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Subject:Foreign language translation of Winhelp rtfs From:Judyth Mermelstein <Judyth_Mermelstein -at- BABYLON -dot- MONTREAL -dot- QC -dot- CA> Date:Mon, 26 Apr 1999 17:42:42 GMT
Mitchell wrote (in part):
>> I'd appreciate any other advice or warnings about translating
>>winhelp rtf files.
Let me start by saying that I am translator of many years'
experience, and have done a number of kinds of software-
related documents. In my opinion, the single most
important thing I can say is:
1- Choose your translators carefully--for their ability to
translate the technical content accurately and clearly. To
choose them primarily for their ability to deal with compiling
WinHelp or owning Trados or whatever is to risk getting a
poor translation--most trained translators translate CONTENT
and it is up to somebody else to compile, or lay out and
kern, or produce screen-shots, while most people who invested
their time and energy in learning programming and desktopping
skills are not trained translators.
2- Give them the best *final* versions of the English that
you can, with a set of *precise* guidelines as to number
of characters in menu names, title bars, boxes, etc. Most
translators of any experience can follow instructions
well enough to translate what lies between the codes and
leave the codes unchanged but will not necessarily know
these technical constraints for every software. Since it
will often take many more characters for a correct
grammatical translation of things like English menu
choices, the translators need to know where they are
expected to provide *short* versions--you cannot just
truncate the full expression or abbreviate it in the
way an American would.
3- You should expect that either you or somebody at
the translation agency (if any) will be responsible
for checking the final results both for linguistic
accuracy and for meeting your format and compiling
needs. You should also expect to make somebody available
to deal promptly with questions about what particular
instructions mean in the context of your program, since
an English word can often mean different things in
different contexts.
4- In my opinion, it is a waste of time and money to
have the translation done until the original version
has been finalized, since so many things can go wrong
in the process of incorporating changes on a rush basis.
If you do have to double the translators' work by
making them insert, delete and retranslate material,
keep in mind that this work should be done at YOUR
expense, not by demanding many additional hours to
be included in the original price. You can avoid that
problem entirely by sorting out the technical issues
and document structure before giving the material to
the translators, and they can do a better and more
efficient job if allowed to see the whole document
from the beginning.
5- Not being a WinHelp expert but being familiar with
various other technical issues, I would suggest that
the compiling be done at the very end of the process
(AFTER any last-minute edits) by somebody who is
good at compiling--this person doesn't necessarily
have to be a qualified translator.
