more time for communication, which requires much more dedicated persons.
But, again, we don't need to be very fast and very efficient. (I am serious about that.) Also, machine translation engines will become just better and better. So, we will be spending less and less time in misunderstanding each other. And it would calm down atmosphere: everybody will think that it could be misunderstanding somewhere.
Fra: Milos Rancic millosh@gmail.com Til: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Dato: Tir, 15. mar 2011 04:19 Emne: Re: [Foundation-l] multilingual mailing list
2011/3/14 Lodewijk lodewijk@effeietsanders.org [mailto:lodewijk@effeietsanders.org]:
Het enige lastige van meertalige lijsten is dat spelfouten ineens
veel
grotere consequenties hebben.
If Google Translator has given the right sentence structure, this sentence is not so structurally complex. However, translation is not guessable. May you word your sentence in some other way? (Translation is: The only tricky multilingual spelling lists is that suddenly many greater consequences. )
My guess based on a certain knowledge of "European" language would be, that "spelfoutens" means spelling faults. They are inded an additional problem for machine translators :-) Regards, Sir48/Thyge
On Tue, 15 Mar 2011 04:37:22 +0100, dex2000@pc.dk wrote:
Fra: Milos Rancic millosh@gmail.com Til: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Dato: Tir, 15. mar 2011 04:19 Emne: Re: [Foundation-l] multilingual mailing list
2011/3/14 Lodewijk lodewijk@effeietsanders.org [mailto:lodewijk@effeietsanders.org]:
Het enige lastige van meertalige lijsten is dat spelfouten ineens
veel
grotere consequenties hebben.
If Google Translator has given the right sentence structure, this sentence is not so structurally complex. However, translation is not guessable. May you word your sentence in some other way? (Translation is: The only tricky multilingual spelling lists is that suddenly many greater consequences. )
My guess based on a certain knowledge of "European" language would be, that "spelfoutens" means spelling faults. They are inded an additional problem for machine translators :-) Regards, Sir48/Thyge
This is correct, the sentence roughly translates as "the only problem of multi-lingual lists is that typos suddenly (can) have much more serious consequences".
Cheers Yaroslav
Hi Milos,
thanks for your attempt - it is appreciated :) I think you grasped it well, and I can imagine that a native Serbian speaker has more trouble with Dutch than a native English speaker. But yeah, probably neither of you would be able to understand it fully.
My last sentence was referring to the fact that spelling mistakes suddenly have much larger consequence when you are using translation devices. There is no "did you mean" option, the word will just remain untranslated. It was no important remark, but rather a short comment and actually useful when you *don't* want others to understand you ;-)
Lodewijk
2011/3/15 dex2000@pc.dk:
Fra: Milos Rancic millosh@gmail.com Til: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Dato: Tir, 15. mar 2011 04:19 Emne: Re: [Foundation-l] multilingual mailing list
2011/3/14 Lodewijk lodewijk@effeietsanders.org [mailto:lodewijk@effeietsanders.org]:
Het enige lastige van meertalige lijsten is dat spelfouten ineens
veel
grotere consequenties hebben.
If Google Translator has given the right sentence structure, this sentence is not so structurally complex. However, translation is not guessable. May you word your sentence in some other way? (Translation is: The only tricky multilingual spelling lists is that suddenly many greater consequences. )
My guess based on a certain knowledge of "European" language would be, that "spelfoutens" means spelling faults. They are inded an additional problem for machine translators :-) Regards, Sir48/Thyge
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
There are at least one "multilingual mailing list": Iberocoophttps://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/meta/wiki/Iberocoopmailing list[1], when people can write in Portuguese, Spanish or Italian.
[1]: https://listas.wikimedia.org.ar/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/iberocoop _____ *Béria Lima* http://wikimedia.pt/ (351) 925 171 484
*Imagine um mundo onde é dada a qualquer pessoa a possibilidade de ter livre acesso ao somatório de todo o conhecimento humano. É isso o que estamos a fazer.***
2011/3/15 Lodewijk lodewijk@effeietsanders.org
Hi Milos,
thanks for your attempt - it is appreciated :) I think you grasped it well, and I can imagine that a native Serbian speaker has more trouble with Dutch than a native English speaker. But yeah, probably neither of you would be able to understand it fully.
My last sentence was referring to the fact that spelling mistakes suddenly have much larger consequence when you are using translation devices. There is no "did you mean" option, the word will just remain untranslated. It was no important remark, but rather a short comment and actually useful when you *don't* want others to understand you ;-)
Lodewijk
2011/3/15 dex2000@pc.dk:
Fra: Milos Rancic millosh@gmail.com Til: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Dato: Tir, 15. mar 2011 04:19 Emne: Re: [Foundation-l] multilingual mailing list
2011/3/14 Lodewijk lodewijk@effeietsanders.org [mailto:
lodewijk@effeietsanders.org]:
Het enige lastige van meertalige lijsten is dat spelfouten ineens
veel
grotere consequenties hebben.
If Google Translator has given the right sentence structure, this sentence is not so structurally complex. However, translation is not guessable. May you word your sentence in some other way? (Translation is: The only tricky multilingual spelling lists is that suddenly many greater consequences. )
My guess based on a certain knowledge of "European" language would be, that "spelfoutens" means spelling faults. They are inded an additional problem for machine translators :-) Regards, Sir48/Thyge
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
On Wed, Mar 9, 2011 at 12:21 AM, Casey Brown lists@caseybrown.org wrote:>
This *is* a multilingual list. All languages are welcome here.
Ты это серьёзно? Мне кажется, письме на двадцатом Google Translate всем изрядно надоест. К тому же как быть с просторечиями и фразеологизмами, на которых автоматические переводчики постоянно спотыкаются?
-Виктор Васильев
2011/3/8 Victor Vasiliev vasilvv@gmail.com:
Ты это серьёзно? Мне кажется, письме на двадцатом Google Translate всем изрядно надоест. К тому же как быть с просторечиями и фразеологизмами, на которых автоматические переводчики постоянно спотыкаются?
It's not perfect, but it's better than saying "Victor, speak English or stfu." :-) You use it to get a basic idea of what was said and then respond based on that. In the few times that we've tried it, it hasn't been that much of an issue.
2011/3/8 Casey Brown lists@caseybrown.org:
2011/3/8 Victor Vasiliev vasilvv@gmail.com:
Ты это серьёзно? Мне кажется, письме на двадцатом Google Translate всем изрядно надоест. К тому же как быть с просторечиями и фразеологизмами, на которых автоматические переводчики постоянно спотыкаются?
It's not perfect, but it's better than saying "Victor, speak English or stfu." :-) You use it to get a basic idea of what was said and then respond based on that. In the few times that we've tried it, it hasn't been that much of an issue.
I know not everyone uses Gmail, but for those that do: the labs "message translation" extension rocks my world.
And yes, please, please write in the language you are most comfortable in (which is English for me, so it's hard for me to lead by example in promoting a multilingual list!)
-- phoebe
2011/3/9 phoebe ayers phoebe.wiki@gmail.com:
I know not everyone uses Gmail, but for those that do: the labs "message translation" extension rocks my world.
Thanks for the recommendation. I've just turned it on and this thread now makes far more sense!
That said, it still doesn't make much sense. Automatic translators are getting quite good, but they still aren't really ready for this kind of use. The chance of misunderstanding someone is very high and, especially on a list like this one where emotions tend to run high, that can be very bad. Even those of us that speak fluent English have difficulty understanding each other quite often on this list!
If you want an annoucement list or a simple Q&A list, then everyone posting in their own language works reasonably well. If you want a genuine *discussion* list, then I think you do need to use a language that everyone speaks. Unfortunately, that isn't possible, so we have to do the next best thing and use the language which the most people speak, which is English.
I have no objection to people using this list for announcements and Q&As, but if people are wanting proper discussion then I strongly recommend sticking to English.
2011/3/9 Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com:
I have no objection to people using this list for announcements and Q&As, but if people are wanting proper discussion then I strongly recommend sticking to English.
I have no objection to people having discussions on this list in any language, and I'm not sure why you would. Unfortunately, it seems like for most languages that would be a bit of an exercise in futility as all active members are fluent in English, but only a fraction of us are fluent in any other given language. If someone makes a post in Serbian expecting an active and vibrant discussion here, they'll probably be disappointed as we don't have a whole lot of Serbian speakers here, and if just one is not interested in that particular topic, it'll die pretty quickly.
What Thomas says may seem like a joke, but it's actually something that's happened on this list in the past. :-) I remember a thread where I was talking with someone in English while they responded in German. We used Google Translate to figure out what each other was saying and then we responded in our own language.
It was only half a joke. ;) I did really want to suggest that other languages are allowed on the list, but this is obviously already the case, so it's fine with me. :) María may use Google Translate to get the important points, and answer in Spanish if she so wishes. Most people who have learnt any of the Romance languages or Latin can make some sense of Spanish anyway so that there is no real problem. ;)
Th.
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