[WikiEN-l] [Wikipedia-l] [[WP:100K]] - who here writes well in English and another language?

[Ray Saintonge]

Carl Peterson wrote:

>I don't really know what articles you all typically work on, but I've been
>concentrating on Mathematics articles, which I've noticed have fewer
>problems than a usual translation. Fortunately, the Pythagorean Theorem,
>which I'm working on right now, is available as an FA in two languages (de
>and fr), one of which I know well enough to make a translation, especially
>since a lot of the mathematics terms are spelling variations on the English
>(or vice versa, depending on how one chooses to look at it).
>
Technical subjects tend to be easier to translate because language there 
tends to be more precisely defined.

Humanities based subjects depend a lot more on subtle variations and 
connotations of language, and are more likely to generate false 
friends.  In a controversial subject where people have had long 
arguments about the right word the situation won't get any easier for 
translators into a language where the median POV will be different from 
that found in the source language.

Ec