Question for European Java users

[Roedy Green]

I have added two entries in the Java glossary

http://mindprod.com/jgloss/french.html
http://mindprod.com/jgloss/german.html

The idea is to provide an entry with useful links for various
languages. I have a link to a dictionary of computer terms. I would
like to add the names of java related newsgroups. Do you know what
they are called?

I would be happy to do a similar entry for any other language.

Perhaps you could provide links to people willing to do
ResourceBundle translations.

 

[Stefan Ram]

The idea is to provide an entry with useful links for various
languages. I have a link to a dictionary of computer terms.

I have spotted some errors (for example "corrupt" does not
mean "defekte Datei". "defekte Datei" means "corrupt file").

The following much frequented dictionary is much larger and
should have a small percentage of errors:

http://dict.leo.org/

I also have my own small dictionary, which also has some
translations for computer- and Java-related-terms, but it is
much too small for your list. There are two pages, one for
each direction of translation. The first page has a special
(albeit very small) section for "Java" and "Swing":

http://www.purl.org/stefan_ram/pub/englisch_woerter_de
http://www.purl.org/stefan_ram/pub/woerterbuch_deutsch-englisch_de

I would like to add the names of java related newsgroups. Do
you know what they are called?

I have also a page with reference information about the German
Java-newsgroup, the newsgroup is called "de.comp.lang.java",
and my overview page for it is:

http://www.purl.org/charta/de.comp.lang.java

 

[Ingo R. Homann]

Hi Roedy, hi Stefan!

I looked at jgloss's link for the "English ? German Shortlist", which
references Stefans web site.

I must say, I am *quite* amused!

Note that in Germany, it is quite common to use the english it-terms.

Nearly noone would translate "world wide web", "beamer", "flip chart",
"overhead projektor", "cookie", "hardware", "website", "flag", "laptop",
"notebook", "software" or "upgrade". These are nowadays indeed "normal"
german words! Especially, the Swing-related terms ("actionlistener") and
the "Datenstrukturen" ("hashmap") are never ever translated!

Of course, it is possible to translate the terms, and in *some* cases,
it might match the correct meaning. But - for example - to translate
"software" as "Daten" is just rubbish: "a software update" - "eine
Daten-Erweiterung"? If I heard this, I would guess, it is an extension
for your RAM-memory. I've never heard "Streuabbildung", and if I would
hear it, I could never guess that a "hashmap" is meant!

Roedy, although I appreciate (I hope this is the correct translation for
"schätzen") Stefan, I must strongly encourage you *not* to link this page.

And Stefan, please remove that page! It is - sorry - ridiculous!

Ciao,
Ingo

 

[Thomas Weidenfeller]

I've never heard "Streuabbildung", and if I would
hear it, I could never guess that a "hashmap" is meant!

You are to young Seriously, the only place I know where these good
old words ("Kellerspeicher" always being my favorite) are used are in
academics (and in the disgusting circles who talk about a "H*imats*ite
instead of "home page", but these guys are to brain dead to deal with
technology terms, so that doesn't apply here).

Roedy, although I appreciate (I hope this is the correct translation for
"schätzen") Stefan, I must strongly encourage you *not* to link this page.

I think it doesn't matter. Any software translated by someone not
speaking the target language will have funny and outright silly texts.
You simply can't automate a translation my just replacing phrases 1:1.

The moment someone tries this, the moment the software is doomed. It
doesn't matter if the work is based on some old-fashioned translation
sheet, or a modern one.

/Thomas

 

[Ingo R. Homann]

Hi,

You are to young

Maybe. (Im gettig 31 tomorrow.)

But on the other hand, I do not think it is good to recommend terms that
have been "deprecated" for *several* years.

Seriously, the only place I know where these good
old words ("Kellerspeicher" always being my favorite) are used are in
academics

Indeed, I *am* an academic person (Dr. of computer science). And, in
fact I know the word "Kellerspeicher" - the *only* translation of a data
structure mentioned my Stefan I ever heared. And I never heard such a
translation outside of the university.

(and in the disgusting circles who talk about a "H*imats*ite
instead of "home page", but these guys are to brain dead to deal with
technology terms, so that doesn't apply here).

I would not have chosen the term "brain dead", but: ACK!

I think it doesn't matter. Any software translated by someone not
speaking the target language will have funny and outright silly texts.
You simply can't automate a translation my just replacing phrases 1:1.

Correct, but this is no contradiction to what I said: This page is silly
and should not be linked!

The moment someone tries this, the moment the software is doomed. It
doesn't matter if the work is based on some old-fashioned translation
sheet, or a modern one.

"old-fashioned"? "deprecated" at least since 10 years! (You know what
this means considering computer science!)

And it is even worse, because I guess that the page is *not* 10 years old.

Ciao,
Ingo

 

[Thomas Weidenfeller]

"old-fashioned"? "deprecated" at least since 10 years! (You know what
this means considering computer science!)

And it is even worse, because I guess that the page is *not* 10 years old.

But imagine some young grasshopper who needs to read some old historic
Zuse computer documentation ... . Seriously, I think it should be
left up to Stefan what he puts on his web pages or not. Maybe they need
it at his university, and it is not really that gross. I remember early
editions of the "Duden Informatik" (haven't seen any recent one). Those
were extremely embarrassing.

/Thomas

 

[Rhino]

Hi Roedy, hi Stefan!

I looked at jgloss's link for the "English ? German Shortlist", which
references Stefans web site.

I must say, I am *quite* amused!

Note that in Germany, it is quite common to use the english it-terms.

Nearly noone would translate "world wide web", "beamer", "flip chart",
"overhead projektor", "cookie", "hardware", "website", "flag", "laptop",
"notebook", "software" or "upgrade". These are nowadays indeed "normal"
german words! Especially, the Swing-related terms ("actionlistener") and
the "Datenstrukturen" ("hashmap") are never ever translated!

I've never heard a coversation between German IT professionals but I expect
it would go rather like a conversation I heard once between two
French-Canadian IT professionals: roughly every second word was recognizably
an English word! Something like: "Le blocksize de la dataset est sept-mille
kilobytes".

In general, use of English words in German seems quite widespread these
days. For example, the last time I was in Germany, in 1999, I was quite
surprised to see a sign indicating a "Recyclinghof". I would assume that
there is a German word that means "recycling", although I don't know what it
is, but the Germans seem to have adopted the English word and tacked "hof"
on the end to indicate a place where recycling takes place. I also saw a
"Second-hand Kleidung" sign (or perhaps it was a different German word at
the end; in any case, it was clearly a store for second-hand clothing).

Of course, it is possible to translate the terms, and in *some* cases, it
might match the correct meaning. But - for example - to translate
"software" as "Daten" is just rubbish: "a software update" - "eine
Daten-Erweiterung"? If I heard this, I would guess, it is an extension for
your RAM-memory. I've never heard "Streuabbildung", and if I would hear
it, I could never guess that a "hashmap" is meant!

What happens in German GUIs? In a typical program written for a
German-speaking user who might not be any kind of IT professional, will the
menu bars say "File" and "Help" or will they have something like "Datei" and
"Hilfe"?

I speak a bit of German and sometimes make my GUIs multilingual just for the
practice of working with Java internationalization and localization
techniques. It would be very helpful to know what terms are commonly used in
German GUIs. Translations of the words and phrases that I see in a typical
GUI, like "File", "Edit", "Send", "Receive", "End", etc. etc., would be very
helpful for me as a developer.

The same applies to French.

I'd also be interested in differences amongst the different varieties of
German and French used in different Java locales. For instance, I've
discovered via i18n work with dates that Austrians use different names for
the months than the Germans do and that French people in Switzerland use
"octante" and "nonante" where Parisians would say "quatre-vingts" and
"quatre-vingts-dix". I imagine the French Swiss understand the Parisian
terms and are clear what they mean when they encounter them; I'm not sure if
the Parisians would understand the French-Swiss terms: perhaps they'd
understand what was meant but sneer at anyone using them as being primitive.

If anyone knows where links to information of this kind can be found, I
think they should be included in Roedy's web pages. And, naturally, if
similar information can be added for other languages, that would be great
too.

Roedy, although I appreciate (I hope this is the correct translation for
"schätzen") Stefan, I must strongly encourage you *not* to link this page.

And Stefan, please remove that page! It is - sorry - ridiculous!

Rhino

 

[Stefan Ram]

If anyone knows where links to information of this kind can be found, I

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en-us/dnwue/html/DE_word_list.htm
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en-us/dnwue/html/FRE_word_list.htm
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en-us/dnwue/html/SPA_word_list.htm

On the pages, one can select even more languages.

 

[Edwin Martin]

I have added two entries in the Java glossary

http://mindprod.com/jgloss/french.html

Quote:
"You are here : home : Java Glossary : F words : French."

Hmm, I thought F-word meant something else

Edwin

 

[Ingo R. Homann]

Hi Rhino,

I've never heard a coversation between German IT professionals but I expect
it would go rather like a conversation I heard once between two
French-Canadian IT professionals: roughly every second word was recognizably
an English word! Something like: "Le blocksize de la dataset est sept-mille
kilobytes".

I've never heard a conversation between french IT professionals, but I
can bet that a german conversation has even more english words, because
in france, there is an explicit attempt to invent new french it-words,
which is not the case in Germany (except Stefan Rams attempts ;-).

E.g., AFAIK, the word "computer" is not very common in France - how do
they translate it -"calculateur"? - whereas in germany, the word
"Computer" is *at least* as common as "Rechner".

Indeed, although my English is not the best, I often cannot say if a
paper I read was in German or in English, because most words are in
English, anyway.

I expect that most people who do not speak german at all are able to
understand a german conversation about it!

"We'll install a software-update and grade up the hardware."
"Wir installieren ein Software-Update und graden die Hardware up."

No problem to say this sentence in German. (Although I admit that you
would never *write* "graden ... up" - except in an email...)

In general, use of English words in German seems quite widespread these
days. For example, the last time I was in Germany, in 1999, I was quite
surprised to see a sign indicating a "Recyclinghof". I would assume that
there is a German word that means "recycling", although I don't know what it
is,

I do not know either! (I am a native German speaker, if I did not
mention yet! ;-)

Let me think... "Werkstoffhof" is a term that is sometimes used, but
that does not match the meaning exactly, because a "Werkstoff" can also
be a "fresh" resource and does not need to be recycled.

Thinking about it, "Recycling" is a perfect German word!

but the Germans seem to have adopted the English word and tacked "hof"
on the end to indicate a place where recycling takes place.

Correct. (Although, ethymologically a "Hof" is a "farm"

I also saw a
"Second-hand Kleidung" sign (or perhaps it was a different German word at
the end; in any case, it was clearly a store for second-hand clothing).

Yeah, no problem in Germany to mix the languages

You could translate "second-hand" as "Gebraucht" (="has been used
already"), but that has a more negative touch than "second hand".

What happens in German GUIs? In a typical program written for a
German-speaking user who might not be any kind of IT professional, will the
menu bars say "File" and "Help" or will they have something like "Datei" and
"Hilfe"?

That is a good question. In applications that are used by "common users"
("Otto-Normal-Verbraucher"), the terms are indeed translated. So,
"Datei" is more common than "file" (I think). On the other hand, "online
help" will be translated with "Online Hilfe".

But it becomes *very* diffiult when e.g. trying to translate terms of an
IDE where terms are used that are not so common like "file". We had a
discussion about how to translate "commit" (->CVS) and (IMHO) nobody had
any suitable idea.

I speak a bit of German and sometimes make my GUIs multilingual just for the
practice of working with Java internationalization and localization
techniques. It would be very helpful to know what terms are commonly used in
German GUIs. Translations of the words and phrases that I see in a typical
GUI, like "File", "Edit", "Send", "Receive", "End", etc. etc., would be very
helpful for me as a developer.

Datei, Edit, Senden, Empfangen, Ende/Beenden. Just ask!

The same applies to French.

Sorry, merci, bon jours, and "a hand full of words" ("eine handvoll
Worte") is the only French I know... :-(

I'd also be interested in differences amongst the different varieties of
German and French used in different Java locales. For instance, I've
discovered via i18n work with dates that Austrians use different names for
the months than the Germans do and that French people in Switzerland use
"octante" and "nonante" where Parisians would say "quatre-vingts" and
"quatre-vingts-dix". I imagine the French Swiss understand the Parisian
terms and are clear what they mean when they encounter them; I'm not sure if
the Parisians would understand the French-Swiss terms: perhaps they'd
understand what was meant but sneer at anyone using them as being primitive.

You do not need to dig so deep: Bavarian can only be understand by
Bavarians, no "northern German" (which are all other Germans ;-) is able
to understand it! ;-/

Of course, there are many other, "local" words:

Buchse, Pömpel, Pölter, Patz, fiddeln, piddeln, tüddeln, Mudjekeepchen,
halver Hahn, epibrieren, ...

Horrido,
Ingo

 

[Ingo R. Homann]

Quote:

"You are here : home : Java Glossary : F words : French."

Hmm, I thought F-word meant something else

Perhaps, Stefan meant "French" with a quite different meaning! ;-P

Ciao,
Ingo

 

[Thomas Weidenfeller]

Perhaps, Stefan meant "French" with a quite different meaning! ;-P

You want to look up the phrase "Pardon my French"

/Thomas

 

[Francesco Devittori]

Hi Rhino,

I've never heard a coversation between German IT professionals but I
expect it would go rather like a conversation I heard once between two
French-Canadian IT professionals: roughly every second word was
recognizably an English word! Something like: "Le blocksize de la
dataset est sept-mille kilobytes".

I've never heard a conversation between french IT professionals, but I
can bet that a german conversation has even more english words, because
in france, there is an explicit attempt to invent new french it-words,
which is not the case in Germany (except Stefan Rams attempts ;-).

E.g., AFAIK, the word "computer" is not very common in France - how do
they translate it -"calculateur"? - whereas in germany, the word
"Computer" is *at least* as common as "Rechner".

[...]

In French things are hard for non-native speakers. They translate almost
everything, which makes life difficult until you get it.
Some examples:

computer - ordinateur
database - base de données
array - tableau
program (software) - logiciel
hardware - matériel
drag and drop - glisser-déposer
email - courriel

If you say for example "computer" they look you in a very weird way.
There are a lot of more extreme and funny examples, which I suspect they
are not used too commonly:

wizard - magiciel
plugin - plugiciel
CD - Cédé

OTOH in Italian all these words are used in English. Nobody will ever
translate to Italian "drag and drop" for example.

Francesco

 

[Oliver Wong]

I've never heard a coversation between German IT professionals but I
expect it would go rather like a conversation I heard once between two
French-Canadian IT professionals: roughly every second word was
recognizably an English word! Something like: "Le blocksize de la dataset
est sept-mille kilobytes".

As others have mentioned, the French will try to translate IT terms, but
in practice, they are rarely used. For example, the officially, the French
are not supposed to use the term "byte", but rather refer to a collection of
8 bits as an octet (and so they have kilo-octets).

But there's also an issue of proper names versus names of concepts. For
example, in the english phrase the "Sun provides Hashmap as an
implementation of a hashmap.", "Sun" and "Hashmap" are proper names, and
thus should not be translated, while "hashmap" (and other words) aren't, and
thus could be translated.

[...]

What happens in German GUIs? In a typical program written for a
German-speaking user who might not be any kind of IT professional, will
the menu bars say "File" and "Help" or will they have something like
"Datei" and "Hilfe"?

I speak a bit of German and sometimes make my GUIs multilingual just for
the practice of working with Java internationalization and localization
techniques. It would be very helpful to know what terms are commonly used
in German GUIs. Translations of the words and phrases that I see in a
typical GUI, like "File", "Edit", "Send", "Receive", "End", etc. etc.,
would be very helpful for me as a developer.

The same applies to French.

Most words in French GUIs are translated.

File -> Fichier
Edit -> Editer
Send -> Envoyer
Receive -> I don't know, maybe "Recevoir" or something.
End -> Probably context dependent, as "End" has many meanings in English.
Download -> Telecharger
E-mail -> Courriel

Words like "file", "edit", "send", etc. existed long before computers,
which is why it's more natural for them to be used in French. "Courriel" is
also popular because it's clever and catchy. "Courrier" means "mail" and
"electronique" means "electronic", so they combined "courrier electronique"
to "courriel". "Telecharger" is less popular, and most French speakers I
know say "Download" in an informal context, though corporate websites will
use the term "telecharger".

- Oliver

 

[Oliver Wong]

E.g., AFAIK, the word "computer" is not very common in France - how do
they translate it -"calculateur"? - whereas in germany, the word
"Computer" is *at least* as common as "Rechner".

The French word for computer is "ordinateur". Don't know what the
etymology for that is, as it sounds like comes from the same root as the
English word "ordinary". Maybe something to do with automating repetitious,
boring tasks? Originally the English word "Computer", from what I
understand, was used to refer to a human person whose job was to compute. In
other words, the term "computer" existed long before what we now call
"computers" were invented.

- Oliver

 

[Stefan Ram]

For example, the officially, the French are not supposed to use
the term "byte", but rather refer to a collection of 8 bits as
an octet

This is not necessarily the same.

"ISO/IEC 2382-1: 1993, Information technology - Vocabulary -
Part 1: Fundamental terms" defines the term "byte" as:

"A string that consists of a number of bits, treated as a
unit, and usually representing a character or a part of a
character."

This sentence is supported in the US by INCITS, see:

http://www.incits.org/tc_home/k5htm/b2.htm

So, even in the US, a "byte" and an "octet" are two different
concepts, and a wise frenchman would not translate "byte" by
"octet" in cases where the byte is used for another "number of
bits" than 8.

 

[Oliver Wong]

This is not necessarily the same.

"ISO/IEC 2382-1: 1993, Information technology - Vocabulary -
Part 1: Fundamental terms" defines the term "byte" as:

"A string that consists of a number of bits, treated as a
unit, and usually representing a character or a part of a
character."

This sentence is supported in the US by INCITS, see:

http://www.incits.org/tc_home/k5htm/b2.htm

So, even in the US, a "byte" and an "octet" are two different
concepts, and a wise frenchman would not translate "byte" by
"octet" in cases where the byte is used for another "number of
bits" than 8.

Yes, I was aware of the different between byte and octet in English, so
I tried to carefully phrase my statement so as not to imply otherwise, while
glossing over the detail. The point is, I think there is no French
translation for the term "byte", and if you ask a French translator to
translate "byte" into French, they would probably use the term "octet" for
lack of an equivalent term.

- Oliver

 

[Chris Uppal]

The French word for computer is "ordinateur". Don't know what the
etymology for that is, as it sounds like comes from the same root as the
English word "ordinary".

More likely it shares a root with the extensive cluster of English words like
ordinal, ordinance, and order, which have senses hovering around and between
counting, (proper) placement, and regulation. "Ordinary" does not seem to be
part of that cluster.

-- chris

 

[Francesco Devittori]

This is not necessarily the same.

"ISO/IEC 2382-1: 1993, Information technology - Vocabulary -
Part 1: Fundamental terms" defines the term "byte" as:

"A string that consists of a number of bits, treated as a
unit, and usually representing a character or a part of a
character."

This sentence is supported in the US by INCITS, see:

http://www.incits.org/tc_home/k5htm/b2.htm

So, even in the US, a "byte" and an "octet" are two different
concepts, and a wise frenchman would not translate "byte" by
"octet" in cases where the byte is used for another "number of
bits" than 8.

In practice, in French you always say "octet" instead of byte. I'm
studying computer science in a French speaking university and I can
assure you that you won't find a native speaker saying "byte".

 

[Roedy Green]

But imagine some young grasshopper who needs to read some old historic
Zuse computer documentation

I have added a warning the links contain old fashioned language.

Those dictionaries are more for English speakers reading German
software, not intended as manuals for authorative translation into
German, though it would be nice to find such things to help general
translators become ResourceBundle translators.

I remember having this problem back in the early 90s when I tackled
this same problem in C++ where we had translators who knew the native
language well, but not the consensus computer terminology.

To create such manuals, you would need a native German or French
speaker to go play with scores of programs to learn what the
conventions are and write a manual for translators to use.

It might make sense for Sun to produce a set of standard resource
bundles so that at least menus and buttons are labelled in a fully
consistent way.

You then internationalise at least the buttons and menus for many
simple programs without the expense of a full translation.